Lisbon, Portugal [7th – 9th October 2019] Lisbon was another city, like Sevilla last year, which Fiona and I had both visited separately in the past, but never together. In her case, it was on a school cruise when she was 11, so her recollections were understandably hazy. I’d been Read more
Genoa, Italy to Lisbon, Portugal [2nd – 7th October 2019] Our only previous cruise was back in 2011, when Fiona, Sean and I went on a Caribbean cruise with Princess Cruises, leaving from Manhattan. We’d often admired MSC cruise liners when they docked in Mahon harbour, and we wanted to Read more
Genoa and Portofino [30th September – 2nd October 2019] We arrived close to midnight in Genoa, having phoned ahead to our hotel. They asked us to check in down the road at their 5* sister hotel, so we had two nights in a fabulous room in the, appropriately ocean liner-themed, Read more
Ragusa, Sicily [28th – 30th September 2019] Our last train journey of the trip took us to Ragusa, climbing higher through the Sicilian hills to the scene of many an episode of Inspector Montalbano. When we arrived at the typically overgrown station, we had to actually cross the train tracks, Read more
[23rd -28th September 2019] Our AirBnB host, Marcello, met us at the train station and drove us along to the island of Ortigia, which is the oldest part of the city of Syracusa. As we neared our apartment, the streets got narrower and crumblier. We walked the final hundred metres Read more
[21st – 23rd September 2019] We knew that the day of travelling between Stromboli in the Aeolian Islands to Taormina in Sicily would likely be the most difficult, as it involved a golf cart to the port on Stromboli, a hydrofoil to Milazzo (though we shaved two hours off that Read more
[17th – 21st September 2019] When approaching an island which is pretty much just a live volcano, with some houses and a few hotels around its base, safety is understandably prominent in one’s thoughts. So it was gratifying to board the hydrofoil from Lipari, and immediately be invited to view Read more
[10th – 17th September 2019] Lipari has made us feel like island hoppers again – albeit 60+ island hoppers! The largest of the Aeolian Islands has a wonderfully chilled and laid-back feel, especially in the evening, reminiscent of Greek Islands we visited 30 odd years ago. No package tours, certainly Read more
Last Year, we had a Blog Zero because of events prior to us even reaching our first port of call – Oporto. This year I thought “Well there’ll be no need for a Blog Zero, because we’ll be really organised and all the preliminaries will go smoothly this time.” The Read more
[8th – 10th September 2019] Catania was originally just meant be be a one night stopover en route to the Aeolian Islands, but the British Airways pilots’ strike led to us leaving a day early, so we had a full day in Catania as a bonus. Because of the way Read more