Retirement Trip Number Three
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
Thanks to the hiatus which the Covid-19 pandemic unavoidably introduced, everyone’s travel plans across the globe have been stymied. Opportunities for travel, even on a limited basis, have been few and far between, and those have been beset by administrative and logistical challenges when they do arrive. Not to mention the hesitancy which is inevitably involved in trying to make balanced health risk assessments on an individual basis.
Since the pandemic was first declared in early 2020, we have undertaken just the two trips – a lovely three week holiday in Menorca, in late September/early October 2021, and again in April/May 2022. We feel very fortunate to have managed that, and even then we went through much soul searching regarding the balance of risks versus rewards, in the lead up to actually taking the plunge. These trips re-aquainted us with a place we love and have sorely missed, and helped us to take some faltering steps towards something like normality (or the new normal, as everyone keeps saying).
Then of course, not long after we returned from Spain in 2021, Omicron reared its unwelcome head, and apprehension and uncertainty reigned once more. Plans to try a first visit to the Canary Islands in January/February 2022 joined the long list of putative trips not actually abandoned, but at least postponed for the foreseaable future.
During 2020 and 2021, the cruise element went through five iterations, as MSC continually had to amend its cruise programme, whilst striving to keep its customers tied in until such time as safe cruising became possible once more. After much negotiation, we eventually ended up with an eleven night cruise aboard the MSC Fantasia, through the Eastern Mediterranean.
So we took that as a middle section for the trip and then added before and after destinations, finally arriving at a seven week trip around the Med. Various changes had to be made along the way due to logistical travel difficulties, but we finally arrived at an itinerary for Retirement Trip Number Three! (This page also contains an index of links to all our other Retirement Trip blog posts.)
So the plan is to fly from Edinburgh, via Brussels, to Pula in Croatia – a new country for both of us. We then transfer to the town of Rovinj, where we’ll stay for 8 nights in a hotel on a small island opposite the fishing port. We then take a car to Trieste, on the border between Slovenia and Italy, where we stay for a single night, before boarding the MSC Fantasia cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean.
The first port of call is the city of Zadar on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast. We then head to Bari on the south east coast of Italy, from where we hope to visit the ancient cave city of Matera, which features in the latest 007 movie.
Then we head east to the port of Piraeus for Athens, 42 years since our last visit to the Greek capital. From Piraeus we sail on to Turkey, and Izmir, from where we hope to fulfil a long held ambition by visiting the huge Roman site at Ephesus, one of the wonders of the ancient world.
Back on board for the short trip up coast of Turkey to Istanbul, for a 2 day stay where Europe meets Asia. Back to Greece in the shape of the Ionian island of Corfu, where we look forward to renewing our aquaintance with the elegant and buzzing Corfu Town.
Then we sail back up Italy’s Adriatic coast to Trieste, to conclude our 11 night cruise with MSC.
From Trieste we take to the train once more, for the relatively short trip to Venice, again our first visit back to that magical place since 1980. We’ll stay in a converted palazzo with a small garden overlooking the Grand Canal for 4 nights, before moving on to Verona. The city of Romeo and Juliet is one we misguidedly missed out on visiting on our trip across Europe to Egypt, way back in 1980.
We stay 4 nights in Verona, then we catch the second flight of our trip which takes us to Sardinia for 5 nights. Then we take a ferry to Corsica and stay 5 nights in Bonifacio in the south of the island. These are two islands which are new to both of us, and which we’ve both wanted to visit for some time.
From Corsica we fly to Bordeaux and then on to Mahon, for a week in Menorca to finish. We get back home to Edinburgh at the end of October.
