If you've made it this far in the blog, congratulations, it was a real marathon. I normally write the wrap-up and reflections for our trip as soon as I get home, but for this trip, here I am doing it on February 1st, almost two months since we returned home. This was not really by design, but more from circumstance. I came home sick, my computer failed and it was two weeks before Christmas so I put almost everything about the trip on hold until the beginning of the new year. I decided to publish the whole blog before I wrote my wrap-up and finally, the blog is done!! It is the longest one I have done, and there were a lot of photos to go through, but it did allow me to relive our trip and gain a little more appreciation and perspective of what we saw.
Before I get to my reflections, a little sidebar here. When we got
home I was watching TV one night and there was a car commercial on that was
about a young couple with a new car throwing darts at a map to see where they
would go. The commercial was kind of
stupid, but at the end they said something that struck me as being pretty
profound. I don’t know exactly how it
was worded, but essentially it said, “it’s not the destination that makes the
journey, but who you make the journey with”, and that is so true. There is something wonderful about traveling
and seeing new things, but even more wonderful is having someone to share it
with and there is no else I would rather share it with than Val. Thank you Val.
Since we
have gotten home, several people have asked me what was my favorite place on the
trip was and my answer always seems to end up a lengthy response. One memory leads to another and almost every
place we visited had something special to offer. We got a taste of the tradition and culture
of some places, and were amazed at other places as we realized that we were
looking back at thousands of years of history.
Since I can’t really pick out any favorite place, I will talk about the
places I enjoyed the most (standing in pouring rain in Athens will not rate as
one of most enjoyable moments).
Visiting
the Azores was very special as we had no idea how green and lush they
were. We didn’t have the best of weather
so it would be nice to return with a bit of sunshine, but the Azores were still
a great way to kick off the trip. Our
time in Lisbon was also wonderful and spending the day with Greg and Isabel
was one of the best times on the trip.
Barcelona was a big surprise, we had heard and read so many negative
things about the pick-pockets, petty theft and crowds, but Barcelona is a great
place. It is a beautiful and vibrant
city with friendly people who seem for the most part, to be tolerant of tourists and that
can’t be said of everywhere we visited.
Another place
that really surprised us was Pompeii, I never realized what a large city it
was. Reading about the city is one
thing, but seeing it and the artifacts made you think of the people living
there and how their lives were so quickly changed. Seeing the original ancient site of the
Olympics in Greece was also an eye opener, I had no idea it was such an
elaborate and large compound.
One of my
favorite places was Dubrovnik in Croatia.
We saw many medieval walled cities on the cruise, but Dubrovnik was by
far the best. Val and I thoroughly
enjoyed our visit there and would like to go back again someday.
I think our
best stretch of ports were the islands of Rhodes, Crete and Malta. The day we spent visiting Lindos on Rhodes,
and Chania on Crete were two of the highlights of the trip. I think though, if I had to pick my favorite
place we visited it would probably be Malta.
We spent two days there and had a wonderful time. Both days we had private tours with excellent
guides and they made it even more special.
Visiting
the island of Sardinia in Italy also stood out as we were able to spend part of a
day experiencing the traditional hospitality, culture and food with an extended family
at their villa. That was a Thanksgiving we
will always remember. Lastly there’s the
Portuguese island of Madeira. We didn’t
really get to see much of it because Val was sick, but it was such a nice day
and the island was so inviting, we would love to revisit it and see a lot more.
I have fond
memories of everywhere we visited (maybe with the exception of Athens 😎), but these were the memories that stood out
for me. This was a long cruise with lots
of time changes and a pretty intensive port schedule, but Val and I both agree
that we would do it again as there is so much more to see and do.
Our next
trip is another cruise, this time a short 14 day Alaska cruise out of
Seattle in June. We decided to take a
breather this year and not travel so much so it is the only thing we have
planned so far. We always do our “geezer”
trip in the fall, but we aren’t even doing that this year due to unforeseen
circumstances, but
hopefully we will restart that in 2019.
We will do some short trips and probably do a road trip or two, but
otherwise things are going to be pretty quiet in travel wise in 2018. That’s it for now and we’ll see you on down
the road.
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