I have moved from a small, quiet luxury vessel, plying the mostly placid seas of the Dalmatian Coast. Now, I am sitting among 3,000-plus passengers on a giant ship making a crossing in the November winds of the Mediterranean between Spain and Africa. What a contrast. My previous ship, the Seabourn Odyssey, carrying about 400 passengers,…
The joke going around the Seabourn Odyssey, a 450-passenger cruise ship sailing between Athens and Venice, is that the captain found the port of Zadar, Croatia, by Googling it on his computer. Because so many passengers said they had never heard of Zadar, Captain Geir-Arne Thue-Nilsen feigned ignorance, too, as if he had stumbled upon Zadar…
In Athens, as I attempted to leave town, I managed to flag down a taxi driver who knew no English. I mean, no English. He didn’t even know the English words for Greek cities. Never heard of Piraeus, which is the port for Athens. For all I know, he had never heard the English word Athens, either.…
Among the occasional advantages of advancing age are the opportunities to return to special places, destinations with meanings from the past. I suspect that I look to see what has changed, and usually I have changed the most. In my first visit to Athens and the Acropolis, images from books, study, and expectations came alive for my…
Never give up the opportunity for a extra day in Paris. My work/play tour schedule ended on a Saturday afternoon, with no need to be in Frankfurt, Germany, before Monday. So, I grabbed an October Sunday in Paris for myself. No plans, no schedule. Rain would mean museums. Sun would dictate a long walk. On…
If you are vacationing on a Mediterranean cruise during the next few years, chances are your voyage will begin in Barcelona, Spain. Lucky you. Starting in summer 2011, Barcelona will be home to three of the half dozen largest cruise ships in the world, Norwegian’s new Epic, Carnival’s new Magic and Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the…