Greek Isles Cruise: Port of Katakolon

The final port of our Greek Isles cruise was Katakolon.  The main attraction at this port is a visit to Ancient Olympia, the site of the original Olympic Games.  Having found out that toddlers and ancient ruins do not mix well (we still had fresh memories of carrying Colin's stroller over the ruins of Pompeii), we decided this would be a good day to leave Colin on the ship in the nursery and do an excursion on our own.  We booked an excursion with Royal Caribbean that first visited the Olympic ruins and then toured a nearby winery.  A perfect, kid-free day.

Ancient Olympia is located a little under an hour from the cruise port of Katakolon.  Upon arrival, we were given a guided tour of the ruins.  We had to use our imaginations quite a bit to understand what the area used to look like.  We saw the ruins of the gymnasium and Olympic stadium including the finish line from the original Olympic Games.  The sanctuary was also an important place of worship as well as the site of the games.  We saw the ruins of a number of the temples used for worship of the Gods.  The Temple of Zeus was the former site of a giant statue of Zeus which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  After our guided tour, we had some time to explore the grounds on our own before taking off for the winery.

On our way to the winery, we received a page from the nursery on the pager that we were given to be used in emergencies.  We received a number of other pages right after this.  We asked the tour guides how to get in touch with the ship, and they told us there was no way to contact the ship and that we would have to wait two more hours until we were back to find out what the pages were for.  Needless to say, our time at the winery wasn't the most relaxing as we were both very worried about Colin.  After taking a tour of the winery, each table of five people was given two bottles of wine which took a bit of the edge off of our worry.  We also got a large platter filled with feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, and bread. Yum, I could live on that kind of food.

When we got back to the ship, Colin was perfectly fine and the nursery team said they must have accidentally paged us.  So, all that worrying was for nothing!  It was formal night on the ship so we enjoyed a yummy dinner and then went to bed early (well, Colin and I did - David went off gambling).  Another fun but busy day!

Ancient Olympia

Finish line in the Olympic stadium

Entrance to the Olympic stadium

Trying to enjoy or wine and appetizers despite our worry about Colin

We made it back to the ship!

Reunited with my baby (who was perfectly fine) and heading to formal night

Greek Isles Cruise: Port of Athens

The forth port of our cruise was Athens.  Athens was a great city for a cruise port.  There are some pretty amazing sights in the city, but you can easily cover them all in one day.  We got an early start off the cruise ship and were planning on taking a taxi into the city center and seeing the sights on our own. However, we were able to negotiate a private tour with a taxi driver for a reasonable price which ended up being an efficient way to see the city, especially with a toddler in tow who could care less about the ancient sights of Athens.

We started out our tour by stopping to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the remains of the largest temple in Ancient Greece.  Our next stop was the Athens must-see, Acropolis, the most important ancient site in the Western World, where the Athenians built their ancient masterpiece; the Parthenon.  The trek up Acropolis hill to get to the Parthenon was incredibly hot and crowded but well worth it.  Seeing the Parthenon in person was yet another bucket list item that I can now cross off thanks to all of our European travels.  After the Acropolis, we made a stop in the Plaka (Athens shopping district) for lunch.  We tried some traditional Greek souvlaki, meat and vegetables grilled on a skewer served with pita bread and cucumber sauce.  We then concluded our tour by stopping at the Panathenaic Stadium, the stadium which hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896.

We were able to see more in our four hour tour of Athens than most of the cruise excursions saw in a full day.  Plus, we were able to get back to the ship early and enjoy a nap and then some pool time while everyone else was still in Athens.  Colin spent some more time in the nursery this night while David and I dined at the specialty steak restaurant.  Another great day of cruising!

Temple of Olympian Zeus

Making the climb up Acropolis hill

Parthenon - pretty impressive

Parthenon

Panathenaic Stadium

Nap time after a hard morning of sightseeing

Greek Isles Cruise: Port of Santorini

The third port of our cruise was the one I had been most looking forward to; the Greek Island of Santorini.  It definitely lived up to my expectations.  The ship couldn't dock at this port so we had to take tender boats from the ship to the island.  We booked a Royal Caribbean excursion this day since people on excursions got priority to get off the ship and on the tender boats the earliest.  I wanted to spend as much time as possible on the island.

As we approached the island, all the white buildings on the edges of the cliffs made the island look like it was covered in snow.  We started our excursion in the village of Oia, which is the picture perfect, to-good-to-be-true place you picture when someone mentions the Greek Islands.  The city is perched at the top of a cliff and is a maze of whitewashed houses and churches with blue domes.  I felt like I was walking around in the movie "Mama Mia" (although the actual location of the film was on the Greek Island of Skopelos).  We did a bit of shopping and a lot of photo taking and then ended our time in Oia with a gyro and beer break for David and I and an ice cream break for Colin.

After some time to explore Oia, our next stop was at Santo Winery where we got to try some local wines and have some Greek snacks including olives, feta cheese, tomatoes, and bread.  Yum!  The tour concluded in Fira, the island's main town.  We had drinks and a Greek salad (and more ice cream for Colin) at a cafe with yet another unbelievable view.  There was definitely no shortage of breathtaking views on the island.  We then meandered back to the cable car which we took down to the dock where our tender boat was waiting to take us back to our ship.

Santorini was such an unbelievable place.  I really hope I am able to make it back there someday.

Whitewashed buildings looking like snow approaching the island

Picture perfect Oia

My two favorite guys

I think I should move to Oia 

Wine tasting with an amazing view

View of our ship while enjoying drinks at a Fira cafe

Colin was not impressed at all with the view

Greek Isles Cruise: Port of Corfu

The second port of our cruise was the Greek Island of Corfu.  We had to turn our clocks forward an hour this morning so it was an early start.  Ordering room service for breakfast helped with that.  The joys of cruising!

We had arranged for a private driver to show us around the island.  Our driver picked us up in his Mercedes and already had a car seat installed for Colin.  Not a bad start to the tour.  We spent the next three hours exploring the island.  We made various stops including the cliffside village of Lakones, the beach town of Paleokastritsa, a store known for its homemade olive oil, and a cafe with a view over Mouse Island.  The island was beautiful.  What we noticed most were olive trees everywhere.  The islands two main sources of revenue are tourism and olive products so this makes sense.  I managed to purchase quite a few olive products including olives, olive oil, olive spread, and olive soap during our short trip there.

After our tour, we were dropped off in Old Town.  We walked around a little and did some shopping before heading back to the ship.  We had some time for swimming after we got back and then Colin spent some time in the nursery while David and I enjoyed a kid free dinner at the sushi speciality restaurant.  It was another fun day!

10:00am beer in Lakones

Paleokastritsa

David and Mouse Island

Races back on the ship

Brrrrrr

Drinks after our sushi dinner

Greek Isles Cruise: Port of Dubrovnik

We enjoyed our first cruise on the Mediterranean earlier this summer so much that we decided to do another cruise in September.  This cruise was a Greek Isles cruise with Royal Caribbean on the Splendour of the Seas.  Visiting Greece was at the top of my list when I found out that we were moving to London, and a cruise seemed like a much easier way to do this trip than trying to take ferries from island to island.

The cruise started in Venice on Saturday, September 7th.  The sail away from the port of Venice was pretty amazing with great views of the city.

The next morning, we were at our first port; Dubrovnik, Croatia.  We had just visited Dubrovnik in August (our cruise ship actually sailed right past the resort we had stayed at).  We had seen most of the sights on that visit so just made a quick trip into the Old Town to do a little walking around and get some ice cream and then spent the majority of the day enjoying the amenities of the ship without very many people on board.  It was a nice relaxing day to start our cruise.

Our ship: Royal Caribbean Splendour of the Seas

Excited to be on another cruise! 

Sail away from Venice

Ice cream in Dubrovnik

 We almost had the pool to ourselves while we were in port at Dubrovnik

Holiday Weekend in Stockholm

This past Monday was another one of the loved, completely random British holidays (summer bank holiday).  Even though we had just traveled the previous weekend, we hated to waste a holiday so took a quick weekend trip to Stockholm.  Stockholm is the capital of Sweden.  The city is spread across 14 islands in the southeast of Sweden so you can generally see water from most points in the city.  The islands are connected by multiple bridges as well as frequent running passenger ferries making the city pretty easy to navigate despite being made up of so many islands.

I loved the other two Scandinavian cities I visited during our time in Europe (Oslo and Copenhagen) and Stockholm was no different.  The people have been really friendly, the cities have been clean, and the weather has been gorgeous (I definitely lucked out with this one though).  I told David if we were ever to do another expat assignment, I would want it to be in one of these Scandinavian cities.

Unfortunately, Colin had a high fever during most of our time in Stockholm so we had to keep our sightseeing to a minimum.  We still got to visit a couple of interesting museums, take a boat ride around the islands, and visit an amusement park.  We also spent a lot of time just walking around, enjoying the fresh air and great weather.  Not bad for a quick two night trip with a sick toddler.  Here are some photos from the trip:

Doesn't get better than a drive through Stockholm

Colin smiling despite his 102 degree fever

Vasa Museum - displays a salvaged 17th century warship

Trying to steal my camera at lunch

I couldn't convince David or Colin to join me at the ABBA Museum

David and Colin in front of the Royal Palace on a beautiful morning

Anniversary Trip to Dubrovnik

David and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary by taking a long weekend trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia.  Of course, our travel mate Colin was in tow so it wasn't exactly a romantic trip, but I couldn't imagine it any other way.  We decided that we wanted a relaxing trip that wasn't full of too much sightseeing so we booked a nice all inclusive resort to stay at outside of Dubrovnik and spent most of our trip lounging around at the pool.  Colin LOVES swimming and had a blast in the pool with a new inflatable boat that we bought for him.  He was also getting the hang of swimming on his own with water wings on by the end of the trip.  

Of course, we couldn't miss out on seeing the city of Dubrovnik even with our plans focusing on relaxation.  The city of Dubrovnik is a UNESCO World Heritage sight.  The Old Town is surrounded by defensive stone walls and walking the walls is the major tourist attraction in the city.  The city received significant damage during the war in the early 1990s over the collapse of Yugoslavia.  Most of the damage was repaired by the early 2000s, but you still do see reminders of the bombings the city was a target of.  Colin walked the entire city wall path on his own, which was 1.25 miles and included over 600 stairs.  David and I had a hard time keeping up with him!  We also spent some time on the main street in the Old Town (Stradun) including a much needed ice cream break and took a cable car up Mount Srd for a view over the city.

On the way home, we went to the airport to check-in and were told we were removed from our connecting flight between Dubrovnik and Munich (although our flight from Munich to London was fine, other than the fact that we had no way to get there) because we hadn't called to confirm our flight two days in advance.  Huh?  I definitely had never heard of doing that before!  We learned our lesson to not trust an Eastern European airline (Croatia Air) ever again.  They couldn't get us on a flight until the next day, and the flight required a 10 hour layover in Zagreb, Croatia.  Fortunately, our luck turned for the better, and I was able to get us a flight with only a three hour layover in Frankfurt the following day by calling the airline directly.  We also received help from someone at the airport in finding a very nice apartment to stay at with free transfers to the airport owned by the sweetest Croatian family.  The apartment was in Cavtat, a bayfront resort town that we had wanted to see but didn't have time so everything ended up working out despite the inconvenience of getting home a day later than planned.  I guess with all the traveling we have been doing, we were due for something to not work out as scheduled.

Here are a few photos from our trip:

Colin swimming with his water wings in our hotel's pool

Boating!

Not too bad of a view from our hotel's pool

Colin starting out the city wall walk 

View of Dubrovnik harbor from the city walls

The city wall walk was amazing

Dubrovnik cable car up Mount Srd

View of Old Town from Mount Srd