I’m getting pretty far behind on posting updates, but we have had a busy couple of weeks. Summer got off to a quiet start and we didn’t have much to report the first week except that we have hot water at our house again! The boiler is finally fixed. We did have a radiator burst and flood our bedroom but everything is dried out and it has stopped leaking. Hopefully we will have a new radiator by winter.
Saturday of that week, we hit the road for Italy! We were leaving for a cruise on Sunday out of Trieste, so stopped in to visit family on the way. We had a nice dinner at Cacciatore, a favorite restaurant on Saturday evening, and then breakfast in the town square on Sunday morning before we left.
We made it to Trieste by around 1pm and were so ready to get checked in. We drove to the port and our ship was not there. I started panicking that I had mixed up the days or the port city and spotty cell service meant I wasn’t able to log into my account to confirm. We drove around in circles and finally Matt decided to drive a little further out of town and thankfully, we found the ship. The next crisis was about five minutes later when we realized there was no parking there. Matt dropped us on the curb and we waited another 30 minutes while he drove around looking for a long term parking spot and a taxi back. Finally, he was back and we were ready to check in. The first thing they asked us for was our negative covid tests- which of course we didn’t have because I didn’t do a good job reading the rules ahead of time. Luckily, they could do them there, but we were really sweating it at that point and praying for four negatives. Luckily, we all passed and FINALLY were allowed onto the ship.
The moral of the story is: dedicate at least a little time to planning. We have been so busy lately between work, school, and weekend trips that I was worn out. I was too tired to do a lot of planning and even though everything turned out ok, it could have gone wrong. I need to either force myself to make more time for trip planning, or scale back in trips. Lesson learned.
First stop on our cruise was Kotor, Montenegro. Luckily, we had been upgraded to a balcony room prior to arriving so we were able to take in the views of the bay as we arrived. The bay of Kotor is a UNESCO World Heritage site and resembles the Norwegian Fjords. The best part of the visit was the sailing through, which lasted about two hours.
Our planned activity for Kotor was to hike to the top of the fortress overlooking the city. When we got to the trail, there was an entrance fee of €8 per person. It was a super hot day and we decided we didn’t want to pay €32 to be hot, sweaty, and miserable. We did manage to hike a little of the way up and check out the rooftops of Kotor. Instead, we walked the city walls, wandered around the city, and got some Aperol spritzes. We also stopped for ice cream at the stand that did freeze- dried ice cream, which was interesting.
We headed back to the ship a little early and cooled off at the pool. After dinner, we made it back up on deck to check out the views again as we headed back out of the bay during sunset.
Tuesday was Corfu. We got off and took the bus into the city and walked around. Matt and I visited Corfu in 2015 and hiked the fortress there so we gave it a pass this time. Once we had done enough walking about Corfu town, we headed to a beach bar, just outside the fortress. I had wanted to visit here in 2015 and didn’t make it so it was great to finally fulfill that wish. The water was warm and the kids swam all afternoon.
Wednesday, the ship stopped in Santorini. We had big plans for touring the island, but by the time we got off the ship, the line for the cable car out of the port was over an hour long in the beating sun. So, we decided to take it easy that day after that.
Instead of our big tour, we walked around the main city of Thira. We had lunch at a Greek restaurant and did some shopping. Luckily, the views from Thira are almost as good as the famous views in Oia. We took lots of pics and had ice cream and drinks in one of the cliff side restaurants before heading back down the cable car and back to the ship.
Thursday, we stopped in Mykonos. We did a quick walking tour around Mykonos town and checked out the famous windmills and Little Venice.
After our walking tour, we took a taxi to a beach club, Agios Stefanos, which wasn’t too far from the cruise port. The water was actually pretty cold but the beach club had beach chairs, food, and drinks, and the kids spent the afternoon swimming before we headed back to the ship.
Friday was a day at sea and we spent the whole day laying by the pool and napping.
Saturday was our final cruise stop, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Our plan was to walk the circumference of the city walls, which is the #1 thing to do there. We took the bus into town and paid to climb the stairs to the wall. Croatia has its own currency, the Kuna. We didn’t look up the exchange rate before going and paid to enter without checking the price. After we got up the wall, we realized that it was slightly over $100 for all four of us 😂. We did make the full loop, stopping once for coffees and water. The views were so pretty, we considered it worth the cost.
Dubrovnik was one of the main filming location for Game of Thrones. After we were done with the wall, we walked around the city, looking for filming locations. We did some shopping and had drinks in the center of town before heading back to the shop.
After our walk, we headed back to the ship, took a nap during the only rain we experienced on the cruise, and got ready to disembark the following day.
Gilcrests Abroad 