Mediterranean cruise – trip photos – fashion blogger experience

Hey! I’m back from our cruise to the Mediterranean. It was a wonderful trip! but I’ll start out with the not so good: our flight home from Venice was delayed by over 5 hours because of a careless remark by a fellow passenger. What was an otherwise seamless transport from sea to air was marred by what the captain of the flight called “an asinine comment”. apparently during the check-in process, someone on our flight made a comment about airport safety – we never found out who it was or what the person said or if the person was detained afterward. We were kept in the dark about the situation until after we reboarded the plane. We had all originally boarded the flight in a timely manner but the plane just sat on the tarmac for over an hour until we we told that due to a “technical issue”, we had to to take all of our stuff and deplane. then we had to go through safety screening again – we thought it was a mechanical issue with the plane so we all joked that we were going through screening again to supply us with “something to do” while they fixed the plane. They had one screening station for the entire flight! The Italian police and fire department were called and the cargo hold thoroughly checked. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 11:30am but we did not leave until close to 5pm. It wasn’t the worst thing by any indicates for us, we just got home later than we had anticipated. but for lots of fellow passengers who had connecting flights, they missed their flights and were put on the next available flight – some were rebooked for flights departing 2 days later! So, please please even if you think it’s a funny joke, don’t utter any comments about airport safety while in the airport / airplane. They take this stuff seriously! I said to the SO, “Imagine if this had happened when we were flying out to Venice and missed the cruise ship?” Ugh!

Here’s a picture to thank you for reading the above. It’s a shot of our cruise ship from a hilltop restaurant in Santorini, Greece.
Now, with that out of the way, onward to the good stuff!

These are mostly photos of the ports we checked out – I’ll devote a separate entry to the cruise experience itself (which I’ve tentatively named “Cruising Life for type A Personalities” ). The cruise was for 7 days and our ports included: Venice (Italy), Dubrovnic (Croatia), Kusadasi / Ephesus (Turkey), Santorini (Greece), and Katakolon / Olympia (Greece). We arrived one day in development of the sail date to have extra time in Venice – and also recommended by our travel agent in case of a flight delay (see above!) so we actually had 2 days in Venice to explore. The weather overall was wonderful, the only day that was a complete wash-out was our first day in Venice – the downpour was so bad that Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square ) was nearly empty. The following day the sun came out so we walked back to the square and saw the difference between empty vs crowded. We also experienced a short flash storm in Olympia, Greece but thank goodness it happened after our tour.

Venice, Italy

Highlights: canals, St. Mark’s Square, Doge’s Palace

Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square)
Eating pistachio and stracciatella gelato from a shop right in St. Mark’s Square.
One of the lots of breathtaking grand rooms inside Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace). Every surface is covered in ornate paintings / decorations.
View from inside the Bridge of Sighs.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Highlights: Walled City, medieval fortresses, game of Thrones

The weather was much warmer than we expected and so clear that we could see for miles.

This is still mostly a appeal blog! I rocked the Essie Gel Couture polish in Pinned Up for the trip – it wore amazingly well, as expected. Not a chip and I wore it for 12 days in total.

Inside the Walled City – we are so surprised at the polished stone ground, they’re reflective and probably slick when it rains.
Ephesus, Turkey

Highlights: house of Mary, library of Celsus, temple of Hadrian, terrific Theatre

There is a small house which has been confirmed as the last place where Virgin Mary lived before she died (no pictures allowed of the interior – it is very basic and small). Behind the house there are water spouts where visitors can collect holy water.
This site boasts one of the best preserved Greek and Roman ruins. It’s like going back in time and showcases marble streets, a library, and a grand stadium.

I’m not going to post too lots of pictures of my check out to Ephesus – I’ll save that for a detail post on the organized group excursion in a cross over collab post with Joyce of local girl foreign Land coming up in early October!

Santorini, Greece

Highlights: Firá, Catholic Cathedral of Fira, Archaeological Museum

Eating freshly grilled squid / calamari – and Greek salad, of course.

Tip for Santorini – take the cord automobiles up but walk down the path to get back to the port. The line-ups for the cord automobiles are crazy.The path is picturesque but enjoy out for runaway donkeys and their poop!
Olympia, Greece

Highlights: site of original Olympic Games, temple of Hera, Archaeological museum of Olympia

The site of the original Olympic games was much different than we had visualized in our minds – it was much greener than we expected.
And a lot of of the buildings were pretty much gone except for a few pillars here and there – a lot of imagination was required here.
Our excursion guide was able to supply a lot of historical information on how the structures would have looked, and what functions they served.

We were nearly ready to head back to the ship when we had a flash storm, but it resulted the most stunning sunset that evening:

This is probably one of my much-loved shots of the whole trip and is now my phone wallpaper.
If forced to choose, our much-loved place was Santorini, which was a surprise considering that we didn’t have substantial expectations like we did for Dubrovnik (don’t get me wrong, we still loved Dubrovnik) – checking out Santorini made us pledge to return to Greece to additionally explore the country. have you been to any of these places?

PS. I know this question will be asked, I used Canon Powershot SX610, a point and shoot camera, for all the photos.

PPS. I’ve been really jet lagged for the past few days (6 hr difference) but I’ve started getting back into reading blogs. I’ve observed a lot of my comments aren’t showing up on your blogs and I think they’re going into your spam folders – please take a moment to check. I guess WordPress doesn’t recognize me anymore being away on vacation!

PPPS. yes I gotten some makeup on the trip. I’ll do a haul post next week!

Mediterranean cruise – trip photos

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