Mon Nov 11, 2024
Hi Folks! First and foremost, Happy Veteran’s Day to all the veteran’s and their families. While we are fortunate to travel around the world we always come back home to the greatest country in the world! And that’s mainly due to the sacrifice of all the veterans that keep us safe! USA! USA! USA!
As I always say, Kathy and I are very blessed but we’re also very crazy since this is our third Mediterranean cruise within the last four months! We LOVE the Med! But this time again we get to experience some new ports along with some oldies but goodies.
Some new places we’ll visit are Siracusa, Sicily, Tunisia in Africa, Palermo, Sicily, Cagliari on the island of Sardinia off the coast of Italy, the island of Palma de Mallorca off the coast of Spain as well as places we’ve been before and enjoy such as Naples, Italy and Valletta, Malta both of which we’ll have an overnight in. What a great itinerary!
We left yesterday (Sun 11/10) and flew from CLT to Philly to Rome. The flights were good and we had no issues with the luggage. We’ve flown to Rome each time for these last three Med cruises! We had the same driver (Diana) pick us up each time and take us to our same hotel. She’s become like family and gave us both a big Italian hug and kisses on both cheeks when she met us. We also got to meet her husband Mauricio this time as well. Funny thing was, the first thing they both asked us was about Trump and the US election. Gotta love it!
Of course we’ll once again spend the night in the port town of Civitavecchia at the Hotel Traghetto. It is a nice, basic hotel that is family owned and run by our good friend Giuseppe. I now consider him my brother since I see him every other month! I included a picture of him!
After we got settled into the hotel we took a quick nap and then set off exploring this cute little town. We’re getting to know it really well! After our walk we had dinner at our favorite pizza place right next to our hotel. So in essence, for these last three trips to the Med, we’ve flown into the same airport, had the same driver pick us up, stayed at the same hotel and had dinner at the same place! As we like to say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”. Lol.
We’ll board the ship tomorrow (Tues 11/12). We’ll be traveling on the newest ship of the Silversea cruise line called the Silver Ray. It’s supposed to be over the top ultra-luxury (we’ll see how they compare to Regent Seven Seas!) and the ship has what they’re calling an asymmetrical design which is supposed to be different than any other cruise ship. We shall see!
Can’t wait to experience this new ship and these new ports! As long as their wifi is decent, I’ll be posting daily summaries with pictures of our adventures.
Hope everyone is doing well! Here is a picture of our itinerary as well as our hotel room (big by European standards) and balcony as well as pics around town, the beautiful sunset and our pizza! Ciao for now!
The Wandering Italian 