Cruise 13...Jewel of The Seas

July 2nd, 2017...Greek Isles

Greek adventure!

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

Santorini, Greece

Mykonos, Greece

Piraeus (Athens), Greece

Katakolon (Olympia), Greece

Greece is absolutely beautiful, and Lady and The Pirate consider this cruise to be one of their finest. The weather was perfect, the ship was gorgeous and the food was delicious and healthy. In fact, it was one of the few cruises The Pirate has been on where the food was so delicious and healthy, he lost weight. Of course, the lengthy and walkable excursions The Pirate partook of helped as well. From the two day stay in Rome before the cruise to climbing the Acropolis in Athens, everything was absolutely perfect.

If you notice the pictures below of the Trevi Fountain, there's one pic with a crowd in the background and a couple with nobody around. The crowd is what you'll generally see if you take in the fountain as an excursion. When Lady and The Pirate first visited Rome back on their fourth cruise, they were part of an excursion and it was quite difficult taking a good picture. But Lady and The Pirate stayed right down the street from the fountain on this trip and were able to visit early in the morning. While a street side coffee and breakfast shop first opened, Lady and The Pirate snapped a few pictures of themselves at an empty Trevi Fountain. It was just perfect. Later that night they also enjoyed a street side restaurant where they dined on the street.

After sailing through the Strait of Messina, the narrow waterway separating the Island of Sicily from mainland Italy, Lady and The Pirate were off to their first port of call in Greece, Santorini Island. When you dock at Santorini, you have a choice of three options to get up hill from the port to the city of Fira. The most difficult would be to climb the 588 steps. The second most difficult would be a donkey ride. Finally, there is a tram. For this trip, Lady and The Pirate were tram kind of people. Lol. Ron White tells a joke of the time he was there on his honeymoon. He said there's a guy standing out there at the port selling donkey rides. When asked about the way up, he says, "You can take the donkey, or you can take the tram. It is the same price." Ron White believes that's a piece of information he should keep to himself. For the money, Ron took the tram. Lol. The Pirate threw in a pic of him below because seeing him blew his mind.

Oia, on Santorini Island, is that romantic Greek island town you see in all the pictures; that white and blue washed place with those infinity pools. Lady and The Pirate likely have never visited a more beautiful and romantic setting. Their excursion took them there and to a winery as well. The winery makes wines from local grapes that grow close to the ground. On an island with a lot of winds, it's important to grow lower grapes. Santorini is just simply a place Lady and The Pirate would love to visit and stay for an extended time. That being said, many of the other Greek islands are less visited and can offer much of the same beauty.

Mykonos Island is that party vibe island you hear about so much. It's definitely true. Lady and The Pirate visited when the wind was whipping up and Lady was a bit uncomfortable. Of all the islands, Mykonos will have a great appeal to the younger crowd and especially at night when the party begins.

While in Athens, Lady and The Pirate had one place to visit everyone should visit on their first trip, the Acropolis, the birthplace of Democracy. It's not an easy climb to the top in that there are a lot of steps and a lot of people going up and down. The Pirate thought it funny that it seemed there were always more people going down than coming up.

Finally, Lady and The Pirate visited Olympia to see the location of the first Olympic games.

Notes on this cruise:

1. Jewel of The Seas is a beautiful ship. It's smaller than most other Royal Caribbean ships, but what it lacks in size, it makes up in beauty. It seemed at times as if the entire ship had so many windows you felt like you were outside even when you were in.

2. Santorini is the caldera of what is left of a massive volcano that, in 1600 BCE, wiped out the entire Minoan civilization on the Island of Crete.