Random thoughts from the sea
Day 1, 2024 Holiday Tropical Caribbean Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024; Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Joining the Zuiderdam earlier today really was like coming home, and yet totally different. I saw friends from previous cruises in the terminal waiting room. Once on the ship, it was hug after hug with team members
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Day 34, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024; Cadiz/Seville, Spain. This morning I was torn. With a forecast of steady rain all day, do I go to Seville as planned with my original intention of sketching and painting there? I have never been to Seville, and surprisingly the nearby
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Day 33, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024; Tangier, Morocco. Finally — a day for sketching. I spent almost an hour seated on the sidewalk at a small Moroccan café, sipping mint tea in the shade of an umbrella (although it was cloudy). No rain in sight, at least
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Day 32, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024; Gibraltar. I hardly recognized Gibraltar today for all its growth since my previous stops here in 2011 and 2013. The first time we took the traditional tour to the top of the rock to see the caves, views and especially the
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Day 30, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024; Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. I visited Cagliari on the Italian island of Sardinia in 2011 and can’t remember a thing about it. Mom and I were on a Mediterranean cruise with a similar itinerary to this one, and most of our port
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Day 29, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024; Tunis, Tunisia. A new country for me! Tunisia is my first and only new country on this Mediterranean cruise, although as I haven’t been to the Med in more than 10 years, a lot of it seems new, including several new
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Day 27, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Friday, Dec. 6, 2024; Valletta, Malta. Malta was a wonderful surprise — a beautiful island country just 60 miles off the coast of Sicily. I mostly saw it through a bus window – not ideal, but I comforted myself knowing I will be back five
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Days 24-25, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 2-3, 2024; Cairo, Egypt. My first (and only previous) visit to Cairo was in 2013, on the first cruise from which I blogged. I just went back to read my Cairo post (then labeled “Dear Diary” and pretty much a chronological
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Day 22, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024; Athens, Greece. It would be easy to eat your way through the Mediterranean. In almost every port, Holland America offers some kind of foodie tour. If not, there are plenty of private food tours from Viator, Tours By Locals and other
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Day 20, 2024 Ultimate Mediterranean Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024; Catania, Sicily. There is a downside to spending months at sea, moving from one ship to another, from one cruise to another. And that is keeping track of your plans to explore each port. Today it caught up to me, and
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