Adler Adriatic trip

There was heavy traffic in Athens on the way to the airport but once we hit the expressway, it went pretty quickly. Overall it only took 45 minutes to get to the airport. When we were about to go through security, I was pulled aside by a security guard and was a bit apprehensive about what would happen next as he escorted me through the barrier. But he was putting us in the diplomatic passport and express security check line. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the express line was moving much slower than the regular line. It was the same at the United check-in - there was one "express" counter and 4 regular counters. We relaxed in the airport lounge until it was time to depart - on time! We flew over the Italian-Swiss alps and had a spectacular view of the snow-covered mountains. Our flight arrived an hour early. Using the Mobile Pass app on my phone, it took only a couple minutes to go through customs as only one person was in line ahead of us. The regular customs l

We had to be out of our room by 8am so we were up early to catch breakfast, finish packing and leave the ship. We took a taxi to the Acropolis View Hotel which is just a little distance from the Acropolis. We dropped off our luggage as we can't check in until 2pm. The hotel clerk was very helpful and managed to get us a walking tour of Athens and the Acropolis just an hour later. She said the meeting point was about 10 minutes away but it was about a mile, a brisk 20 minute walk - I was soaked by the time we got there. We were fortunate that there were only 6 people in the group, 2 Australians, 2 Italians (they asked if she could do the talk in ancient Greek!) and us. We went across the street to the parliament building and the tomb of the unknown soldier to watch the changing of the guard.  The changing of the guard is an amazingly choreographed process as the two new soldiers relieve the current soldiers. They have metal cleats and heels on their boots that make noise as they

This is the first morning we have been able to relax as all other mornings we had to be up and out of the ship by 7-8am. We had originally planned to take the 9 hour excursion to Mount Olympus but it is a more than a 3 hour drive each  way. We decided to take the afternoon excursion to the temple of Poseidon instead. This morning we had a relaxing breakfast and spent time in the Explorer's Lounge, watching the ships in the port, writing postcards and getting caught up on reading. After lunch we got on the bus of Sounion. It was nice to have Scott and Jean on the same tour. There was about a 1.5 hour bus ride to get there, going along the western coast with many scenic bays. Our tour guide said that Greece has over 8,000 miles of coastline even though it is a small country. The countryside is very dry with a few green shrubs that can survive the dry hot weather but they may not stay green much longer. A temple to Poseidon, the god of the sea was built here in the 5th century

Our excursion this morning starts at 7am so we are up bright and early. Today we are anchored in the harbor as there aren't docks large enough to host cruise ships and we need to use "tenders" to go to shore. Santorini is actually a collections of 5 islands which are the remains of a huge volcanic caldera that collapsed thousands of years ago. For centuries, Santorini was controlled by the Venetian empire and subsequently by the Ottomans. Santorini had been mainly supported by olives, grapes and fishing but with the boom in tourism the income is now 80% from tourism. It is a bit sad as one sees many abandoned terraced vineyards. We were fortunate to see the sun rising over the Santorini caldera while we were eating breakfast - it was quite a spectacular site. We could see the tour buses making their way down to the dock where we will be landing - it looked like a series of caterpillars moving down a tree! The process of getting onto the tender and to the shore was s

We had an early breakfast sitting outside overlooking the shore with layers of misty mountains in the distance - very pretty. The ship docked in the small town of Katakolon which has a population of only 500 but hosts the arrival of 250 cruise ships a year so it is very busy with restaurants and shops. It is about 40 minutes from the Olympia Archaeological site. There are two other huge cruise ships here, one docked and one anchored in the harbor. Our tour guide was quite interesting. He was born in Olympia and grew up playing with his friends around the ruins. This made him interested in archaeology and he subsequently received B.S. and M.S. degrees in archaeology. He worked for the Greek government as an archaeologist until the Greek financial crisis when he lost his job. He then became a tour guide which was actually more lucrative.  He only does private tours and tours for Viking. One thing very different about Greece is the relationship between the church (Greek Orthodox) an

Corfu is the second largest of the Ionian islands off the shore of Greece. In the morning we took a bus across to the west side of the island and boarded a small (10 person) boat to see the famous grottoes and caves along the shore. The most famous is the "Blue Grotto" where it looks like a bright blue light is shining from the bottom of the sea into the grotto - see photo below. After getting back to Corfu, we had a short walking tour of the old city between the old and new forts. At the Greek Orthodox St. Spirodon Cathedral we were able to see St. Spiridon in his casket which many pilgrims come to visit from as far away as Russia. We weren't quite sure what the protocol was as some people bent into the casket to kiss his shoes and then kissed the glass over his head. We just tried to be respectful. He was buried in Constantinople for 400 years and when Constantinople fell to the Turks 400 years later, his body was removed and taken to Corfu for re-burial. His body w

Sailing into Kotor is like sailing into a fjord, with very steep mountains on both sides of the ship although technically speaking, this isn't a fjord. The town of Kotor is at the very end. The name Montenegro means "black mountains" as this was the appearance of the cypress trees when the Venetians came. Montenegro uses the Euro for currency although it is not a member of the Eurozone - they decided to use the Euro in order to stabilize their economy which had suffered from very high inflation. At one point there was currency with 15 zeroes! Kotor is a medieval city that for centuries was part of the Venetian Republic, located on an important trading route to the Levant. In the Venetian time a tall wall was built around the entire city to protect it from attackers, several times the Ottomans. The first part of our excursion was up a road that has 25 switchbacks in order to get to the top. Much of the road is a single lane although traffic is in both directions. It

Overnight we sailed to Dubrovnik, arriving around 8am. It was interesting to watch the ship turn around, back into the harbor and then move sideways to our mooring. Just after we arrived, a much larger MSC ship pulled in behind us. Our first stop was a walking tour of Dubrovnik. Our tour guide said that it was good to go early before it became so crowded that one could barely move through the main street. The population of the old city has gone from 4,500 to only 800 residents in the past few years as homes were turned into profitable rentals. It isn't very practical to live there as no cars are allowed, delivery vehicles are only allowed until 10am and most of the residences are up sets of very high, steep and narrow steps. Dubrovnik was an independent city state republic for 500 years, ending finally when it was captured by Napoleon in 1806. It managed to survive through this time despite the powerful Venetian Republic on one side and the Ottoman Empire on the other side by s

As we were getting up this morning, the ship pulled into Zadar, Croatia. Croatia is the only country we are traveling to that doesn't use the Euro so we had to change Euros into Kuna, the local currency. Strangely, we were told that Kunas could not be converted back into Euros. It is so convenient being able to travel from country to country without using different currencies. When I traveled in 1974, I used French Francs, Austrian Shillings, German Marks, Dutch Guilders and Norwegian Kroner. Zadar is the 5th largest city of Croatia with a population of only 75,000 people. It was originally a Greek city, then Roman, then Venetian, then French (Napoleon), then Austrian, then Italian, then Yugoslavia and finally Croatian. There are no remains of the Greek era but the Roman influence is obvious with the straight main street and orthogonal side streets. It was the largest fortress city in the Venetian Empire. At the end of the cold-war, Croatia broke off from Yugoslavia in 1991.

The captain had suggested watching as we departed so at 11pm, we went up to the top deck as the ship pulled out. There were two tug boats in the front and another tug boat in the rear to help the ship make a sharp left turn. The ship traveled down the same outer canal that we had traveled several times with the vaporetto. A number of the churches had lights shining on them so it was a beautiful site as we passed, especially with the full moon overhead to the east. We were surprised that San Marco Plaza was not lit up but it made for a beautiful end to the evening overall. When we got up in the morning, the ship was just pulling into the dock in Koper, Koper was one of the important Adriatic cities of the Venetian empire and was rich and famous for the salt that was produced in the flats by the city. The city was actually on an island close to the shore and connected by a bridge. It was surprisingly high for a small island right next to the mainland and was later connected by fillin

Our main plan for today was to visit the Correr Museum in San Marco Plaza and to do some shopping before collecting our luggage at the hotel and heading to the ship. The Correr Museum is in part of the complex of buildings around San Marco Plaza associated with the Doge palace and was originally built in the 12th century. In the 19th century it was used by the emperor and empress of the Austrian empire when they visited and conducted business in Venice. A number of the private and state rooms have been restored meticulously to the way they appeared when Empress Sissi was there. The museum includes a notable collection of famous sculptures and paintings. One of the most interesting is a complete collection of coins that were minted in Venice from the 800s to the 1800s. As we were walking around the plaza, we could see a section that was pulled up and the water level was only 12-18" below the surface. This was after the entire surface of the Plaza was pulled up in 2006, a laye