Silver Wind #2217, Athens to Rome, June 4, 2012: not quite live!

[Northerncheapo]

I've most enjoyed your posts and thank you for doing this! But...how in the world did you post pics with your posts? I could not do it!

[jpalbny]

I've most enjoyed your posts and thank you for doing this! But...how in the world did you post pics with your posts? I could not do it!

 

It's a pain! You have to upload the pictures to an online album / repository (I use picasa). Then, you link to them from within your post. There's an icon (yellow square, with a mountain) in the "Reply to Thread" box where you click, and paste the link to your photo - each one, individually...

 

There's a trick to doing it in picasa; if you use that, there's a step by step guide posted on one of the other forums. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1622136. The specific instructions for picasa are somewhere in this thread... If you use another online album, I don't know how to do it there, sorry.

 

Glad you're enjoying the posts, thanks!

[jpalbny]

Next morning, we arrived into Gallipoli for a (hopefully) restful day; today, we’re actually taking a ship’s tour instead of driving on our own. There was a long bus ride to ancient Otranto, on the East coast of the heel of Italy’s boot. We toured the cathedral which was built in the late 11th century, and has two fairly impressive sights: the mosaic floor which covers the entire cathedral, and the chapel housing the remains of 800 martyred citizens who refused to convert to Islam and were therefore executed by Turkish invaders.

 

 

After the chapel tour, we had some free time to wander the city which was pleasant enough; we climbed the walls and caught a sea breeze which helped make the 90 degree heat bearable.

 

 

The water was incredible; the boats seemed to be floating on air - you could see their shadows on the ocean floor!

 

 

We also found a place for dinner tonight...

 

 

Soon enough, it was time for the bus ride home (and a nice nap).

[jpalbny]

After an actual sit-down lunch at La Terraza (back on the ship, not the one in Otranto), we wandered into town. There was a shuttle bus, but the walk wasn’t far. We circled most of the town, walking on the old walls,

 

 

and then cut in along the main shopping street. Many of the shops were closed for the afternoon; southern Italy is known for closing down during the heat of the day for an afternoon siesta… Maybe we should have done the same! We spent a few Euros to see an underground olive oil press, which was interesting enough, then decided that we’d had enough of the heat and wandered back to the ship for a rest ourselves.

 

 

 

Dinner didn’t look very exciting so we made a late reservation at La Terraza for dinner. We had some eggs that Rosa had given us for a snack, while sitting on our balcony enjoying sailaway; afterwards, we were treated to a gorgeous sunset!

 

 

The meal was quite nice, and the Italian wines complemented the cuisine nicely. Our appetizers were Ligurian Seafood Salad and beef carpaccio, pasta courses were pappardelle with duck ragout and pasta al’Amatriciana, and entrees were pork medallions with cherry tomato and mixed green salad, and tuna with vegetable caponata. The sommelier found a great red wine to go with our main courses. Dessert was tiramisu, and an orange pancake with chocolate mousse. All around, a great meal!

 

 

We are really looking forward to tomorrow… Finally, a sea day so that we’ll be forced to rest! We have been going like crazy for the past week’s time, and are getting a little ragged, so some rest will do us good. No plans for tomorrow, other than to celebrate our anniversary with dinner at Le Champagne. They have done away with the degustation menu and are only offering the $30 supplement for a la carte dining. They offer the complimentary wines as well as the connoisseur’s list for purchase. Hopefully the meal will live up to our expectations, which are high after enjoying the other two specialty restaurants so much!

[Ravenscroft]

Thanks for looking up 'saganaki'. Now you've explained it does make total sense that it's the cooking dish/pan that bears the name. It explains why once I received a plate of what looked like fried cheese rather than the feta and tomato sauce I'd expected!

 

More wonderful pictures, thank you so much. Oh and I had never heard of Gallipoli in Italy. What a beautiful place it is.

[WesW]

JP, Chris, thanks so much for taking us along your Greek Island journey with words & terrific pix. Have a wonderful Anniversary dinner in Le Champagne--Happy Anniversary!

[duct tape]

We were on the Wind many years ago in Gallipoli and really enjoyed it. Not many people spoke Engliah at the time and we had the best lunch by saying "please just feed us" in elementary sign language. Thanx for making me remember that. Enjoying the posts. I also like Corfu a lot, some of the best tomatoes in the world. Do you sense a theme here......?

Edited June 26, 2012 by duct tape

[jpalbny]

Duct tape, we sense your theme and wholeheartedly agree; we love to find good food too, and the local cuisine makes visiting the Med such a pleasure... This was one of the few cruises where we've actually slowed down enough to stop for a sit-down lunch in most of the ports. Eating in the local restaurants has been wonderful!

 

Wes, thanks for the anniversary wishes. Even though this blog is written in the present tense, it's about 2 weeks old by now - I wrote it on the ship, but have been posting bit by bit as we get our (thousands of) pictures organized.

 

Thanks, Ravenscroft; we hadn't heard of Gallipoli in Italy either. We were in Gallipoli, Turkey 2 years ago - when we first saw this itinerary, we wondered why we'd go from Corfu, back to Turkey, then all the way to Italy...:confused: That seems a bit circuitous! PS have you tried to make saganaki at home?

[jpalbny]

Sunday June 10th was a very relaxing sea day - good timing, for our 17th anniversary! There were plenty of activities onboard, and we started with the lecture by Dr. Roseanne Martarella. She had given 2 previous lectures about Ancient Greece, and this morning, gave a brief overview of the history of Southern Italy, including Pompeii and Herculaneum, where we plan to visit tomorrow. There was a cooking demonstration with wine pairing that was sparsely attended. Right afterwards, we had lunch at La Terrazza where we had a view of Mt. Etna in the distance, through a light haze. Then we passed through the Strait of Messina. The passage was very smooth - on a previous cruise, we'd had a rough passage, but not this time! The pizza at La Terrazza was delicious, and so was the wine!

 

 

After lunch, we finally took some time to work on our pictures and to nap before the afternoon lecture about Rome. The Tyrrhenian sea was idyllic; we really enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere, and the break from touring every day.

 

 

Later, we passed by the island of Stromboli; we could smell the sulfurous odor from the active volcano!

 

 

Dinner in Le Champagne was fantastic! They have changed the format and no longer offer the degustation menu, but they have a set menu where you order a la carte. It’s a lot of food! We started with an appetizer sampler – mushroom bisque, lobster with mango salsa, a grilled scallop, and a foie gras mousse in a crispy cone – all bite-sized. Cold appetizers were lobster salad and tuna carpaccio, hot appetizers were pan-seared foie gras with forest berries and edible gold-leaf risotto. We had a soup course – lobster bisque and Dover sole with Camembert broth. Entrees were lobster thermidor, and desserts were numerous – they brought all 4! We had Vahlrona chocolate 3 ways, a flambéed crepe with apples and ice cream, pistachio macaroons, and Grand Marnier souflee. I took a picture of the menu for future reference:

 

 

We very much enjoyed the meal – the food was fantastic, the presentation beautiful, and service impeccable. They offer complimentary wines with the meal but we splurged for a bottle of Dom Perignon, which was a great match. A fantastic meal, and we feel sorry for those who didn’t enjoy it!

 

We returned to our suite to find another cake from our butler, but we were much too full to even consider eating it yet – maybe for breakfast tomorrow - before we hit the ground running, and try to make it to both Herculaneum and Pompeii in one day!

[badgerdee]

Am loving your review, thank you! We will be on the Wind in two weeks :D

 

What's the house Champagne please? We had Heidsick Monopole on our last cruise, which to me is nicer than the Drappier we had the time before that.

[jpalbny]

What's the house Champagne please? We had Heidsick Monopole on our last cruise, which to me is nicer than the Drappier we had the time before that.

 

Thanks - I'm sorry, but I can't remember the house champagne... I wasn't crazy about it - was a bit tart for our taste.

[jpalbny]

Monday morning, we arrived in Sorrento and were up with the sun – it’s been smooth sailing, and we did enjoy a little of our anniversary cake for breakfast. We’ve been going to the Observation Lounge instead of the Panorama the past few days, because they have an espresso machine and the coffee is therefore much nicer. We’re still too full from last night’s incredible dinner to have more than a few bites of cake for breakfast – then off to catch the first tender to Sorrento. We have a full day planned today – planning to visit both Herculaneum and Pompeii, all on our own.

 

The tender into Sorrento was uneventful, and there wasn’t a shuttle bus readily available so we walked upstairs to town (pretty easy; we’ve done it previously). There are plentiful signs to the train station once you're in town and all in all, we were there ready to go by 8:45. Round-trip tickets on the Circumvesuviana train to Herculaneum were only 4.20€ each – it’s always amazing how cheap the trains are in Italy. The ride was easy, and we were there in just under an hour - we could see lots of stopped traffic on the road, so we were glad to be on the train. There are tons of taxi drivers at the train station in Herculaneum, trying to charge 3€ for a ride to the site, but it’s an easy downhill walk.

 

We were impressed with Herculaneum! We’ve heard that the site is small and that you can see most of it in an hour or two, but we spent 3 hours there. The mosaics and the frescoes are well-preserved, and some are quite spectacular!

 

 

It was very enjoyable to spend time wandering through the old houses looking at all of the artwork. These were some amazing houses!

 

 

It got quite warm though, and after 3 hours it was time to move on. The view of Capri on the way out was beautiful - maybe we will go there (again) tomorrow...

 

 

On the way out, we stopped for a snack at a streetside café, halfway back up the hill for a ham/tomato/cheese sandwich, and zucchini ravioli with cheese sauce… This isn't the cafe, but it is the equivalent of one, in Roman times:

 

 

That, plus a few glasses of house white, and we’re ready to tackle Pompeii!

[RachelG]

Love the fresco pics.

[jpalbny]

We had visited Pompeii on a previous cruise, but that was with a ship’s tour on our first ever Med cruise, on day#1 where we were totally jet-lagged and didn’t get much out of it. This was so different – it started a little crowed when we got there at 3PM, but the crowds dissipated over the afternoon and by 6PM, it was starting to feel empty – almost spooky, like a ghost town! How appropriate...

 

 

We were so mellow this visit, we didn't even bother getting a map! We wandered to the outer parts of the city where the organized tours don’t go, and found all sorts of treasures – the Roman Amphitheatre was spectacular,

 

 

and the necropolis was impressive (and ironic, as the whole city is a necropolis of sorts). A bit creepy, wandering through the old necropolis in the lengthening shadows, with no one else around!

 

 

The restoration work in the gardens is nicely done, but it still doesn’t look ancient. We were looking for the local winery, but couldn't find it... There were very nice mosaics and frescoes in Pompeii as well, just more scattered and harder to find.

 

 

We stayed there until about 6:30 until sensory overload kicked in, then wandered back to the circumvesuviana train back home.

 

Once we got back, we were disappointed that the tender pulled away from the dock just as we arrived. To make matters worse, they didn’t have any water left at the pier, and told us that the next tender would be right there… 20 minutes later, still thirsty and hungry, we finally got a tender back to the ship.

 

Dinner in the main dining room was nice tonight – there was a chef's special entrée with duck, as well as a lamb entrée, so we went for a premier cru Burgundy with dinner. Very nice, but glad that we could try it for free (with OBC); now that we’ve had one I’m not sure that we’d buy it regularly. We still have a ton of OBC to use up tomorrow… This should be interesting!

[jpalbny]

First, welcome home RachelG - enjoyed your truly live report from one of our favorite ships, Silver Explorer! Svalbard is an amazing place...

 

Second, something new (to us) this voyage was the inclusion of a "chef's special" on the dinner menu. It was something that the waitstaff had to tell you about; the menu just said "chef's special cut" or something like that. Don't remember all of them, but there was a pork tenderloin once that was really tasty, and the aforementioned duck was delicious.

 

Third, just have to include this picture to illustrate a point: you can always tell American tourists (ourselves included) by the way we dress - sneakers, trainers, whatever. I'm always amazed by the nice shoes that Europeans wear everywhere. How do you walk through the cobblestone streets of Pompeii in these shoes?!?

 

[WesW]

Jean Paul, nice pix of my SS friend Wellseasoned in his latest fashion shoes, thanx for sharing.

[rojaan19]

Third, just have to include this picture to illustrate a point: you can always tell American tourists (ourselves included) by the way we dress - sneakers, trainers, whatever. I'm always amazed by the nice shoes that Europeans wear everywhere. How do you walk through the cobblestone streets of Pompeii in these shoes?!?

 

 

 

Oh if only I could still wear shoes like that ...............

[RachelG]

I am known for my fashionable shoes and spike heels. I wore them eveRy night, even the nights with a lot of sea motion, on our explorer cruise. But no way I would wear them touring Pompeii. That is just crazy!

[jpalbny]

I am known for my fashionable shoes and spike heels. I wore them eveRy night, even the nights with a lot of sea motion, on our explorer cruise. But no way I would wear them touring Pompeii. That is just crazy!

 

RachelG, you never mentioned that your hot pink muck boots had spike heels! Guess that's one way to stay put when climbing a glacier...

[jpalbny]

Tuesday, we decided to revisit Capri. Even though we’ve been there twice already, it never fails to amaze us with its beauty, and we’re happy to go again. We tendered ashore just after 8, and got on the 8:30 ferry which arrived just about 9AM. We decided that it was high time we saw the Blue Grotto, which we’ve never seen, and bought tickets for one of the boats doing a tour around the island. We had 40 minutes before the tour left, so we climbed to Capri Town for a few minutes – it’s only about 10 minutes from the port. We enjoyed the familiar view, and then high-tailed it downstairs for the boat tour.

 

 

The tour was very nice – we’ve seen almost the entire island from the ground while walking the cliffs along the perimeter, so it was a very different perspective. The Blue Grotto itself was very pretty, and clean, unlike some reports we’ve read that it’s dirty and not worth the trip. The lighting was spectacular; the water looked like it was glowing! It’s 12.50€ per person to visit which is a pretty good scam, but oh well…

 

 

It was beautiful to cruise through and around the Faragliones under a gorgeous blue sky,

 

 

and to see the incredible cliffs of Capri, remembering the times that we've walked on them. The seaside views of the many landmarks that we have visited offered a different perspective.

 

 

After the boat tour, we went shopping and finally managed to find capers packed in salt – I’ve been looking for them for the whole trip! We also had an obligatory gelato, and then caught the ferry back to Sorrento which only took about 25 minutes. The tender was waiting for us, unlike last night, and we made it back to the ship just after 1PM, despite leaving Capri around 12:25. Lunch on La Terrazza, and then we looked at the connoisseur’s list to see how to spend our last few hundred dollars of credit.

[jpalbny]

We had a bottle of Dom Perignon rosé delivered to the stateroom, and sat out enjoying some sunshine as we sipped…

 

 

As we said arrivederci to Mt. Vesuvius, we can't stop thinking that it’s been an incredibly fun cruise, and our port experiences have been spectacular. Hopefully, Rome will be just as fun – can’t believe it’s time to disembark tomorrow!

 

 

Dinner tonight was great as usual - we were planning to spend our last OBC on a Super Tuscan, but Robin the head sommelier had a surprise for us - a wonderful (complimentary) Australian shiraz to go with dinner. So, we got the Super Tuscan to go! The service on this cruise has been amazing; we feel very lucky to be able to cruise with SS.

 

...

 

Disembarkation day was sad, but tempered by the knowledge that we’d have a few days in Rome to make up for it! We ate breakfast in La Terraza for the first time all cruise, and then wandered up to the Panorama Lounge for another espresso while we waited for our tickets to be called. We disembarked a little earlier than expected, at 8:30, and caught the port bus to the main gate at the port of Civitavecchia.

 

From here, we dragged our suitcases to the train station and got tickets to Termini on a reasonably fast train, for about 10€ each. Less than an hour later, we were in Rome, and good to go. Our hotel was about 1/2km from the station, so we walked there and were checked in by 11:00 – the room was quite nice, and even better, it was ready for us!

 

...

 

We'll end the journey here as the post-cruise stay in Rome doesn't belong in the review (though the pictures are under the pics 4 link). Thanks to all of you who've taken the time to follow along with us; hopefully, it was good for your insomnia!

 

We booked a floating deposit for our next cruise; now, the only thing left to do is find a sailing - spring of 2013 is looking like a good time for a cruise! :D

[duct tape]

Thanx, again. Enjoyed the Rome pix as well.

[RachelG]

Sorry to see the end of your cruise--but did you book another while onboard? That is the only cure for the end of cruise doldrums.

[jpalbny]

Sorry to see the end of your cruise--but did you book another while onboard? That is the only cure for the end of cruise doldrums.

 

We did the new "floating deposit" for a cruise TBD in the future. Not as fun as actually booking one, but close enough. Honestly, we were too busy to sit down with the catalog to choose a specific itinerary!

[RachelG]

We did the new "floating deposit" for a cruise TBD in the future. Not as fun as actually booking one, but close enough. Honestly, we were too busy to sit down with the catalog to choose a specific itinerary!

 

I did the same at the end of our explorer cruise. I honestly should have been more organized ahead of time and picked something out.