HERE AND THERE

Heading north in the Adriatic Sea, along the Croatian coastline, and our next stop is Koper, Slovenia. Slovenia is tucked in between Croatia and Italy, with a tiny 45 km coastline of its own. Koper's old name was Capodistria, or Capo d'Istria, in its Italian past. That's more familiar! It's history is closely tied to Italy, and Trieste is only a half-hour's drive away from Koper. Koper is on the Istrian pensinula (hence Capo d'Istria), the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Se

We're still on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, this time in the port of Split. Split is the biggest Croatian city on the coast, with a population around 200,000. It's the most visited town in Croatia and according to our local guide Dragan, the most historic region in the country. I liked the early morning light on this Croatian ferry. There seems to be a theme emerging with our morning tours along this coastline. First, we start off at a lovely little restaurant/historic sit

We'll be visiting two cities in Croatia over two days, Dubrovnik and Split. But one at a time. Our local guide Maria told us that Croatia is a small but beautiful country. Small it may be, but it's much bigger than Montenegro, our last port. Croatia has a population of 3.6 million people (six times more than Montenegro) and more than 1200 islands. Another destination for nautical tourism? Absolu-toot-ly. We disembarked in Dubrovnik and could see the old walled city. Any Game

From the boot of Italy we've sailed east across the Adriatic Sea, ignored Albania and docked in the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro. I've never been to the Balkans before. Much of my knowledge of this part of the world comes from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, when the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia broke up into six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia. We've sailed into some beautiful places on our various cruises, but the

And we're back in Italy! On the heel of the Italian boot! This is where the Adriatic Sea meets the Ionian Sea. Brindisi is in the region of Puglia (or Apulia). Couldn't resist this glorious map below. c.1941 Puglia, Apulia, Italia, Italy Pictorial Map by Prof. G. De Agostini, Artist Nicouline, Vsevolod Petrovic Puglia has a distinct culture within Italy. People were living here more than 100,000 years ago; in the Bronze Age, this was the first 'industrial' area on the contine

After our grey day in Valletta, our day in Kefalonia has been bright blue! Yamas! We are so excited to be back on a Greek island, and a new one (to us) at that. When we visited the Greek islands in September 2023, we were in the Aegean Sea east of the Greek mainland. Now we are in the Ionian Sea, on the west coast of Greece, closer to Italy than Turkiye. Kefalonia is one of the seven (or nine, no one seems sure) Ionian islands. Corfu is one of them. Gerald Durrell's books abo

We had to skip the port of La Goulette, Tunisia, because of the heavy fog that settled over the water ALL DAY. All we saw was blue and white. The Tunisian port officials require 2 km visibility for ships entering the channel: the fog allowed less than 1 km. So no Tunisia. Boo. We sailed east and docked in Valletta, Malta. We're on the main island Malta; the other main islands are Gozo and Comino, which we didn't see. Malta is a very small country, just over 300 square km. Alm

We're still in Italy, on the island of Sicily. We've disembarked in the port of Trapani, pronounced Trah-puh-ni, not Truh-pah-ni, as I'd been saying until now. Trapani sits on the western tip of Sicily, about 100 km west of Palermo and about 1000 km south of Rome. Legend says that Trapani was formed when Demeter dropped her sickle while looking for her kidnapped daughter Persephone. The sickle fell into the sea, creating a city in its crescent. Why, you ask, was the Greek god

We depart from Rome on our cruise and our first stop is the Amalfi coast. Here we are at anchor, on the ship, having breakfast with the town of Amalfi in front of us. (You can hear the clink and clank of breakfast utensils.) The Amalfi coast is south of Rome and south of Naples, the regional capital of Campania. The Sorrentine peninsula juts out into the sea for about 10 km, and small towns and villages lie along the very picturesque, very very steep coastline. Technically (a

It's been 43 years* since we last visited Rome. We're back for another visit – together with a gazillion other tourists. Talk about overtourism. (Yes, I realise we are part of the problem.) While the stunning sights are still stunning, everywhere we go we have to fight our way through crowds. Other problems are construction and renovation projects with large hoardings in front of famous buildings, detours through narrow uninteresting roads, and massive traffic jams. Apart fro

Our carefully planned trip to Rome had included a few days in Dubai, to visit our Dubai family. But this itinerary was derailed by the deranged Trump war in the Middle East. So we're travelling (the longer and more expensive way) via Singapore and Frankfurt instead – the route less likely to be interrupted by missiles. Flying across peaceful Afghanistan and Georgia ... ! Our flight to Frankfurt was with Lufthansa, whose primary hub is Frankfurt Airport. Frankfurt Airport is t

And back to Athens, when we started and ended our Greek island journey. We spent our final couple of days in Piraeus, the port area of...

Still in the eastern Aegean Sea, and travelling north-east from Rhodes, we visited Bodrum in Turkey. According to our guide Demir, Bodrum...

The island of Rhodes is the biggest island in the Dodecanese group of islands. It's much closer to Turkey than to mainland Greece. We...

Up in the hills, away from Heraklion, an enterprising hotelier has taken a traditional Cretan village and turned it into a hotel/function...

In Greek mythology, the minotaur was a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. The minotaur was the shameful offspring of...

I liked Paros a lot. It has lots of tradition and practicality, sprinkled with a little glitz. Paros is the third biggest of the 220...

Sunrise over Santorini, sailing into port from the sea. Santorini is a caldera — an extinct volcanic crater. Those two small islands in...

On our cruise from Athens we landed at six ports: five in the Aegean Sea and one in the Sea of Crete. Not a Mediterranean cruise at all!...

We took a day trip to Delphi, about two hours drive from Athens. We leave the city behind and we are soon in the rural countryside, where...