June 25, 2019

After the splendor of Olympia, we head to Santorini, probably the most famous of the Greek Islands. As with the other areas of the Adriatic, Ionian, and Aegean seas, the history encapsulated in this part of the world is mind boggling.

First, Santorini is actually made up of 3 islands. They are Therea, Aspronisi, and Therasia. The reason there are 3 islands is because they all used to be one, but a volcanic eruption about 3,600 years ago blew up the mountain and left just the outside portions remaining. It is widely believed that this eruption totally destroyed the Mineoan civilization. This civilization existed a thousand years before the Greek and Roman empires and was just as advanced as they were, if not more.

In fact, the volcano is still active. Those little bits you see in the middle are from the mid 1800’s when there were two more eruptions. As late as 1956 the island had a significant earthquake that leveled many buildings on the island.

Our Viking Cruise itinerary included an optional climb to the top of the still active volcano on the island of Nea Kamini, which is the new mountain formed from one of the mid 1800’s eruptions. You take a boat ride from the old port of Fira on Thera and dock in Erinia Bay at the island. Then you start hiking.

Unfortunately only one member of the Goodell household made the trek up the side of the active, although dormant volcano. While the hike is only about one half mile long, the elevation is fairly dramatic. It rises about 170 meters from the port to the top of the volcano rim. The trail is a mixture of volcanic rubble, some steps, and a lot of loose debris. As Andrea likes to say, “ain’t doing no more f’ing mountain climbs”.

The whole trip was pretty amazing from taking the schooner over to the island, to the hike, to actually seeing some areas of the volcano where there is steam escaping from way down below your feet.

We start off the day with the tender coming in off the Viking Star into the port of Fira, then transferring boats to take us out to Erinia and the volcano.

Then it is off to climb the fiery volcano!

After the summit, it is time to head back to the ship, collect Andrea and explore the hilltop city of Fira. Taking the cable car up of course.

After reaching another summit for the day, time to take in Fira. No walls up here. There is no way any one could climb this mountain unannounced.

After exploring the streets and shops of the city, it is time to head back. The ship is leaving at 5:30 and they made it very clear, they are not waiting for anyone.

Unfortunately, the rest of the ship has the same idea and the line to go back down the cable car stretches into Athens. So, we decide to walk it. After all it is all down hill. What a pain. Between the donkey poop, lots and lots of people and the damn donkeys themselves, it was not exactly an easy trip. Plus, even though it was down the stairs, there were an awful lot of them.

At least we made it back to the ship on time. Off to Athens.

Map progress, Olympia to Santorini by ship.

June 24, 2019

This island was high on our list of anticipated stops on the Viking Star itinerary. As you can see by the title, this island was the site of the original Greek Olympics, first held in 780 BC. The games featured running, jumping, wrestling (originally known as pankration), long jump, boxing, and equestrian events. They started off as a one day event and around 684 BC were extended to a 3 day event. The games ended about 394 AD due to earthquakes and invasions by barbarians that destroyed the stadium and buildings.

The primary focus of the area was the stadium which could hold up to 45,000 people. The stadium was set in a small valley and spectators would sit on the hillsides. Officials and royalty had small buildings and seats. The original athletic field and parts of the buildings remain. The original starting and ending lines remain completely, as they are made of marble set into the ground.

As is commonly known, all the contests were contested with the athletes completely nude. The Greeks were very proud of the human form and liked to show it off. Might be one reason they got 45,000 to attend also.

The games were held every four years and bought in people, royalty, and athletes from around the civilized world. Even Nero, the Roman Emperor competed in a musical contest one year with his famous violin. Not surprisingly, he won. Yeah, like any one else had a chance that year.

The Olympic stadium is very close to what it was 3,000 years ago. As it was such a simple field and just a few buildings, it has held up well, despite the earthquakes and the barbarians. In fact, this location is still where the Olympic torch is lit every 4 years and transported to the current Olympic site.

Incredibly, this tradition was started by Adolph Hitler for the 1936 Berlin Olympic games. This is about the only thing he did that has lasted after his horrible regime ended.

The Temple of Zeus stood in the Olympic grounds also. At one time it was one of the 7 wonders of the world. Pheidias did the sculpture in the temple itself with help from his staff in his workshop on the Olympic grounds.

As another interesting historical point of this ancient site is the fact that during the excavations, archeologists found the remains of a structure from the Bronze Age, about 3,600 BC. Humans, and their Gods, have been occupying the Greek Islands for thousands of years. I guess they all liked the Ouzo and the naked people running around.

Now, on to the stadium. As it was so simple, much of it has survived to this day, despite the earthquakes, invading Barbarians and pissed off Olympic Gods.

The original starting line and finish line have survived. The row across the field in the picture above is the starting line. It is made of blocks of marble set into the ground. The finish line is the same. The length of the field is only about 212 meters, with about 192 meters between the start and finish lines. It is about 30 meters wide.

Now, a lot of people that know the Goodell family history know that we are a family of runners. So, as the first Goodell to actually enter an Olympic Stadium I felt it was my personal duty to actually run on the field and compete against the best athletes in the world. Don’t worry, I kept my clothes on.

I made it to the finish line, still in first place. Undefeated in Olympic history!!

After viewing the Olympic grounds, we went to their museum which houses most of the recovered art work and artifacts.

June 23, 2019

We are now in Corfu in the Greek Islands, winding our way to Athens. Corfu is one of the largest of these islands and has a pretty impressive history. As with this entire area, it has been inhabited for thousands of years. It used to be a major sea power and was heavily involved in the Peloponnesian Wars way back in the 5th century BC. It was a strong hold against the Ottoman empire and was one of the few places they did not overrun. It finally got taken over by the British Empire in the 1800’s and then ceded back to Greece in 1864.

We started off our day in Corfu with a shore excursion to the island for a little boat ride. We didn’t get to go fishing, or diving, but it was still a lot of fun.

Our captain was quite a local character. He had some good stories and spoke English fairly well. He and his buddies have a nice little business going. The tour companies funnel them a lot of tourists for a 30 minute boat ride on a nice circuit around the small port. We didn’t see any fishing gear, so I think they only use these boats for the tour rides.

We even saw a Greenpeace boat in the harbor. Not sure who or what they were saving, but it was a kind of interesting to see the ship.

After the great sea adventure, we went into town for awhile. The city features a prominent fort right in the harbor versus a walled in defense system. I guess you really can’t wall in an island mountain in the middle of the sea.

Map progress, to Corfu Greece via ship. Notice we went completely around Albania. Good decision.

June 22, 2019

Now why would we have a title like this in our post? How would we know that Kotor, Montenegro is nicer than Albania, it’s neighboring country. Well, first of all, most parts of the world, in my opinion, are nicer than Albania. Remember, avid reader, we have been there before to visit our daughter Jessica while she was in the Peace Corps back in 2011. We drove through Montenegro on the way out of Albania and remembered it as being very nice. It was. Except for the 50 Euro “car insurance” fee they hit us up with at the border. Oh well, every country has to have revenue sources.

Kotor is another ancient city that humans have inhabited for thousands of years with a similiar history of being overrun by the thundering hordes as the other coastal Adriatic cities. Their city wall is really impressive. It literally goes straight up and down the mountain. Let’s just say we declined to walk all of those steps.

Kotor is another great coastal city on the Adriatic. It follows the same pattern of seaside town, trying to protect itself from the invaders by building a really impressive wall around the city and way up the mountain. The town is very bustling with tourists and locals and of course the obligatory churches.

As we start to head out of Kotor on the Viking Star, we have one memorable video clip, dealing with some technical issues, common to the traveling blogger.

Daily map update. To Kotor, Montenegro by ship.

June 21, 2019

So, avid reader, let’s talk about life aboard the Viking Star for a bit. You know that we were less than impressed with several of our accommodations previous to boarding this great ship. Well, finally getting here and being on board made it all worth while. The ship is extremely comfortable, staff is great, food is excellent and most important, there is air conditioning in our cabin and throughout the ship. Imagine that.

We did have an unfortunate night when we accidentally turned off the AC by not locking the balcony door, but that was kind of our fault and kind of bad information on the part of the ship. We’ll let that one slide.

Dubrovnik is a great mixture of the feel of Venice, yet still remains a medieval walled in fortress. It is situated right at the base of the mountains, right on the water.

We got to explore some nearby towns and saw some water wheel machinery, about 400 years old, that is still producing floor and textiles for the area.

After the tour of the water wheels and surrounding area, Andrea went back to the ship to get out of the heat, I went to explore the town.

The really interesting feature is the wall that pretty much is still intact and surrounds the city. They charge you to climb up and explore the top of the walls and the towers, so of course I had to do that.

I made it up and down the wall and decided to find a place for a couple of beers. Hey I was thirsty after all that climbing. The town itself is full of shops, restaurants, and a few characters.

Some of the local characters include cats. Lots of cats. We noticed that throughout Croatia. On the plus side, we did not see any rodents signs. So, the cats must be taking care of business.

I found a friendly outdoor bar and talked to a nice Argentinian couple for about 15 minutes. I got to practice my Spanish. They gave me some tips on where to go in Argentina and some travel advisories. We should be down there sometime by the end of this year, or beginning of next.

Then took in a few more sights and back to the ship for drinks and dinner.

Daily map update.

We left Venice in the dead of night, heading for our first port, Koper, Slovenia. We are visiting the Balkan countries of the former Yugoslavia. You may recall the horrific civil wars they had there in the 1990’s. The wars are over, but there are still some hostilities, or bad feelings, between some of the countries, primarily Croatia and Serbia. We had no issues at all on the cruise as we were with the Viking tour groups. We were sources of tourism dollars to these folks. They liked us.

Koper is a typical, ancient, European town. Humans have lived there for about 6,000 years. It has been overrun by every civilization from the beginning of recorded times. The Romans, Venetians, Ottomans, Prussians, Nazis. You name it, they conquered Koper.

We did a shore excursion with a very nice lady, who was a native of Koper and very proud of her home town.

One item of particular interest in this quaint little town is the Assumption Cathedral. It was built in the 1200’s and contains the remains of Saint Rosario. The poor son of a gun had his bones stolen by various factions over several hundred years before finally being returned to Koper in the 1800’s. They regard his birthday of June 19th as a religious holiday and display his remains in the church. As our guide informed us, we were there on a very special day.

One interesting item we saw, at least I thought it was interesting, was the unloading of the freighter in dock next to us. Those crane operators look like they are having a lot of fun.

The next day is off to Zadar, Croatia. This little town is very similiar to Koper. Old, historical, and been over run by everyone in history.

Zadar is bigger than Koper and has a more complete city wall surrounding the town. These city walls were fortifications, used by most towns and cities, to try and stop all the invaders that kept coming through over the centuries. In Zadar, the walls were thicker, higher, and better maintained, so they kept out a fair share of the bad guys.

Like the other cities in this area, the Romans, Venetians, and Greeks had a tremendous influence on Zadar. The remains of the ancient roman buildings are just stacked all over the place.

The Roman ruins are so extensive that the people of Zadar actually used the remains of the Roman buildings to construct new buildings through the centuries.

Take a look a the base of this church built in the 1200’s. The foundation is made of fragments of Roman columns. Those pieces are not just piled next to the building. They make up the actual structure.

The city walls, or fortifications, are still very intact in Zadar. They totally enclose the town and still act as entry/exit points. As the city is situated right on the coast, it was a highly desirable location throughout the centuries.

When we got back to the Viking Star, we had a nice little surprise waiting for us. The cabin crew knew it was our anniversary!

2 days of travel by ship, so 2 maps.

June 18, 2019

As the title indicates, we have been to Venice previously. This occurred in 2011 when our daughter, Jessica, was in the Peace Corps in Albania. We took a trip, driving, from England across Europe, and met up with her in Venice. She flew to Venice from Albania. Together, we then drove down the eastern coast of Italy and took a ferry from Bari, Italy to Tirana, Albania and then on to her apartment and life in Shkodra, Albania. Short story is, we had a great trip but all agreed that we did not like Venice. It was extremely crowded, very dirty, and did not have much charm, even though the historical aspects were astounding.

We are happy to report that Venice obviously did some soul searching in the past few years and has cleaned up their act (literally) quite a bit. We spent the day in Venice after boarding the ship and had a great time.

We dropped off the luggage to the baggage crew for the ship in the port, took the rental car to the Venice airport and turned it in and got a taxi back to the ship. And a very nice ship it is indeed!

The Viking Star, of the Viking Sea Cruise Line, is a truly luxury cruise ship with only 930 passengers on board. All state rooms have a balcony. The service and food are tremendous. All shore excursions are included, although you can upgrade to some more adventurous excursions if you so desire. We did several of these.

This cruise was booked by the family travel agent, Andrea, as a surprise to Randy as a retirement present (remember, we are retired. I may mention this a time or two over the next few months). However, once Jessica and Vijay announced their engagement and prospective wedding date of June, 2019, Andrea had to spill the beans to everyone and make sure they didn’t schedule their wedding during the trip. Needless to say everything worked out fine. Andrea and Randy attended the nuptials and a few days later were on the plane to Milan.

As an interesting side note, Jess and Vijay took their honeymoon in Italy right after they were married. Same time as Randy and Andrea were in Milan, Venice etc. For some reason, they never offered to meet up with us. Huuuuuummmmmmm.

Venice truly is an historic icon and amazing place to visit. Just the buildings, the gondolas, and the canals are enough to take your breath away. Just try to find a day when you can visit without 50,000 of your closest friends enjoying the city with you.

What was really cool was the fact that the Viking Star left the Venice port at night. It was quite fascinating to see that huge ship wind it’s way through the outer canal out to the sea.

It took about an hour for the ship to get out to sea, winding it’s way through the canal and channels. Quite a sight.

Oh yeah, don’t forget about the first drinks on the ship!

Here is the itinerary for the next 9 days. Pretty cool, huh?

Daily map

June 16 – 17, 2019

As mentioned in the previous post, we bailed on the walled in basement Airbnb in Monte Carlo and booked a 5 star hotel in Genova, Italy. This was a very nice hotel, well worth using some accumulated American Express points to flee Monaco, (well not Monaco, apologies to Prince Albert, just the “apartment”).

We started out from Genova early the next day to check into another B&B, booked through Booking.com. We were looking for a place near Venice where we could spend the night before we board the Viking Star cruise ship for our 10 day Adriatic Sea cruise. The town, Castlefranco, was supposed to have a neat castle in it that we wanted to see on the way out to Venice.

This place was advertised as a B&B, with air conditioning and a laundry on premise. Let’s just say we were now 0 for 2 with booking these “apartments”. We knew we had to share a bathroom, which should have been typical for a B&B. But, we didn’t bargain for the rest of the issues.

This place turned out to be a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom (1 bath and 1 bedroom locked off for their private use), apartment that a couple was obviously renting out on the side, trying to make some extra money. The couple was very nice, but kind of like the con man that is very polite as he drains your bank account. First words out of his mouth was “just so you know, there is no breakfast”. OK, we could deal with that. The rest was a bit much.

The apartment had air conditioning; in the master bedroom that we could not use. The apartment had a washer/dryer, with a big sign on it that said “DO NOT USE” in several languages. The best part was that we absolutely could not find it at first (sound familiar, kind of like Monte Carlo)? This place was on the second floor of an office/retail building that had residential units on the second and third floor. We kept driving around buildings that looked liked B&B’s saying is this it, is this it? The GPS kept telling us to keep driving.

We finally got directions from a nice young lady that got us into the elevator into the correct building to find the unit. The neighborhood while not really bad; it had a shopping mall and hospital right next to it, had some interesting clientele in the retail section.

Bottom line is we spent a very hot, uncomfortable, night in the “B&B” and got out of Dodge as quickly as we could the next morning. To top it off, we never did find the castle in Castlefranco and just headed straight to Venice to meet up with the Viking cruise ship.

Two days of maps on this post.

June 15, 2019

After the Fashion Capitol of the world, might as well go to one of the gambling capitols of the world – Monte Carlo. That’s right, Monaco. Land of flashy cars, beautiful women, and martinis, shaken not stirred. There was even a 007 martini on the menu in the casino.

On our way to Monaco, we stopped at a gorgeous little Italian sea side town for lunch. Our lunch companion was Walter the pigeon, who obviously owned the restaurant.

Monaco is absolutely gorgeous, nestled in the seaside hills of the French Riviera. Now, translate that to mean very narrow, twisting winding roads built for horses, and hills. Oh yeah, lots of hills and that means lots of steps.

To say getting a room at the casino itself was a bit out of our price range is a vast understatement. So, we booked a quaint little Airbnb just up the hill from the casino.

Remember those travel tips we talked about in the last post, avid reader? Well, let’s continue the education and move on to booking hotels and Airbnb’s in Europe. We thought we were booking a tidy little studio apartment with air conditioning on a main thorough fare in Monte Carlo. That’s what Antoinette said in her listing on Airbnb. Well, to put it delicately, Antoinette is a f…..ing liar.

See example.

The address she gave us was phony. It was a store on Avenue St. Charles, which is the primary road through the upper part of town. After texting her constantly, she finally arranged for her mother to meet us in front of a flea bag hotel. We thought we were going to get stuck in the flea bag hotel. But, noooooooo. She takes us to the walled in driveway into a tiny studio that you couldn’t burp in without it reverberating off the walls. We wished we had been put into the fleabag hotel. We were supposed to stay two nights, we survived one night and limped out of town to a 5 star hotel in Genova, Italy. More on that later. Lesson is, be careful of booking Airbnbs. More on that in future posts.

As said before, Monte Carlo is an incredible town in a very tiny but beautiful country. It is situated in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Needless to say, lots of big impressive ships and boats in the harbor.

The main attraction though, is obviously the casino.

This is the only casino we have ever had to pay to get into. No kidding. We paid 30 euro, each, and had to present ID to get registered to get in. However, once we got in, we got 20 euro back in chips, each. We broke the bank. I won 100 euro with my famous roulette system (Andrea pulled me away from the table when she saw I was winning, that might have helped) and Andrea hit them for 20 euro on the slots. Andrea had a cosmo, I had a 007 shaken martini as we mingled with the Jet Set.

Lots of lots of steps. We finally did find an escalator that became our very good friend.

After determining that we just couldn’t bear another night in the “studio” we booked a very nice hotel in Genova, Italy and headed out, on our way to Castle Franco prior to boarding the Viking Cruise from Venice to Athens.

Remember the map!!

June 14, 2019

Milan is not a primary tourist destination in Italy like Rome, Florence, or Venice. It is a very big bussling commercial city, but it is one of the Fashion Capitols of the world. Us world travelers are certainly not fashion divas. We put on underwear (usually), a couple of pairs of socks, and enough clothes to keep us out of trouble when we are out and about in public. But, hey, it’s Milan. Let’s go take a look.

Now listen you avid reader. Here is the first of many travel tips that we will impart to you. First tip is to choose the correct train (or bus, or subway etc) that will get you to your destination. Just because the big noisy train station is conveniently located right next to your hotel, doesn’t necessarily make it the right train for where you want to go. It could be taking people, and unsuspecting you, to far away foreign lands and evil places. It makes a lot more sense to suck it up, ask for directions from a local, and make the hike up the narrow, twisting, winding streets with the countless steps (uphill both ways) to get to the correct train station. Not saying we got on the train to the far away evil places, just warning you not to do that. Enough said.

Eventually we headed off to Il Piazza Duomo. This is in the center of Milan and is quite impressive. The main site is the City Cathedral.

Second recommendation reader, is to plan your trip before you start the journey. We suggest the night before or at least at breakfast before you take off. Trying to figure out your stop (on the correct train) while you are riding it, is not a good idea.

Finally, the big payoff!!

Here are some of the sights in and around the Piazza.

And of course, the STORES!!

My personal favorite part of the Piazza was seeing this gorgeous Ferrari store, full of classy, very expensive cars, right next to …….

Yep, McDonalds. They are all over the place.

As this is the Fashion Capitol of the world, it figures that we would see some pretty silly and unexplainable sights. Well, here is a good one.

It is obviously a horse. But what in the world is it standing on?

Yep, bed mattresses. We could not figure out the meaning of this in any conceivable way. Oh well, fashionistas we are not.

Map progress – none, still in Milan, Italy.