Mediterranean Cruise Oceania Marina – Part III: Santa Cruz de la Palma to Lisbon and Home

Monday 10 June: Santa Cruz de la Palma: Roger After another night of smooth sailing we arrived at Santa Cruz de la Palma. La Palma is another volcanic island; with its base 4000m under the sea and rising to over 2400m and with sea clouds giving it plenty of rain, it has a good supply […]

Mediterranean Cruise Oceania Marina: Part II – Casablanca to Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Thursday 6 June – Casablanca: Roger At 0800 we disembarked the ship on the port side. On arrival at  Casablanca the ship  turned around just outside the port and backed in. We strolled through the customs area unchallenged as the ship takes care of all the immigration side of things. We just had to show […]

Mediterranean Cruise – Oceania Marina: Part I Rome to Gibraltar (Cadiz)

Saturday 1 June – Embarkation: Roger We had a late relaxing start to the day. After sitting around chatting for a while, we took a stroll around the Fortezza Michelangelo and along the sea wall to Pier 12, where the Oceania cruise liner, Marina, was docked, having arrived early this morning and disembarked the passengers […]

Mediterranean Jaunt – Part III: Cinque Terre and Tuscany

Tuesday 28 May 2024: Roger Last night Barbara, at the La Toretta Hotel in Manarola, explained that the walk to Corniglia should take two-and-a-half hours, starting with 1200 steps taking us up to the first village of Volastra. After breakfast we set off, following the path, or should I say rough steps, up the hill. […]

Mediterranean Jaunt – Part II: Crete

Friday 24 May: Roger We departed the Elysium hotel at 0645 for the 90-plus minute journey on the well travelled A3 to the Larnaka airport. After dropping off the rental car we headed through immigration and security before boarding our 1.55 hr flight to Athens. The crew on Aegean air have nice uniforms and are […]

Mediterranean Jaunt – Part I: Cyprus

Sunday 19 May – Monday 20 May: Roger It was just 1300 when we pushed back from the gate at Auckland International Airport on Qatar Airlines for the 17-hour flight to Doha. Heading west across the Tasman, then across Australia, out over the Indian Ocean, then across the Arabian Sea, over Oman and Saudi Arabia […]