Adventures Abroad: And Then We Got Gelato

The Norwegian Gem

Andrea and I celebrated our first year anniversary and we wanted to do it in style. We decided instead of getting each other gifts we would book a cruise to Greece. With the challenges of my job we weren’t able to go on the actual date, but we were able to go a couple of weeks later. We are glad we did! Since we went in June, the weather was perfect. The temps really didn’t reach much higher than mid 80’s and since we walked all over the place we didn’t get too hot or exhausted from being out in the sun all day. The cruise started in Venice then traveled to five ports of call; Split Croatia, Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos, and Iraklion. The benefit of the itinerary we chose was that there was only one full day at sea. We liked this because we figured it gave us the most bang for our buck and visited the most cities for our week long vacation.

Andrea at Rialto Bridge

We followed Andrea’s tradition of booking extremely early travel, and got up at an ungodly hour of 3am to drive to the airport. Luckily Stansted airport is less than an hour away, but anything at 3am is brutal. But by 7am we were off on another adventure! First stop Venice. We had planned to arrive a day early to enjoy the city and get rested for the cruise. We booked a hotel close to the ferry terminal, but still close enough to city center to walk. Since we arrived early we dropped our bags with the front desk and went out to explore the city. This was my first trip to Venice, and I loved it. The Canals, historic buildings, and architecture, everything was amazing. Our first stop for the day was St. Mark’s Square followed by Rialto Bridge. Those were the only must sees and we spent the rest of the day touring around. Andrea was very excited to find the same place that she had found on her last visit that served drinking chocolate, basically a very thick, delicious hot chocolate drink. Since it was pretty hot out we enjoyed the air-conditioning while we drank our drinking chocolate. I was really excited to find a good pizza by the slice place for lunch. For dinner we ate at a restaurant that had a patio right on the canal, and enjoyed our wine and pasta. We were having such a great time we decided to go for a walk and find gelato (Italian ice cream) before turning in. Our short walk turned into something else. We missed the bridge crossing the canal that we needed to take to get back to our hotel and ended up having to loop all the way around the city to get back! I’m not saying we were lost, but we definitely took the long way home. We got to see so much of the city and had some ideas of places we wanted to return to if we had time before we headed back home. There are not any motor vehicles within the city of Venice, so everybody moves by foot or boat. That means all the taxis and busses are boats kind of weird to us, but added to the charm of the city.

Waiting to Board

The next day we got up refreshed after our long day before and got a breakfast of delicious baked goods and some very tasty coffee. We grabbed our things and proceeded to the cruise ship. Luckily our hotel staff told us about a new tram that runs from the bus station to the docks. Most people were arriving by, water taxi, or bus. I think the average price was 50 Euro while our tram cost us about two Euros a person. We dropped off our bags and went to the check-in area. We had to wait to board the ship, and even once on the ship we had to wait a couple of hours to gain access to our room and our luggage. After our number was called and we were allowed to get on the boat and we climbed on board ready for fun. Since we had to wait for our room we bellied up to the bar in the main lounge. We couldn’t resist the temptation of our traditional “celebratory” drink, mimosas made with cranberry juice. We enjoyed our drinks and took in the main lounge of the boat. The decoration was amazing! There were vibrant colors and interesting pieces of art everywhere.

The Traditional Canberry Mimosa

After finishing off our drinks we decided to take advantage of the downtime and explore the ship. The ship was huge! There were about nine different bars and lounges, seven restaurants, and a lot of other rooms for activities. To name a few activities: there was bowling, movies, a theater, gym, pool, outdoor running track, climbing wall, tennis courts, spa, shopping and a casino. I started to get a little disappointed that we only had one day at sea, because there was so much to enjoy on the boat and we weren’t going to have too much time to do it all.

Waterfall at Krka Nation Forest

Our first port of call was Split, Croatia. Andrea and I had no clue about this city. Luckily Andrea’s friend Ava had been there before and gave us some good tips on what to see. Based off her recommendation we decided to book an excursion to the Krka National Park. The park is known for their waterfalls and beauty. We were ready for a long day of hiking. When we arrived we took off to hike the whole trail around the falls. We were told to plan for at least an hour and a half and that it is kind of hard. What a joke! We finished in about 30 minutes and ended up going around it twice. The hike was very easy, but the scenery was extremely beautiful. We took a lot of pictures and enjoyed getting out and being in the sun. After the bus ride back to the city, we had a little time to explore. The city was really cool. The marina area had a lot of neat little cafes and bars. We explored around a little, found some gelato, and returned to the boat for the evening.

Fortress in Corfu

The next day the boat pulled into the city of Corfu, Greece. Corfu is a town of two fortresses. We left the ship thinking that we would walk into the city and if we got too tired we would taxi it back. As we walked in, we passed the first fortress. We followed some signs thinking we would be able to tour the site. Unfortunately, a building complex that is hundreds of years old is still being used as an active naval base. As we explored further into the city we were engulfed by the town market. The city was pretty large and had stores everywhere. We poked around a lot of them but didn’t buy anything until I found gelato! Eventually the market area ended and we came upon the other fortress. This one we could tour. We went in, explored the buildings of the citadel and castle and finally decided that it was time for our late lunch. We passed a lot of places that had our mouths watering from the smell of garlic, onions, and roasted meats. We decided on a place with seating next to the park. I ordered a veal dish with a garlic sauce and Andrea had a pork gyro. The food was outstanding as well was the bottle of local wine. We ended the day by wandering back through the shops and getting more gelato. We eventually made it back to the boat, hot, tired, and ready for a dip in the pool before attending our much anticipated martini tasting.

Santorini

The next evening we pulled in to Santorini. Since we didn’t arrive until the evening we got the day to enjoy the pool and the facilities of the boat. Santorini is an amazing city. It is what you think of when you hear Greece. White washed buildings on the cliff side with colorful roofs and doors. When you arrive by boat, you have a couple of ways to get up on the cliff; climbing a steep path, ride a donkey, or cable car. We contemplated the donkey ride but decided that the cable car was the best decision. We had met a couple at our martini tasting the day prior and had talked about splitting a cab to a local winery. After getting to the top of the cliff we grabbed a cab and went to a winery for wine tasting. The wine was very good as well was the olives, cheeses, and breads we snacked on. The cab returned to take us to dinner. We had no idea where we wanted to go so I asked the driver to take us someplace good for seafood and to take some pictures. As he drove on, we got farther and farther away from the city and onto some very curvy, steep, and narrow streets. Finally we pulled into the most beautiful setting I’ve ever seen. He took us to a place with about five restaurants at the base of the cliff; looking west out over the water. We were all speechless! We grabbed a table for dinner and settled in to enjoy the sunset out over the ocean. The fish was extremely fresh and everything was delicious. It was a perfect evening. The taxi picked us back up and we had a little time to enjoy the town of Santorini. I searched unsuccessfully for gelato but had a lot of fun looking through the shops and enjoying the view as it got dark. That evening, after we were back on the boat, we talked with some people about what we did and the lady was extremely jealous. Apparently Sunset Taverna, the place we ate dinner, was on Samantha Brown’s show Passport to Europe on the Travel Channel. It was the only thing she wanted to see when in Greece and didn’t make it down there.

Paradise Beach

After a short sailing while we were asleep we moored in Mykonos. What a cool looking city. All the buildings are white washed with very narrow winding alleyways and streets. It was a very confusing city to walk around because the roads seemed to loop around every which way without any visible landmarks. Apparently it was designed this way to confuse pirates and make it hard for them to plunder the city. We arrived very early and most of the shops were closed. So we decided to grab a quick breakfast and then continue on our one and only objective for the day, the beach. We had heard great things about the Paradise Beach, and we wanted to spend a day relaxing on the sand and drinking tasty beverages. Unfortunately the weather did not want to cooperate. We battled the wind and the rain as we search for a local bus that would drive us across the island to the beach. We were not to be deterred by the weather and boarded our bus for the beach! We finally arrived at the beach and the weather was the exact opposite of what it was on the other side of the island. The sun was out and it was beautiful. We walked into the walled off beach and we laughed at some of the paintings on the wall. The paintings were of nude people walking along the beach. Apparently on this beach you can go full nude if you choose. As we stepped on the beach we were greeted by a 50ish year old, overweight man frolicking around the beach in nothing other than what he was born in. Awesome! We were in for a spectacle. We walked farther down the beach to an area of bars and restaurants that had beach chairs for rent. We grabbed some chairs and took a sigh of relief because apparently the “free spirits” tended to hangout (and I mean hangout) at the far end of the beach. We had a great day enjoying the sun, some tasty beverages, and just relaxing. We finally packed up our gear and headed back into town to find a late lunch. We walked the streets a little looking for some gyros. The smell of garlic and onions filled our nostrils and we knew we found our spot. We both had amazing chicken gyros with chips and salad. We browsed the shops a little, I had gelato, and Andrea had a crepe, met the local pelican Petros, and finally made our way back to the ship.

Iraklion Marina

By this point we were pretty exhausted and ready for a little break. We had one more city to visit and then we had our day at sea. The final city was Iraklion. The boat pulled into port very early. We only had a half day, and we wanted to take advantage of it. We left the ship as early as we could, ready to venture out and find some local culture. As we started walking through the town we noticed most things were closed, since it was so early. We figured if we walked along the ocean front, we would eventually find something. Well, we kind of found something, but it was basically a local mall. We got Starbucks, pulled out the map and tried to decide on a plan of attack. We saw a monument that looked promising and was kind of close to us so we decided to head that way. We were kind of in the bad part of town so we had to dodge traffic, animals, and a lot of rough looking people as we made our way to the monument. Not the scenic tour of the city we were looking for. Finally, we made it to the monument! It consisted of two grave stones, not well kept, for a famous writer that died in 1957 and his wife that died in 2004. What a waste of time! We were basically done at that point and were ready to write off Iraklion. Fortunately, we decided to take a different route back and what a difference. We ended up walking to the local market area and had a great time going through the shops. We found some gelato, fresh baklava, and really enjoyed ourselves doing some people watching, seeing what the local merchants had to offer, and exploring a fortress out on the seawall. We had to make it an early day since the boat was leave just after noon. We ventured back preparing for our day at sea.

Achellies (yes I named him), He Followed Us Around Iraklion

Overall we loved our experience on the boat. We had an estate room with a balcony that looked out over the ocean. We loved to sit out there, read, and enjoy the fresh morning air after waking up. The room we pretty small but it had everything we needed. A very comfortable bed, a small seating area, and a full bathroom that was bigger than we expected. We didn’t spend much time in our room because there was always so much to do on board.

Our Estate Room

As I mentioned earlier, probably our favorite thing on board was the martini tastings. Finding interesting martinis and cocktails is pretty hard in the UK and we really wanted to take advantage of our time on board to enjoy some tasty drinks while we had the opportunity. Luckily the cruise offered a couple different martini tastings where one of their master bartenders mixed four different types of martinis for us to try. We got smaller portion of the drinks than you would have if you had ordered it from the bar, but it was still enough to make it worth our money. It was pretty interesting because each day it was a different theme and we got to try a large variety of drinks while learning the history of each drink. Besides the excellent martinis we created a martini club with some of the other couples we met during the first event. It was a lot of fun! There was only supposed to be three tasting during the cruise, but we were able to convenience our favorite bartender, Lindsey, to do a fourth. After tasting 16 different martinis and learning how to make them, Andrea and I are ready to mix up some tasty concoctions when you all come and visit.

The Pool Deck

Another favorite of ours was the pool. The boat had a huge pool deck with two different pools, a few water slides, four Jacuzzis, multiple bars, a buffet and tapas station, and poolside blackjack! We tried to spend as much of our free time out by the pool as we could. It was a lot of fun! They offered different activities all day as well as special lunches and dinners grilled on the pool deck. I realized that you had to be careful when ordering a drink from the bar. The night prior I had sangria with my meal. It was a large glass and it cost around $6 so I figured I would order it again. This time they brought out a Super Big Gulp sized pitcher full of Sangria. To my surprise, it was $30. I’m glad it was very tasty or I would have been upset about my expensive drink! Unfortunately we didn’t have as much time as we liked out by the pool, but there was so much more to do on the boat.

Yummmmmm!

An interesting thing about the Norwegian Cruise Line was that they offered a lot of different options for food. There were the standard dining rooms and buffets that you find on other cruise ships, but they also had other places to eat for a small fee. We dined at the Mexican, Asian Fusion with Sushi, and the Japanese Steakhouse restaurants. These places offered a good alternative to the standard cruise fare and were a nice treat.

Enjoying an On Deck Party by the Pool

While on the boat we also took in a show in the theater. They had two performers from Cirque du Soleil that did a 45 minute performance that was really good. I spent a little time (and money) in the casino. Andrea took advantage of our day at sea and enjoyed a morning in the spa. She got a body wrap with a massage. She looked relaxed and radiant when she met me by the pool after her treatment. The boat also had an art gallery, bowling alley, Wii sports, and a ton of other things to do. We didn’t take it all in, but we tried.

Venice From the Boat

After our long day at sea, we woke up to us pulling into port in Venice. It was sad, to open the drapes and see the dock off our balcony. We knew our cruise was over! We packed up and headed off the ship and back into Venice. We booked a late flight so we could get one more day in Venice.

Glass Blowing

We dropped our bags off at a checked luggage place at the bus station and proceeded on our way. Our goal for the day was to go to Murano Island. Murano is famous for their glass blowing and we wanted to watch some glass objects being made. We walked through Venice, stopping for some gelato along the way and caught the water taxi to the island. We went into a couple of studios where they were actively blowing glass. How fascinating! To sit there and watch somebody take a glob of molten glass on the end of a long rod and turn it into an object like a horse or a vase is very impressive. Murano glass is known for the colors and a specific style, but it was interesting to browse through the different shops and see how each studio differs for the other. We bought a few souvenirs, enjoyed some lunch with some local wine and preceded back into Venice. I had one more thing I had to do before we left.

The Result

I needed to hit my favorite gelato place one more time. I couldn’t get enough of the cookies gelato and I wanted to enjoy it one last time before we headed home. With our stomachs full of tasty gelato, we headed back to the bus station to catch our bus back to the airport and for our two hour flight home.

Enjoying Gelato

We cannot wait to take another cruise! What a great way to explore a lot of different cities and areas. We aren’t sure where we will go next, but we are looking at a cruise that goes through the Baltic Sea and hits St Petersburg Russia, or a western Mediterranean cruise through Italy, the French Riviera, and Spain. Whatever we chose, we can’t wait to go.