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Vacation 2009 -- Sept 25 - Oct 9
Oct. 16th, 2009 08:37 pmSo I haven't really written up about my vacay and the pics are still sitting on my camera, but I will get to it at some point! Promise! It took until the airport trip home to even find a lined notebook to write in. Next time I take a trip like this, I'm going to spend the $$ for a netbook so I can type as I go along. Seriously.
We went on a (swank Celebrity Solstice) cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean, and stopped at:
Mykonos, Greece (Delos/Thelos is there - legendary birthplace of Apollo/Artemis, and no one other than two security guards and a few archeologists are even allowed to live on the island - it's nothing but ruins and four itty bitty yellow cottages. It's AWESOME.)
Santorini, Greece (overpriced souvenirs and a famous sunset...? I didn't find much to do there because I don't have an unlimited shopping budget.)
Athens, Greece (it's a big city. Really. Oh, and an acropolis. Mostly city.)
Istanbul, Turkey (I want to go again when there aren't 8 other cruise ships and their passengers wedged into the harbor and city's most famous sites; it's a lovely city and other than the really forward vendors, everyone there is lovely, too.)
Kusadasi, Turkey (Ephesus' ruins are here, only 15% excavated, and FABULOUS. I could spend a week here, easily. Also, same stuff as Istanbul's bazaar but cheaper and not nearly as crowded. Double-plus. Buy your rugs here and a portion of the proceeds go back into the women's college/training funds so they can get ahead.)
Naples/Capri, Italy (The Amalfi coast is gorgeous; our tour didn't stop at Capri, but we spent two hours wandering Pompeii, which was fantastic for the sheer sense of history and scale, despite the rather unimpressive state of preservation. I hear Herculaneum is in better shape, but there's less of it to see.)
Started/finished near Rome, so we did arrive 3 days early. Rome is a city I could easily spend a week in (with a secure purse, because hello, pickpockets! It's the focal point of the guide books...)
Good heavens, the history in that part of the world is just... awe-inspiring. Because it's intact - Istanbul still has Imperial Roman walls standing around much of its waterfront. Gorgeous city.
I took 1200+ pics. I would have taken more, but I forgot my second memory card and figured I could suffer 8MP instead of 12 to fit them all on one. They're getting resized, anyway. I think I'll survive. :)
First real vacation in 8 years (I did the math...) and OMG would I ever do it again in a heartbeat. (And it's amazing how easy it is to get up in the mornings for work now that I've actually had time to unwind and truly relax. SCA trips are great, but they're most often working vacations, and thus, there's not much time to relax or unwind or breathe and just *be* for a few hours or days.)
We went on a (swank Celebrity Solstice) cruise around the Eastern Mediterranean, and stopped at:
Mykonos, Greece (Delos/Thelos is there - legendary birthplace of Apollo/Artemis, and no one other than two security guards and a few archeologists are even allowed to live on the island - it's nothing but ruins and four itty bitty yellow cottages. It's AWESOME.)
Santorini, Greece (overpriced souvenirs and a famous sunset...? I didn't find much to do there because I don't have an unlimited shopping budget.)
Athens, Greece (it's a big city. Really. Oh, and an acropolis. Mostly city.)
Istanbul, Turkey (I want to go again when there aren't 8 other cruise ships and their passengers wedged into the harbor and city's most famous sites; it's a lovely city and other than the really forward vendors, everyone there is lovely, too.)
Kusadasi, Turkey (Ephesus' ruins are here, only 15% excavated, and FABULOUS. I could spend a week here, easily. Also, same stuff as Istanbul's bazaar but cheaper and not nearly as crowded. Double-plus. Buy your rugs here and a portion of the proceeds go back into the women's college/training funds so they can get ahead.)
Naples/Capri, Italy (The Amalfi coast is gorgeous; our tour didn't stop at Capri, but we spent two hours wandering Pompeii, which was fantastic for the sheer sense of history and scale, despite the rather unimpressive state of preservation. I hear Herculaneum is in better shape, but there's less of it to see.)
Started/finished near Rome, so we did arrive 3 days early. Rome is a city I could easily spend a week in (with a secure purse, because hello, pickpockets! It's the focal point of the guide books...)
Good heavens, the history in that part of the world is just... awe-inspiring. Because it's intact - Istanbul still has Imperial Roman walls standing around much of its waterfront. Gorgeous city.
I took 1200+ pics. I would have taken more, but I forgot my second memory card and figured I could suffer 8MP instead of 12 to fit them all on one. They're getting resized, anyway. I think I'll survive. :)
First real vacation in 8 years (I did the math...) and OMG would I ever do it again in a heartbeat. (And it's amazing how easy it is to get up in the mornings for work now that I've actually had time to unwind and truly relax. SCA trips are great, but they're most often working vacations, and thus, there's not much time to relax or unwind or breathe and just *be* for a few hours or days.)
