28th - Cruise

On our way to Venice to meet up with our boat, the Costa Fortuna, quite an appropriate name Costa Fortune! We boarded with much delight in finding our cabin with a balcony, our own bathroom and even a closet to store our clothes. Small luxuries you miss when you are camping… we then departed from port and headed past Venice. What a truly amazing city… beautiful canals everywhere - it was everything I imagined and even more. We then started to explore our cruiseliner - 12 bars, 4 restaurants, 3 pools, hair salon, beautician, sauna, 8 jaccuzi's, fully equipped theatre with 3000 guests and 1000 crew… Ahoy we go..

29th - Bari

We stopped at the port in Bari - on the south east coast of Italy. We walked around the old town and went to St Nicolas church - the saint responsible for creating the present day notion of Father Christmas. We then walked around the new town and were hindered once again with good old Siesta - all the shops were closed until the ship left port. Stopped in for another great Italian espresso…

30th - Katakolon

Our first Greek stop of our journey!! The cute little fishing village was lined with tourist shops to take advantage of the passing cruise ship trade. Explored the cute town and stopped in for an Ice Coffee.

1st October - Santorini & Mykonos

Ah the day of the Greek Islands in the Cyclades

Our day started rather early - joining our tour group at 7.15am. We boarded a bus on the way to Oia village (pronounced ee-ah). Santorini used to be known as the village with more wine than water, more donkeys than people and more churches than houses. Oia village was breathtakingly beautiful - you couldn't take a bad photo. Whitewashed walls with blue dome roofs on the backdrop of the crystal blue ocean made for a postcard setting. We wandered through the little stone cobbled streets to find the cutest cafes and little art & jewellery shops. Next stop was Fira - which was bustling with people, souvenirs and restaurants. We took in the great views and watched in amazement as the donkeys brought people up the cliff of 585 steps. We took a cable car down to tender and back to cruising..

6pm we arrived in Mykonos - dubbed 'little venice'. It is not hard to see why when you start getting lost in the labyrinth of white & blue painted alleyways. Apparently this was purposefully done to confuse visiting sailors and especially pirates. We took photos of the infamous windmills and beautiful sunset. We had a great and cheap greek dinner of Pork Gyros and chips for €2.60 each. Loving Greek prices and hospitality. We explored some more before having to sadly head back to our ship.

2nd - Rhodes

We were excited to visit Rhodes as our only full day stopover. We jumped off the ship and headed towards the old walled city of Rhodes on a mission to hire ourselves some 4 wheelers. Unfort wrong licences and lack of documentation we got a Suzuki Vitara soft top instead with an Irish couple we had met on the boat. The 4 of us cruised up the very dry and barren Rhodesian coast headed for Lindos. After the sweltering heat we de-toured the ruins of Lindos and hit the idyllic crystal blue waters instead. Had lunch with best tzatziki ever!! Then we made our way slowly back down the coast again dropping in at another beach to cool down.

3rd - Cruising

Well today was a day spent on the ship, a long drive from Rhodes up to Dubrovnik. We entertained ourselves with the onboard Jacuzzis and pools, went to the gym and Meeks did pilates, finished off our books and even had a game of bingo.