Arrived in Barcelona at 8.30am after 36 hours from Melbourne. Not ideal. After dropping off our bags and relaxing with a cool drink We decided to do the Barcelona Hop On Hop Off bus tour to get a feel for the layout of the city rather than walking about. Might have shut the eyes a few times on the way around but it gave us a view of the attractions and ideas for places to go back and visit. Hotel Europark is about 10 minutes walk to Plaza Catalunya the main city...

We sailed over night from Mykonos and arrived back in Istanbul at 2pm as we had the next three days we stayed on the ship enjoying the first sun we had for a week. David was very glad to be getting off the ship and not having dinner in the dining room so we had a casual dinner from the buffet where it was very quiet and we didn't have to wait to be waited on. We planned to go to the show but met some very friendly Aussies and an English couple David had talked to...

When we woke today we were docked in Mykonos Greece. The view from the ship was as we had imagined white houses dotting the hills with splashes of blue but the weather was surely not typical. We should have been here on Sunday but due to high winds the ship sailed to Kusadasi Turkey first then to Athens and to Mykonos on the way back to Istanbul. The wind blew gale force all day and although it was sunny the wind made it cool enough to wear a jumper. I carried t...

One day in Athens is not enough. We decided to get the Hop on hop off bus rather than go on tour and wait for others to keep up hopefully we would see more by ourselves. The ship was docked in Piraeus which is seven miles from Athens and the Piraeus bus connects with the Athens city bus making it easy to get into the city. Our first stop was the Acropolis along with hundreds of others. It is quite a sight to see but of course there is scaffolding around the Par...

The order of ports has been changed because of the wind and high waves expected around Mykonos so we are sailing to Kusadasi in Turkey before Athens and Mykonos. We enjoyed Kusadasi when we had three days there on the Albatross tour. Last time it was very hot and we were able to swim and relax by the pool. This time it is cooler and very windy. We enjoyed the bazaar and doing some bargaining knowing if they accept your price it is already overpriced. Everybody k...