It is 286 nautical miles from Izmir, technically in Asia, and Istanbul, technically in Asia AND Europe. Our route took us north across the Aegean Sea to the Dardanelli straight. This 39 mile canal is only 4.5 miles at its widest and is as narrow as 0.7 miles. The canal joins the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara which in the past has been the site of numerous wars. The fight for control of this stretch was the original motive for the start of the cold war in 194...

We have now crossed the Ionian Sea in to the Aegean Sea. The Aegean is named after king Aegeus whose adopted son Theseus went off to fight the Minotaur. The problem, not for Theseus or the Minotaur (OK, Theseus wanted him dead so I'd say that was a slight worry if you were a Minotaur) is that all these Greek and Turkish mythological names are playing havock with my spell checker!! Every other word seems to be coming up with a red underline!!! Known to the Gr...

The clocks went forward 1 hour last night. We are now 2 hours in front of the UK. We had booked our only official excursion today; a trip to the ancient site of Olympia, where the Olympics first began in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC (Before Coe!!). Katakolon, I hear is nothing but a 2 horse town. As we are only in port from between 8am – 1pm, there wasn't enough time to make our own way to this archaeological site.It was an early start. For this reason ...

OK, Hands up if you know who Larry is?? and what's more why was he so happy??!!# The ship continued to sail in a southerly direction throughout the night at about 13 miles from the shore covering the 319 nautical miles to the main city of Puglia, Bari.The ship sailed past the promontory of Gargano also known as the 'spur' of the boot of Italy. (If you look at the map of Italy, it looks more like a bunion is starting to grow on the toe of the country a...

Our first night in Venice; Roisin retired at just after 10pm. It had been a long day. I stayed up a little later to get the first edition of the blog out. Just as she went upstairs, 2 dogs outside fancied their chances. It was a kind of Pavarotti and Bocelli of the canine world. This was no aria I had ever heard. I wonder how long they were going to keep it up. 10 minutes later and the snores started in earnest from above. The barking stopped. It was the dog'...