Europe in the Fall

I realize that I am writing this post in January of 2019, but I am woefully behind in chronicling my travels. Since I’m beginning a new, 80-day trip around South America, tomorrow, I thought the least I could do was to begin in the past. I’m going to try to do dual postings.

I am going to set up some separate posts for my Europe ports and then go back and add to them as we move along. The South America trip will have their own posts.

Confused? I am. Welcome to my world.

So back to Europe. My travels started September 11 to Amsterdam, where I spent 3 wonderful days with my friends Mieke and Bernd, who live there. Mieke was still taking it easy recovering from some surgery in the summer, so Bernd played tour guide during the day. We spent a great day in Rotterdam, another day we ventured north to some smaller towns, and another day we visited The Hague. Bernd is a pretty big museum fan so we visited a few of them. I love museums too so it was perfect. I will post later on in more detail about my time in Amsterdam with Mieke and Bernd.

On the 16th I boarded the Prinsendam, Holland America’s smallest ship (800 passengers) for a 14 day cruise around the rivers of France, Portugal, Gibraltar and Cartagena before finishing in Rome.

In Rome, I had booked an AirBnB for a week in the city center, right off the Piazza Navona. I spent the week walking all over Rome - over 100 kilometers! It was magical!

At the end of the week, I trained it back to the port and picked up another Holland ship for 34 days. The Koningsdam went all over the Mediterranean- Italy, France, Spain, Croatia, Greece, then headed  across the Atlantic on a repositioning cruise back to Florida.

Home for 3 weeks - then I flew back to Rome and picked up yet another Holland ship - the inaugural voyage of the Nieuw Statendam. It visited 2 ports in Spain and the Portuguese island of Madeira before sailing back across the Atlantic to Florida.

Home for 2 weeks and here I am again in Florida, ready to set sail around South America and Antarctica for 80 days. I’m crazy excited to return to the most awe inspiring place that is Antarctica. I’m also excited to see the Amazon and see Rio de Janeiro right before Carnival. Even though I’ve been in South America a few times already, there are a number of new ports this trip for me to discover.

My biggest worry is uploading photos. I’ve had gobs of trouble so don’t know how it’s going to go. In the meantime this is from my plane ride last night. Taken somewhere in the sky between Phoenix and Fort Lauderdale.