Friday April 28 - Monaco

Late arrival in to Monaco around 10 am.   So we were able to get off to a slower start to the day.    The days tour was a bus ride over to Nice & Eze.  

Tour though the flower and veg Market then time on our own to get lunch 

Then off to Eze

Thursday April 27 - civitavecia

This is the port for Rome.  Having spent extended time here and having done the other tours in the area we decided to take it easy.

I went out and explored the town

There was a nice market area 

And a couple interesting churches

I walked about 5 miles 

Wednesday, April 26th- Naples

Today was a long tour. We took a bus ride down to Sorrento and then back to Pompeii from Naples.  The bus ride down into Sorrento was absolutely gorgeous along the coast traffic backed up quite a bit getting into the town but it was a beautiful drive.  Once we got into town we had a little tour of the area and then we had some free time before lunch.

 lunch was a typical restaurant style lunch for Viking. The lunch was very mediocre. The pasta was nice but the chicken they served was sort of nasty.

Followed up by a little lemon cake.

With all of the wonderful looking restaurants in the area it was rather disappointing.

After lunch we got back on the bus and drove over to Pompeii. We spent about 2 hours walking around Pompeii as our guide. Explained the history of the site and how the people actually died. 

The original fast food counter

Tuesday, April 25th - Messina

The tour today is to the ancient city of Tindari.  The bus ride over to the other side of Sicily was beautiful and we arrived on a bank holiday for the day of independence.    The was a festival at the church of the black Madonna.

The tour also included a stop at the ancient Roman era ruins containing some really nice mosaic floors in the baths.

There were a bunch of little shops selling candied nuts and marzipan.

Ride back to Messina and then a walk around before getting on the ship.  Due to the holiday most shops and restaurants were closed.  I missed the opening times of the basilica as well 

Monday, April 24th - Sea day

A very quiet day.  Reviewed the details of Homer's Odyssey as we head to Messina.  

Lite breakfast exercise and a lite All of the food and beverage options on board can add up way to easily.  

A quick dinner and watch the sunset from the bow of the ship.  All in all nice day 

Sunday, April 23rd - Athens, Greece

What a day after yesterday!  Lots of folks on the ship are starting to talk about the end of the cruise 😭

We arrived in Athens at 7 am and head the complete acropolis experience starting at 8:45 a.m.

It was really good tour with a nice guy. We drove in a bus over to the Acropolis seeing many of the sites along the way

We got to the base of the acropolis and did the very crowded walk up to the top.

then the walk back down the hill and over to the new Acropolis museum.

After the museum we had a little free time to wonder the placka district and do a little shopping.  The clouds were starting to get dark grey so we opted to get the bus back to the ship for a late lunch. 

Saturday, April 22nd - Istanbul, Turkey

Today is a big day. We have been looking forward to the entire trip. It started off with a text from Robin saying there were dolphins in the bay.

Due to the holiday EID Viking did not arrange any optional tours as they had a very difficult time with the tour operators. It was a very poor choice of timing to arrive in Istanbul on this day.

We were however able to hook up with our friends, Mark and Shirley and go on their private tour they had arranged

 the tour guide was really nice and he was a wealth of information. Like many of the tour guys we've had in this part of the world, he had went to college and learned solely to be a tour guide with an education in religion and history.  

Our first stop was the Pudding shop . This place was a cultural icon for travelers in the '60s and '70s pre-internet.

After the pudding shop we went between the Hogia  Sofia and the blue mosque up to where the hippodrome was.

 From the pedestrian Mall between the mosques we entered the blue mosque or at least tried to. They had 10 security guards for the men and just two for the women. The women's lines were much longer and they were much more aggressive and downright mean to the point of pushing and trying to hurt the foreign terrorists. Martha and Shirley eventually had to get out of the line after being punched and kicked in the knee. Mark and I were on the other side of the security line  with the guide and when they texted us and let us know what the situation was.

After the blue mosque we headed back to try and get into the cistern again. This time we were successful

Cistern wiki

I could post dozens of photos from the cistern and it would not do it justice.  Absolutely amazing!

Afterwards we had lunch at a famous restaurant for recreating the recipes of the sultans from the ottoman empire.

A little shopping before we head to the palace museum.

On to the secret back room then the palace

as we were at the palace it started to rain.  Total downpour so I covered my head with a plastic bag.