Date: Oct 1, 2022
I’ve decided to launch my first series here on What in the World?!- with Liesa with a Grand Extravaganza Tour of Greece and Italy!!
Let’s travel the world, one trip at a time, starting with a month-long trip to two of the most visited countries in the world. There are a million reasons for that and I hope to show you quite a few of those in this series of posts.
This trip was 3 years in the making. We’d originally planned to go in 2020 and had already been making plans for almost a year. And then the world came to an unfortunate full-stop. Borders closed, ships stopped sailing, and life became different than what we knew before. During that whole, terrible season of sadness and change, I used the time to get my BSN and worked every single overtime shift I could find. I basically lived at the hospital for days at time for a couple of years and tried to earn some extra travel cash. While travel CAN be cheap, it shouldn’t have to be all the time.
By 2021, things got turned around and I felt safe to start making travel plans again and by October 2022 it was finally time to travel again. While this seems like such a long time ago now, I think the information is still relevant and can hopefully be useful to anyone who might want to enjoy the places I was lucky enough to experience on this month-long trip.
Let’s start with the itinerary! It was a long, wonderful trip and I’m excited share my thoughts on the travel, the logistics, my favorite memories, the food, and more!
Oct 1-2 Travel to Venice
Oct 3 Travel from Venice to Ravenna where the cruise actually departed from
Oct 4 At Sea
Oct 5 Olympia, Greece
Oct 6 Santorini, Greece
Oct 7 Ephesus, Turkey
Oct 8 Mykonos, Greece
Oct 9 Athens, Greece
Oct 10 Chania, Crete
Oct 11 Zakynthos, Greece
Oct 12 At Sea
Oct 13 Venice
Oct 14 Florence
Oct 15 Florence/Venice
Oct 16 Bari, Italy
Oct 17 Puglia Region Tour and Agriturismo
Oct 18 Naples
Oct 19 Pompeii
Oct 20 Amalfi Coast
Oct 21 Naples
Oct 22 Rome
Oct 23 Rome
Oct 24 Rome
Oct 25 Tuscany (Montepulciano, Pienza, San Gimignano, Siena)
Oct 26 Tuscany (Petronagno, Montecatini Terme, Pistoia)
Oct 27 Tuscany (Petrognano, Lucca, Montecarlo)
Oct 28 Bologna
Oct 29 Venice
Oct 30 Venice
Oct 31 Fly Home
The traveling party changes as I go along, so there were different dynamics and accommodations that had to be made. And that’s part of the beauty of travel- there’s something for everyone and ways to make everyone feel able and welcome.
So, without further drivel, let’s get going!
TRAVEL DAY-
This trip was planned, scrapped, re-planned, and then planned again. The process was frustrating with the ever-changing Covid rules and conditions, but in the end, I’d be traveling with my middle daughter and my parents. All are well-traveled which always makes for an easier trip in general.
The cruise portion would be made up of myself, my middle daughter, Mikki, and my parents. With deep sadness, my dad has passed away since this lovely trip. After the cruise, Mikki and my folks returned home but my youngest daughter, Anara, flew over and joined me for the land portion of Italy.
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It’s always great to start a trip with…
“Mom, I can’t find my passport!”
I took a deep breath and tried not to panic, but, Hello, Girl!, You have 24 hours to find it! Hopefully your dog will poop by then and you can check that. Not that it would matter, if you can’t find it, you ain’t goin’.
Everyone was packed well before now, except my daughter Michaela, who’s far too busy for trivial things like making sure her passport, the singularly most important item to pack for an international vacation, was in order.
Two hours later, she texted this photo.
Yeah, it wasn’t too far off-base when I told her to check the dog doo. Moms know…..
While I was, obviously, very happy she could join us, I was a little sad as well. I’d gotten this personalized passport holder for her Christmas gift 2 years earlier to use on the trip that we were all supposed to go on. Better late than never!
Covid test kits: Check!
Formalwear: Check!
Photo gear: Check!
Charging cords: Yep!!
One thing I’ve found to be very useful for many, many trips now have been these little laminated itinerary cards I make to carry with me. They have the hotel’s addresses, ideas for meal places, any ticket confirmation numbers I might need, website addresses, sites and tips I need to have handy, flight info… whatever! Laminated, they stay water-proof, and pocket-sized and on a ring they stay handy and easy to use throughout the trip.
Let go!!
It’s 7:30AM on Oct 1st and we, my mom and dad and myself, were on our way to my mom’s brother’s house so he could take us into Nashville for our flights- for the first time in forever our flights weren’t stupid early, although I was up at 4AM or so. No idea why. <abject sarcasm inserted here>
Okay, let’s talk about the best $80 I’ve spent this year. After a quick trip to Hendersonville, TN, 30 minutes away from home, a few minutes of my time in the office, and $80 later, I had a handy-dandy TSA Pre-check number all to my little ol’ self. “Little ol’ self,” I say to myself, “you done yourself right this time!” I’ve saved hours of frustrating time with it.
All 3 of us breezed through security in less than 5 minutes, and before we knew it, we were camped at our gate left to our own thoughts and lost in lattes. The flight to Newark was wholly uneventful, which in this day and age is a minor miracle and a rather huge sigh of relief.
Here’s my awesome seat from Nashville to Newark. I’ll take an exit row any day of the week!
With enough layover time to avoid the Airport 2-mile-I-Hope-I-Make-It-Marathon we found our next gate in the next county over. I can’t be sure, but my phone may have adjusted another time zone when we finally found an appropriate eatery for dinner. A full hour before boarding our 777 Dreamliner (YES! Finally got myself on one of those behemoths, woot!) we enjoyed a little wine, a little pasta (Oh my Lordy, if I’d known what my diet would consist of for the next 31 days…) and a nice salad (should have savored that part more). As we were eating, the crew of about 25-30, not even kidding a little bit, boarded and the hordes of 312+ people were beginning to queue as well.
The line for our “Group” was long. VERY long. Luckily, a gate agent saw my mom fidgeting with her cane and looking uncomfortable and with resolute authority simply said to us, “Follow me, please.” Rather confused, she led us to a roped off area for pre-boarders and that was that. Within 5 minutes we were on the aircraft and settled in.
Now… this leads me to… Discussion Time:
I don’t know about y’all. I have a theory that there are 2 kinds of air travelers. Refute me, if you dare.
One type wants to be first to board. You know who you are. You bought into a credit card so you could be in the pre-pre-pre-boarding group. Personally, I’m in the other sector who is happy as a clam sitting at the gate charging my phone, sipping my latte, (or glass of wine if I’ve wanted a more comfy seat), chatting with someone, or whatnot for as long as possible. Why on EARTH would I want to get into a cramped seat and sit close enough to smell my neighbor’s breath one microsecond longer than I need to? Just… no. The only advantage I can see is overhead baggage space. I don’t carry a ginormous bag and it almost always fits under my seat. I’ve never once had to check it, and even if I did, big deal. It’s free, you can fit your earbuds, charging cord, and phone in a pocket, you get your bag back at the gate, and unless you accidently mistook a laxative for your vitamin, you probably don’t need your change of clothes for a few hours.
I’m always open to discussion of hot topics. Which side of the Boarding Coin do you fall?
Moving on. And up. This time to Frankfurt. You might be asking what the flight was like…
I have no idea. I slept for almost the entire 7 ½ hour cross-pond trek. Ambien FTW! Yes, my neck hurt. Yes, my carry-on was too high for me to reach, so…. No I couldn’t brush my teeth. But I was hungry since I’d missed both meals. So, I asked for one when I went to the loo. (For those who’ve read my TRs before and are now wondering, yes, that was the only time I went. Shocking, I know.) What may also come as shocking to you (okay, probably not) is that yours truly was sitting in the cattle car section, but it wasn’t all that bad. I mean, in some ways it was almost like being in Business Class. I paid Economy fare, but got a 2-seat row in the bulkhead, Baby!! Doesn’t wine taste the same out of a stemmed glass as it does out of a plastic single-use cup? (Okay, actually maybe not, according to actual science and research and personal experience, but on a plane and for several thousand dollars saved, I’ll take a Dixie cup.) I mean, if I’d had a glass of wine, which I didn’t. (But could have; it’s free at any time on must trans-Atlantic flights.) Instead, when I went to the galley to ask for a snack, I was handed a lovely tray of fresh fruit, a beautiful hunk of brie, some nice quality ham with a croissant and roll.
“I couldn’t find anything from this galley, so I went to First-class and grabbed this one for you.” “Why thank you, thank you very much for this $300 snack.”
We touched down a scooch early into Frankfurt, sailed through Immigration in zero minutes (happy to get a new stamp and, to add a smidge of foreshadowing, EU Immigration is not always smooth like this was…), took a ridiculously long walk to the puddle jumper terminal, and after a short 2 1/2 hour flight, arrived in Venice a little early. This gave us even more time to try to stay awake until Mikki’s flight arrived over an hour later. Which leads me to tell the sad saga of Mikki’s travels by way of Canada. The short version is if you have a choice of booking airline travel through Canada, do not. She described nothing short of an absolute poop-show in Vancouver. The line at Immigration was hundreds deep. There were a LOT of very angry people actually yelling and getting very testy with agents. She, after FAR more time than should ever be spent on getting on a connecting flight (EVER!), joined many, many others running to catch flights that most would probably miss.
Mikki made it to Venice just as tired as we were. I took the hour wait to take care of my proctored Covid test required by Celebrity Cruise Line there in the airport. Funny how 4 years ago if someone saw you shoving a Q-tip into your sinus cavity in an airport, they’d think you insane. Now it’s like, “Awww, bless their heart.”. Obviously, since I’m writing this TR, I was negative. (Just as point of clarification, we all tested at home the day before as well, I mean what would be the point of traveling for 24 hours only to arrive and not be able to go on our cruise?)
By some miraculous act of God, Mikki’s baggage made it, and soon enough the 4 of us were on our way to the next adventure… actually getting to what we all know and love as Venice.
Next up: A Short Evening in Venice and a Cicchetti to Remember!