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Sailing the South Seas – Final
Island Hopping I’m catching up about 12 days of our trip with this final chapter. Although I had a lot of time aboard the ship, I always found something better to do than writing updates on my blog. I’m writing most of this at our…
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Sailing the South Seas – Part 3
All Aboard We weren’t always cruising people. For a few decades, we enjoyed planning our own trips, months and years in advance and then travelling to places on our own agenda. Trips to Australia and Italy last year were both self-planned and we loved both…
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Sailing the South Seas – Part 2
Sun in the South Seas When we booked our flights to Tahiti some time last year, we knew that we would be connecting through the San Francisco airport. We had memories of this kind of connection through San Francisco when we went to Australia in…
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Sailing the South Seas – Part 1
Back to the Beginning While I’ve been writing this travel blog for over 20 years, it wasn’t always the case, and in the early days, it was quite different. I remember in the old days, I used to have to run around trying to find…
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Three of Us in Italy – Final
No Heat for You We arrived at the farmhouse in Tuscany around 6 PM, driving our rental car from a train station on the outskirts of Rome, braving several hundred kilometres of Italian drivers, including many traffic jams on the highway getting here. We were…
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Three of Us in Italy – Part 3
Heading South We had spent four days in Rome and visited many of the major sites, doing a lot of walking in the process. By the time our first Sunday arrived, we were packing our suitcases and heading south to Sorrento, taking our first of…
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Three of Us in Italy – Part 2
The Ride It’s Thursday morning, and we arrived at our hotel in Rome last night. I didn’t sleep very much on the plane, and by the time we got to our hotel, it was almost 10 PM, and after setting up everyone’s Wi-Fi, I needed…
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Three of Us in Italy – Part 1
Back After a Long Time After reviewing my notes, we last travelled to Italy 20 years ago. It was one of our earliest trips to Europe and the first time we travelled with family. We returned from Italy with many great memories, and we’ve discussed…
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Sailing in Scandinavia – Final
The Ship I have to go back several days when we took an Uber from our hotel in Copenhagen to the cruise ship terminal. I’m starting to write this final chapter while we have been on board the ship for a few days already. Although…
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Sailing in Scandinavia – Part 2
Getting Here Under normal circumstances, we would have planned a direct flight to European destinations but in this case we connected through Toronto and it added about 5-6 hours to getting to Copenhagen, Denmark where we arrived earlier today. The net effect was that we…
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Sailing in Scandinavia – Part 1
Back on the Sea It feels like a lifetime since our last cruise, but in reality, it was only eight months ago. Between that time and now, we spent a month in Australia, and even that trip feels like a distant memory. I have a…
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Our Month in Australia – Final
The Final Weeks I’m going to be wrapping up this final installment and cover almost two full weeks of our Month in Australia, so it’s going to go over a lot of ground. I’m starting to write this section as we’ve been in Brisbane for…
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Our Month in Australia – Part 3
The Car As there are six of us, we wouldn’t have been able to get around without us having our rental car. We’ve now gone to several places and have taken two cars. I honestly don’t know how we would have done anything without a…
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Our Month in Austraila – Part 2
Flight Worries, Weather Worries When we boarded the flight in Vancouver on our way to Australia, most of us wondered if we would experience any turbulence as we flew over Cyclone Alfred, which was directly in our flight path as we approached the Sydney airport.…
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Our Month in Australia – Part 1
Long Time Planning Planned further in advance than any trip in memory, our return to Australia started almost two years ago. I remember it all like it was yesterday. It was in May of 2023 when I made a promise to my cousin to soon…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Final
Transition Day Today is Saturday the 19th, and the whole ship is in transition. About 95% of the passengers have disembarked as they only booked a seven-day cruise ending in Civaateccia. Right now, the whole ship feels very empty as there are only ten cabins,…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 4
It’s been six days since I last wrote anything about our trip, which is unusual for a three-week vacation. I always bring my laptop with me, and I try to write a little every day, especially in the early morning when Barb is still asleep.…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 3
Sick It’s not unheard of for any of us to get sick while traveling. It doesn’t happen on every trip and when it has occurred in the past it’s more or less just been an inconvenience and recovery is often very quick. This isn’t one…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 2
The Island Our flights from Vancouver to Santorini were uneventful, but it’s always tiring to travel so far, and fully getting over jet lag will take some time. It’s a 9-hour time difference from Vancouver, and it always takes a toll and a day or…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 1
Barb and I were reminiscing how it’s been 30 years since we first visited Santorini. It was in 1994 when we traveled to the Greek Islands and the Mediterranean on our honeymoon, seeing the world for the first time with fresh eyes and jumpstarting our…
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Our California Adventure – Final
Down South On Sunday morning, our fourth day in California, we were packing up our suitcases and preparing for the 250 Km drive south to our next destination which would be the town of Carmel, officially known as Carmel-by-the-Sea. We recalled that we had both…
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Our California Adventure – Part 2
Airport Mishaps For all of the places we have travelled to over the years, very rarely have we had any mishaps in an airport. At most, have one of our luggage gone missing one or two times over 30 years and we’ve occasionally missed connecting…
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Our California Adventure – Part 1
Road Trip There’s something very appealing about a road trip. Going from place to place on your own time. Stopping when you want and exploring new sights and towns along the way. For ten days, Barb and I will be on our road trip through…
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Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Final
Back to the Start On Tuesday, we left Lagos in the south of Portugal and prepared for the 300 Km drive back to the Lisbon airport where we dropped off our rental car. We had the car for 10 days but it was no longer…
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Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Part 3
Down to the Coast Approaching the halfway point of our Portugal trip, it was time to leave Evora and head south to our next destination. We spent four nights in Evora and felt it was the right amount of time for a town of its…
