Check Out our Trip – from Rome to Kotor!!

Good morning, y’all!  This is a bittersweet day for me – we disembark the beautiful Wind Surf powered yacht to begin the land-based portion of our trip!  I am sad – I’ve had such a wonderful time on this cruise – the ship – the ports – the amazing peopled.  This is one of the best crews I’ve sailed with – they literally knew our name by the second day – and what we wanted for dinner by the end of day 2.  I canNOT say enough good things about each and every one of them!

We’ll head into Venice for a quick walk-about and then board the express train over to Cinque de Terra for phase two of our vacay – so that made this seem like a great day to give y’all a first-look at where we’ve been so far on this amazing trip!

Fair Warning!  I divided this up cuz…I have taken a STUPID number of pictures and PICKING which to show and which to NOT show….is not my strong suit.  So…grab a cuppa and scroll on down to see what we’ve done on our first few days!! 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

We started off in Rome – taking a quick gander at some of our favorite sights!

The Piazza de Spagna…

…which is near to the Spanish Steps!  I don’t know if there was a special event going on or what – but…yikes!  So.  Many.  Peoples!!

We also strolled thru the Piazza de Popolo – one of my fave places.

And – you (and everyone in the known universe!!) will be REALLY happy to know that we didn’t even go IN this store…

…let alone buy (or even try ON!) one of these!  😳

On Sunday – we drove down to the port at Civitavecchia to board our home-at-sea – the fabulous WIND SURF! – for the next 8 wonderful days.  Have I EVER mentioned that I LOVE cruising?!?  And doing it on a sail-assisted Powered Yacht?  Yes, please!

We got to our Cabins and settled in!

The Living Room was the first sign that this was going to be a trip to remember!

And the bedroom…yes, that bed IS just as comfy as it looks!

The closet – what a treat!

And the bathroom – sported a double vanity, separate shower and jetted tub!  WOW!

Windstar has an “open bridge” and we took advantage of that to get a quick tour from Deck Cadet Andrew!!

We sailed overnight to Sorrento – arriving near the start of the day to a beautiful sunrise.

We discovered that the Surf’s little sister – the Wind Spirit – was already anchored in the bay.  The crew told us that that was a pretty unusual occurence!.

We boarded our bus to Pompeii and wound our way thru Sorrento.  It’s very quaint – and very crowded!

Sorrento is the land of Lemons!  Limoncello is “the thing” here and our guide to Pompeii told us that “real” Limoncello has “Lemons from Amalfi Coast” as the ingredients.  And no other poser lemons.  Not being an aficionado, I have no idea if that is true or…. 🤷‍♀️  But – it sounded good at the time.  I DO know we saw a ton of spots – right in the middle of the town – where growing lemons and oranges – was the primary industry. They have constructed very cool structures to protect from the birds.

It took a minute to get to Pompeii – but it was a pretty drive with lots of peeks of the coastline!

At one point we could see BACK to Sorrento – and I grabbed this cool shot of Wind Surf and Wind Spirit!

As we got closer, Mount Vesuvius – the “villain” in the story of Pompeii – began to appear.

Pompeii itself was…beautiful.  And fascinating.  And pretty sobering!  Mama Nature doesn’t mess around, y’all!

This open area was where Gladiators would train to fight.

The theater was cool although I must say that it made my back hurt looking at the “comfy” seats!

The signs of everyday life – homes, businesses, places of…..”adult entertainment” (🙄 ’twas ever thus, people.) were everywhere we looked.

A “storefront” – made evident by the countertop – and a groove in the stone in the front – where the shopkeeper would have closed shutters at night.

The road was paved with stone – much of it still there – with cart wheel “ruts” carved into it from years of use.

Across the street was a home.

And there were mosaics….everywhere…on the floors of the homes.

Interestingly – one of the better preserved buildings was the…uhm…well.  The place where the ladies of the evening plied their trade.

I don’t think it was meant to be comfortable!

The paintings on the wall were very well preserved and one of them depicts a client pointing at ANOTHER painting to let them know what services he was interested in!  Remember – this was an international (read “multi-lingual”) trading port so not everyone spoke the same language! A picture does – after all! – say a thousand words!

The rest of the paintings were equally well preserved – and not suitable for a family blog post!! Let’s just say there is very little doubt about the purpose of this building! LOL!

We all giggled a little at the last room but then….this.  During the excavation, they found “negative spaces” – where the bodies of the Pompeiians who died in the cataclysm lay.  They realized that’s what the negative spaces were – and were able to preserve some of the skeletons using poured plaster to create….well, this.

As I said – fascinating.  And sobering.

We returned to Sorrento and grabbed some lunch then it was back to the ship.  Later that evening, we left the port at the same time as the Wind Spirit – which was pretty cool!

Dinners on deck are…stunning, y’all!

EARLY the next morning, on our way to Sicily – we passed the volcanic island of Stromboli (yes – like the yummo “sandwich”) – which was giving everyone a GENTLE reminder that Mama Nature doesn’t mess around.  It was sorta like…”Remember Pompeii??  Well….I CAN do that more than once, y’all!”

When we woke up for real, we were approaching Sicily!  As we got closer to the port of Giardini, Naxxos, Captain Tom let us know that there was a pod of dolphins off our port side – which is the side our cabin is on so it was easy to step outside and get a picture!  Or – it would have been if the DOLPHINS had been even SORT OF cooperative!  So – I took pictures of the coastline!

Giardini is a small port town – and it was very quiet – perhaps a little early in the season to be entertaining guests!  But we did find a good lunch and then we walked around a bit…

…got some gelato (duh!)….

…took the obligatory photos…

…and headed “home”!

We only had one “sea day” on this cruise – but it was fun!  The scenery was stunning…

…and the crew made it all even better with a deck-top barbecue!!

And – more fun things to do!

We got a cool picture out on the bow-sprit (normally closed to pax for obvious reasons!!).

Our next stop was Kotor, in the tiny country of Montenegro.  The approach thru the straight was…well.  WOW!

We were ably tendered into the port by Deck Cadet Andrew…Just a side note…Andrew is going to make an AMAZING ship’s officer!! 🙂

Isn’t she beautiful – I love the clouds!

Our excursion in Montenegro was to an eighth generation family Olive Oil farm – where we sampled and learned how to tell good Olive Oil from…the not-so-good!  We were met by a couple of adorable donkeys….

And learned about Olive Oil from…fruit to bottle!…from the man himself!  Ilyia (sp!?) was an awesome host – with knowledge for days!

On the way back to the port, we had a….CLOSE encounter on the road….yes, the other driver had to fold in his mirror to make it by.  We’re talking….like….6″ of space here, people!  YIKES!

The walled town of Kotor was interesting – the architecture is amazing!  It’s a walled city – the wall wends its way all up the mountainside!

We walked around for a bit just taking it all in!

As we walked, we saw the “world’s shortest river” – it starts back there with runoff from the mountain and ends in the bay – which is just a hop and a skip behind me.  🙂

But it was cool!

We headed “home” to another special Windstar dinner on the deck….

…watching the sun go down and the lights of Kotor come on!

We  headed for the Yacht Club (fancy name for a spot with chairs and tables and…puzzles)…for a little wind-down and then to bed as we headed from Montenegro up the coast to Croatia! I can’t wait to show you what we saw in Dubrovnik and Rovinj!  I know you’re going to love it – especially if you’re a Game of Thrones fan!

Hope you’re enjoying this little tour of the Adriatic with me!

TTFN

 

 

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