The Next Adventure Begins

Here we are in a lounge at LAX waiting for our flight to Lisbon and then it's on to Barcelona.

We are embarking on a 3 month adventure!  The first part of the adventure is 7 weeks of cruising on board the Oceania Sirena.  You might ask, “Why 7 weeks?  Are you crazy?”  Let me explain.  First, yes we are crazy but that’s a whole different topic.  Second, we so enjoy cruising on Oceania and we love the long cruises.  And third, we had originally booked a 5 week northern Europe cruise that starts in Dublin, Ireland on June 3rd and ends in Kiel, Germany on July 8th.  As you may recall, last year we were on Sirena for the Godmother cruise with Claudine Pepin and her husband, Rollie Wesen.  We had such a great time with them that, when we heard that this year’s Godmother cruise was the 2 week cruise before our already booked cruise, we jumped right on it.  That cruise goes from Barcelona to Dublin starting on May 20th.  So, where are we going?  After leaving the Med on day 3, we’ll be cruising around northern Europe with many stops in Scandinavia.  An interesting aspect of these cruises is that, out of the 49 days on board, the itinerary only has 3 sea days!  We won’t be disappointed if a couple of  hopefully uninteresting ports get cancelled. 

So that’s 7 weeks of the 3 months.  What about the remaining 6 weeks that make up this adventure?  Oceania is launching their new ship, the Allura, in Trieste, Italy on July 18th.  We have booked the first 3 cruises on that ship.  Starting in Trieste, we sail around the Mediterranean for 4 weeks ending in Athens, Greece on August 15th.  We are, of course, excited to be on a brand new ship, but we are also excited that we will be joined by our good friends from Long Beach, Yasuko and Marc.

If you’ve paid attention, you may have noticed that we have 10 days between Kiel and Trieste.  Were we going to go home for those 10 days?  Hell no!  We will stay 4 nights in Hamburg before flying to Ljubljana, Slovenia for a 5 night stay.  We have not been to Ljubljana before.  It looks like an interesting place with lots to do.  And it’s only a one hour bus ride away from Trieste.

If I’ve counter right, we will visit 22 countries on this adventure.  May be I’ll keep a running count.

Do we have qualms about leaving our family and friends when we leave on these extended journeys?  Yes, especially when our granddaughter, Leila, makes us feel guilty about missing her plays this summer.  But we are driven by the overriding desire to do these things while we can.  We’re not getting any younger!

Long time readers of this blog may remember that, a few years ago, I ended most entries with a, hopefully, appropriate Rule of Civility.  These are 110 rules that 16 year old George Washington transcribed as an exercise in penmanship.  I typically try to pick one that is relevant to the days’ activity.  One of the joys of cruising for me is that I tune out the news as much as possible.  Without getting into politics, I will just say that the world definitely needs more civility now.  Today, I’m picking the one that I feel is the most meaningful.

Rule of Civility number 110: Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry