In the morning, Karen and Lorraine drove us to town for a quick lunch before dropping us off at the train station. We boarded a train back to Rome and then walked to our B&B near Manzoni station. I wasn’t feeling very well at this point, so I took a nap. We eventually ate dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant.

We woke up early this morning to be among the first people disembarking the ship. Costa doesn’t offer express walk off (where travelers with only carry-on luggage can disembark as soon as immigration clears the ship), so after collecting our passports, we had to wait in the terminal area for all the luggage to be unloaded. Valerie was concerned that we would miss our train, so she got a port employee to escort us to customs early.

After several hours in the train, we arrived at beautiful Castiglione del Lago. Our friends Karen, Cathy, and Patti whom we met during a previous cruise invited us to visit them at their villa. Karen, John, and Lorraine kindly met us at the train station, where we enjoyed a sorbetto, before driving us to the villa about 3 miles away. The villa was large and spacious (quite different from our usual small hotel room) with great views of the Tuscan hills and lake.

Before dinner, we met the other guests in the villa and played several games of semi-competitive bocce ball while drinking 3-euro bottles of wine from the vineyard next door. For dinner, the owner of the villa organized for a pair of local women to come over and cook everyone an enormous Italian feast. The pasta was the best that we’ve had in Italy (or really anywhere). Karen opened a super-sized bottle of excellent wine from the winery of the Bulgari family (yes, those Bulgaris).

It was very kind of our friends to invite us to the villa. We had a great time and I’m glad that the timing worked out so we were all in Italy at the same time.

All the weight I lost in Spain I have gained back on this ship. To counteract this, Valerie and I have been limiting our meals 3 courses instead of 4 and ignoring the bread rolls. I’m confident that this approach is working because now I feel hungry between meals (an odd feeling on a cruise ship).

Tomorrow, we are disembarking the ship. We already bought a train ticket to Castiglione del Lago for 11:10am, so we need to get off the ship by about 10:00am to make it to the train station on time.

The Costa Deliziosa spent only 6 hours in the Piraeus (port of Athens), so there was no time for dallying. We woke up at 6:20am to prepare for today’s journey to Athens. Our ship started letting people off the ship at 8:15am and we were among the first in line. Unfortunately, we missed the 8:05 X80 bus to the acropolis, but so we caught the full-to-the-brim 8:40 bus. We quickly walked to the acropolis to try to beat the crowds.

Rick Steves calls the acropolis the greatest site of the ancient western world. It’s pretty neat and the ruins are well maintained, but it was much smaller than we expected. It is possible to walk from one end to the other in just a couple minutes (if you aren’t blocked by a tour group).

After touring the acropolis, we walked to the ancient agora (included in the acropolis ticket). As we were walking through, it started raining, so we cut our tour short and headed to the nearby metro station to return to the port. In the port area, we picked up a couple of Greek savory puff pastries to eat on our journey back to the ship. We made it back with about half an hour to spare before all-aboard time.

Today was a relaxing day at sea. For the first time, we decided to eat lunch in the dining room rather than the buffet. One annoyance about Costa is that the menus aren’t posted before the meal, so one cannot make an educated decision about whether to eat at the buffet or the dining room. After lunch, we watched other passengers play super bingo while drinking some refreshing fruity beverages.

Today’s stop is in Burgas, Bulgaria. Valerie decided we should visit the nearby UNESCO world heritage town of Nessebar. We declined the ship transfer and opted to take the public bus (#10). We were a bit worried that we would have trouble finding the bus station, but it happened to be right next to the cruise port and train station.

We walked around the old town for a while, taking pictures with its copious churches. We admired the appropriately named Sunny Beach across the bay. Finally, we ate lunch at a place we found on TripAdvisor before heading back to Burgas.

With some free time before all-aboard, we walked around downtown Burgas. We were surprised to find nice, well-trafficked pedestrian friendly walkways lined with restaurants and shops. Compared to Constanta, Burgas is quite nice. And Bulgaria seems less expensive than Romania as well. We stopped by a nice bakery for some cheap and delicious baked goods before heading back to the ship. Burgas is actually a nice town to walk around in and definitely a much nicer place to visit than Constanta.

Our stop today is Constanta (aka Constanza) in Romania. This was the cruise stop that Valerie and I are most concerned about for two reasons: 1) people on the Internet say the town is sketchy and 2) there is very little of touristic value.

The ship offered a 6 euro transfer into the town center. Since we dislike overspending on ship transfers, we looked at the town from the top of the ship to see if there was a public bus available or if we could walk to town instead. Sadly, the walk looked boring and treacherous, so we opted for the ship transfer.

We walked around town for a while, looking at the beach, parks, shops, restaurants and buildings. After about an hour, we gave up on trying to find anything interesting and headed to McDonalds to use their free WiFi. During our McMeal, it started raining, so we just stayed in the McD for a while before heading back to the ship.

Our second day in Istanbul was much less tiring than the first. After a late breakfast on the ship, we took the tram to the Grand Bazaar. Following a Rick Steves walking tour, we navigated around the mazelike building, stopping at some of the shops to pick up some gifts for the friends we will meet in Italy and family we will meet in Australia. After a quick coffee break, we continued our walk out of the bazaar, down the hill, through a mosque, and into the spice market. We ate a really good pastrami-like sandwich from a deli called Namli Sarkuteri outside of the spice market. (It was probably the best pastrami-like sandwich I’ve ever eaten. I wish we had bought two!) Finally, we headed back to the ship. We bought an hour of WiFi from a place outside the cruise port, but sadly didn’t have enough time to post these blog entries before all-aboard time.

Today, we walked over 14 miles during our whirlwind tour of Istanbul. We started the day by walking the length of the cruise port to the terminal building. There are four large cruise ships parked here today and walking past all of them takes quite a while. Once out of the port area, we followed a Rick Steves walking tour of the Golden Horn across the Galata Bridge. Our first tourist stop was the Topkapi Palace, home of sultans. It was similar to the Alhambra in Granada, but bigger. Its harem alone housed over 100 concubines and their eunuch attendants. Next, we walked to the Hagia Sophia, a church built by a Byzantine emperor that became a mosque and then a museum. It is remarkable for its enormous dome and surprisingly preserved mosaics. After a quick lunch of Turkish meatballs, Valerie donned her makeshift headscarf and we walked to the Blue Mosque, so called because it is a mosque that is blue. I haven’t visited many mosques, but it reminded me a lot of many large European cathedrals, except with carpeting and less art.
Finally, we rode the funicular up to Istiklal street and walked its length. The street is lined with western shops, restaurants, and souvenir shops. We stopped for some Turkish desserts before heading to Taksim Square where we picked up a pita sandwich with lamb. Finally, we headed down another funicular and back to the ship so we can be well rested for our trip to Istanbul’s grand bazaar tomorrow.

Today, our ship landed in Izmir. Somewhat nearby Izmir are the ruins of Ephesus. Since there is pretty much no way of reaching Ephesus from Izmir on our own without a taxi, we opted to take the ship tour.
The first stop on the tour was the “House of the Virgin Mary.” The house is almost completely reconstructed because only the foundation remained when it was rediscovered. The evidence that Mary lived here is quite flimsy, making this a questionable tourist destination. But we didn’t come for the house, we came for Ephesus.
Ephesus is a large Roman ruin that is remarkably well preserved (especially when compared to the Greek ruins at Olympia). However, it is still a ruin. Walking along its marble path, one can wonder about what it would have been like to live in this ancient city. The ancient amphitheater is enormous, capable of seating tens of thousands of people.
Our final “tourist” stop was the government school of Turkish carpet manufacturing. Basically an hour long sales pitch, the school did offer some insight into the enormous amount of effort required to create a Turkish carpet by hand. As our guide stated, Turkish carpets are a dying industry, mostly because machine-made carpets are substantially cheaper. (Interesting side-note: no male students have ever successfully graduated from the school.)