mauimary

Our next Port in Greece was Zakinthos which was a tender port. We did not get off early but rather more like 9:30. Sitting at the end of the pier was one of these little trains. So for 7£ for 30min we jumped on. The city was very simple and the Main Street was heavily damaged in an earthquake many years ago and has been rebuilt so it is much newer. The flowers on this tree were beautiful We saw this beautiful restaurant so we came back for a brunch. These waffles were to die for It was quite big and Mr ate the whole thing French toast was also very good. I could only eat half of it. Time for a walk. Would love to be cruising the Greek Islands on one of these sweet sailboats.

Walking through Old Town Corfu we came upon this beautiful Terraced Restaurant So of course we stopped and had a cortado for myself and a cappuccino for Mr We loved wandering the side streets and came upon this cute dog. It didn’t seem to be with anyone so figured it was a community dog. Well taken care of. The strawberries were to die for. They were just beautiful We got back to the ship just minutes before the heavens opened up and it poured.

Map of Old Town Corfu Entrance to Old Corfu Fun streets to loose yourself and wander Would you believe these are all purses. I like the piano one. another lovely street

Thur (May 11) this day we were in Korfu Greece. This was another beauty of a Port. We cont. on our own DIY with the help of the HOHO bus. This is a good overall view and a chance to use the bus for transportation so we did not have to use a cab. City bus also can be used but more work for us. Pretty newer homes lush yards Some Ruins beautiful trees. Yard needs some trimming! Angel’s trumpet.

One of three secret Naval tunnels hidden inside Montenegro Bay of Kotor that were used to hide submarines from enemy ships and airplanes. (We saw two of them as we were leaving the bay). These camouflage moorings are hidden along the coastline of Montenegro. This one was close to the entrance. this is where we were. Kotor is below Debrota on this Google Map.

A person has to eat and experience the local restaurants before heading back to the ship. Marriage of beer and margarita describes our lunch choice. The margarita was quite strong and I could only drink half of it. Cool clock tower. Home away from home.

I am back. I have not given up. CC was giving me so much trouble trying to post photos and logging me out of iMessage. Every time the Apple folks reset it my CC would get messed up. There were so many folks having issues with Starlink there were constant lines. I finally decided to wait until we got off in Rome. So here goes. Back to Kotor Montenegro. After we returned from our HOHO bus we walked around Kotor. It was here we ran into the vacationing Capt Kate as she was returning from her climb up all the stairs to the mountain top. She’s an early bird off on the first tender to climb the stairs to the top of the mountain in the photo below. Note this Church halfway up this mountain We loved wandering all the side streets We had a cat that looked just like this one. These cats are well fed. Capt Kate took some of Bugs snacks to treat them with her

Mauimary &DH Loving this wonderful itinerary and the chance for us to experience some new and beautiful places.

Our first stop on the HOHO Bus was a little town called Perast (sounds kinda like Paris) where we took a small boat over to an Island called Lady of the Rocks. It’s a man made Island with a beautiful small Church. Loved the pretty blue dome of the church I stood around awhile and these guys did not move so they became part of my photo.

I have more photos yet to come. I’m currently having issues trying to upload them. I go through the exact same steps as I did for the ones above and they come up blank!! What am I doing wrong and suppose to be doing. Quite frustrating when I have the time to do it.

We took an early tender into Kotor which puts you right into town. Decided to do the Hop On Hop Off Bus. Why not for only only 25£ each. Not too many places to hope off. Well actually one for us. The drive is beautiful along the shoreline to a town called Perast. Described in the HOHO bus brochure as a “piece of Venice” that floated down the Adriatic”. Here for an additional 5£ we could take a boat ride over to one of two islands. Not sure what the Island is called. On it is a quaint little church (Our Lady of the Rocks). We were to be here for about 30 min before our boat came to get us but it was closer to an hour.

Wednesday (May 10) Early arrival into Kotor. We wanted to be outside so started on our balcony before moving up top! Such an absolutely stunning setting. Loved this little Church up on the mountainside.

St Blaise Catholic Church. So beautiful quiet and peaceful inside. St Blaise was a physician and a bishop. He is the patron saint of throat healers and ENT illnesses.

My favorite photo. If you love stairs this city is your place. Many areas like this and ones with more steps. A pair of bookends we found. Love how they picked a wine shop for their window to nap. Sounds good to me!

There were all kind of boat tours going out and the ticket folks were trying to entice. Tempting as we love being on smaller boats but seeing as we just walked off a ship and we already spent 10 days at sea we passed on by. The water was incredibly clear. There was a lady sitting on some steps near here that lead down to the water catching small fish for the stray cats. We found a nice restaurant which was not crowded yet as it was a little early so we decided to sit down and relax and enjoy a bite. DH enjoyed a Croatian beer with his lunch and I had an ice tea. We like to enjoy a sit back and relax and just enjoy the ambience of the beautiful view. As a bonus you can count on nice restrooms too😆 Remember the lady I mentioned who was fishing for small fish well here’s one happy cat 🐈‍⬛ having fresh catch of the day!

We were so excited to be able to get out there and explore Old Dubrovnik. We had this Port canceled in 2008 and we’re so disappointed. We just kind of walked around in awe like a kid in a candy store exploring all the streets, side streets. The Old Town is encircled with massive stone walls. Dubrovnik became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. It is a stunning city and has been described as the “Pearl of the Adriatic”. We feel very grateful to finally be here. This is where our DIY tour began. There were definitely a lot of Celebrity walking tours happening. We have followed the white circle around on occasion but generally get frustrated. I’m know we miss a lot of detail but that’s just us so we tend to see what we can. Love side streets Found some fun restaurants but we were not hungry so we moved along.

Tue (May9). We got up early this am so we had time to enjoy our Al Bacio cappuccino and catch up with family on the West Coast USA via text. We then decided to grab a few bites at Oceanview before it got busy. We wanted to be outside on deck as we made our way into Dubrovnik so we went side to side on deck 15 to get some photos.

Celebrity Beyond’s theatre production was called “Arte” which combined some pretty cool visual effects, dance and some aerial artists. We saw this show for the second time but this time we moved down to the floor from the balcony. We felt we could see everything on the stage so much better and see the expression on the singers and dancers faces. The two of us really like this show. The music is upbeat and fun. I take so many photos it’s hard to narrow them down. I like to give a sample without boring everyone. Cia, Mary😎

Lastdance We are flying from Rome to Lisbon to begin our land trip after staying in Rome for a night. It will be nice to have Segment 3 for a few weeks before flying home.

Very handy for this ferry crossing our wake that we had slowed down to let the pilot boat catch up to retrieve the Pilot. His ride was a little less bumpy. Sure those passengers were 😃 about that. These photos were all taken from our sunset veranda. We decided to move from inside back to our own room. We also wanted our sweatshirts.

Messina Sicily Ferry crossing from Reggio Calabria to Messina

Monday (May8) This is where we are today. Passing through the Strait of Messina. It’s unfortunate it’s an overcast rainy light fog type of day and my photos are through a window.

The crew of the Beyond are wonderful, hard working and so very friendly. They were very busy with having ten sea days. One of our fav places is Al Bacio where you can find us every morning beginning our day with a cappuccino until we were introduced to the cortado (espresso and equal part steamed milk not frothed and served in a little cup). It originated in Spain. We are very excited for part 2 of this cruise. So more to come that is when this internet cooperates for me. I hear there are about 2800 on this cruise with 280 B2B that stayed on.

Today (Sunday May 7) began very early. We are moving to a different stateroom so we had to finish up packing our worldly belongings that were in drawers. Everything else in the closet just stayed on hangers and left on our bed. Our stateroom attendant coordinated the move to our new room. We made a quick stop by Al Bacio for a cappuccino and a pastry before checking in for our new sea pass. Apparently they used the same photo from our Transatlantic Sea Pass card as no photos were taken. The only thing left to do was check in to our lifeboat station and that was too early so we proceeded to our new room which is a sunset balcony. Very excited to being back in our favorite neighborhood again. Quiet reading time finally to make some further progress on our book and a nice walk around the track w/o wind. Lovely. This was all very easy and seamless. we did not even need to fill out the health questionnaire on the app. Just had to watch the safety drill and check into the station later. We saw the opportunity to have an early lunch actually the first ones there since we we’re getting hungry and we like buffets best when we’re one of the first to get there before everyone started arriving and it got busy. Talk about a private dining room! First drinks of the day a beer for Mr and a margarita for me. Apparently Batman is in the neighborhood. Wonder where that one is headed.