marazul

Lorenky - Cruising is not the way to explore Santorini. Don't give up on a cruise to Greece because of Santorini. Santorini is the bottleneck created by megaships. All other ports are fine even if crowded. Your original plan of a week in Rome first and several days in Athens at the end is very good. You named Santorini as a priority. To avoid disappointment do consider my suggestion of flying there for two nights. If you do that and take a cruise that does not include Santorini, you would have another port you would not have visited in the original itinerary. On the other hand 10 days on a land tour of Greece including some island hopping is great. Although we do take cruises in Greece, we also do a lot of land and island travel on our own. If you choose this option you can also go to places like Delphi, Meteora and the Pelopponesus. Do consider flying to some of the islands because some ferry trips are very long. We have sometimes made arrangements for local travel with Fantasy Travel, an excellent local company. They offer hotels at all price categories, transport arrangements within Greece, etc. Look at their offerings and email them for suggestions and prices. www.fantasytravelofgreece.com You can also do short cruises with them using Greek cruise companies that dock in Santorini - no donkeys!

That is a tough job! Good luck.

That explains it. 😁 No es mi idioma tampoco, pero tengo mas práctica. You might be interested in the restaurant ratings article I just posted in the thread "Italy: all things food and wine-related." Happy sailing!

Of course. 😁 No, there is no magic button. However, in this case it is easy to understand the listings. Just scroll down the page to find the names of the restaurants. For example, here is the listing for Toscana. It just names the restaurants and the cities. Da Burde is the only Tre Gamberi award in Firenze (Florence); Futura Osteria is located in Monteriggioni: Toscana Da Burde - Firenze Futura Osteria - Monteriggioni (SI) [SI is a district within Toscana]

Gambero Rosso's best trattorias and restaurants in Italy for 2024 The Gambero Rosso magazine is the Michelin Guide or Bon Appetit of Italy. Every year it rates and issues awards to all sorts of eating establishments from fine dining to wine bars. The awards are ranked from one to three, with three being the best. For 2024 it awarded "Tre Gamberi" (Three shrimp) to 36 trattorias and "Tre Forchette" (Three forks) to 47 fine dining restaurants. The Tre Gamberi winners for Rome are: L'Arcangelo Vino e Cucina Armando al Pantheon Da Cesare Grappolo d'Oro Here is a link to the full article for the Tre Gamberi trattorias: https://www.gamberorosso.it/notizie/notizie-ristoranti/le-36-migliori-trattorie-ditalia-per-il-gambero-rosso-tutti-i-tre-gamberi/ Here is a link to the full article for the Tre Forchette fine dining restaurants: https://www.gamberorosso.it/notizie/notizie-ristoranti/i-47-migliori-ristoranti-ditalia-2024-con-le-tre-forchette-gambero-rosso/ In each article, the restaurants and trattorie are grouped by Nord (North), Centro (Center) and Sud (South) Italy, and listed by region within each section. Rome is in Lazio, Florence is in Toscana, both in Center Italy. For more categories, you would need to buy their guide book and/or subscribe to the website or magazine.

@alserrod En el caso de las tarjetas bancarias y los cambios de moneda, "comisión" se traduce como "fee" y no como "commission" ya que es una tasa impuesta por el banco al consumidor. "Fee" tiene el sentido de tasa o tarifa, mientras que "commission" significa más el porcentaje que el vendedor o viajante recibe como compensación. Disculpe escribírselo aquí. pero no hay manera de comunicarse directamente. Gracias por su contribución a estos foros. Necesitamos la experiencia de los "locales."

Check out this thread: It depends on the number of people on each ship. Add up the number of people in those ships. The cable car can carry 600 people per hour. The year round population of this small island is 15000. You figure it out. Yes, it will be between extremely crowded and too much.

My favorite.

@Lorenky - Just a few comments: Depending on which cabin level you book, WIndstar could be competitive with the cruises you are considering Celestyal is a Greek cruise line and as such it is allowed to dock at the Santorini ferry port. That avoids the donkeys and the cable car. Staying overnight is a big plus. Just consider that it could be a bit "basic" compared to the amenities of the three cruise lines you are considering. The flight (30-40 minutes) to Santorini in September would cost you 87 euros R/T. There are about 10 flights per day. You can easily fly out a couple of hours after your flight from Italy arrives. Just change gates. If you also fly Aegean Air from Italy, the gates will be in the same section of the terminal. https://e-ticket.aegeanair.com/A3Responsive/dyn/air/booking/;jsessionid=NOPSr8rt0gePvH7FoPidRXkfz52LYS9M8mBXSFU5!1704415698952#!/flight A one-way flight (2 hours) from Rome to Athens in September is 60 euros: https://e-ticket.aegeanair.com/A3Responsive/dyn/air/booking/;jsessionid=HEun468p8J4FhoQ8HRKD16n7lvGa17wRGchtsl0K!1704416041857#!/flight Aegean also flies to Barcelona. Depending on the day of the week, the one-way fares start at 120 euros. Aegean is a very good airline. We fly it often. Anyhow, think about it.

Yes, you are booking with the hotel. Small independent hotels cannot afford their own IT departments like Marriott or Hilton. They contract with one of several reservation platform providers to process their reservations. If you do dummy reservations in a few hotels, you will see that the reservation process is identical as provided by their common platform vendor.

@Lorenky If you want to see Santorini, don't take a cruise that stops in Santorini. You have plenty of time before or after the cruise to visit the island independently. It is a 30 minute flight from Athens. Plan to stay 2 or 3 nights. There are many lovely hotels at all price points. That is the only way of avoiding the crowds, donkeys and cable car nightmare in Santorini. You could fly from Rome to Athens and change to a flight to Santorini. Fly back to Athens for your cruise. Enjoy more Athens at the end. Take advantage of your extra time to do it right. Check out all these flights in aegeanair.com. You could also look at line with smaller ships, like Seabourn, Windstar, Silversea, etc. They port a lot closer to Venice than the bigger ships. They also have more interesting Greek islands itineraries. Just skip Santorini on the cruise.

The jousting festival takes place in August for the feast of Saint Louis. It lasts about a week. There are other occasions in the summer, usually for Bastille Day. It is a lot of fun. There is also jousting in other places, but the main site is Sete. Look for the Sete tourist board website to find more about it. They should also have the joutes (jousts) calendar.

@CCJack You can make it, but it is tight. It is a weekday and there is a lot of traffic in the morning. You should be at the airport by 8:30 if you leave at 7:45, but you must prebook transport otherwise you might be cutting it too close. George's Taxi is an excellent transfer company. taxigreece.com

@smurphette Carcassonne is a little bit closer to Port Vendres than to Sete. They are both lovely seaports. However, IMO there is a lot more to see and do in and around Sete. Take a look at other sightseeing opportunities out of each town and see if anything appeals to you more in one of the two.

For wine, order a carafe of house wine. Frequently the choice is just white or red. 😁 The wine will always be a decent or even very good wine. Local fare.

You decide. Here is the average water temps for September: https://www.seatemperature.org/europe/greece/mykonos-september.htm

Try the "multi-city" or open jaw first. It's a RT to and from different cities or countries. Have you used kayak.com or google Flights? https://www.google.com/travel/flights?tfs=CBwQARoVEgoyMDI0LTAxLTE3agcIARIDTVNQGhUSCjIwMjQtMDEtMjFyBwgBEgNNU1BAAUgBcAGCAQsI____________AZgBAw&tfu=KgA

Try doing a multi-city booking Minneaplolis to port and Barcelona to Minneapolis. If that doesn't work, book RT Barcelona to Minneapolis and back to BCN. The airline won't like that you aren't going back to Barcelona, but that works.

As soon as the reservations open. Go to their websire and see how far out they are letting you reserve. It was 60 days at one time.

Day 1 looks fine. You must reserve at Armando way ahead of time. There is no such thing as dropping by to see if they have a table. Day 2. Reserve the Vatican Museum on their website. https://tickets.museivaticani.va/home The time you go to the tour determines the time you get lunch. Pizzarium is fine, but there are many trattorias and pizza places that are very good. If you go to the Vatican in the morning you will have plenty of extra time in the afternoon for other things. For example, Castel Sant' Angelo. the Roman Forum, Capitoline Museum, Domus Aurea, Giudecca, etc., etc. Get a guide book. I haven't been to the Locanda, but I am sure it is fine. Day 3. After Trevi, continue on to Spanish steps and Piazza del Popolo. There is a lot to see in the area. Get a guide book. There is no Colosseum Museum. You visit "the" Colosseum and you must reserve ahead of time. Don't go back to the same places for dinner. Rome is full of wonderful places to eat. Look at the "Italy: All Things Food and Wine Related" thread pinned to the top of this forum. For example, try Roscioli Salumeria con Cucina not far from your hotel. It is wonderful. Reserve. Santorini - good decision Ephesus - you must go on a tour to the ruins and make sure it includes the "apartment" houses. Go to the "Other Mediterranean Ports" forum for lots of info. Staying at the port town (Kusadasi) would be a total waste of time. Mykonos - ok. Then town is very scenic. Consider going to Delos if you are interested in Greek history and mythology. Naples - three main choices: Pompeii, Capri or the Amalfi coast. It all depends on how much time you have in port and your interests. You can't see it all. Lots of info on this board. Are those all your ports?

Ooops.

The only hotel at the airport is a Sofitel. It is just a few steps across the street (or a walkway over the street) from the terminal. It has very good accommodations and a more than decent restaurant with a good breakfast. There are other hotels nearby that may have a shuttle to the airport. Cheaper, but not as convenient. Here is the Sofitel website: https://all.accor.com/hotel/3167/index.en.shtml?utm_campaign=seo+maps&utm_medium=seo+maps&utm_source=google+Maps We use George's Taxi whenever we are in Greece and they are excellent tour and/or transfer providers. We have done something similar to what you want. We arrived early afternoon at ATH and had an early morning departure the next day for an island. We left our bags at the hotel, had GT's pick us up and take an afternoon tour to Sounion and dinner at the beach, and back to the hotel. It worked perfectly. https://www.georgestaxi.com/ Get in touch with them and get a quote on a combination tour/transfer.

@Moon Orchid Good luck with planning Rome. Take control if you can. Here is a suggestion for ship excursions. As you know, when you are planning to book a ship's excursion or a shared independent excursion, each party has to make their own reservations. You should pick the excursion you want at each place. Then give "her" a printed list of the options at each place and tell her that they are welcome to book the same excursion that you have or to choose any other they like. In either case, you will meet afterwards at the ship for drinks and dinner. Leave it up to her and her clients to choose.

Agree. Versailles is practically a suburb of Paris. You may save a little time getting there since you would avoid the traffic in central Paris. Still, close to three hours each way. I am not sure there are direct trains from Le Havre to Versailles. You may have to transfer in Paris.

@martyap- Have you been the the Hospital de Sant Pau? It is an art Nouveau masterpiece by a contemporary of Gaudí. It is well worth a visit. https://santpaubarcelona.org/en/visites/ Another place would be the Palau Güell near the bottom of the Ramblas: https://inici.palauguell.cat/en/ If you don't have BDT take you to Montserrat, they could give you a tour of both those places if you don't want to do them on your own.