Italian Idyll excursion suggestions - leaving October 28, 2011

[DrmnOfMaui]

My wonderful husband surprised me last weekend with a 7 night cruise on the Legend for our anniversary, leaving Rome on October 28. He even pre-arranged my mom to stay with the kids! I've had good luck acquiring lodging in Rome for a few days prior to the cruise and I've secured a day trip in Malta with Touring Malta.

 

I'm scrambling, however, to find excursions and private tours for the rest of the stops and in particular for our day in Trapani. Neither Google searches nor CC searches have returned much information. We would love to participate in some sort of wine tasting tour, perhaps also including olive oil. Any suggestions from past participants? We would be interested in similar tours at any of the other ports as well or simply any excursions or private tours that you particularly enjoyed.

 

We also stop in Gaeta, Taormina, Sorrento, Valletta and Lipari Island.

 

At this point I thought we might do Taormina on our own without a tour or excursion, the stop looks fabulous and on your own appears easy to do.

 

This will be our first Seabourn cruise and I can't begin to tell you how excited I am!! Definitely counting down the days!!!:D

[kimiata]

Hi,

 

Happy Anniversary, and you are going to love this cruise! We just did the same one in May and it may have been our best cruise ever. You will definitely be spoiled by Seabourn.

 

We booked a cooking class at a restaurant in Taormina (Licchio's) that was a lot of fun. You should try to go to Erice from Trapani. We did that the week before our cruise when we were driving around Sicily. Our friends combined that with an olive oil tour the day we were in port there. I can try to find out who they used if you want. They also did a tour of the Amalfi coast from Sorrento; if you search the Ports of Call boards there are lots of tour guides there. We'd been there before so just enjoyed the day hanging out in Sorrento. Lipari was a nice surprise and maybe everyone's favorite port of the entire cruise. Easy to do on your own. Not that much in Gaeta but a fun day nevertheless.

 

E-mail me at kimiata@aol.com if you want to. (Or we could meet you at Vigilucci's for a glass of wine before you go. We live in Carlsbad too.)

 

Kim

[Chairsin]

We have been to Taormina twice on Seabourn and you are right -- very easy to do on your own as Seabourn provides a shuttle bus that drops you off in the big parking garage under the town. Do not miss the Greek theater.

[DrmnOfMaui]

Thank you both!! Time has been short the last few days, but this morning I've spent some time on the computer exploring the ports. I'm very eager to see Lipari now after reading your comments! We have also decided that after 4 frantic days of all tour/all day in Rome that we will spent the day locally in Sorrento and sort of take it easy. That way we get to enjoy the ship too.

I also just read about the Greek Theater and it looks stunning!

 

Working on Malta now, trying to decide between the full day tour and the 4 hour tour. Leaning toward the 4 hour tour...

 

Kim, what a coincidence that we are both in Carlsbad! And both Kim's!

 

We'd love to meet you for a drink one evening and hear about your trip. I will drop you an email. Thank so much!

 

I appreciate both of your comments... I'm more excited than ever!!

[Chairsin]

If you feel you don't need a down day when you reach Sorrento(which is charming) you can also easily take a quick ferry ride over to Capri -- one of my favorite spots in the Med.In Malta you want want the 4 hour tour if you want to go beyond Valletta -- which is a fascinating town of stone walls and fortifications.

[Bearsparents]

Another suggestion for Sorento, is to take the train to Pompeii. It was very simple and we did it on our own. Really enjoyed it. For Malta, we went to the Hypogeum. You have to book that in advance but it was cool. For Taromina, we did the ship tour to Mt Etna. We really wanted to do a private tour but could not find one that went to Mt Etna for half a day. Mt Etna was neat. It was windy and snow was flying. We also spent 3 days in Rome after the cruise. Really loved Rome, so much to see and do.

 

Kim, do you have any other cruises booked? We have been pretty busy with work so vacation has just been a trip to disney world since it is close. We were thinking about doing another week cruise in Dec but on seabourn the only one doing week cruises is the Legend in the med. Was hoping to do something different since we went there in May.

 

Kris (if you don't remember me we hung out one late night and danced all night, Bert was also the young bald one :)

[kimiata]

Kris (if you don't remember me we hung out one late night and danced all night, Bert was also the young bald one :)

 

Hi Kris, I was just thinking about you guys. Tell Bert I'm going to Alliance next week. We are just back from two weeks on Windstar. We put down deposits with them and Seabourn, but haven't booked anything yet.

 

Kim, it would be great to get together with you. You are really going to enjoy this cruise. Will you be onboard for your anniversary?