Mauimary Beyond Transatlantic B2B &Italy Croatia, Montenegro Two Weeks land trip West Coast Portugal.

[mauimary]

 

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. 

[Piper77]

On 5/16/2023 at 5:06 AM, mauimary said:

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. 

I’m on a similar itinerary leaving next week and am excited about Corfu. Do you recall what celebrity offered for a transfer into old town?  Wondering how much and what square it took people too. Thanks!

[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. 

 

 

[Silkroad]

On 5/16/2023 at 3:42 AM, mauimary said:
 

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. 

 

 

My DH and I did the same thing when we visited Kotor. We were on the first tenders, and we were the first to climb to the top of the mountain. It was a wonderful morning! Loving your review and photos!

[mauimary]

Just now, Piper77 said:

I’m on a similar itinerary leaving next week and am excited about Corfu. Do you recall what celebrity offered for a transfer into old town?  Wondering how much and what square it took people too. Thanks!

The shuttle from the ship to the terminal was free. Then this is where we messed up. There was a shuttle for apx 12$ per person to Old Town. We had already purchased those tickets and wish we would have known the HOHO bus started at the same place. Of course they were non refundable. We wanted a tour so bought the HOHO and got off in Old Town which was wonderful. 

[mauimary]

On 5/17/2023 at 6:59 PM, Piper77 said:

 

[mauimary]

Hope you did not give up on me. The post above was an 😬 oops!  I could not get it deleted so I hit submit so I could carry on.  The day before our last port was a sea day so we took advantage of getting some final photos of some of the staff that we really enjoyed at Al Bacio. 
 

Princess who we knew from a year ago July and Anna one of the Asst Food &Beverage Mgrs.  We really enjoyed visiting with both of them every morning. Princess had our morning  cappuccino made with oat milk order remembered every morning.   We would see Anna everywhere pitching in and helping her staff. She is the one who suggested I try the cortado ( originated in Spain ) it quickly became a favorite of mine. 
 

Danica. So much fun. She would always just know what we wanted. She greeted us by name right from the beginning of the cruise. Really going to miss these ladies. 
Pretty quiet here in the early mornings. 

[mauimary]

This old ship was docked by us in Naples which was our very last Port.  We have not been to Sorrento for fifteen years so we decided to take a Celebrity Ship tour.  It would give us about three hours to explore, eat, drink and shop. Following Sorrento was a visit to a Winery on the slopes of Mt Vesuvius. 
View from the bus window. At least we were sitting on the correct side of the bus. 

Sorrento is all about lemons!  Lots of lemon everything. 
Everywhere were lots of blue and white banners. Naples football team had just won the National Championship and everyone displayed these banners proudly. 
 

 

Limoncello Spritzers love these too. 

 

plenty of time for walking 

 

I love doors so added another one to my Worldwide Collection of doors. 

Beautiful viewpoint from the Limoncello Factory that we visited and sampled of course. 
Test drive this fun little car on the patio of the Limoncello Factory. 

Granite Cliff right alongside the Limoncello Factory 

 

Then it was time for our final stop a Winery on the slopes of Mt Vesuvius 

 

Beautiful poppy fields 

 

some vines starting to grow 

Us of course. Glad Mt Vesuvius was was cooperative while we were there and kept her 

composure!! 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by mauimary

[mauimary]

(May 15) On to Rome where we had to sadly depart the Beyond after an absolutely fab 22 days of cruising.   We were excited to be seeing Rome again since it had been 15 yrs since we were last in the City.  We had made arrangements with Rome in Limo to pick us up and drive us around Rome for the day before dropping us off at our hotel closer to the airport (FCO). 
 

We departed the ship and right away found our luggage and RIL was right there standing with a sign with our name on it.  An official sign and not one hastily written in!!

 

 

Early am arrival in Rome. Sun just beginning to come up. 
We made a stop to visit St Paul’s Cathedral just outside the City Gates of Rome. We had the time because we would not be going into the Coliseum or the Sistine Chapel.  We have been in before and wanted to see more of Rome this time. 

 

The Courtyard was beautiful 

 

 

ON TO ROME 

 

We never realized Rome had a small Pyramid 
 

These Foundations of fortification have likely surround Rome since about the 8th century!!

 

First stop in Rome for us was the Coliseum and we were glad we only did a walk around. The line was extremely long even if you had tickets.  Plenty of hawkers outside offering tours for those that wanted to (risk it)! No Thanks!!!😎

 

Proof we were here!!

Still excavating more ruins

Quite a tedious job not wanting to miss a single fragment!!

Us with our super intelligent and knowledgeable guide Francesco from Rome in Limo (RIL).  He was a lot of fun. So wonderful to have a guide drive us right to the site or a very close walk. Also wonderful to be able to leave a purse wallets etc as they stay with the car. No worries about pickpockets either!!

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by mauimary

[mauimary]

Now that we are in Portugal I have more time to work on the continuation of this blog. We have been quite busy but at least we have good internet.  Some of my photos still want to post upside down. Especially the ones with myself and Mr. 

Cont. of Rome The usual sites that everyone likes to see 

Trevi Fountain

We threw our three coins in the Trevi Fountain and just like that we eventually made it back (15) years later

Pantheon line was quite long but it moves fast

Famous Dome inside the Pantheon

four holes in the floor under the dome 

 Alter

Roman Forum

Monument to Victor Emmanuel II

 

So glad we have a driver who has lots of skill patience and aggressive to drive these streets in the city. We would never attempt this ourselves!!

 

[mauimary]

I won’t bore you with everything but we did have a fab day. 

You guessed it the smiling folks who had just departed the Beyond and a few hours later found ourselves in front of the Spanish steps. 

 

Fountain Horses in Rome 

Fun to walk a few streets 

Eventually it was time for lunch.  RIL finds us the best lunch spots. This one was called San Marcos.  Of course I had to have an Aperol Spritz. They did not disappoint!!!😎

Had to follow up our lunch with a tiramisu and cappuccinos.  It was wonderful. 
we walked a few streets to get the feel of the city after lunch.  Besides we also needed some exercise after our big lunch. 

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by mauimary

[mauimary]

View over Rome from a high vista point. There is a park up here. Big drop off from the wall which the young were sitting and sometimes standing on!  😬 

Tgen off to the Marriott Park Hotel Rome 

Very nice place to stay. Lobby resembled a train station!! Very nice big room and a buffet breakfast. Plus we had a very late check out before our flight to Lisbon.  

Stay tuned onto Lisbon. 😎

[mauimary]

May (16) We flew TAP (Air Portugal) to Lisbon. We were somewhat worried that something would get cancelled changed and we were in no mood to deal with that after our big fiasco with KLM trying to get to BCN last summer.  
 

Fortunately everything went according to plan but when we checked our two big bags in at the check in counter the agent told us we could not take our small roll aboard on with us. Said it was a full flight!   Which turned out not be the case. More in that later. It had all our impt things in it but fortunately I had the foresight to have my baggalini fold up bag empty inside it so we removed most  everything from the bag and loaded it inside baggalini. The agent then lifted the very light roll aboard.  Now the hard part it was not real light and it’s much kinder to roll it. 
 

After all that fiasco Security check was easy but we were hungry and wanted some food besides Diet Pepsi and peanut M&Ms.  Not easy to find. Gates are not listed until apx 2hrs ahead of time so we found our gate and took a seat and then just like that it’s jam packed with two other flights and then announce we had a gate change and by the time we got there .. 

 

All turned out well. We had booked aisle and window extra legroom and lucky for us the middle was empty. Three hour late afternoon flight.  Easy peasy it turned out to be. 

Hello Lisbon 

the surprise was there were TAP airplanes scattered all over the place and stairways. No gates. Busses pulled up and took us to the airport and then you walk and walk and walk before finally finding your luggage carousel for luggage. Very tempting during the walk as there were so many restaurants and we didn’t want to leave luggage sitting around. 

 

[mauimary]

This is what things pretty much looked like. Baggage was unloaded here and everyone is loaded onto busses. 

[Lastdance]

On 5/22/2023 at 1:21 PM, mauimary said:

Hope you did not give up on me. The post above was an 😬 oops!  I could not get it deleted so I hit submit so I could carry on.  The day before our last port was a sea day so we took advantage of getting some final photos of some of the staff that we really enjoyed at Al Bacio. 
 

Princess who we knew from a year ago July and Anna one of the Asst Food &Beverage Mgrs.  We really enjoyed visiting with both of them every morning. Princess had our morning  cappuccino made with oat milk order remembered every morning.   We would see Anna everywhere pitching in and helping her staff. She is the one who suggested I try the cortado ( originated in Spain ) it quickly became a favorite of mine. 
 

Danica. So much fun. She would always just know what we wanted. She greeted us by name right from the beginning of the cruise. Really going to miss these ladies. 
Pretty quiet here in the early mornings. 

Danica was just a wonder hugger!  She has so much energy and shows all of it!

[mauimary]

The night of arrival we were too exhausted to walk the streets to find ourselves some dinner so we just shared a club sandwich in the bar and a beer for Mr and a Diet Coke for myself. Not very exciting for an exciting city I know!!!

 

As you have already figured out if you have read this far we are not foodies and we ate only in the dining rooms or ocean view. So there were no food piccies or menues as I left those for the other writer doing a more extensive review.  We did attend all the shows and enjoyed them. My goal was to post what we saw and did mostly as a DIYourselfers!!! We like to venture out and wander sometimes with a plan but mostly not!!
 

Wed (May17)  We spent two nights at The Vincci Baixa Hotel.  It’s a small hotel which is a very clean , comfortable and in a walkable location. Wonderful breakfast and a very friendly and helpful staff.  We found it through Bookings App. 

Cool elevator door 

feel like your right in the city as you step into the elevator. 
 

On our first day we started out walking and within a few blocks we found ourself in a Main Square. We thought we would take a HOHO bus but instead found ourselves in one of the many TukTuks. We talked with the driver ( prices can be soft) who was doing a Tours by Locals). We ended up with a wonderful two hour tour which took us to places the HoHO cannot get too. 
 

We wound our way through the colorful hilly streets

The tiles on the building are colorful and very pretty

We stopped at Vistas to take photos 

 ❤️ the view over the rooftops

streets are narrow, crowded and as you can see small cars, taxis , tuktuks all share the road as we wound our way through the hilly city. 

We passed Cathedrals 

Prominent Statues

more colorful buildings

Hilltop views 

colorful streets with no shortage of places to eat

I was so in love with all the colorful buildings. 

 

 

[mauimary]

More Lisbon sites 

narrow walkways to wander

steps to climb

 

Our TukTuk driver explaining to Mr where we are at and fun places to wander

recommendation on a really good local restaurant with Fado in the evening. 
remnants of a really old church. 

more views

 

After lunch at a local restaurant with a Portuguese menu that the owner spoke enough English for us to figure out what we would like( we are not eaters of fish or anything that ever lived in water!!) which can be a challenging at times we headed back down to sea level (or close enough) wandering some fun streets. 

Really old historic buildings

 

We just had to get into the picture😎

❤️these little tarts with the lemon custard filling

You are no doubt saying what the heck is this? Well just let me explain that I have a Starbucks collection of coffee cups I have collected from all over the world in places where we have traveled. 
Of course my DH was saying “ really more mugs”. Yep!! 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by mauimary