Category Archives: personal blog

Our third port of call was Livorno. Normally Livorno is the gate way to Florence & Pizza, we’ve been there before, so we decided on a different adventure. We wanted to experience Tuscany, which saw us on a coach heading for Sienna. Sienna on a map looks pretty much as being in the middle ofContinue reading “1108 – Tuscany”

Our visit to Monaco meant Azura anchoring at Ville Franche and the passengers being tendered in to the port. The tender could be a locally hired craft or one of cruise ships craft. In either case each craft can carry 100 – 150 people. To smoothly get anything upto 3000 pax’s off and back onContinue reading “1107 – Tendering Ville Franche”

The Capital of Corsica is Ajaccio. Of what we saw it’s was neat and well kept. We hopped on the road train which gave us a tour with a couple of photo stops on the way round. The first stop was at a big monument to Napoleon. I know who Napoleon was of course, butContinue reading “1106 – What surprised me about Corsica”

The train journey from Havant was smooth, except the train was loaded with cyclists and their bikes heading towards the Isle of Wight we think. I didn’t find out if there was an event on. There was no room for the luggage so we were partially blocking the aisle. We managed. We only had aContinue reading “1105 – We return home – Part two”

Our pick up was due at the hotel at 0825, and lo and behold there he was. It was rush hour so we took a back route to the airport that was interesting, we saw a part of Malta that we hadn’t seen. It appears that the Maltese authorities have changed regulations private taxis areContinue reading “1104 – We return home – Part one”

The ship docked at Valletta early, and we had to be out of the cabin by 0800. That wasn’t a problem we’re prepared and headed up to breakfast. Whilst we had access to the ships facilities for as long as we needed our transfer to the hotel wasn’t due until 1130 and as were weightedContinue reading “1103 – Our last full day”

Katakolo on the western main coast of Greece was Azura’s last port of call before our return to Malta and then home. We had a visit booked to see the site of the first Olympic village. Ok, that does it a massive injustice. Olympia the mountain is the home of the Greek gods, and isContinue reading “1102 – Katakolo & Olympia”

Oh Dear. We’ve just been going through what we have done over the course of our holiday and I was looking at my blog and I suddenly realised there was no post that had covered our visit to Ville Franche. I knew that I had written something but it was not where it needed toContinue reading “1101 (out of sequence) Monte Carlo & Monaco (Monte Carlo or bust)”

Yesterday afternoon, we could have gone ashore in Heraklion but decided against it and instead watched a Mission Impossible film (Fallout if you must know) before going to dinner. I think it’s number six in the series. We had only got to Number 3 at home, so we are a bit out of sequence. OhContinue reading “1100 – Heraklion, Knossos & Greek Society”

The transit across the various seas between Malta and Greece, the Aegean & Ionian mainly have had a deep low pressure area hanging over them these last few days. The captain of Azura, Neil Turnbull, has made no bones about it likely to be a bit rough. As it turns out, nowhere near as badContinue reading “1099 – Athens & Stormy weather”