Category Archives: personal blog

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”

Here we are at the end of one stage of the holiday, and the beginning of another. Today being marked by a stop over in Valletta. We are going to be here slightly longer than expected which means we can take a look at our plans. It turns out that there is a problem withContinue reading “1098 – Mdina & Valletta”

You’ll gather from the intermittent posting that my connection to the internet is also exactly that. To be honest, I refuse to pay the ridiculous rates that they want to charge on board, so I’m afraid I’m dependent upon when I get a good phone signal. You’ll also notice that I have completely given upContinue reading “1097 – Intermission”

On then to Civitaveccia the port that gives access to Rome. Another early rising, and the coach for a two hour drive to Rome. We were booked to go into the Colosseum. You can probably imagine that we were a bit concerned after we read a newspaper report a couple of weeks ago about theContinue reading “1096 – Rome, Gladiators, Senators, tourists and traffic – oh yes, the traffic.”

From the port of Livorno, we could have headed for Florence & Pisa, but we have done both of these before, a few years ago, I had the typical picture of me trying to hold up the leaning tower. I must admit I fancied the idea of try to get one pushing it over. Instead,Continue reading “1095 – Sienna and st Gimmignano”

On yesterdays post, I should have said that the first sea day ended with a formal night. Elayne had made sure that my dinner suite was packed. I of made sure that I wasn’t paying attention to the packing and therefore forgot my bow-tie and braces. Luckily the ship-board shop had them, so that wasContinue reading “1094 Day 4 – Ajaccio, Corsica”

We were due to be taken from the hotel to Azura at 1300. We were packed and had eaten breakfast by around 0930, so thought we would take a stroll down to see the illuminated church as it is in daylight. We took what might be a less obvious route by going up hill aContinue reading “1093 – Day 2 & 3 Boarding & Seaday”

The Hotel Solana in Mellieha is quite pleasant, it’s a surprisingly big place given its location in the centre (pretty much) of town. Where we had booked with a holiday company and were only staging through, we had been allocated a basic room. We were offered an upgrade that would give us a balcony andContinue reading “1092 – Day 1 – Malta/Gozo”

After we heard about the issues with the uk air traffic system (the cause of which rather tests my credulity especially after speaking to a former RAF Navigator whom we’ve just met) we were someŵhat nervous about what would be waiting for us upon our arrival at Gatwick. We had even discussed the possibility ofContinue reading “1091 – Gatwick”