Dubai

We were worried that a 16-day cruise would be really long and start to get boring, but it passed super fast and before we knew it, the last days of our cruise were sadly upon us. 

We arrived in Dubai around 2 PM and were greeted by a lovely landscape view of the Burj Khalifa towering over the skyline.


We hopped into a taxi to visit the tallest building in the world and surrounding attractions. Along the way, we saw some of Dubai's amazing architecture and were in awe seeing the large number of active sky-scraper construction projects underway. 


At the Dubai Mall, we strolled through the surrounding areas and went inside to see some of the mall attractions like the Aquarium and the indoor waterfall. We grabbed a bite to eat while watching the world's largest light and sound show on the Burj Khalifa.


The next day we departed the boat and left our travel companions behind 😢 to continue their cruise to Singapore. 

We strapped on our backpacks and went to explore “La Mer”, a new sea-side resort area close to the ship.  It was really pretty, but crazy hot!  We spent a couple of hours exploring and then headed back to the airport to made our way to London.. and back to reality.

Suez Canal

On day 9 of our cruise, we passed through the Suez Canal. 

It took about 10 hours to cross and was a pretty uneventful other than seeing a few landmarks along the way. 


One interesting part of the journey was to see the contrast between the East and West sides of the canal. 

On the West side you see cities and trees. 


While on the East side it's mostly desert. 

Athens by Bike

At our third cruise port, Athens, we decided to explore the city by bike!  We were able to cover a lot more ground to get a good overview of the city, but it did not allow us to visit specific sites (like the Acropolis). 

We had a great guide who stopped regularly to tell us myths about the city and the gods... Like why is Athens called Athens: 

Here is the short version: Athena (God of Wisdom) and Poseidon (God of the sea) fought to be the patron god of the city. They both presented a gift to the king so that he could choose a winner. Poseidon made a spring while Athena gave the city an olive tree seed. Unfortunately, the spring water was salted so the king choose Athena and named the city Athens.

Here is the slightly longer version: https://www.greeka.com/attica/athens/myths/athens-name-giving/


One of the best stops on our tour was at a local bakery where our guide bought us some traditional Spanakopita, Bougatsa (a traditional dessert), and other delicious treats to taste :)

Capri

Our second Cruise port stop was Naples. From here we decided to get on another boat and go explore the island of Capri and its famous Blue Grotto.


When we arrived in Capri, we switched to a smaller boat to head to the Blue Grotto. At the blue grotto, we switch to an even smaller boat to enter this small hole in the wall. It was a boating extravaganza ;)


Once we entered the cave, this amazing blue aura appeared in the water around us. The reflection from the sun in the water of the cave was just magnificent.  Our boat driver sang while paddling us around the cave a few times.  The visit was short, the cave was small and it was crowded with many boats.. but the experience was still quite enjoyable.


After our quick Blue Grotto excursion, we climbed to the top of Capri to have some delicious Naplesese pizza.


We finished our day by exploring the cute city. 

Orvieto and Bagnoregio

The first stop on our Cruise to Dubai was Civitavecchia (the Rome port city). Since all of us had been to Rome before, we decided to book a private tour and explore Orvieto and Bagnoregio.

Cita di Bagnoregio is a small town near Rome that sits on a hill, like a lot of cities in the region.  It was abandoned for a long time, but now has about 15 inhabitants that most likely are there to caters to tourists.  The base of this city is eroding slowly, so eventually, it will slowly be abandoned again.


From here we set out to Orvieto to see their famous cathedral and the other sites in the city



We also had enough time to take a tour of some of the tunnels below the city that were dug through the years. They were used for different things: such as cellars, water storage, and even as a coup for pigeons.


Lastly, on our way back to our ship, we stopped on top of a hill to admire the view of a big lake in the region. 

Barcelona to Dubai Cruise

We decided to join Jen’s parents on a 16-day cruise from Barcelona to Dubai on a new Royal Caribbean ship called the Spectrum of the Seas. This was a good way to spend some time with them and relax. The Spectrum was a brand new boat and our portion of the trip was considered the inaugural trip.  The full journey was destined for Singapore where the boat would be stationed to serve the Asian market. 


Although this was a long cruise, it only stopped at the following ports: 
  • Barcelona 
  • Civitavecchia (Rome)
  • Naples
  • Athens
  • Aquaba
  • Dubai

The rest of the time we kept busy with multiple activities. Here are a few that we enjoyed: 

  • Progressive Trivia: Every day, we participated in a trivia contest that tested random knowledge. We learned a lot about South Africa (since that's where the trivia host was from), a lot about different phobias, and what random groups of animals are called.  Did you know that a group of owls is called a parliament?


  • Flow Rider: Yay


  • iFly: No better way to dry out your gums 


  • Fencing: This was their first attempt at having this activity on a ship, so the experience was pretty short, but it was fun to give it a try since neither of us had ever tried fencing before.. plus there is nothing like being equipped with a sword and saying, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" 


  • North Star: The North Star is a big bubble on top of the ship that gives you a bird's eye view of the ship. It seemed like a silly idea at first, but in the end, we were surprised at how impressive the view actually was.


  • Morning Yoga: Every other day they had free yoga classes :)


  • Comedy, Music Shows, and movies on the top deck: At night we had a variety of entertainment opportunities with semi-known performers.


Jen's parents stayed on the boat for another journey all the way to Singapore. But we had to go back to work after Dubai. 

Spring Visitors

This year, we were fortunate enough to have some visitors in the Spring. 

Guy and Cynthia came for about 1 week and we had a great time exploring London with them. 


The Kiss family also came for a quick long-weekend. It was such a pleasure to see them again. 


Sintra

Not far from Lisbon, there is a weird Lego-like palace called Sintra. It looked really vibrant and so different from other castles we had visited in the past. 

The Pena Palace was built in the mid-1800s on top of an old monastery. It was built as a royal summer residence but is now a royal attraction. If you want to know more, check out Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pena_Palace


After our stroll of the colorful palace, we walked over to visit another castle on the adjacent hill, overlooking Pena Palace.  This castle felt completely opposite to the Pena Palace.  Where Pena Palace is bright and vibrant, the old Moor castle is dark and gloomy. It was built by the Moors in the 8th and 9th centuries and is really worth the walk as you can go around the battlements and see the scenic surroundings. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Moors)

The trip took us a full day and involved a lot of walking.. but it was definitely worth the visit. :)

Belem

While in Lisbon, we wanted to go to a nearby town called Belem.  To get there, we decided to try out some electric Lime scooters for the first time!  


We zipped along the coast toward Belem and stopped to admire the sites along the way.


We also stopped at the famous Pasteis de Belem, the bakery that makes pastel de nata using the original secret recipe from the Jerónimos Monastery. The line outside is huge, but it is actually just for people who are getting items for takeout.


The actual restaurant seats hundreds of people, so if you by-pass the line and go inside, you will pass through several different rooms where you can easily find a free table and enjoy some fresh tasty treats and meals for a great price!  We lucked out and got a seat on the patio where we had a nice relaxing lunch... with extra dessert :)


Lisbon

We enjoyed our trip to Porto so much that we decided to check out Lisbon!

Lisbon is the largest city in Portugal, built on 7 hills (or is it 8?), home to the longing "Fado" genre of music, and most importantly.. sacred keepers of the original Pastel de Nata recipe! 


Since Pastel de Nata originated here, one of our missions was to taste-test as many as we could (without making ourselves sick ;) ). 

The two places we liked the most were Manteigaria


and Fabrica da Nata, which was recommended by our apartment host


Thanks to Dom's research, we also discovered that we could do a workshop at Pastelaria Batalha to learn how to make them ourselves!

Although the class isn't set up in a way that you can each individually make the pastries yourself, our chef kept it interesting and tried to have us participate in as many steps as possible. In the end we learned a lot, had fun, and got to eat more Pastel de Nata :)