Missing Willow Farm

There was nothing better to grab at breakfast than some of the incredible fresh Mediterranean fruits and a slice of salty cured meat.

A small section of the seafood buffet.

Local cheeses purchased by our chef while in port, accompanied by dried fruit.

Surf and turf from the ‘reservations only but no additional charge’ specialty restaurant on board. We ate there three times.

Caviar and champagne delivered to our suite as an appetizer before dinner.

These two coconut desserts we found on the buffet were the best I’ve had in a very long time.

Chateaubriand with bernaise sauce so tender you didn’t even need a knife to cut it. Best I’ve ever had.

Yep, we ordered this from room service. Kettle chips and champagne for movie night in our cabin.

We visited Ephesus, Turkey on an excursion. It’s an ancient city built in the 10th century BC and was the home of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Ephesus was the honeymoon location of Marc Antony and Cleopatra.

There were kitties roaming throughout the ruins. Just charming.

Only an estimated 15% of the site has been excavated. This is a stone carving of the goddess Nike.

The day was just gorgeous. Our guide said she’d never seen the site as uncrowded as the day we visited.

The pubic men’s toilets. The women’s room hasn’t yet been found.

The Ephesus Terrace Houses were the ‘do not miss’ of our entire trip. An active excavation of (so far) six houses of the rich dating back to 1 BC. The entire site is protected within a fiberglass building and features frescoes, beautiful mosaic floors, marble walls and a heating system.

It’s an active archaeological dig.

Our tour of Ephesus ended in the great theater, which could hold 25,000 spectators.

Our ship bused us all back to Ephesus after dinner that evening to enjoy a chamber music concert in front of the great theater.

We spent Brian’s birthday in Mykonos, which seemed to us to be the port that most matched our expectation of Greece the most. Just charming.

We spent the day wandering the town, winding through the streets until we reached the windmills which were built by the Venetians in the 16th century and were primarily used to mill wheat.

The island’s mascot is Petros the pelican. I took about a million photos of him.

And look! He had a kitty friend!

For dinner that evening, I asked the chef to prepare Brian’s favorite dishes of the cruise so far and he kindly obliged. This was waiting in the cabin for us after dinner. It was a very good day.

We visited Calvi Corsica, the supposed birthplace of Christopher Columbus. Actually, one of four supposed birthplaces of Christopher Columbus.  This is a view from our suite’s balcony from where we were anchored.

A view from the port. Most every place we visited looked very similar. Yachts, sailboats and fishing boats galore. For the most part, the largest yachts were found in Monte Carlo. Most of them had jacuzzis and a few even had helicopters(!)

I just love this photo. We ran into lots of free roaming pets on this trip. This pup was visiting a seaside bistro at the time.

While walking around the port towns, we occasionally stopped for free WiFi and a cappuccino. This little bistro in Corsica is typical of those stops. Just charming.

As we were leaving the ship to explore Calvi a fellow guest asked if we were knife shopping.  He told us the locals use knives to kill each other, which we thought was a strange statement. Sure enough, there were knives everywhere. I can’t imagine trying to take one back to the ship. Our shopping with the chef excursion was delayed about 10 minutes because one of the shops gave us each a cheese knife to take home. Security had to figure out if they wanted all those 1.5 inch blades on board. We of course were allowed to keep them, as long as they went directly into our suitcases.