The Great 10-year anniversary trip
To celebrate our aniversary June 21, 2007, we took the 11 Night Eastern Mediterranean Cruise on Celebrity's Galaxy June 11 - 22, 2007. After the cruise we spent six days in Provence (I've always wanted to see Provence when the lavender is in bloom). We wrapped it all up with a night in Paris.
Read the trip stories on my blog or see the photos on flickr.
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The itinerary :
June 10, arrive in Rome. Spend one night at Rome Marriott Grand Hotel Flora (thank you, Marriott points!).
June 11, board the Galaxy ...
Monday Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy
Depart 7:00 PM
June 12 Tuesday At Sea
June 13 Wednesday Mykonos, Greece
June 14 Thursday Rhodes, Greece
June 15 Friday Santorini, Greece
June 16 Saturday Istanbul, Turkey
June 17 Sunday Istanbul, Turkey
June 18 Monday Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey
June 19 Tuesday Athens (Piraeus), Greece
June 20 Wednesday At Sea
June 21 Thursday Naples/Capri, Italy Docked
June 22 Friday Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy
June 22 Fly Rome to Lyon Easyjet flight #7848; dep. 12:00 arr. 13:30. Stay at Hilton Lyon hotel (thanks Hiltonhonors)
June 23 Drive to Le Mas du Clos de l'Escarrat. Our little studio, the "Ventoux" is part of a 17th century building that was a hay loft in its earlier life.
"If Charles & Andrée Barail's B&B in a 17th-century stone mas surrounded by unruly flowerbeds, lawns, and gravel terraces shaded by mature trees isn't your Provencal rural fantasy come to life, then you've got the wrong picture." (Condé Nast Traveler)
June 29 Drive to Paris for one night, staying at Grand Hôtel Lévêque.
June 30 fly home
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The more the merrier - Our friends Holly and Chas, who traveled to Italy with us in March 2006, joined us on the cruise. I'm collected links to share information with our travel partners on delicious.
Did you find this page because you're on the cruise too? Hop over to my roll call on CruiseCritic. Roll call June 11 2007| Eastern Med on Celebrity Galaxy.
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Flight info:
These SkyMiles "free" tickets are the result of several rounds of hard-fought battles with Delta.
Sat June 09 Delta 6214
Louisville 2:50pm to Cinci 3:38
Delta 32 7:30pm to Rome 10:45am (Rome time) 10 Jun 2007
Sat June 30 Delta 43 11:45 (Paris time) Paris to Cinci 3:00
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Deciding on this particular trip was fun ...
Travel Hyper Activity Attention Deficit Disorder
Have you heard the joke something like "I don't have attention deficit dis -look! There's a butterfly!"?
That is me with travel. It's more than a little ridiculous how I change my mind and bounce around the globe when deciding on a trip destination. It goes something like this:
I want to do a Mediterranean cruise for our 10-year wedding anniversary in June 2007.
No, I want adventure. I want to go on the Trans-Siberian railway trip across Russia and Mongolia and China.
Ooh, if we're going to do that we should do an Around-the-World . where else should we stop? Definitely SE Asia.
Oh, airfare is too much. Let's just do SE Asia. Group tour? What about a river cruise in China?
I like this 16-day Princess cruise from Bangkok to Beijing.
Hmm, maybe an Intrepid Travel tour of Cambodia. Oh, look at this other tour in their catalogue. Transylvania sounds really cool!
I bet we could use Marriot points in China.
Oh, they're not doing that cruise in June of 07. I think we could do Bangkok on our own, and look it's only a 4-5 hour flight back to China or Japan. (Visit Amazon, buy two books on SE Asia)
FriendlyPlanet has some cheap deals to Asia. We could ditch the bus tour and do our own thing.
Ooooh, Holland America prices have dome down on their Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt and Libya cruise. Let's do that. Yes, for sure. (Go to Amazon. Cancel other order. Order Mediterranean cruise and Holy Land books). Read up on Libya and Israel safety sheets.
Tally up cost of cruise plus excursions plus tips plus airfare plus plus plus .. Ok, maybe we shouldn't spend 10 percent of our annual income on this trip.
A rainy Sunday at home all day. I could write up my trip report from Italy, or I could surf around and find a more affordable Mediterranean cruise. Jeez, they all go to places we've already been. What about a week in Provence? I haven't looked at Untours in a while.
Ooh, wait, look at this Celebrity Med cruise. $1000+ less than the Holland America one and it overnights in Istanbul, and goes to all new places for us.
Yeah, I like that one. Yep, definitely. Email from Amazon - my order has shipped. Well, at least one of the books is still applicable. Anyone need a Holy Land guidebook?
After all this, we've come full circle, back to the cruise I bookmarked 6 months ago in my Celebrity catalogue at home.
Now we need to decide where to go before and after the 11 day cruise. Guess that will depend on where Delta can get us with our miles in June. Maybe Dubrovnik . ? Or Switzerland - I'd love to go back. Hey, doesn't Delta fly to Kiev now . ?
Did anybody else see that butterfly? 
