Oceania | LinWinAdventures

Posts tagged ‘Oceania’

Santorini, Greece

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Our Tour of Santorini, Greece

Just reaching Santorini is a joy as you ride in a colorful local boat to Athinios and then join a motor coach for your driving tour. Before long, you will arrive at Santoriniʹs highest peak, crowned by the serene Mt. Profitis Ilias monastery. Here, you will have an ideal photo opportunity to capture the beauty of this gorgeous island, which is also called Thira. At the northern tip of Santorini lies the unique village of Oia, built on a dramatically steep slope of a caldera that formed after a volcanic eruption about 3,500 years ago. Many of its dwellings are nestled in niches hewn out of the volcanic rock. As you walk through its narrow cobbled streets, you might shop for handicrafts and artwork such as ceramics, paintings and semi-precious jewelry. Oia also offers spectacular views of Fira, the islandʹs other village, which you will visit, as well. During your travels, be sure to notice Santoriniʹs beaches, which are known for their black, volcanic sand.

As you can see from the photos below the scenery in Santorini was spectacular. Unfortunately, when we reached the highest peak of Santorini at the beginning of the tour, the fog was so thick it made photography impossible. This was probably the coolest it was on any of our tours. We enjoyed walking the old cobblestone streets and exploring the many local shops – except for when we had to walk up a very steep hill covered in manure to get to the cable car to return to the tender pier.

Oceania Riviera Cruise Tours

We were very fortunate as we had amazing weather for all our tours. We had no rain & lovely sunny, warm days but no intense heat which would have made the days that we had long outdoor tours unbearable. Our deliberate timing worked out very well – missing the cooler wet weather in April/May & the extreme hot summer days which usually begin in mid June! The ocean/sea was a little cool for swimming but guess we can’t achieve everything!

We will be doing posts & some photo galleries of each tour over the next few days. Stay tuned!

Cruise – M/S Riviera

On May 26 we set sail on the beautiful new Oceania Riviera for our 10 day Mediterranean cruise. The cruise started in Athens and ended in Barcelona.

This was only the ships second voyage so everything was brand spanking new. With only 1250 passengers and 800+ crew the service was amazing. In addition to the standard buffet restaurant, snack cafe and the main dining room there were four speciality restaurants that featured, Steak, Italian, French and Japanese cuisine. Our only regret is that we did not have sufficient time to enjoy the ship. At each of the fabulous ports we did tours lasting between four and twelve hours, so our time on the ship was limited.

We thoroughly enjoyed the ports that the ship stopped at and would like to return to many of them to spend a longer time.

It’s a small world – we met a fellow Jamaican, Damion, who was a waiter in the restaurants. During a conversation, we discovered that he is the brother of O’Neil, who works with Winsome’s cousin in Jamaica. O’Neil was mentioned in our Jamaica post for his wonderful cooking while we stayed with Winsome’s cousin at their home in Flamstead. Never think you are somewhere where no one will know you!!!