My Mediterranean Adventure Begins!

While flying away from London marked the end of my six week adventure in the UK (well, technically one week of it was spent in Ibiza), it also kick started my two week adventure through another new region of the world- the Mediterranean. In the next two weeks I would experience lots of firsts: my first time in Greece, my first trip to Turkey, my first cruise, and my first trip alone with my mom.

While I knew that I would love the islands and love traveling with my Mom, I was a bit apprehensive about trying cruising for the first time. Those that know me well have heard me talk a bit of smack about this method of travel in the past, but here I was, about to set sail for seven days and seven nights. It’s not that I don’t love the open ocean, (I did a liveaboard diving trip in the Bahamas for a week and loved it!) I just have my reservations about this particular brand of mass tourism. But as I’ve said before, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that gift horse is a luxury trip through the Greek isles.

My biggest problem with cruising (and while I had never cruised before I worked closely with the cruise ship industry in Grand Cayman) is that you can’t even begin to know a place in an 8 hour visit, and you can’t really contribute positively to its economy if you aren’t staying in hotels, eating in restaurants, etc. I’ve also always cringed at the thought of being surrounded by thousands of people and hundreds of screaming children when I’m supposed to be on vacation. We nipped those last fears in the bud by choosing Silversea, a smaller (500 passenger), more upscale cruise line with no kids programs. Perhaps my thoughts will change some day if I ever have kidlets of my own, but at this moment in time the idea of a Disney cruise with endless rows of children doing the conga behind a man in a Mickey Mouse suit is my own personal hell.

So stay tuned as I hop through the Greek isles, explore Athens and Istanbul, finally make up my mind about the cruising industry, and fall head over heels for the Mediterranean!