Our Current Adventure: Cruising to launch our 2 months in Europe

Phillip and I are away on another adventure! We are currently in Tivoli, Italy, after coming to Europe on a 16-day trans-Atlantic cruise. Our plans are to spend two months mainly in the Balkan countries, flying home from Athens in late June. We will travel in countries that we have yet to visit: Slovenia, Croatia, and many more as we work our way south after our first eight days in Italy. 

The cruise to get here, on the Celebrity Constellation, was the smoothest trans-Atlantic cruise that we have been on. A bit of cool, wet weather on several days, but no storms or rough seas. The ship was ready for cool days:

blankets provided on the pool deck

We had an ocean view cabin on Deck 3, assigned, not chosen, but it was actually pretty great. Easy access to the casino, theatre, and the main dining room. 

All the cabin doors look alike as you walk down the hallways, but our cabin on this cruise was special. The hall carpet had a single patch of blue... right in front of our door! We never walked past our door on this cruise.

The only cabin with blue hall carpet

We had four port stops on this journey: Bermuda, Gibraltar, Cartagena (Spain), and Barcelona. In Bermuda, our ship docked at the Navy Dockyards, so we just walked a bit on the main road towards town, getting in 12,000 steps.

Not always a sidewalk as we walked

Interesting view thru a rock formation

We also went off the ship in Gibraltar, again just walking around town.  There was a cable car to go to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar, but I figured it would be crowded. I heard later that some people waited two hours in line for the $60 ride. And there was a monkey colony on the mountainside. We aren't big fans of monkeys. The cruise ship personnel officially warned passengers that these monkeys were known to steal from tourists. We were perfectly happy to miss the monkeys; greenery and a fort wall were good enough sights for us.

Our next port stop was Cartagena, Spain. Not really much to see. The town was setting up for a spring festival, with some of the children's areas almost ready.

Cartagena did have some good looking murals around town:

That's a real cat in the picture, posing for us

Phillip and I didn't get off the ship in Barcelona. The ship docked several miles from town in a commercial port area, requiring a bus trip to get anywhere off the ship. It rained that day and the prospect of a full bus of wet passengers was not appealing. We visited Barcelona for several days during our return home from Poland, so we decided to skip it this trip. 

Celebrity ships generally have decent entertainment, and this cruise was no exception. My favorite was Robert Neary who did a Neil Diamond tribute show. Pretty darn close to the actual Neil Diamond sound!

The production shows from the ship's singers and dancers were entertaining, especially the acrobatic-type performances they included:

Our disembarkation yesterday was uneventful. The ship docked in Civitavecchia, and we took a bus to the Rome train station, then a 30-minute train to Tivoli where we are staying for three nights. Our two months of land travel will now begin!