So, we'll make our way to London in mid-October 2018, and will spend a few days, maybe a week, in England. Not sure exactly where - that can be decided later - but we'll definitely find our way to Southampton by 20 October. Next day we hop aboard the Sapphire Princess for a 38 day cruise to Singapore, and from there we'll come home. We might stay a few days in Singapore too, although if I still haven't retired I might be pushing the limits of my available leave by the time we get there :-)
The cruise stops in only three places we have seen before, the rest are new to us. Also there are a lot of lovely relaxing sea days. It's actually quite similar to a cruise we were going to do this year on the Emerald Princess, although with more ports in Europe and less in Asia than the Emerald Princess one.
So, these are the ports we stop at:
- Le Havre - from here you can go to Paris but I expect we might do a tour of the Normandy beaches
- Lisbon, Gibraltar, Barcelona and Toulon - no ideas yet about what we might do in these places, but no doubt there will be far more possibilities in every place than we could possibly get through in the one day we spend in each place!
- Livorno - I'll be going to Florence to see the Duomo, no idea what else we'll do though
- Rome - one of the few places we have seen before - we spent a few days in Rome earlier this year. Still thousands of sights we haven't seen, but a shore excursion isn't really the best way to see Rome.
- Naples - our cruise earlier this year stopped in Naples, but we went out of the city to Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. Plenty of things to see in Naples itself, and of course there's also the Amalfi Coast and Capri
- Valletta in Malta - I already have our sightseeing in Valletta worked out - we were meant to go there on our cruise earlier this year, but they disappointingly dropped Valletta from the itinerary after the cruise started. Lots of things to see within walking distance of the port, and we'll almost certainly stick to those plans, just two years later!
- Athens - interesting one, we were underwhelmed with Athens and even though we know it was mostly the tour we took, it isn't a city that leaps out as somewhere we want to go back to.
- Rhodes - more research needed here too
- Aqaba - the only place to go from here, for me anyway, is Petra. Missing Petra was the real disappointment when we cancelled the Emerald Princess cruise, so I'm really pleased to get another chance so go there.
- Dubai - nothing particularly thrills me about Dubai except the chance to get to the top of the world's tallest building!
- Cochin, Colombo and Kuala Lumpur - three more places that I have no real idea about yet.
Anyone who talks to me about travel knows that I enjoy the researching and planning almost as much as the trip, and this one will involve heaps of enjoyment for me!
