UK and Med Cruise - Day 7 - 11 September - Naples (Vesuvius and Pompeii)

Today's shore excursion was marked down as 'strenuous', and it was!
First stop was Mt Vesuvius.  They drive you a fair way up the mountain, and I have to say I was astounded by the skill of our driver.  We were in a full-sized coach, on a twisting, winding road where to be honest I'd have thought twice about trying to drive a car as big as the Falcon.  And, it's not like we were alone; it was a Sunday so there were many large coaches, smaller busses and of course people in cars and on motorbikes as well.
Lots of people were trying the climb:

The mountain itself was killer.  Paul - and a number of other people - decided not to try to walk the whole way.
I made it up to the guided areas and got a look at the crater before staggering back down :-)

I have wondered why people would knowingly live in Naples and even closer to the volcano.  Our tour guide (Rosaria) talked about this; she lives in one of the cities that is between Naples and Vesuvius.  They know that the next eruption will be bad; the most recent one was in 1944 and it closed the crater; it's well overdue for an eruption and the closure of the crater last time also apparently makes it quite likely that the next one will be violent.  Rosaria said that everyone who lives in and around Naples understands this risk but simply prefers not to think about it; they basically just hope that they will have enough warning to evacuate from the area before the next one.  I suppose it's the same as people who knowingly live on the San Andreas fault or in any of the other high risk areas of the world.
Anyway, after Vesuvius we got back onto the bus for a drive to Pompeii.  I'm not going to say too much about Pompeii; it was just astounding.  I had no idea it was so large, or that there are really significant areas still not excavated.  I'm also only going to post this one picture - there was just so much to look at and listen to that we didn't take many photos at all. This is an original ceiling, with the design and colours protected for all these centuries due to being buried in the ash:

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Overall, a really tiring day but well worth the exhaustion.  My phone tells me that I walked 10,505 steps for the day, including its interpretation of my walk up Mt Vesuvius as climbing 34 flights of stairs!

UK and Med Cruise - Day 6 - 10 September - join the cruise

Happy start to the day - the hotel provides a continental breakfast including proper coffee!  After that we had a short walk around the general area of the hotel and then checked out to wait for our shuttle to the port.
We got 3UK SIM cards for our phones and our tablets, and they're supposed to work in Italy in the same way as in the UK (ie no extra roaming fees or data costs).  Very disappointed at first to discover that this didn't seem to be the case - for example my phone couldn't connect to the internet although my iPad could.  However once we got away from Rome it all seemed to be ok.
The shuttle arrived a little late but in plenty of time to get to the port; we were originally going to be early but instead we arrived just as boarding started.  I had heard stories about these shuttle drivers and I have to say that they weren't exaggerated.  It's about 50km from Rome to the port, varying from crowded busy streets to motorway.  The driver spent the entire trip either using his calculator to work out some details on a piece of paper he was looking at, or texting, or both!   There is also a tendency to treat lane markings as just a vague hint; we overtook people in places where I'd have thought the risk was a bit high.  Anyway, we arrived at the port in Civitavecchia in one piece (and only mildly travel-sick in my case!) so it's all good.  I think the driver was hoping for a tip but sadly for him the shuttle company website says tips aren't necessary, and none of the people onboard were Americans - so, no tip for him for that trip.
We arrived just after 1pm.  Our boarding documents said that we were to arrive at 2pm, not to arrive early because we wouldn't be allowed to board, etc.  However, they almost always say this, and our experience is that they don't always stick to their own rules.  As it happened, almost no-one had arrived  and they basically let us straight onboard.
Our cabin is a typical cruise ship cabin, although I was very pleased to discover that the refrigerator is actually functional (often they're not powerful enough to actually cool anything, but this one works fine) and also that the air conditioning works (sometimes the air-conditioning is shall we say disappointing).
Five full sized cruise ships in port today, plus a few smaller ones.  One of the five is an old friend - Celebrity Eclipse - this was the ship that took us on our Baltic Cruise in 2014:

UK and Med Cruise - Day 5 - 9 September - London to Rome

Had a lazy morning then checked out of the hotel and found our way back to Heathrow.  On the Heathrow Express again - it really is a good way to travel between Heathrow to London - not the cheapest but really convenient.
At Heathrow we were reminded again of the funny way they deal with gates - they won't tell you which gate your flight leaves from until quite close to departure time.  Turns out this time we had to use the transit to get to the 'B' gates.
We finally got onto the plane, only to sit there.  For ages.  It ended up being two hours; they couldn't start the left engine.  
Of course this meant we arrived in Rome quite late.  We had booked a transfer into Rome and fortunately they're well accustomed to dealing with late flights, we had no trouble finding our driver.  The real surprise was the airport itself.  We have heard that the airport (FCO) is just chaotic and were expecting lots of messing around and delays.  But, immigration let us in without asking anything - stamp the passport and get out of here!   Our suitcases arrived quite quickly too - as I said, not at all what I had expected.
Unfortunately though we missed our night tour of the Colosseum because of the flight delay.  So, in keeping with last night's "inappropriate restaurants" theme, we ate at Chows Chinese Restaurant!
The hotel for the night was amazingly good - huge room with a large table and a comfortable bed, plenty of power points and air conditioning that really worked.

UK and Med Cruise - Day 4 - 8 September - London

Got up early and checked with reception who promised to provide a fan for our room for tonight (and they did).
We were then going to catch the Tube around to the Three store and then a couple of stations further around to the museums.  However, it was such a nice morning that we walked through Kensington Park instead.  The man at the Three store sorted us out and then it was off to the V&A.  I realised quite quickly that I couldn't possibly look at the whole place in a day, so we spent the morning there and left once we realised our brains would explode if we tried to take in much more.   Would definitely be good to go back though.
We also discovered that our Oyster cards hadn't expired - more than 2 years since we used them but they both still had 7 or 8 pounds credit.
After lunch we went to the Science Museum and walked around and around - it was amazingly interesting.
Then because we hadn't walked far enough, we walked back to the hotel.  And then, we walked around to a (very disappointing) shopping area a mile or so away - we were hoping to look around the shops and see a movie but the vast majority of the shops were closed; not just closed for the day but empty.  So, we walked back again.  My iPhone told me by this stage that I had done over 23,000 steps for the day!
Since we're in London and we're going to Rome tomorrow and will have every chance to eat Italian food, we finished off the day by having a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant.
A couple of sights from today:
The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens - what an outrageous thing it is!

And the Goat Tavern - apparently the oldest hotel in Kensington:

UK and Med Cruise - Day 3 - 7 September - Singapore to London

Even after a good night's rest, the flight from Singapore to London is really long.  We were surprised by the boarding process - in particular we were all made to go through a security check in order to get to the boarding gates even though we had remained air-side the whole time.
The A380 is a comfortable plane but economy is still definitely 'cattle class' - it would be nice to be able to afford business class just once.
Finally arrived in London, and as we were getting off the plane there was a call for Paul to contact a staff member on leaving the plane.  There was a man waiting with a printout that said that Paul's suitcase had been left behind in Sydney.  He was very apologetic and said that sometimes these things are wrong, but that he needed to explain what we'd have to do about the missing suitcase.  
Anyway, first we had to get through immigration - the queue was really long and we got the third degree - the man spent about 5 minutes asking how long we'd be in the country, what the address was that we had put on the landing pass, where we were going, what we were doing after we left and when we were coming back; it was definitely an interrogation.  However, we were finally allowed into the country.  Then we went to the baggage carousels only to discover that Paul's bag was there after all.  I suspect that it probably did miss our flight but that it was put on the next flight out of Sydney and caught up with us in Singapore.  Anyway, all good.
Once we got through all of that we found our way to the Heathrow Express - only about a 20 mile walk (I exaggerate, but it was a long way!)   Then 15 minutes or so on the train and we were at Paddington.  Found the hotel without any real drama.  Unfortunately it wasn't air conditioned and with the combination of jet lag (from sleeping too much on the plane) I didn't get a really good night's sleep.
Overall comment about Singapore Airlines - they're supposed to be among the best in the world and I have to say that apart from the boarding fiasco in Sydney, our experience with them was pretty good.  The food was quite acceptable although a bit surprising - for example one of the entrees included bay scallops which you wouldn't normally expect because of the number of people with seafood allergies.  Paul couldn't eat it of course, but I swapped my dessert for his entree.  Yum.

UK and Med Cruise - Day 2 - 6 September - Sydney to Singapore

Breakfast at the hotel - really hard to see the value for money but as I said, this is about convenience.
Singapore Airlines check-in was quick and easy, then we just waited for boarding time.  I do get aggravated when airlines say that they'll board by rows and then don't; the economy boarding was pretty much a free-for-all.  Obviously I know I'm not going to miss out on a seat but I actually wanted to use an overhead locker for a change, and you can miss out if you're late boarding.  Anyway, not a huge drama in the end.
Eight hour flight to Singapore which was interrupted by my own personal medical drama. I bought some earplugs because both my ears were somewhat infected / blocked because of the horrible lurgy I had for a couple of weeks before the holiday; I have gone through the pain that you can get with blocked up ears on a flight and I didn't want to go through that again. And, it seemed to work, but then one of the earplugs got stuck in my ear.  They couldn't help me on board, but they did arrange to take me to the clinic once we arrived in Singapore.  I was expecting to be charged an arm and a leg, and I was.  However, I didn't want to risk hurting my ear, so it really was the only choice.  Once that was dealt with, we went to the Transit Hotel where we had always planned to stay.  This turned out to be a fine plan; we got a good rest before the next (much longer) leg of the flight.
We had dinner at the airport  - Paul likes spicy food but the broth in the noodle dish he ordered reduced him to red-faced, teary-eyed, desperate choking. Pity I didn't have a camera - although at the time I was thinking about calling for medical help!!

UK and Med Cruise - Day 1 - 5 September - Canberra to Sydney

Monday morning - the taxi arrived right on time. We had an inauspicious start in Canberra when the Greyhound bus left late because of a flat battery. However, once we got underway it was all good- trip to Sydney was comfortable and we were dropped off at the airport pretty much on time.
Because of all the earlier changes to our flights we stayed overnight at the Rydges Airport Hotel which is right at the international airport. As I've said before, you get your best picture of how well a hotel operates when things are going wrong for them, and Rydges did a good job here - their computer system was down when we arrived but fortunately we had already automatically checked in and they managed to do all the other bits and pieces without an issue.
The room was pretty much what you'd expect for what's effectively a business hotel, clean and comfortable with a good sized desk, nice comfortable lounge chair and a good sized bathroom.  This hotel of course is all about the location - very convenient for leaving the next day - they advertise the distance to the international terminal in steps!