Travel Report

Travel Report

On Friday, May 4th we fly to Paris for the night on our way to Cairo, Egypt to start a cruise on the Seabourn Spirit leaving from Alexandria on May 7th. The Spirit was launched in 1989, but refurbished in 2005. She is a German made 440 foot vessel with a crew of 150 and only 208 total guest capacity. She is Spirit considered a five star luxury mega-yacht because of her small size and accommodations as compared to most cruise ships.

She also has the distinction of having been attacked, in November of 2005 off the coast of Somalia by two pirate speed boats launched by a mother boat. Machine gun shots were fired as well as rocket propelled grenades. In fact an unexploded grenade was found in the wall of a room that was disarmed by the crew of the ship. No passenger was injured, but a crew member was hit by shrapnel. The pirates were repelled with a long range acoustic device that blasts a powerful sound wave and were outrun by the Spirit. I anticipate no similar excitement on this trip.

This cruise will have stops in Ephesus (Kusadasi) Turkey; Mykonos, Greece; Delphi (Ita) Greece; Valleta, Malta; Catania, Italy; Lipari, Italy; Sorrento Italy and ends at Civitavacchia (Rome) Italy on May 19th. I am not totally thrilled with taking cruises and this is longer then I usually care to be on any cruise, but we liked the itinerary and were offered the cruise at a substantial discount because of a late cancellation. I realize, of course, that any savings on the cost of the cruise will be totally nullified by the value of the dollar against the Euro, but we are committed.

In addition to the ship and cruise, we are also spending the spend a night in two marvelous hotels. In Paris, we spend the night at the wonderful Four Seasons hotel, George V which is only a short walk from the Champs-Elysees and Arch of Triumph. This hotel was purchased by Prince Al Waleed of Wsaudi Arabia who did a recent complete renovation of the historic hotel. The flagship restaurant in the hotel, Le Cinq, is one of the finest in the world. Staying there is an occasion of itself for me. I am also looking forward to spending the night at the La Posta Vecchia, just outside Rome. This small hotel on the Mediterranean has only 19 rooms. It also has its own Roman museum for two ancient Roman villas discovered during the restoration work in the 1960’s by its owner, John Paul Getty. A beautiful small hotel with outstanding Italian food and built at the water’s edge.

Assuming we survive pirate attacks, over indulgence and the impact of the Euro on the dollar, I will share some of the facts about this trip.

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