Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.
Showing 4 of 236 posts
OmanThe last leg of the cruise, ashore on the Arabian coast. Muscat and the vast Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, the Sultan's Palace and the old Al Mirani Fort, and one of the largest private yachts in the world. Abu Dhabi from the top of a sightseeing bus, all gleaming and new. And Dubai, where we said our goodbyes, skipped the city over a vaccine rule, and flew back to Cairo.
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JordanA short call at Aqaba, Jordan's one seaport, and a reminder of how glad we were to have given Petra a proper visit weeks before, while shipmates got only two rushed hours. Then four days at sea, down the Red Sea and out into the pirate waters of the Gulf of Aden: the Martini Bar that became 'our bar,' the crew's Covid stories, two fine couples, and a boat in the night that gave everyone a fright.
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IsraelA new corner of Israel at Haifa: the closed Bahá'í gardens, the Byzantine mosaics at Shavei Tzion, and Rosh Hanikra, where the world's steepest cable car drops to the sea grottos on the Lebanese border. John's leg, skinned in Wadi Rum, kept us aboard rather than bound for Jerusalem. Then south to Egypt and a long day's sail through the Suez Canal, under the great bridge to the Sinai.
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GreeceThe land half of the journey behind us, we flew from Cairo to Athens to begin the cruise we had planned for years, from Greece all the way to Dubai. Two days at Piraeus and its bitter orange trees, then aboard the Norwegian Jade to our first stop in Turkey: the House of the Virgin Mary, the vast Roman ruins of Ephesus with its Library of Celsus and great theater, and the lone surviving column of the Temple of Artemis.
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