Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Hasta La Vista, Celebrity Equinox!

Where We Are Gently Encouraged To Get The Heck Off The Ship So They Can Clean For The Next Batch Of Cruisers

And We Enter The Final Week Of Our South American Adventure

January 1, 2026

Day at sea. Everybody is recuperating from the night before. I realize I’ve come down with Andy’s cold.

January 2, 2026

This was supposed to be a tender day in Punta Del Este, Uruguay, with a planned excursion boat ride to see yet more sea lions do nothing. Unfortunately, the weather was rainy and windy and deemed not safe for tender operations, so the port was canceled and we have yet another day at sea. At this point, I reached that moment that I can only describe as “antsy”: too many days on a ship and – in particular – too many days at sea. On this itinerary we missed: the Magellan Straits, Punta Arenas, and now Punta del Este – about half the itinerary. Now I just want to get back to dry land, where we have more control. I spent a could chunk of the day artfully arranging vacuum packed bags in my suitcase of what’s left of my clean clothes.

January 3, 2026 Disembarkation day

Disembarkation day is always a bit of a mess, especially when we’re walking off the ship and going back to the hotel where we stayed 2 weeks before. I had arranged with the hotel for a taxi to come get us, instead of us having to stand in line for whatever taxis were available.

We had breakfast in the restaurant for the one and only time this cruise, then went to wait with other people who requested assistance navigating the incredibly steep ramp off the gangway. That process worked pretty well. I was safely deposited at the bottom of the gangway, and the bus took us back to the cruise terminal, where we found our bags. Cruise staff helped us to get our bags to the curb to wait for our taxi.

Who had no idea where we were, because we didn’t know until that very moment that we would be at Gate 3. After a bunch of back-and-forths with the hotel and the cabbie, the cabbie found us by calling me and watching to see what phone rang. Rather clever, I thought.

We arrived back at the hotel in no time, where the front desk told me they did not have a reservation for us for January 3. Um. What? This had all been confirmed several months ago. They had a reservation for June (?!?). But it was all good – they had a room available for the dates we needed it. {Side note: eventually I had the time to go back through all the correspondence and found my original email asking for “3 January 2026 through 7 January 2026”, followed by the hotel’s response confirming the dates with a confirmation number. There was another email where I used “3 Jan” instead of “3 January”; I think this is where they saw “Jan” and thought it meant “Jun”. Anyway, luckily it was not an issue.

The view from our room on December 19 was several HUGE air conditioning units. The view from this room was ever so much better.

We had lunch in the hotel’s restaurant. It’s just not our “vibe” or something. And my head cold had hit hard; nothing looked or tasted appetizing.

We went out afterwards looking for a pharmacy to buy some over the counter head cold stuff, which turned out to be more difficult than one would think. There’s no CVS-like store in Buenos Aires. The small pharmacies fill prescriptions and display skin care products. We found a bigger pharmacy that had a couple of things I was looking for.

Which called for ice cream, of course! We went back to Freddo and tried different kinds of chocolate. Still fabulous.

Feeling adventuresome, we walked further away from the hotel in search of a souvenir store. The one we found didn’t have anything interesting. But it was across the street from a shopping mall, so we tried looking in there. Nothing but clothing stores. And the bathroom.

We decided to have dinner at one of the sidewalk restaurants. We picked a random steak house. We noticed a huge brick wall across the street that turned out to be the big cemetery we’ve hears so much about. That was on our list to the next day on our 6 hour city-tour.

I was fading quickly, so we went back to the hotel and I just went to bed. I hoped to shake this cold before our Big Day on Tuesday, when we fly up to Iguazu Falls and back on the same day.

Tomorrow: city tour

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World

December 22, Where We Finally Make It To Montevideo, Go Bird Watching, And Meet A New (To Me) Family Member

The ship docked in Montevideo some time after 10:00 p.m. on December 21. Our cruise director, Manuel, encouraged people to go out and enjoy the Montevideo nightlife! We decided to wait until the next morning for our bird-watching excursion.

Because of the delayed arrival in Montevideo, we were now playing the time honored cruise game of “Itinerary Shuffle”: the entire itinerary had to be adjusted. Port Stanley (Falklands) was now scheduled for December 25. Unfortunately, the scenic sailing of Cape Horn was canceled to give us enough time to make to Ushuaia on time. Ok, well, a little disappointing, but out of our control.

The next morning, for our excursion there were maybe eight of us in our group, including a family of 4, and a couple from England who were obviously avid birders. Our guide handed out paper check lists for us to mark off the birds we saw that day. He said the record was 97 or so different species. We did luck out with the weather, because it was warm (but not hot) and overcast (but not raining).

The photo quality is not the best, because we were using our phones, but here are some of the birds we saw:

My absolute favorite was a Burrowing owl, though we were unable to snap a photo because we were driving around a round-about and had to keep moving. My next favorite is this scary guy – a giant pigeon the size of a raven. As one of our group members said: This is South America where everything is bigger!

I have to boast that I was able to hold a very, very short conversation in Spanish (dredged up from the nether regions of my brain) with our bus driver. Of course, I was asking about where our bathroom might be and how soon – he understood what I said, and even more importantly, I understood him back!

We were back in the city by about 12:30 p.m. and we were off on our afternoon’s adventure.

Many weeks ago I received a ping through Ancestry.com from a DNA match. I knew who they were as soon as I saw the last name: a cousin from a branch of my father’s family that we had lost contact will over 40 years ago.

My father’s mother came to the US from what was “the Ukraine” around 1913. Her brother left the Ukraine in the 1920’s. By then the US has started instituting stricter immigration laws; he did not make it into the US, so he went to Argentina (a common trajectory), eventually making his way to Montevideo, Uruguay. The two branches kept in touch – I have some of the correspondence my parents saved, including an invitation to a bar mitzvah. The last letter I have from the Uruguayan cousins is from 1983.

It was exciting to reconnect with the next generation of cousins! It was a wild shot asking to meet one of them in person on The One Day we would be in Montevideo, but there was nothing to lose. And behold! One of them did. Since this cousin is not on social media, I won’t be revealing their name to protect their privacy, but I was super excited to hear that they would be willing to meet us!

We had set up everything on Sunday, December 21, but, of course, that did not happen because of the change in arrival date. But, they were willing to take their lunch time with us! They gave us a specific time and place to meet in downtown Montevideo.

Our excursions desk had given us expectations that there would be a big cruise terminal with shops and restaurants right outside the ship, with a taxi stand. When we came back from our bird watching trip, we saw no such thing. Our tour guide told us to follow the “green line” out of the port area and into the city. Still no port terminal building.

We walked into what turned out to be an government office building. The front desk people gave us instructions to an ATM (cajera automatica) – in Spanish – which clicked in my mind once we were back outside and looking across the street. It was not an ATM, but a money exchange kiosk. The people inside did not understand what we needed – we wanted to exchange some US dollars for Uruguayan pesos, but not a lot. Just enough for a couple of cab rides.

We finally gave up on that and found a cabbie who would take credit cards. I showed him the spot on google maps, but he seemed to not understand or know what I was talking about (even though my cousin had given me all the commonly used names for the square). Plus I couldn’t figure out what he was asking me, until he put it into Google translate – he was asking if this was the only place we wanted to go.

And then it occurred to me he wanted to give us a “tour” of Montevideo – for an undetermined fee. Yeah, no. The last time I fell for that I was 19 years old, visiting Mexico City for the first time. Finally I was able to put the sentence together: “I’m going to meet my cousin at this <place>”. That ended the conversation.

After all this fuss and bother, it turned out to be a 5 minute drive. And there they were, wearing the red shirt as they had told me earlier in the day. I took one look at their face and I saw my father’s features. The Adler genes run strong on that side of the family!

We had lunch and chatted for about 45 minutes, reviewing what we knew about our grandparents – unfortunately, not much. In particular, neither of us knew for sure why our grandparents left Europe. Our assumption: pogroms were increasing in frequency, and it just wasn’t safe anymore.

Apparently, their children are trying to obtain EU citizenship based on previous generations’ citizenship. They were targeting Poland, because 100 years ago “the Ukraine” was a part of Poland. Poland used to accept evidence of grandparents’ citizenship, but now was requiring proof of great-grandparents’ citizenship, which was why my cousin was asking me what I knew about her grandfather. Unfortunately, I knew nothing that could help them.

Eventually my cousin needed to get back to work. We were so ecstatic to reconnect! Hopefully we will be able to maintain the connection going forward.

Andy and I wandered around for a bit afterwards. There were vendors in the square and on the street, but we didn’t have any cash to buy anything.

**Gateway of the Citadel** (Puerta de la Ciudadela) on the Peatonal Sarandí pedestrian walkway in Montevideo, with the historic **Palacio Salvo** visible in the background

We walked back to the spot where we had met my cousin to hail a cab back to the port – and we lucked out! A cab pulled up to let out passengers, and we grabbed it. I told the driver: “Puerto Crucero de Montevideo” and he knew exactly where that was. Five minutes later, we were back at the ship.

A highly successful day!

Right before dinner, the captain came on the loudspeaker to announce the next round of Itinerary Shuffle. Apparently, Port Stanley didn’t have any room for our ship on December 25 (or maybe short staffed because of the holiday?), so we had a new shuffle: we lost Port Stanley as a port and we were now heading straight to Ushuaia.

But wait! There was yet another round of Itinerary shuffle: Port Stanley is back (yay!) somewhere near the end of the cruise, but we’ve lost Puntas Arenas (boo!). Andy had a penguin expedition booked for Puntas Arenas, but not anymore! And we regained Cape Horn, but sailing the Magellan Straits is now gone. This is dizzying.

AND – we now have 3 contiguous days at sea, instead of two.

The itinerary is now completely unrecognizable. We were provided a written update, which helps. We will be refunded the cost of the Puntas Arenas excursions – first as onboard credit, and then a refund of whatever we don’t spend onboard.

Tomorrow: Day 1 of 3 days at sea.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The Bottom Of The World (Almost)!

Quick Summary of December 18, 19, 20, and 21 Because, Quite Frankly, It’s All Been One Very, Very, Very Long Day.

So far the theme of our current adventure is: DELAY. Fortunately, nothing really terrible, but sufficient to be annoying every step of the way.

December 18

We drove from Maryland to JFK in New York to take the non-stop from JFK to Buenos Aires. We do this quite frequently: avoiding connections that increase the chance of losing luggage and just to eliminate complications is a top priority.

But the drive took much longer than it should have – 7+ hours for a 4 hour drive. Endless traffic in Maryland due to construction, Traffic in Delaware for {no idea} reasons, and then BAM! right into NYC rush hour traffic.

Once at the airport, boarding went smoothly enough, but then we sat on the ground for an extra 90 minutes while the wings were de-iced.

December 19

Once we arrived in Buenos Aires airspace, the pilot told us one run way was closed for {no idea} reasons. We landed an hour after the already updated arrival time.

Luckily, the taxi we had arranged through our hotel waited for us. Another hour to the hotel, and finally we were there.

We were staying only 1 night. Which was good, because the view from our room left much to be desired.

We did begin our quest to sample all the recommended ice cream chains in Buenos Aires.

After breakfast on December 20, the front desk called us a cab to take us to the port. We were early for our 11:00 time slot, so we just sat in the waiting room.

Boarding the ship was a little weird – after all the security protocols, we boarded a bus (a first) that took us to the ship. And then the skies opened, and it poured and poured and poured. We wondered why the ship didn’t anticipate the rain and put up tents. We certainly hadn’t anticipated it.

By the time we were finally on board, we were soaked. And our bags hadn’t arrived yet, so we couldn’t change. So we went to lunch.

After lunch we went to our muster station for the required safety training. We felt the ship moving (??). It’s not supposed to be moving. We haven’t left the dock? The crew member who reviewed the security training with us said that the rain storm had turned into a wind storm, and the ship was in danger of bashing into the dock (!), so the captain was moving away from the dock. Disconcerting, much?

After the security briefing, I wanted to talk to the excursions people to get more detailed info – sometimes the excursions are labeled “moderate” for not much reason at all.

Chatting away with the excursions guy (Luis), we noticed a ship was coming super close to ours…and BAM, it hit us, smashing a couple of the windows right in front of us. Luckily they didn’t shatter and spray glass (I’m sure that’s a planned safety feature.

After that excitement (followed by assorted people to look at the broken windows), we were able to determine that I will be able to do all of the excursions we purchased.

Before we left home, I reached out to a distant cousin who had connected to me through DNA results. We are hoping to actually see each other in Montevideo on Sunday, even if it’s just for a half hour.

5:00 p.m. comes and goes and it’s obvious we’re not leaving on time. We go to the ship’s Hanukkah celebration with Rabbi Avrom. We missed the first minute when he introduced himself, so I don’t know where he’s coming from. There’s about 40 people in the room from all over the world – England, France, Canada, US (including a family who live not far from us in DC), and Melbourne, Australia.

Particularly touching: there were a few people who were not Jewish, but came to support us as allies in the aftermath of the hideous terrorist attack in Bondi beach, Sydney. We were happy to have them!

We said blessings over electric candles, followed by jelly doughnuts and latkes. Celebrity knows how to do Hanukkah the right way!

During the evening there were several updates that didn’t say much: (1) after the wind storm, there’s now issues with refueling (2) now the ship needs final inspections (3) and finally, we’re not sailing until 10:00 a.m. on December 21 to make sure all the final safety inspections are completed.

So no meet up with my cousin, at least not on December 21.

I managed to stay awake through the evening performance of tango dancing.

When we came back to our room, we discovered our next door neighbors were having a marvelous party! I’m guessing they may not realize that the stateroom walls are paper thin and we can hear everything as if we are in the room with them.

The party died down at around midnight, which is fine, since we were no longer getting up early the next day.

But they woke me up at 4:00 a.m., which is uh-uh, nope, nope, nope. I called guest services, who came up and heard the noise from outside the door. Two minutes later, the noise stopped and both of us were out like a light.

December 21

The ship started moving a little after 10:00 a.m. We had one more update from the captain and the program director, Manuel. We’ll be arriving in Montevideo at about 10:00 p.m. tonight. There was a very cryptic mention of “in time to enjoy Montevideo night life”.

Today is a beautiful day for a sea day! Maybe we’ll be able to sit outside for a bit.

Still no info on how long we’ll be docked in Montevideo. I’m sure the excursions staff is scrambling a mile a minute to come up with something. I have full confidence They will figure something out. I’m hoping against hope to be able to meet up with my cousin!

Tomorrow: ?????

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 2: O Canada Edition Days 1 and 2 (9/8 and 9/9)

Where We Manage To Board The Ship Without Incident

And Spend A Splendid Day In Penobscot Bay

Day 1 was pretty easy.

The only confusion we had was when we arrived at the specified parking lot for the cruise port. There were no signs telling us where to go or what to do, only a machine that wanted to charge us money for something we had already paid.

Eventually a guy (who’s native language is so obviously not English) who sort of pointed us here and there to park. Fortunately, the ship’s shuttle showed up a few minutes later and we were on our way.

Possibly one of the smoothest cruise check-ins ever, with not one hitch and no more than a minute wait any step along the way. We had been warned by the cruise line NOT to show up before our allotted time or we would be turned away. I seriously doubt that would have happened. But our timing was perfect – we arrived exactly at 2:00 anyway.

After boarding, we dropped off our stuff in our room, then grabbed something to eat at the buffet.

Our bags showed up around 4:30 or 5:00. We started unpacking, which is when we noticed this room has almost no storage – 5 drawers to be shared by two people for 11 nights.

At dinner we met our table mates. When I made the reservation back in March, Celebrity gave me two options: 6:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m., so I picked 6:00 p.m. I had no idea this meant we were assigned a table with the same people for the duration of the cruise. We haven’t seen this since our very first cruise in 1980. The deck 4 restaurant is assigned seating. Deck 5 is for “come whenever” seating. If I had been given that option, that’s what I would have picked.

Good news: the people at our table are very nice, and I’m sure it’ll be fine to eat with them. It’s just…odd.

For a first day, it was pretty good. Not nearly as crazy as the first day on the NCL ship in May; of course there a far fewer people and a much smaller ship.

Day 2 Rockland, Maine

Late yesterday afternoon, we visited the Customer Service desk, which was actually very helpful. We upgrade our wifi package so as to make it useful (this was not clear when I bought the package online a few months ago). And we also asked if we could request to sit at or near the front of the bus for all of our Celebrity booked excursions.

This morning we tested this process. And it worked! It was an entertaining challenge to toddle down the steps of the gangway to the tender boat (a/k/a life boat), but I was able to do it and also climb into the tender. This is the second time we’ve seen steps to a tender gangway – the last time being on the NCL ship last may.

When we arrived at the Rockland tender dock, we had a little bit of a wait for our bus to arrive. And when it did arrive, our stateroom number was on the front seat! Yay!

It was an absolutely perfect weather day – clear skies and temps in the low 70s. We had a scenic drive up to Mt Battie, where we had a panoramic view of Penobscot Bay:

Andy wandered around a bit to a nearby tower:

After 20 minutes of beautiful scenery, we got back on the bus and drove to Camden. We bought a couple of sandwiches for lunch before we made our way to the bay to board the schooner that would take us on a two-hour sail.

The Appledore is a schooner with two masts. We were 46 passengers in total – we had no problem finding a seat. We saw the captain and two crew members; apparently there are more crew members around, but we didn’t see them.

We sailed for 2 hours in the glorious sunshine!

Crew members managing the sails. Passengers were recruited to “help” raise them.

This is the lighthouse that is on the Red Lobster logo

Once we were out into the bay, you could ask to “drive” the boat. This was Andy’s turn. I wondered why the boat was doing weird things….

It was a fantastic afternoon! I just wish I had remembered to bring my sunglasses and visor. The sun was super strong!

Random side note: this morning we realized this was the first time either one of us has been in Maine.

We’re off to dinner soon, followed by the evening’s entertainment.

So far, so good!

Tomorrow: Halifax (and I think a time change to Atlantic Time)

Day 11 Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 1 – Cannes

Another “Day at sea in port” + Cannes + Nice and Eze

I opted for a second day on board ship. We had received a notice that there were steps involved to board the tender. Since I’ve been to Cannes a couple of times before, I was fine with staying on board. I found a good spot in the empty cafe, caught up on blogs, and the servers brought me an endless supply of club soda.

Meanwhile, Susie, Janet, and Stefania went ashore. They had a marvelous lunch. That’s their photobombing server.

Then they went on the little train that goes around Cannes. The film festival is alive and well, and generating traffic.

Andy spent the day on an excursion to Nice and Eze. First he had lunch. This I wish I had been there for.

Driving through Nice, the tour guide pointed out a glimpse of Elton John’s house perched on the mountain.

The arrow is pointing to Elton John’s house

Walking around, he saw some interesting statues.

Inside the Cathedral of Sainte Marie Sainte-Reparate

And, of course, the beach:

I loved Eze the last time we were here. It is crunched into the mountainside. Lots of steps. Lots.

And lots of art everywhere.

The obligatory church photo.

The view from Eze is marvelous.

A view of Eze on the way down the mountain. The square pinkish building is the church. Behind it is an old fort destroyed by Louis XIV in the 15th century.

On the way back from Eze, the tour stopped at a perfume factory. I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am I missed this. I’m allergic to most fragrances (to put it mildly). I would have had to stay outside.

The last tender was supposed to be at 3:00 p.m., but Andy’s tour was running late. This is the advantage of booking a tour through the ship – the ship had to wait and provide the tender.

Tomorrow: Palma de Majorca. I will be back on the trail. We’re supposed to have a private tour starting at 1:00 p.m., but as of dinnertime, Janet hadn’t heard a confirmation. We figure the worst case scenario, we take the shuttle into town to have lunch and go shopping.

Since WordPress tends to use the last photo in the blog as the cover photo, so I’m repeating this here, because I think it’s a better cover photo than the one just above.

Days 3 & 4 Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 1

Where We Reluctantly Leave Venice, And Venice Is So Sad To See Us Go, It Cries Buckets Of Tears

That Is: It Rained. A LOT.

AND

Port 1 – Split, Croatia

I’m combining Days 3 and 4 into one post in an attempt to catch up.

Day 3 – Transfer to the ship

Thursday, May 16 – Departure Day. I don’t think any of us really were ready to leave Venice, but alas, it was time to transfer to the ship and begin the actual cruise.

I had booked a driver through Day Trip – I really like this company. They sent me constant updates as to who our driver was, passed along the request for some mechanism to help us climb into the Mercedes mini-vans (they are ubiquitous here in Europe – if you’ve ever seen one, these vans have a very high step up into the car.

Our assigned driver, Boren, also did a great job of keeping me informed. He even sent me a photo of the step-apparatus that he concocted to help us climb into the van. Is this not amazing?

Apparently he was bringing passengers from our ship (docked in Trieste) *to* Venice, before he picks us up to take us *to* the ship. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, it was pouring out. Mix that in with the usual traffic around Venice, and Boren ended up being almost an hour late.

Another challenge was that he was not allowed to park in front of our hotel, so he spent extra time looking for a parking spot. When he finally found one, it was across the street in a different parking lot. Andy went out to find him and noticed the sea of black Mercedes mini-vans, making it a fun game to pick out exactly the right one.

Fortunately, a hotel staff member told Boren to bring the van up to the front of the hotel. And so he did. We Tetris-ed ourselves and our luggage into the van, and off we went!

The Italian Country Side As We Zipped By

Boren was fabulous – we made it to the ship in Trieste in about 90 minutes instead of 2 hours. I had requested assistance at the cruise port, so as we were saying goodbye to Boren, cruise ship people swarmed in and loaded our luggage onto carts. Thanks to the assistance, we were able to bypass the Very Long Line that snaked its way into the cruise terminal.

Look at the size of this ship! For sure the biggest one we’ve ever been on:

View of Trieste From The Path To The Ship

Even though Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) sent us FOUR separate emails to watch the 90 second safety video, we were required to go to our muster station and check in. It is not clear how we’re supposed to know where our muster station is from the code on our key cards.

THERE ARE *A LOT* OF PEOPLE ON THIS SHIP. AND THEY ARE VERY NOISY. DOESN’T HELP THAT THERE WAS A BAND PLAYING IN THE ATRIUM AS WE MADE OUR WAY TO OUR STATEROOM.

Oh, my apologies for shouting, but, yep there’s a whole lot of people on this ship. The elevators were jammed; it took a few tries to get into an elevator to go to our floor. After we plopped our stuff in our stateroom (which is very nice and roomy for a cruise ship), we made our way to the O’Sheean’s Bar (get it? Oh-shee-an? Ocean?) to meet with our group and finally have lunch at 3:00 p.m. The bar was even louder than the general hallways, but we were in a good spot – in a booth by the window, so there was no one near us. After lunch we dispersed to unpack.

I think all of us had oddball things wrong – in our room, the towel bar fell off on one end and I was missing one of my NCL excursion tickets. Susie’s room had (still has) a broken closet door. Stefania was missing ALL of her excursion tickets. All of us were missing the same ticket – the accessible excursion for Florence. Oddball things, really, but annoying.

We met up for dinner at the Manhattan room – one of the “complimentary” dining rooms, meaning – it’s included in your fare. Or most of it is – we noticed that the included options were limited (and a little boring), so if you wanted a filet mignon: $25 extra, please!

I ordered chicken piccata. Andy ordered the strip steak (included). Neither of us were impressed with the meal.

Good news! Our stateroom was very quiet all night, even with the huge storm outside.

Day 4 – Split, Croatia

The group was split for Split. {Pun intended}.

The women were on an “easy” bus tour to Trogir (a town about an hour from Split), and the men were on a tour of Split itself. Our excursion left at 7:30 a.m. – which meant we were up at Oh-Dark-Thirty. Considering the elevators are in a perpetual rush-hour state, there really wasn’t enough time to go up to deck 16, have breakfast, and make it back down in time.

Plus, yesterday, Andy went to the Excursions Desk to ask if they could reserve a front seat (or near the front) on the buses for our NCL excursions. Unfortunately, that did not work. There was no reserved seat.

The day was off to a rocky start.

Fortunately, the woman who was sitting in the front seat was by herself, and she invited me to sit with her.

Our tour guide for Trogir (pronounced troe-jir (I think)) was wonderful. He promised that the walks from the bus would be short and that he would walk very slowly. Typically when I hear this, I know it’s all from the POV of a tall young man. But he was indeed correct – it was less than 1/3 of a mile from the bus to the Trogir town square, and he did indeed walk very slowly, such that I had no problem keeping up with him.

Trogir is a scenic and ancient little town.

A part of the tour group opted to follow the tour guide to the other side of town. We opted to stay and have some breakfast. I had the most amazing chocolate croissant! It was relaxing to sit in the square in the beautiful weather and eat delicious food!

Eventually we made our way back to the bus. The next stop was a mill where we were going to have a snack of local traditional foods and wines. Apparently the constant winds are great for producing excellent prosciutto. The snack consisted of cheese, prosciutto, olives, bread, and two different wines. I had some cheese and bread, but the ham, olives, and wine I left to everyone else.

Soon we were on our way back to the port. It was only 12:30 – a long day already. There was much discussion about going back into Split, but it was a long walk to the taxi stand to take a taxi into town; then we’d have to reverse the process. Lunch and lounging sounded better.

Andy and I have a strong memory from when we were in Split in 2010? 2011? That the ship was docked right up close and personal to the town. Maybe it was a smaller ship?

Andy and Tom took a different excursion that included a walking tour of Split.

I will come back and add a caption when I find out what this is

I’m guessing this is a city/fortress/castle wall

Split is a beautiful city. The citizens are very proud of what they have accomplished – many olympic and professional athletes have come from Split. Probably an attributing feature: people from Split are ridiculously tall.

I’m going to finish this up for now before we go to dinner. I’m going to leave this here:

Tomorrow: Dubrovnik (a new-to-us city)