Amy and Andy's Excellent Adventures - 2011

Wow, hard to believe Barcelona was almost a year ago! We had such a great time on last year's cruise, we booked the 2011 cruise in November, 2010. And it didn't take us long to figure out where we wanted to go - the Eastern Mediterranean including (specifically) Istanbul.

Here's our itinerary for the Holland America 12-day Mediterranean Empires voyage:

July 28: Board the Nieuw Amsterdam in Venice, Italy (yey Venice!). The Nieuw Amsterdam is a brand "nieuw" ship - this is her maiden year - and yes, it's named after the original name for New York City - New Amsterdam.

July 29: Depart Venice (after a full day of running around like crazy people seeing everything we didn't see in 1999.)

July 30: Split, Croatia (Reportedly awesome Roman ruins. I ♥ Roman ruins.)

July 31: Day At Sea

Aug 1: Athens (Yey, Greek ruins! Acropolis, here I come!)

Aug 2: Cruising the Dardanelles straits and arrive in Istanbul (Istanbul has been on my "list of places to see" for ever)

Aug 3: More Istanbul (Goal: see everything and somehow manage to NOT buy another rug)

Aug 4: Mykonos/Greece (Andy is going to the beach, I'm going to Delos (Greek ruins, yey!).

Aug 5: Ephesus/Turkey (arranged via FB to share a private tour guide with an Australian couple we've never met. Hope this works).

Aug 6: Santorini/Greece (Very high expectations: it must live up to "The Most Beautiful Place On Earth" stories I've been hearing)

Aug 6: Katakolon /Greece (Not much info on this one).

Aug 8: Day At Sea

Aug 9: Dock in Venice, disembark and trek to our hotel somewhere near Piazza San Marco. Run around like crazy people (and getting seriously lost) in Venice for one more day.

Aug 10: Fly home. :-(

My goal is the same as last year - post photos and publish the blog every day. Dunno if I'll be able to do this 100%, but I'll do my best.

V (Venice) minus 10 days and counting!