FINAL THOUGHTS

Words cannot adequately describe what an extraordinary adventure this has been for us. 

We do hope that through this blog each of you have felt part of this journey and we do hope that you have enjoyed this Blog. 

As we mentioned from the start, our focus is on all that is positive and much of this will serve for us as memories which will last a lifetime.  We do not dwell on the few items that do not go our way as when we look back at each and every adventure, we really want to remember what we most enjoyed about them.  In the scheme of things the few items that do not go our way are not very important. It is just not possible for every meal to always be a wow or to always be precisely perfect.  Yes, we had a few meals that were not stellar but that is an excellent track record given that we had almost 160 dinner on-board Serenity.  The same is true of lecturers and entertainers as not each and every person was a wow for us but in the scheme of things the vast majority fell in the very good, excellent and outstanding category.  There were a few who we didn't care for but again in the scheme of things that is just not a big issue for us.

While we know there are certain items that we realize are repetitious that we wrote about such as those morning workouts and our breakfasts, these items along with those items that varied day by day are all part of our journey so we write about them.  

We also realize that we had typos in our daily posts along with grammatical mistakes, because since we post in real-time and writing all we do takes up a fair amount of time throughout the course of the day,  it is just not possible to catch each and every typo/grammar error, but we know it can make for some good laughs anyway.

For those of you who do trip blogs, you will undoubtedly know that it is not easy to keep up with all of them as they are considerably time consuming and some people either never finish their entire blog from their trip, even sometimes stopping mid-way through their adventure, while others leave some of the posts until they get home where they have much more time to proofread them and also more time to edit their photos.  We chose to write and post realtime instead of taking additional  time which would allow for far more creative writing, less mistakes, and more editing of the photos.

Between the voyage, and our time in Miami for the pre-cruise and our time in Rome for the post-cruise, we have been away from home for close to six months which in many ways is a long time, but in other ways not a lot of time in the scheme of things.  If not for cruising, there is no way that we could have visited as many places as we did during this time frame, nor could we experience as much as we experienced on board Crystal Serenity and in port.  For us, the entire adventure has been truly amazing.

We have many people to thank including but not limited to the wonderful members of Team Crystal including both land based personnel and the Crystal Serenity crew, our Travel Specialist Gerri, those who took excellent care of us at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami, and the Villa Spaletti Trivelli Hotel in Rome and the many tour guides who we had along the way.

During this journey we learned so very much from not only the lecturers on board Serenity as well as the tour guides, but also by seeing things through our very own eyes.  For example, a book or even a television broadcast or a movie documentary can be educational, but experiencing the beauty of New Zealand, or the people of Madagascar, or driving through a Private Game Reserve as we did in South Africa and seeing the natural habitats of the wild animals through our own eyes without the filters from others is life changing in so many ways.  We have been humbled by our travel experiences and they have shaped our thinking on so many items and issues and have also provided us with a solid foundation about our world.  

When we do see news reports, or read about what is taking place around the world, the meaning it has is even more significant because we have seen it first hand and seen it through our own very eyes rather than from someone else's vantage point.  

We hope you will join us for our next adventure, which begins on July 22nd as we travel back to Europe and then board Crystal Serenity for the July 25 cruise.  We plan to Blog about our upcoming trip on this Blog so be sure to check back to this blog around July 20 for updates.  We will NOT send out any reminder e-mails.

The July adventure will even include a Beatles tour in Liverpool as well as a full day Crystal Cruises private tour in Dublin.  This will be our first visit to Liverpool, but we have visited Dublin several times in the past.

We thank those of you who have read our Blog as well as the many of you who wrote to us privately and/or posted on this Blog.  We have already had over 120,000 visits to our blog and as they say the night is still young.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.......

“Our journey never ends, as there are more places to visit, more adventures to enjoy, more special memories to make, that together, we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.” – Keith & Anne Marie

Keith & Anne Marie

DAY 173 HOME SWEET HOME

We enjoyed a nice breakfast at the Hotel and made the short walk over to the London Heathrow Terminal.  The Sofitel hotel is located right adjacent to Terminal 5.

We were in Business Class on a British Airs 787 which we have taken before.  Interestingly enough there were several empty seats in Business Class so service was even better.

We arrived hone this evening and the good news is the flight was on time and we were one of the first off the flight and to claim our luggage and to get through immigration and customs and the drive to our home was perfect.

We will also be utilizing this Blog for our July 25 Crystal Serenity British Isles Cruise so be sure to not only check back in a few days for some final thoughts but also check back a couple of days before the July 25 cruise begins.

In the meantime we will post some final thoughts in the next day or two.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY....

“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it’s because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it’s because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and therefore, we have salt in our blood, our sweat, and in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came.” – President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, September 14, 1962. 

Keith & Anne Marie

DAY 172 ROME, ITALY/LONDON HEATHROW, UNITED KINGDOM

We enjoyed dinner at our Hotel last evening and ate in our room.  After all, the room is absolutely amazing and very spacious so we thought it would be nice to enjoy a nice quiet and relaxing meal before leaving the beautiful city of Rome.

We had purchased a bottle of wine the day before and enjoyed the wine, dinner and a very relaxing evening.  

We finished packing and slept very well and after waking up this morning we had breakfast in the dining room of the hotel and then we got ready to check out of the hotel.

Our private vehicle and driver arrived on time for our drive to the airport.  Ironically, the private company thought that we were leaving on June 1 rather than June 2 and send a vehicle and driver to attempt to pick us up yesterday morning but with the help of the hotel we got this all straightened out.

We flew in the afternoon from Rome to London Heathrow.  The good news is that our fight arrived ahead of schedule.  We are staying over at the Sofitel Hotel as we have done a couple of other times.  Our opinion is that it is one of the nicer airport hotels we have stayed at as it is fairly new and very quiet and the service is quite nice and it is adjacent to one of the terminals at Heathrow.

These are a few photos of our room.

After we got settled at the Hotel we went to the club lounge for a pre-dinner drink.

We then had dinner at one of the restaurants at the hotel.

Tomorrow, we will fly home.  

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY......

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." - St. Augustine

Keith & Anne Marie

DAY 171 ROME, ITALY

Last evening before we went out and about we enjoyed some wine that was given to us as a gift.  

We then went out on a city tour and dining experience in Rome. This was one of two tours that Keith had booked for our time in Rome although we did cancel the full day tour we had scheduled for Tuesday.

We were picked up at the hotel by our driver/guide Claudio Bernardino.  He has been a tour guide for his entire life and does tour guides all over Italy.  He was just outstanding.  He took us for a few hours before we had dinner and then after dinner drove us around at night.  

He was very gracious always asking us if we wanted to stop to get out and finding the perfect places to stop.  He answered each and every question and provided lots of solid information about current day and historical Rome.  

As part of the tour we drove around Rome as Claudio pointed out the sites to us, many that we have seen before. This included Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Plazza Venzia, the Capitol Hill, the Imperial Forum, the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Aventine Hill, the Circus Maximus and the Trevi Fountain.  We then made our way up to Glanicolo Hill for a panoramic view of the city and then we made our way over to St Peter's Basilica and Castel Sant'Angelo.  We also stopped several times along the way and saw many other places that we have not mentioned.

A bride and groom who were dropped off for a photo with their white colored limousine waiting as the photographer took some photos of them.

We had dinner at a neighborhood restaurant.  We enjoyed the hospitality extended to us by the owner and his staff and the food was actually quite good.  It was not your fancy restaurant but often that is the best way to taste local cuisine.

We were then driven around Rome to see it lit up at night and we saw it from various vantage points.  We made several stops along the way before returning to our hotel.

We enjoyed another nice breakfast at the Hotel as we got ready for our final full day of Rome.

We walked for quite awhile until we came to the Piazza Navona which is one of the prettiest squares in Rome and boasts the fountain of the four rivers designed by Bernini.  

We then visited the Church of St. Agnese In Agone.

We then made our way to the Spanish Steps; Piazza di Spagna.  Afterwards we walked for quite awhile in the designer shopping area.

We them made our way over to what is known as the Wedding Cake.  As today is a National Holiday in celebration of the establishment of Italy and the fall of fascism we saw portions of the military parade which took place along Via dei Fori Imperiali.  

We then walked around looking for a place for lunch and then once we found the restaurant we returned to the hotel to freshen up.

Later in the afternoon we had lunch at a neighborhood restaurant that is family owned and run called La Taverna dei Monti.  We sat outside and each enjoyed a Margarita Pizza, Beer and Water.  Last night we learned from our tour guide that Margarita Pizza was named after Queen Margarita and the cheese is white, the sauce is red, and basil is added to it to complete the colors of the Italian Flag of white, red and green.

Often it is the small neighborhood restaurants that provide a great local experience.  We are reminded of the time we had pizza in a small Italian neighborhood restaurant in Greenwich Village which was one of the best tasting Pizza's we have ever eaten.

We then walked for awhile and Anne Marie got a small cup of Gelato.

We then continued to walk around the surrounding area for quite awhile  before returning to the hotel to rest and to pack for our flight tomorrow.  We will then be staying over at another hotel tomorrow.

This evening we plan to have dinner at the Hotel.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.......

“You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.” – Evan Esar 

Keith & Anne Marie

DAY 170 ROME, ITALY

Before dinner we had a drink at the Hotel of Italian Sparkling Wine.  

These two photos were taken on the Patio behind the hotel.  

We dined at a restaurant called Rinaldi at Quirnale last evening.  It was just a short walk from the Hotel.

The dining room was very nicely appointed and the service was quite good.  They were kind enough to place us at a spacious table.

The highlights for us of this restaurant were the ambience of the dining area and the service.  

The food was not a highlight for us but since we do focus on the aspects that we enjoy it did not deter from us having a nice dinner.  We were never rushed and dined for over two hours and that was with no dessert.

These are the items that we had.

We began with Caprese.  We did like the Caprese we had in Sorrento much better than this one.

We had grilled vegetables as another appetizer and thought they were grilled very nicely with just a hint of oil and seasoned very well.

Chicken for Keith.  This one was not a highlight for Keith.  Enough said.  LOL.

Spaghetti with Lobster for Anne Marie.  Again not a highlight but like we said this didn't spoil our time at dinner.

We enjoyed wine that Keith selected from a very expansive wine list of at least 500 or more wines on the list.  

While we were not on Serenity, we slept well last evening.

Keith slept in.  Well at least for Keith.  He first looked up at the alarm clock and with no place to workout he fell back to sleep and slept later than normal.  We had ordered coffee for our room and he got out of bed about 15 minutes before the coffee was to arrive.  After we had our coffee, we got ready to start our first full day in Rome.

The hotel includes a very nice breakfast.  You can have breakfast inside in the dining room or outside on the patio.  It has a very expansive array of items served buffet style to enjoy.  You can also order a range of cooked to order items such as eggs from a menu that is also on the table.  We just went with some items from the buffet table.

After Keith took these photos more items were added to the buffet table.

Many of the items were organic.  

We wanted to mention that this is a very beautiful and unique hotel.  The hotel is a boutique hotel with only 12 rooms.  When you enter then hotel during the morning and early afternoon hours there are two people at the front desk to check you in and help with other items such as what a concierge would do.  The staff is extremely helpful and that includes the people who took the luggage, cleaned the public rooms and our room and the wait staff.  It has the feel of being in hour own private home.  To access the hotel in the late afternoon and evening you ring the door bell as you would a home. Last night before dinner while we sat for around 45 minutes in one of the several public areas no one else was around and when we returned from dinner the same was true other than in both cases the gent who was working the main desk.  

We left the hotel early to get to many of the famous sites before the crowds came out in force.

We first visited the Trevi Fountain which is undergoing major restorations and is empty of water.  



We then made our way to the Spanish Steps also known as the Piazza di Spagna which is the most famous staircase in the world.

We then walked the shopping area which has all of the designer stores.

From there we made our way over to the Pantheon which is the best preserved Roman Monument which was built in 27 BC, but was rebuilt between 117 and 125 AD.

These are some other sites we saw along the way.

It's not often we see roasted chestnuts.  We would see them in New York City though.

We then walked up and down several different streets and eventually as we made our way in the direction of the Hotel we passed by the Trevi Fountain again and that point it was a mob scene with many large tours, including one from Holland America, touring the fountain.

After taking a short break back at our room, we went back out again and this time we walked over to the Ancient City.

After having lunch back at the Hotel, we went out for the third time of the day. This time we didn't bring a camera to give Keith a break and to just focus on seeing all that we could not through the camera lens but through our own eyes.

One of the places that we checked out was a family owned local restaurant for lunch tomorrow that the concierge at the Hotel recommended.  Good news is that we found it as it is located on a side street in a small family type of neighborhood.  Good news is the food looked yummy and lots of locals were dining there.  Bad news is that it is closed on Tuesday's which is tomorrow.  

When we returned to the Hotel we received a recommendation for another restaurant that will be open tomorrow.  We relaxed for an hour and then got ready for this evening.  We will post all about that tomorrow.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.......

"We can learn so much about present and future day from history."  History flourishes in places such as Rome".  - Keith & Anne Marie

Keith & Anne Marie