Go to gate 50

At the boarding gate at Heathrow I was struck by the number of single middle-aged men who didn't look like they were going on a business trip. And I was one of them. I tried my best NOT to look…

We sailed into Messina on the northeastern tip of Sicily on Tuesday morning looking forward to our day on the largest island in the Mediterranean. The top five are Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, Corsica, Crete. Sicily is separated from the mainland…

Saturday was our final sea day and if the highlight was having my torso smothered in seaweed, fitted with electrodes and connected to a power supply with the aim of instantly losing an inch from my waist, then the low…

Rhodes After a sea day we stopped at Rhodes which is the largest island in the Dodecanese Islands which are a group of 15 larger islands and 150 smaller ones. Other than Rhodes, Kos and Patmos are the most well…

Overnight we had sailed north to Haifa which is Israel's third largest city and the name Haifa is a female name meaning slender (unlike the English term Heifer meaning not so slender).  I was booked on another tour only this…

Ashdod is the main port of Israel located about 25 miles north of the Gaza Strip. We were booked on a tour (I think the whole ship was booked on a tour) and we headed about 50 miles inland to…

Friday 21st was a sea day followed by a gala dinner. We had 5 new table mates and to say it didn't go well would be an understatement. After dinner Brenda, Susan and I had a post-mortem about our dining…

After a sea day we arrived back in Greece at the port of Katakolon which is only 20 miles from Olympia where the Olympic Games began in the 8th century BC.  We were not booked on an official tour but…

We stopped at the Italian port of Ravenna and I was torn between the Ferrari museum in Modena in one direction and the Republic of San Marino in the other. San Marino won (which is something you don't hear very…

Slovenia lies at the top of the Adriatic and is the most northerly of the six or 7 former Yugoslavia regions. Kosovo would be the seventh but it is not recognised by the UN and is claimed by Serbia despite…