In 2009 the employer I worked for took the whole company plus guests/family on a two-week Mediterranean cruise. The travel spots were Barcelona, Rome, Sicily, Athens, Santorini, and in Turkey, Izmir/Ephesus, Istanbul, and Malta. One may think that going on a cruise with workmates would be the worse thing to do, but believe me, it was a great time and created long-lasting friendships, oh and we all agreed not to talk shop from day one, and no one did.

If I try to talk about all the details of this trip, from the fact that the ship was charted just for us, or that we all flew on charted plans from Chicago to Barcelona, this blog post would become a novel; I’ll try to keep it short if that’s possible.

At the time, I was single so asked my friend Meg who lives in NH to be my guest. Meg and I had been friends since 1984ish and as with all friendships, it flexes with the times, but one criterion I wanted with a guest is, I wanted that person to be able to get along with people; this was my work trip. Meg has many great qualities, but one of them she can get along with anyone and didn’t require me to be tied to her hip for entertainment.

There were 5 charted plans leaving from the Rockford IL airport; why Rockford when we were in Chicago? well, I’ll tell you. Rockford airport is a small international airport and as we were leaving on a Sunday, the airport was closed down just for us to take off. The planes would leave at 1.5-hour intervals to give time for the passengers for each plane to arrive at the airport and depart before the next plane passengers showed up; like I said the airport was small and probably wouldn’t have been able to accommodate 1700 people all at once.

We woke up Sunday morning, made sure our bags were packed and really just hung around until we needed to drop ourselves and our luggage off at my work location. The first couple of planes were for the kids and parents, later planes would be kid-free planes; yea!

We dropped off our luggage off and wouldn’t see it again until it appeared in our rooms on the ship. We boarded the busses and off we went.

Unlike some of my other posts, this one will have lots of pictures of my travel companions. The trip wasn’t just memorable for the places we saw, but for the time we all spent together and being able to share this experience. As I was going over the pictures for this post, the memories came flooding back; how incredibly lucky I was to be able to have worked for this company and to go on this trip.

The flight over would take around 9 hours and if you have traveled to Europe before, the flight is typically at night so you arrive in the morning the next day; all great, but I’ve never been able to sleep on planes so when we arrived in Barcelona, I was exhausted, but who could sleep and there was a long day ahead of us; rest would come later.

We arrived in Barcelona and when we departed from the plane, there were signs just for us to follow so we wouldn’t get lost. We boarded more buses to take us to the ship.

It was later in the day and there was a “first-night” party that night in a place called The Old Spanish Village. We changed our clothes from out travel clothes and hung out on the boat deck until it was time to board more buses to go to the party.

There would be a few big parties throughout this trip and our first one was the first night in Barcelona. It was held at the Spanish Village which was built for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition so that visitors could experience all of Spain in one "Spanish village" and is a museum today. That night it was booked as a private party just for us.

The buses let us off at the entrance and we had to make our way down to the square where everything was set up for our night’s entertainment. The square had several levels to it with our tables all set up at the lower level and food scattered throughout the rest of the levels the stage at the head of the square would host a variety of Spanish-themed entertainment throughout the night.

The pictures are in no particular order, they are to give you a glimpse of what the whole trip would be like; it left us all speechless I have to say.

The final entertainment for the night was these dancers on stilts. They made their way through the crowd, performing along the way led in by a group of drummers. There was so much to look at, it was hard to know where to focus, but with drink in the belly, the beautiful night, and the backdrop of the colored lights, the only thing to do was just enjoy and hope your camera captured enough pictures for the long-term memories.

The party ended and even though we didn’t want the night to end, we had buses waiting for us to take us back to the ship for finally a good night’s sleep; the next day we would get another day in Barcelona before the ship departed that night.

Meg and I just meandered around Barcelona, hooking up with a couple of other friends to see the city. The only real destination we wanted to see where the Gaudi buildings, beyond that it was just taking in the sights.

We headed back to the ship, said goodbye to Barcelona and prepared ourselves for the next leg of the trip. Rome here we come.

This would be Megs and my second trip to Rome and due to the length of time it took to get from the port in Civitavecchia to the center of Rome, we didn’t have a lot of time to explore. Meg and I hit a few highlights and then met up with friends, some of whom had never been to Rome.

This is one drawback of cruises, sometimes the time in port can be so short you really don’t get to experience all a city has to offer, but hey, Meg and I had been before so it was like a “refresher” course, a chance for us to reminisce about our prior trips.

Fun Fact: Around $1.5 million in coins are thrown into the Trevi Fountain each year.

We leave Rome eating Gelato. It became a thing for Meg and me to see which place had the best; I think we both agreed Malta did, but don’t let that stop you from experiencing it anywhere you go in Italy; YUM YUM.

Like most mornings we would go ashore, I got up early to get my body moving. I usually walked around the ship several times before going back to shower and meet Meg for a quick bite to eat before getting in line to disembark the ship.

This morning there were few people up, or at least out and about as the ship made its way through the straights between mainland Italy and the island of Sicily. The water was stunning and I looked for these peaceful moments on the ship; most of the time it was just filled with activity as you can imagine.

Today’s excursion would be Mount Etna, Sicily’s volcano, which has been pretty active since we visited. We would be docking at Port Messina. Catching busses to Mount Etna and then a few other stops before heading back to the ship.

The two girls above are my friend Ryan’s daughters; Ryan and I worked together. You will see pictures of them throughout as Meg and I spent a lot of time hanging out with them. We laughed a lot, had dinners together, and of course drinks; the nice thing about cruises, they are the designated driver!

We spent @ 45 minutes on the volcano, then got lunch and stopped to see a small town along the coast. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name, but we only had a very small amount of time to visit as we needed to be back on the ship soon.

We boarded the boat and looked forward to having a full day on the boat. These were the times we would party at night; or at least let ourselves stay up past 9 pm, so what happened on the boat stayed on the boat. Athens you’re just around the corner, literally.

When one thinks of Athens the Acropolis comes to mind or muscle-clad Olympians throwing a disc, well I didn’t see any muscle-clad Olympians, but I did see the Acropolis and other ruins, but what stood out was how dirty Athens seemed to be. Don’t get me wrong; if you are over in the Mediterranean, you should spend a day visiting; the food was good and the sights were worth seeing.

I say this as an American tourist, not like we don’t have dirty places in our country, so take it as a grain of salt and can’t say how it is now all these years later.

If your house was this old, it would need repair also!

We opted to walk back to the ship which was a good choice. We ended up hooking up with some other companions from the cruise, had lunch, and saw other sights on our way back. Next up Santorini. The question you will want to ask yourself “Did we ride the donkeys up?”.

Santorini is a small island off the coast of Greece. It is part of a volcano that erupted a long time ago which formed the islands; it’s no longer an active volcano. It’s a small island and not much to do except enjoy the sights and food. We rented a car which was worth it even though I think from one end of the island to the other it was around 20 minutes.

It was pretty spectacular. Meg got to swim in the Mediterranean, we rode mules and had wonderful food and wine and oh, the sunset was to die for. Turkey’s next a place I never thought I’d ever visit.

We stopped in two places in Turkey, Izmir/Ephesus and Istanbul. Originally we were going to stop in Pompeii, but was decided to scrap it to have more time in Turkey; I’m glad we did.

The Basilica of St. John

The Basilica of St. John was a basilica in Ephesus. It was constructed by Justinian I in the 6th century. It stands over the believed burial site of John the Apostle. It was modeled after the now-lost Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. The basilica is on the slopes of Ayasuluk Hill, right next to the İsa Bey Mosque, just below the fortress near the center of Selçuk, İzmir Province, Turkey, and about 3.5 km from Ephesus. Wikipedia

Ephesus is an ancient city in Turkey’s Central Aegean region, near modern-day Selçuk. Its excavated remains reflect centuries of history, from classical Greece to the Roman Empire – when it was the Mediterranean’s main commercial center – to the spread of Christianity. Paved streets wind past squares, baths, and monumental ruins. The Temple of Hadrian was built before 138 A.D. for Emperor Hadrian’s visit. ― Google

The most famous ruin in Ephesus is the Library of Celsus. The building was commissioned in the years 110s CE by a consul of the Roman Republic, Gaius Julius Aquila, as a funerary monument for his father Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, former proconsul of Asia, and completed during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, sometime after Aquila's death. Wikipedia

There is a lot to see and it’s worth having a good guide. The main attraction is the library, but there is constant excavations of new buildings. It’s also believed that Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoë IV was taken here as a prisoner at the orders of Caesar and later was murdered probably at the behest of Cleopatra.

The last picture in this collection is supposed to be the house where Mary, Jesus’s mother lived out her days after the crucifixion. There surely is doubt whether this is true, but many want to believe it to be so and as we know with religion, belief is everything. Whether or not she lived there, being there with the potential she lived there was pretty moving.

Istanbul is one of the most fascinating cities I’ve ever visited. The divergent cultures and history led to a fascinating visit and wish we had more time than the day and a half we had. We all had a couple of excursions to choose from; Meg and I chose the underground cisterns; the pics didn’t come out well.

The second of 3 parties were held here at an old palace that since had been turned into an event space. It backed up onto the Bosphorus river which divides Istanbul.

The party in Turkey was the 2nd of the three big parties throughout the trip, and probably the most impressive. We had the Ciragan Palace all booked for ourselves. Ciragan palace was residence of Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz - the 32nd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Abdulaziz was the second Sultan to live in a newly built palace after Abdulmecid I who built the Dolmabahce Palace. It is now run as a hotel. The Palace is just one part of the hotel complex.

The buses dropped us off and onto the red carpet we walked into the palace.

Once inside we were greeted with an opulent scene. The first two floors of the Palace had authentic Turkish entertainment with rooms having their own themes. This was to help set the stage for the evening ahead; also, it worked to slow the traffic of people towards the back of the Palace which is where the evenings festivities would be held.

We all made our way to the veranda on the back which faced the Bosphorus river. The night looked like it was going to rain, but as with the rest of the trip, the weather held off to present a beautiful evening and views of the river.

As the evening progressed and after we all got our food, the entertainment commenced. It started with the “Sultan” on the balcony. Then dancers on the stairs made their way to a stage that was set up against the railing along the river.

During the performance, a barge of fireworks made its way in and before we knew it we were in the middle of a fireworks display. (sorry for such bad photos; it was one of those times where I didn’t want to miss anything, but also tried to capture some shots; needed a better lowlight camera).

After the entertainment ended, there was dancing for a while, then the buses started to take us all back to the ship. The next day we started to head back, but not without one last stop Malta.

Malta is an archipelago in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast. It's a nation known for historic sites related to a succession of rulers including the Romans, Moors, Knights of Saint John, French, and British. It has numerous fortresses, megalithic temples, and the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, a subterranean complex of halls and burial chambers dating to circa — Google

This would be our last stop and really didn’t have a lot of time on the island. We focused only on the old part of Malta and oh yea, ate lots Gelato. After the excitement of Turkey and knowing the trip was coming to an end, this was a great last excursion. It was quieter and more relaxing.

Another attraction in Malta were it’s door knockers.

After leaving Malta, it was open seas back to Barcelona and our planes back to Chicago. It was interesting watching how people started to whined down. Usually, full days on the boat would lead to lots of partying and fun in the sun, but the drinking started to slow and you could feel an energy shift, we all knew this specular trip was about to end.

But, we would have one more party to end the festivities; 4th of July celebration. This party was meant to be quieter than the first two as it was the last night on the boat, Truthfully it was perfect. We all got to share stories, laugh and just enjoy being together.

The pictures below aren’t in any particular order but are displayed as a celebration of this trip.

When the party ended, I walked to the back of the ship for a little quiet time. I think a lot of us did the same. I leaned against the rail looking out over the ocean contemplating the past two weeks. Did it really happen? How lucky was I to have been part of this and to be able to share it with friends old and new!

Lots have happened since this trip. The two girls grew up and now are in college. I’ve moved to San Francisco and am now in Reno. Meg’s and my friendship grew stronger since this trip, but no matter how much distance we have from this time in 2009; it will always hold great memories.