Sorry it took so long to post. Been busy since we arrived so nice to see people that we have not seen for so long. Lots of catching up to do. The weather was not too promising for the coming days and we had to cancel the second port. However, this morning we are looking at bright sunshine and the forecasts are improving. The forecast for our day in Rome shows sunny and 70 degrees. We have not been to Rome for some time and looking forward to returning so hope that forecast is accurate.

Playing trivia with Mitch, Bert and daughter Cindy and her husband Mark. Got third the first day, second the second day so hopefully a first place today. So nice to be able to play with six people it is so much better than with four people. Bert and I played scrabble yesterday and had a good time, she is a good player and it was fun to be playing again. This is a port intensive trip with no planned sea days so the opportunities for cards or scrabble are limited for sure.

Food has been really good and last nights dover sole was truly outstanding. I really love Compass Rose so much variety and I think it is now my favorite place to dine. Today I am doing the drawing for the preliminary winners for the free cruise. Always great to see who gets drawn and the last winners are here onboard now. This is their free cruise which is finally taking place as the plans made earlier were of course cancelled.

Be back soon!

Sounds fabulous Ngaire. I bet it feels good to be back onboard. Please tell Mitch and Bert hello from Tom and I...it's been too long since we've seen them. Keep enjoying !!

Busy busy! Had a lovely get together and drew four names for the free cruise. Amongst the four people drawn were Mitch and Bert.

Yesterday we went to a new port Siracusa, Sicily. Lemons and lots of agriculture everywhere. We did a wine tour with tasting of three wines, a white, red and dessert wind. We were very surprised to be served a snack with each wine. The white was accompanied by cold meats and cheese, red with tomatoes with basil, and three savory pastries. The dessert wine was fantastic and served with sponge cake and chocolate ice cream.

Today we tendered into Amalfi, the sun was out and the sea looked calm but there was a very big swell. We went to Ravello and most of the others went to Positano by boat. Ravello was as lovely as ever but the weather changed and it got colder and windy. The traffic was insane on the road coming back to Amalfi. On arrival at the dock the tenders were having trouble unloading and loading the tender due to an increased swell. So the tenders were delayed and we got back later than we anticipated. Fortunately the lunch at La Veranda was extended which was wonderful as we hungry. Ken has taken some good pictures and will get them up hopefully today.

Playing trivia with Mitch, Bert and my daughter Cindy and her husband Mark. No WIN yet but we have missed by a point or two and had second or third - but in the "money" so that is good.

Mitch and Bert


Drawing the preliminary winners


Bee Bop Bonnie, Ngaire and Bonnie's sister Debby


Our tour guide on the wine tour picks us fresh lemons in Syracuse, Italy.


Cindy (Ngaire's daughter) at the wine tasting


The Group at the Wine Tasting


Syracuse, Italy


Syracuse, Italy


Ravello, Italy


Ravello, Italy

Gelato at Ravello - I ordered lemon gelato it was great.


Beautiful Ravello

Yummy Gelati...😀 👍 Love it !

Mitch and Bert looking great! Hi from Helen and Barbara!
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Helen

Wonderful to see the lovely photos, which as usual, were just excellent! Keep up the good work Ken. Also enjoyed hearing about the happenings on board, and your description Ngaire of the shore excursions. With our love of all things Italian you can imagine how much we wished we were with you.
Give our warm regards to Mitch and Bert who were supposed to be with us on one of our cancelled cruises. Also say a BIG HI to Mark and Cindy. Everyone looks as though they are having a fine time 😄

ROME was our next destination.

Been quite some time since we have been to Rome so we did the Regent "hop a bus" tour. Paired up with Cindy and Mark and we have a really fantastic day. Spent time doing a walk past the area where all the chariot races were held, the Coliseum and a long pedestrian street. Then we went to the building called the "wedding cake building". Massive amount of steps to walk up the building and I am being careful of a knee that gives me fits at times. So we found an elevator where we could go to a highest level of the stairs. Then we paid 12 euros each to take an elevator to the very top and the view was magnificent. A 360 of all of Rome and it was a perfect day with full sunshine and no clouds. Quite magical.

Then found a wonderful pizza store to have lunch on a little side street. Pizzas were 8 - 10 euros each, so inexpensive. Initially we were going to share pizzas but everyone wanted something different. So we did our own pizzas. They were so good not a single slice remained standing we all ate our entire pizzas. I had a mushroom pizza and the top was solid mushrooms not just few sprinkled on top.

Walking around the area again we found a gelato store and indulged in that delight as well. Pizza and Gelato a very "healthy" afternoon!
We continued on the hop a bus around Rome it took almost two hours to do the entire route. I have been so many times that it was not necessary to see all the highlights again.

Livorno
We decided to do our own thing in Livorno. Having been to this port many times we have been to the key areas a lot. We used the ships shuttle bus to go to town which only took about 5 - 10 minutes. There was a nice local market in a big square. Each stall was filled with incredibly fresh looking produce and a hive of activity with the locals. Enjoyed strolling through the town and came back for lunch at Prime 7. Now going to spend a relaxing afternoon on board.

Ngaire and Ken,

I am so enjoying your photos that I keep looking for the LIKE button but then realize I’m on the wrong website for that!

Rome, Italy:

Livorno, Italy:

Really enjoying the photos Ken. Pity we’re not there for my Ken to take some too!

I know. We talked about you at dinner with Chris and Linda last night and we all really miss you.

Posted this to test way to put images on LCT send to me by the brilliant Kim.

Posted another. Thanks Kim.

Good work, Ngaire! Thanks for sharing your photos and reporting on your activities. Hi to Mark and Cheron!

Catching up now on St.Paul de Vence. One of my favorite places to visit and I always take that tour. The art work in this hill top village is remarkable. We had a perfect day, warm and sunny but not hot. Prices are very reasonable and I bought a nice necklace for 10 euros and my daughter Cindy bought some clothes and a necklace as well. Had one of the BEST ever passion fruit sorbets. I am a sucker for sorbets in Europe they seem to always be more flavorful than at home. I took and posted these pictures below. Ken's pictures will follow.


Ken at the fountain in the middle of St. Paul de Vence


Tiny "La Petite Chapelle Restaurant" in St. Paul de Vence. You can barely see the cross at the top of the rocks.


Regent Voyager beat us into Monte Carlo, we had to tender in.


Monte Carlo preparing for the Grand Prix.


Saint Paul de Vence from the bus.

Report from Ngaire and pictures from Ken

Our tour today was very good. We decided to change to the afternoon departure. We started off with a very good guide. Excellent English, and what he talked about was interesting and he did not talk too much. Our first stop was the hilltop village of Le Castellet a charming place. Ken will be posting some pictures. Lots of flowers, cute stores and quite a few young children around. I did get another outstanding sorbet, this time lemon flavor, I have a duty to do “quality research” on sorbets of the world. The sun was shining the temperature was perfect and the views over the landscape of Provence outstanding. This is a beautiful part of France. Each hilltop village is similar but at the same time different. I love them all.

Second stop was Sanary Sur Mur a seaside town. Each week they have a huge outdoor market here and there were the stalls of the fisherman with the names of the boats displayed on the top of the stall. During the weekly market they sell fish straight from their fishing boats on these small stalls. A really pretty town with lots of restaurants and of course I had to do my sorbet quality control check. This time I went back to passion fruit. Ken got a chocolate sorbet that was an incredibly rich chocolate flavor, not sure I could handle more than one bite of that sorbet. There were a lot of families with small children, there is a carousel and a playground for the children to enjoy. There is a primary school right at the entry to the area and lot of noise from the playground as we walked past on our way to the shorefront. As soon as school day was over the school children lined up at the ice cream stores and the lines grew. A truly delightful spot and we really enjoyed our time here. It was so lovely with the bright sun shining on the water, stunning trees lining the pathways and flowers.



Toulon Port


Beautiful Le Castellet, France.






Sanary Sur Mar, France

Loving the pictures and reports. Our experience in Sicily is that wine tasting always comes with food, sometimes enough for a meal.

St Paul de Vence is one of my favorite places on earth! We have dined at Colombe d’Or where the walls are covered in sketches and drawings by Joan Miro, and Picasso and Marc Chagall and others of that time sometimes left as payment for the artist’s meal. Magical!
————————
Helen

Kim I was able to post this from the train. Really appreciate this process. Easy once you do it a few times.

Great tour today in Palma de Mallorca. Visited a delightful village in the mountains called Soller and then an hour train ride through the mountains.

The town of Soller was holding a race, both men and women arriving at the finish line and everyone was cheering. Even a small baby was clapping. Had a yummy pastry with custard and local almonds. Outstanding.

The train ride was on a vintage train that began in 1912 primarily to transport oranges. The scenery was beautiful and we had plenty of space on the train only about 50% full. I have always liked trains but this one really was great. Ken will post pictures later.

Tomorrow most of our group departs and others arrive. Going to miss those who are returning home. Took our transit Covid tests both negative.

Kids clapping for the runners.


The busy square


The vintage train


Overview of Soller a big town really not just a village.


Cathedral in Palma de Mallorca.

Sad to say goodbye to everyone last night. Was a great cruise with a nice group, overall good weather and some good tours.

However, two couples have stayed for this upcoming cruise so that is great and some new people are coming on for this upcoming cruise.

First day the ships all serve prime rib for lunch at La Verandah so that is something I am looking forward to at 12 noon.

Hoping you or Kim will share the new photo posting process - maybe post it and tag it under "Off Topic"?

Cindy, take a look at the thread posted by Kim at the end of May last year in the OFF TOPIC forum. The thread is called “Photo posting test.“ Unless Kim has a new method of posting photos, I believe this is the method Ngaire was using.

Here are the instructions from Kim. I bulleted the key issues to make it easier to read. After doing this a few times I can now easily post without having to review the instructions. Used to use another system so not sure if this is a new one or not but it works well.

Ok, let's see if these instructions help. I made screenshots that I can send if needed. Good luck!

• On iPhone (or iPad I guess) browser go to website https://postimages.org/
• There are only 2 things to do on the initial screen:
• Where it says “do not resize my image” click on the drop down and select “640x480 for message boards”
• Below that it says “No expiration.” I wouldn’t bother with changing that.
• Then, below that click on “Choose images” and click on the option “Photo Library”.

• Select a photo and click on Add in the upper right corner.
• Once the photo is uploaded to the postimage website, you will see links to pick at the bottom.
• You want “Direct link”, so click on the copy icon on the right side of the direct link https code.

Go to LCT:
• In the New Reply section of the thread on LCT, you have to click on [Use Full Editor].
• Doing that will give you icons for more options to use in the post than you would see if you just did “Quick Reply”.
• The "Insert Image Link" is the 5th button under the heading "Post" (It looks like a landscape and is to the right of the smiley face).
• When you click on that button, you will get a small pop-up that says "Enter the URL of the image you wish to display".
• The text "http://" automatically appears in the field, but click delete it to clear it out.
• Then paste in the URL you got in postimages.org when you clicked on the button at the end of the "Direct Image" link.

It should create the correct code. But, if you don't see the photo in your post, click on edit in the post. It will display the code. Make sure the code is like this example:

Today we decided to do the shuttle into Marseille rather than a tour. Once we arrived we saw a little train that took a route up to the impressive basilica on the top of the hill. Always done a tour to one of the lovely towns in the area in the past, never been to the basilica before. It was a wonderful trip, about 1 hour 15 minutes long and you could stay at the basilica as long as you wanted as the trains ran every 20 minutes. The views were amazing and the weather absolutely perfect. Sunshine and no wind. The basilica was absolutely stunning. Pictures will come later on it was gorgeous. On the top of the basilica is a large gold statue (I think of the Virgin Mary ) just glistening in the sun. We really had a great time. On our return we just made the shuttle bus to come back, perfect timing.

Tomorrow Portofino.

I updated the photo posting thread. Thanks for remembering it was there, Dave!

Pictures from Marseille






The ceiling of the cathedral


View from the cathredal


The corniche where many expensive villas and high priced stores are located.

Today we were in Portofino, a beautiful sunny day with no wind. This tiny little town is so delightful, saw a few changes since our last visit in particular a "rhino" statue I do not remember seeing again.





We selected a tour by boat from Portofino to Santa Margherita, a town we have visited before by a local bus. In the past we walked up to a church on a hill, from the bus stop, but have never really gone into the main town. It was a tender ride to shore then a 15 minute ferry to Santa Margherita. We walked the town and then visited Villa Durazzo which was on a hill behind the town. It was a walk up to the Villa but not to steep and a good road rather than cobblestones. More impressive from the outside but still nice to see this villa that once was owned by one family. Quite a lot of the family portraits and the original furniture was still in the house. Every room had a large venetian glass chandelier and they were all quite different.



The gardens of the villa were wonderful with statues and many types of flowering and large trees. A fountain had a lot of turtles and at first I thought they were part of the sculpture that was in the center of the fountain. However, when they started moving it was obvious these were "real" turtles.



During our free time we stopped and had an absolutely outstanding pizza. We followed that up with some sorbet, this time mango and raspberry. There was of course a church in the heart of the town that was very ornate and we spent a little time there, the stained glass windows were very nice.



Final picture waiting for the boat to take us back to Portofino.



Met Mitch and Bert in the tender back to the boat. Overall a very nice day.

Great photos...we're GREEN with envy ! Keep having a great time.

Me too! Loving the photos.

We are in Rome again and this time took a tour to Lake Bracciano as the group said it was good. Today is not sunny like it was on our last stop in Rome but still a great tour. Can only imagine how beautiful the trip would have been in the sunshine. Stunning country side with multiple colors of the season in the fields, bushes and trees. Horses, sheep, and white cows and rolling green hills. Good guide who did an interesting commentary on the way to a small town on Lake Bracciano.

The town was delightful, built right on the lake with beautiful greenery and the locals walking their dogs along the lake promenade. What else was particularly food was the home made sorbet as Ken has now joined on the quest to check out sorbet whenever possible. The guide suggested going into the fresh fish store. All recently caught and really no fish smell. The two fish mongers were great and one spoke great English. Seemed thrilled we were from Texas. Kept saying "Cowboys" not sure if was real cowboys or the Dallas Cowboys. Lots of fun.

Final stop was sitting in a vineyard with yummy home bread with both savory and fruit spreads. Coupled with the wines of the vineyard. Right near our table was a huge tree that we found out was a red pepper tree. Under the tree was a barbeque pit that looked home built. Really a nice place.

Last night we did the drawing for the free cruise. A small group so we held in the library.

Pictures from last night and today will follow when we get back to the ship. Of course after lunch we cannot skip a meal.

Dennis and Jackie winners


Sandy and Scott winners.


Bruce, Dennis, Jackie, Catharina


Mitch, Alan, Bert, Scott, Sandy, Judy.


Ngaire, Elizabeth & Bill (winners) Charlotte & Jim.

The town on Lake Bracciano

The Winery


Little buffet of bread and spreads


Pepper Tree with unique barbeque below


The peppers on the tree

Ngaire, had to laugh about your tour to Lake Bracciano. Years ago, when GE got out of the Marine Corps, I took him on a regent Med cruise to celebrate, and we took this tour. Went to the lake. walked around, all nice. Got back on the bus to go to the winery, and the bus driver got lost. not just a little lost--totally terribly lost. We drove around for a couple of hours. He finally called someone and got directions, and we made it to the winery but 2 hours late. Everyone was starving. Then we were late getting back to the ship. The ship was all set to sail, just waiting for our bus, and Jamie, who was the CD, was standing on the gangway welcoming us aboard and hurrying us along. thank heaven it was a ship's tour or we would have been stranded.

Well glad I was not on THAT tour! The bread and spreads would not be enough to satisfy that hunger!

We retained the same excursions but could not tender as the seas were not co-operating. So we went to Naples and bused to Sorrento and the tomorrow we dock at Catania and bus to Taormina. Definitely better to bus and not miss the ports and the tendering probably takes longer than the bus anyway. So much easier to dock!

We decided to stay on the ship today and just walked into Naples but not much around the port. It was a busy day with emails and things to handle so it was all good!

Last night the ship did an excellent tier level event. Soloist did a incredible job singing "Live and Let Die" and an amazing violinist played Bond songs and played as she moved around the guests. Dru, the cruise consultant made a great James Bond.

Today we did an afternoon wine tour and Jackie and Dennis were on the same trip. It was nice to see the countryside and the ornate buildings in the town. The wines were not great but we still enjoyed the tour.


Jackie, Ngaire and Dennis.


The Winery - Villa San Michele