Despite the catchy member name, we have yet to see Two For the Road literally take to the road—we keep catching them cruising fabulous waters instead. First we salivated over their South Pacific sailing; now we’re mad about the installments of their Mediterranean adventure.
The itinerary for this Mediterranean cruise? “Travel from Rome to Venice with stops in Monaco, Pisa, Naples, Santorini, Mykonos, Athens, Olympia, Corfu, and Turkey.”
So far they’ve chronicled fantastic days and nights in Rome, Monte Carlo, and Nice. Besides sharing detailed descriptions of those cities, the couple peppers their stories with incredibly useful tips, including:
At port, make it a point to return to the ship 45 minutes before you’re wanted back on board to avoid the lines and the disappointment and panic of being late due to a wrong turn or unexpected traffic. (They’re serious about this one: latecomers were stranded at every port!)
If the cruise line requires that you hand over your passport, it’s a good idea to make a copy of your passport to keep with you. The couple also scanned their documents and kept them in an email folder that could be accessed from the Internet.
Fill your BlackBerry with the phone numbers of your home consulate at each port. “Just to be safe.”
There are many more useful tidbits in Two For the Road’s journal, including tips for booking hotels, finding ATMs, navigating streets, making transportation transfers, locating tourist offices, and more. And some of the best tips are destination-specific, like this one for Rome: “Gelaterias are everywhere and we found ourselves making at least two trips to them each day. You should never pay more than 2 Euros for a single scoop, and never buy your gelato from a street vendor as they just don’t have big enough coolers to provide a good product.”
After reading this journal’s stories of summer in Europe and browsing the 128 photos that already accompany them, we can’t wait to see how the rest of the trip develops.
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