Hi everyone. As always we hope you are all well and that things are good for you and you families. We are both well, apart from having a cold for a few days but that is to be expected on a 12-day 
The cruise has been great- we had the same room as our previous cruise so we settled in very quickly. Over the 12 days we visited:
Mykonos, Greece. We were here about 3 years ago so we didn’t take an organised tour, preferring to just wander around the town and enjoy this beautiful place.
Katakolon, Greece. This is only a small town with its main claim to fame being the home of the Olympic Games about an hour away by coach. Instead of an organised tour at Olympia we guided ourselves amongst the almost 3000-year old ruins. We could imagine the athletes training, competing and living in specially design facilities, just as they do now. The Olympic torch still starts here each time Games are held.
Corfu, Greece. After 4 days of really nice weather, rain fell all day. As we had both developed a cold we stayed on board so we still have not seen Corfu. 
Split, Croatia. The Dalmation Coast is very interesting – and yes, it is where Dalmation dogs originated. Just 20 years ago Croatia emerged from the horrible war amongst the previous Yugoslavian countries and this area has recovered very quickly. Although northern Croatia is still struggling in its recovery from the war, the southern coast is quite beautiful and is very popular with tourists. The town of Trogir is a small fortress town on an island that has been inhabited for 5000 years and, like many other old towns that we have seen, is very interesting. We travelled through rugged coastal mountains and had lunch on a working farm.
Dubrovnik, Croatia. Another very nice city, it was badly affected by the war with Serbia but has since been restored. A high wall surrounds the old town, providing great photo opportunities. The streets are narrow and very steep, lined on the ground floor with dozens of restaurants and souvenir shops and on the upper floors with hotels and apartments. The main street is the only flat area of the city and a few days before our visit rain has caused knee-deep flooding so we were lucky. Not just a tourist town, thousands of locals live here too. It is probably the best of the places we have seen on the cruise.
Athens, Greece. As we had seen the Acropolis and Parthenon before, this time we visited the ancient city of Corinth, the home of the Corinthians of Bible fame. St John the Baptist lived here for 18 months. Again we marvelled at the engineering skills of ancient times.
Kusadasi, Turkey. Nearby Ephesus was first inhabited 5000 years ago and was either destroyed or vacated for various reasons, such as earthquake, war, malaria disease and receding coast line. We visited the most famous, Ephesus version 3, which used to be on the coast but the coast is now about 20 km away. About 10% of the city has been excavated and,although we had seen it before, we were still amazed. St John was buried here so we visited the ruins of the basilica built to house his grave site. 
We spent 3 days at sea, getting to know new friends, a few drinks, a couple of formal dinners and many other nice meals – not too stressful. The Mediterranean was in a good mood with the biggest seas being 1.5 metres and most days being less than 1 metre. Temperatures were usually about 19 deg min and 25 deg max and we had very little rain.
We are now at Istanbul airport waiting to commence our 21-hour flight home. We have had a great holiday but now we are looking forward to getting home and enjoying life at Brighton
Love to all from Ted and Jo
 

After enjoying a Roman lunch

Amongst the ruins at Ephesus, this public toilet (a 42-holer) was found

This house at Ephesus was found in excellent condition during excavations.

Beautiful Dubrovnik on the Croation coast

A typical Dubrovnik street.

A donkey and his mate.

Civita Bagnoregio! Perched on its mountain top for 5000 years

The very nice town of Alerona

Autumn colours, a vineyard from our room near Ficulle. Orvieto in the background.

The cathedral in Orvieto; the city is so nice we went twice

Hi again. Still having fun in fascinating Italy. Things are generally going smoothly although occasionally we have a major problem, e.g a few days ago at a restaurant a request for 1/4 litre (un quarto liter) of wine was actually for 4 litres (quartro liter). Luckily the waitress realised the mistake and we joked about it.

We drove 200 km from Mondavio to Ficulle and the weather improved to clear skies and 25 degrees. On the way we crossed 2 mountain ranges of up to 500m above sea level and climbed a third range to our rural house, also 500m high. On the way, in two different areas we saw young women seated alone in remote vantage points beside the road – waiting for friends or perhaps for a bus? They didn’t wave to us so we didn’t offer them a ride.

Our timeshare house is large, with room for 10 people. It is very old and the decor matches the age of the house, although we have mod cons like electricity and wifi. From the garden and balcony we can see across a large 300 m deep valley to Orvieto about 20 km away, looking over olive orchards, vineyards and woodland. Ficulle is a nice hill-top town, quite small and hundreds of years old. We came across the local Sunday market and shopped with the locals.

Most nearby towns have a town centre that is very old. Etruscans lived in this area 5000 years ago, then the Romans took over and many of the towns have buildings dating back to that era. In Mediaeval times they were rebuilt and remain largely in that style. Check out on google Earth or Google Maps such towns as Ficulle, Montegabbione, Orvieto, Chitta del Pieve, Chiusi, Sarteano, Alerona – they are all within an hour of us and are wonderful examples of 600- to 800-year old architecture. They have castles, cathedrals, theatres, piazzas, and of course, caves. Ficulle, 3 km from our house, and Alerona are the smallest of the towns that we mentioned. The buildings were originally made with stone quarried from beneath the towns and now most of the buildings, either private or public, have cellars used for wine, food and other goods. Our house is at Via Amelia 5, Ficulle (Google it) with a swimming pool that we can’t use because the water is too cold, even though the daytime temperature has been in the mid-20’s each day.

American travel writer, Rick Steves, reckons his favourite “old town” is Civita Bagnoregio, about an hour away. This place is amazing, a tiny town perched on a steep mountain, originally inhabited 5000 years ago, rebuilt by the Romans 2000 years ago and rebuilt again 1000 years ago. Now only a few families live there but lots tourists visit every day, served by about a few small restaurants. Everything needed to support the locals and tourists has to be carried or carted by tiny trucks across a steep narrow path from the main town of Bagnoregio. We prefer Ficulle because it is not a tourist town.

In the towns and amongst the farms near Ficulle we can see everyday life – tiny trucks, tractors with grapes, people chatting to each other as they pass in the street, men having coffee in, or in front of, bars and tabachis; people closing stores at lunch time for siesta or re-opening again at 4 or 5 o’clock. Locals are always quick with a smile and greeting and often they are happy to chat, in Italian of course as hardly anyone speaks English. We have had meals of local products, wines from Ficulle (Vitalonga winery) and Chianti and of course wonderful breads and pastries. Occasionally we have spoken to English speaking people, such as a couple from Philadelphia who we met at a parking ticket machine and spent the next 2 hours having lunch with – but generally most of the tourists seem to be Italian. We spent a few hours in Cortona, the town where “Under the Tuscan Sun” was filmed, including a really nice lunch in a restaurant that was full of Italians.

The weather has been kind; 4 days of overnight and morning rain then fine afternoons with temperatures in the mid-20’s. We have been very lucky.

The past week in the Umbria region has been the best week of the 4 weeks that we have spent in Italy but it has to end. Tomorrow (Saturday) we will leave here and drive all day to Milan where we will return our wonderful Peugeot 208 after about 2500 kms. The car has been great and driving has been good fun – for the driver but a bit scary for the passenger, especially in the first few days.  The car and passenger have handled steep, narrow, winding roads and mountain tracks both rocky and muddy – the car and passenger are both keepers.

On Sunday we’ll fly to Istanbul and leave on Monday for a 12 day cruise through the eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea. Wifi is not so reliable on cruise ships so we are not sure whether we’ll do another update before we arrive home.

Love to all. Hope you are all keeping well

Ted and Jo

At last we have reasonable wifi so here are a few photos.

From our room in Volastra (Cinque Terre)

Yes the Leaning Tower really does!

David is bigger than expected

From Volterra in beautiful Tuscany

Near Mondavio, our house is in the cream building at the front

Pasta and seafood near Mondavio, with Tineke and Eddie

Our house near Ficulle, 20 km from Orvieto

It’s big enough for 10 and very comfortable

From our balcony at Ficulle

Enjoying the local Sunday market in the centre of Ficulle

Love from Ted and Jo

Hi from Mondavio – well actually about 10 km out of Mondavio, in a quiet cottage amongst quiet small towns and farms. It is quite beautiful and very peaceful. The house has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen/lounge/dining room – it’s not large but very comfortable. The temperature has been lower than in previous places, yesterday only 14 deg, but the thick stone walls, double glazed windows and central heating have kept the indoor temperature warm and constant. The worst feature of the cottage is that we have no wifi and now that we are addicted to wifi we have to go to a bar or restaurant and have wine, coffee or a meal whenever we want access to the Internet. It is a tough life.

With Eddie and Tineke, our friends from The Netherlands, we have explored the many small villages and larger towns within a couple of hours all around us. They range from tiny hilltop villages such as the one closest to us, to quite large coastal cities. Most have origins in Roman times and have had major renovations in Mediaeval times, e.g. Mondavio has a fort and other buildings erected in the 12th to 15th centuries on foundations that were Roman buildings and roads. It is quite amazing to see that now they are being restored and renovated in original style but with modern plumbing, electrical work and sewerage works.

Walking through these towns, or in the case of the large towns and cities through the old city centre, is very interesting. We usually spend more time in the small towns where we can be amongst locals as they go about their normal lives. Here the peak tourist season is over and the region is quiet, with the beachside areas almost completely closed for the winter. The weather has been a bit bleak, especially yesterday when it rained lightly for most of the day, but that is to be expected at this time of year. We saw a news flash (in Italian) which showed “cyclone” damage in Sardenia, on the western coast of Italy, so we on the east coast are lucky the weather has not been worse.

For those who would like a little more detail, probably the best, most interesting, oldest, or least touristic towns that we have seen in this region are Mondavio, Corinaldo and Urbino. These are very well preserved old towns, with churches, theatres, bars, pizzerias, ristorantes, and pastry and fruit and vegetable shops. Urbino is larger than the others and is a large university town but it maintains its historical atmosphere.

Being close to the Adriatic coast the local cuisine is largely fish-based but there is a the full variety of other foods as well. From deep fried seafood to squid ink pasta with clams, we have enjoyed it all. We try to be adventurous and the staff are very helpful in trying to explain the menu but sometimes the meal that arrives is quite different to what we thought we had ordered.

We have had fun with language. Because most of our time has been away from the major tourist centres such as Florence and Pisa we have found that not many people speak English. We (Ted) has enjoyed experimenting with the Italian language and people have been very patient with us. As an example we asked in a chemist shop for a product that they didn’t have but 2 women told us in Italian where we might be able to get it a few kms away at an alimentari macrobiotico (which of course means health food shop). We eventually found the shop and, even though they didn’t have the product, we enjoyed the search and were quite proud of ourselves.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will leave the east coast and return to the centre of the Italian peninsula, to the village of Ficulle for our second week in time share accommodation. We are looking forward to seeing places like Orvietto, Assisi and Siena which you might have heard of or even visited.

Bye for now. Please keep sending newsy emails; we do enjoy hearing from home and other places. We are both well and we hope everyone else is also.

Love from Ted and Jo

ps. Still having trouble transferring photos