Europe: Part IV - Norwegian Star

Apologies that this is so delayed - the end of our summer was kind of crazy, and I spent most of my free time finishing my 111 page album of this trip on Shutterfly - and ordering it while they had their free pages promotion running!

The final leg of our European journey started in Southampton, England, where we boarded the beautiful Norwegian Star for our tour of Scotland, Norway, and Iceland.  As we understand it from the crew on the ship, the Norwegian Star was built for Asian audiences, and as a result has some unique design features.  We found the layout and decorations of our room and the entire ship to be lovely - particularly the opera house-style main theater, definitely the most beautiful we've seen.

The decorated part of the outside of the ship

Our stateroom - Aaron successfully bid to get us an upgrade
to a balcony room!

The ornate entrance to the theater - unfortunately we couldn't
really capture the grandeur of the theater itself in a photo

Most of our ports on this cruise were tender ports, and we discovered that at least this ship (not sure if it is common across Norwegian's fleet) uses its own lifeboats as tender boats!  This was our first time ever entering a lifeboat on a cruise, and it was interesting to see what it was like.

Entering the lifeboat from the ship

The helmsman of the lifeboat sat in the bulge at the top; if this
were an emergency, they would fold down the platform behind 
him to create additional seating

Some last comments about the ship before we move on to the destinations...as I mentioned, the ship was lovely, and the dining venues were decent and food good, but the rest of the ship-based experience we felt was kind of meh.  Our stateroom attendant was one of the worst we've had (a shock after our amazing one on Princess!), showing up late every day to clean our room, somehow always managing to be IN our room when we came back to it, and generally having a bad attitude toward helping us with things we needed.  The cruise director was absolutely the worst we've had - as far as we can tell, she did the bare minimum for her job.  She was cheerful but she didn't do a daily show and put minimal effort into the game shows she was hosting.  We also felt nickel and dimed everywhere we went - which I suppose makes sense given that Norwegian tends to be cheaper and offers this 'free at sea' package to all guests, which means they have to be making money somewhere else!

Our first port of call was Newhaven, for Edinburgh.  We'd already been to Edinburgh a couple times, so we decided to do our own thing and explore outside the city a bit.  The highlight of this was a trip to Cramond Island, the causeway to which is only exposed for 4 hours centered on low tide.  Fortunately for us, low tide occurred right after our ship anchored, so we were able to take a bus out to the beach and walk across the causeway to the island!  Neat!

Walking along the causeway to the island.  The large concrete 
bits to the right are what remains of an anti-torpedo boat wall
from World War II.

Standing on the island looking across the old WWII fortifications
and the causeway to the mainland in the distance.

We finished up at Cramond Island with plenty of time before the ship departed, so we took a bus into the center of Edinburgh and visited a few sites we hadn't seen before - the National Museum of Scotland, the Scottish National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery.  All were great!  They weren't the equal of their counterparts in London, but still reminiscent of those in London and very well done.

The National Museum had a viewing area on its roof, from
which you had a great view of Edinburgh Castle.

Aaron was very excited about this
meteorite that they allowed you to touch!

The National Museum was home to the taxidermized Dolly - the
first mammal to be cloned from adult cells.

My favorite painting at the National
Gallery - the picture doesn't do it 
justice, but the stag looked amazingly
3D when you saw it in person.

Our second port was Invergordon, for Inverness.  I had been to Inverness before but Aaron had only driven through on his way to a business trip.  We took the bus into Inverness and then on to Urquhart Castle, which I had seen as a child.  It was SO different!  They've added a visitor center, informative signs, and walking paths.  It is a popular tourist destination now, rather than a hidden gem on the roadside.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize this, and our purchased bus tickets did not allow enough time to explore all the new information as deeply as we would have liked, but we still enjoyed the visit.

Aaron 'swimming' in Loch Ness, as he calls it whenever he 
touches the water.

An overview of Urquhart Castle

Back in Invergordon - the whole downtown
had buildings with beautiful and huge
painted murals

Invergordon's real claim to fame seems to be as a construction/
repair center for oil rigs - we think these were bases for oil
rigs all lined up.  If you zoom in close you can see a 2-story
building in the middle of the front of the structures, to give you
an idea of scale!

Next up: Lerwick, Scotland!  Here we took our only guided tour on this cruise - a visit to Scalloway Castle and Museum and a Shetland Pony farm!  We ended the tour with plenty of time to tour Lerwick itself, where we saw all the sights - Fort Charlotte, the Shetland Museum, and Clickimin Broch.

Leaving with the tour group was interesting - they routed us
through the bowels of the ship to board our tender boat

Overview of Scalloway - the whole island a series of rolling green
hills with the occasional house.

Scalloway Castle - closed for renovation

Shetland Ponies!!  They were quite friendly
and came right up to the fence.

Clickimin Broch - they don't know for sure how this was used
or why it was built, but it was certainly fun to climb all over
and explore!

At this point our only-slightly-chilly explorations ended and we headed to the lands of cold wetness.  Our first stop in Norway was in Bergen, where the highlight of the town seemed to be the funicular railroad to the top of Mt. Floyen.  The area at the top of the mountain had all sorts of entertainment - a troll forest, playground for the kids, gift shop and cafe, and then a huge network of trails that appeared to go all over the mountain range.  We took the trail to a couple of lakes in the mountains but didn't go too far as it was cold and raining.  We did get far enough away to enjoy the absolutely beautiful scenery away from the main crowds.

A troll greeted us at the top of the funicular

One of the amazing views at the top of the mountain

Aaron 'swimming' in one of the lakes again

Unfortunately, all the cold and rain at this stop did a number on Aaron's immune system and he succumbed to a cold (we did test, it wasn't COVID!).  He didn't get off the ship again until we disembarked in Reykjavik, so you'll have to suffer through my photos for the rest of this post!  Our next stop was Alesund, Norway, where I hiked to the Aksla Viewpoint.  It wasn't nearly so high as Mt. Floyen or San Giovanni in Kotor, but still had nice view of what fjords there were (we discovered we really needed to be further north to see the Norwegian fjords in all their glory).

The Askla Viewpoint is visible at the top of the mountain, and you
can see the zig-zag trail I took up.  We took this photo from the 
ship right before it left, when the weather finally cleared - when
I went out it was overcast and rainy.

View of the ship and surrounding area from the viewpoint

This is apparently an iconic row of buildings in Alesund - it 
appeared on many postcards and pins.

Next stop: Iceland!  The sailing from Norway to Iceland was quite rough - according to the crew this was not unusual.  We could hear the anchors slamming in their housing as water gushed in and out, they put out the vomit bags, and the fog in the morning was so thick the captain had to sound the fog horn as we sailed along.  Fortunately neither of us felt nauseous during the transit.  We stopped at three towns on the northern side of Iceland - first up: Seydisfjordur!  We saw SO many 'tiny' waterfalls as we sailed in and out of the Icelandic fjords - much more of the fjord experience we had hoped for in Norway.

This waterfall was visible from the ship,
and was so much larger in person!  You can
see some people in the background.

The Tvisongur 'sound sculpture,' in which you could
theoretically experience a traditional 5-tone harmony.
I think you really needed 5 people for the full experience.

Next up: Akureyri, whose main claim to fame was a fancy church on a hill with great views.  I also walked to the botanical gardens, where I learned more about the blue flower that grew ALL over the hills in Iceland, and took a very adventurous hike through the wilderness to the original site of Nonni's house - this took me past a cemetery, which was interesting in and of itself, looking at naming conventions (-son or -dottir appended to a father or mother's forename, respectively, to create the son's or daughter's surname, respectively).

Part of the amazing approach to Akureyri

Apparently the locals feel this is their 
most iconic building (it is one of the oldest) - 
it was on the only postcard I could find
of Akureyri itself.

The Nootka lupin, which grows over 
all the hills we saw in Iceland

Our final stop before disembarkation was Isafjordur.  This town was TINY, but surrounded by beauty.  The main attraction here was the troll's seat, where legend has it that a troll sat down on the mountain (creating the depression), with her feet in the water (creating the peninsula holding the town and the deep water around it).

Attempting a selfie with the troll's seat in the background

The towns we visited in Iceland were full of houses covered 
with this corrugated metal siding - due to fear of fire.

We flew home on a PLAY flight from the Reykjavik aiport,
and it flew over Greenland!  Our first ever view of the island.

And that sums up our grand European adventure!  We had an amazing time despite the setbacks from COVID, and Aaron is all ready to go back.  We saw so many new places this trip, and we know there are so many more still to be seen.  For the moment though we're looking forward to getting back to a few more WARM cruises - this last one was so cold!

Europe: Part III - Regal Princess

The next leg of our grand European adventure began at the end of our stay in Istanbul.  We walked across the street from our hotel to the entrance to the cruise terminal and then waited a very long time for them to send the new ship's manifest down to security - I'm not sure when security received the old manifest, but they were awaiting the updated one that had us on it (as well as a few other families that embarked that day).  After an hour or so we were able to board the Regal Princess.

The Regal Princess

The boarding process was quite interesting as it was not the standard process - it was more like what the crew go through when they come on the ship.  We had to go through three levels of security (one dog sniff and two X-rays for our bags) and then passport control.  We were interspersed with many embarking crew, and first felt like we were really getting the white glove treatment when the Istanbul port agent came to passport control and told all the crew to step out of the way so that we (as passengers) could come to the front of the line.  The port agent walked us through the rest of security and deposited us with a representative from the cruise ship who actually remembered Aaron from Barcelona!  Princess had canceled our booking a few days earlier (terrible timing!), so we were only half in the computer system, so they couldn't create our medallion yet, so we had to be personally escorted to our room, and a porter carried our luggage all the way to our room for us (so nice to finally not be hauling it ourselves!).  Shortly after we arrived they delivered complimentary wine to our stateroom, and when we went down to guest services with all our questions the AMAZING lady there gave us a handful of laundry tokens for free (so nice! I was WAY behind on laundry at this point) and treated us to complimentary drinks at the closest bar.  Later at the safety briefing the head of guest services tracked us down and offered us a complimentary couple's massage at the spa.  Several days later the same lady discovered we were in an inside cabin and upgraded us to a balcony.  WOW!  We felt so appreciated!!

Our inside stateroom.  I hope you can see the pure joy on my 
face at finally being on the ship!

Free wine!

 

Our upgraded balcony cabin!

Complimentary massage time!

I can't move on to the destinations without giving a shout out to our stateroom attendant, who we were able to keep when we transferred cabins (we just moved across the hall).  He was AMAZING, by far the best we've ever had on a cruise ship.  He was always around with a huge smile on his face (well, I couldn't see his mouth because of the mask, but I could tell he was smiling from his eyes).  He is one of the only (maybe the only?) stateroom attendants we've had that paid attention to our room door magnets and knew to call me Becky ('Miss Becky' of course) and not Rebecca.  He volunteered to move all our things between cabins (I didn't let him move all of it, but he still insisted on helping!).  I just can't say enough nice things.  This being our only Princess cruise, I don't know if this is standard or if we just really lucked out, but he was SO awesome.

On to the destinations!  Lots of cool and famous places on this trip!  First stop: Mykonos, Greece.  We took a tour here that we booked for the first time through a company called Shore Excursions Group.  We had the opportunity to speak with their customer service when we had to cancel an excursion we missed due to COVID, and between their excellent phone support and two excellent tours we took with them on this cruise, I can say we're quite impressed and will probably use them again.  On to the tour... Mykonos is a small island and we had an awesome tour guide who spoke perfect English (her English was so good I could even hear her British accent!).  We saw all the highlights here, including an old monastery, tons of churches, the famous windmills, and the old town (whose roads were very sinuous not to confuse pirates as is rumored but rather to break up the wind).  We enjoyed some local pastry at the high point of the island.

This is a 'miraculous icon' - found 
drifting in the ocean mostly intact - the
monastery was founded around it

The famous windmills

Next stop: Athens!  We booked a tour to see the Acropolis and Parthenon - of course!  We had some free time during the tour and went to the new Acropolis Museum as well.  It was neat to see the ancient and famous buildings, but very crowded!

In front of the Parthenon

On to Aaron's favorite stop in the whole trip - Santorini, Greece.  This island was so neat because it had a little bit of everything.  We booked a tour through the ship to hike on the volcano and visit the hot springs, then toured the area around the pier on our own afterward.  The tour was very cool - we boarded an old-style wooden boat to get to Nea Kameni, where we were the first tourists of the day and had the volcano all to ourselves until right as we left.  The boat took us to the hot springs, which were really more of tepid/warm springs, but still neat.  We were two of only four people on the tour to actually get out and swim in them!  At the pier we took the cable car to the town at the top of the cliff, explored around a bit, then rode donkeys back down!  Most donkeys were tied together, but ours were free range and we had no control - they had no reins.  The donkeys were NOT at all concerned about people coming up the path - they just plowed on through.  It was an interesting experience, quite possibly the best 12 euros we've ever spent!

On top of Nea Kameni

The pier at Nea Kameni was so small that boats tied up to each 
other - you had to walk across other boats to get to yours!

Proof that Aaron does occasionally swim!  This is on the way 
back to the ship from the hot springs, in what our tour guide 
termed 'refreshing' water (read: COLD water)

Donkeys!!  

On to possibly my favorite port and definitely the most surprisingly enjoyable to both of us - Kotor, Montenegro.  I had never really thought of Montenegro as a tourist destination (my loss!), so I wasn't sure what to expect.  We did not book a tour here, but just explored on our own.  Our main plan was to climb the 1350 steps to San Giovanni Fortress, which we did early in the morning before they started collecting fees (and before the heat of the day set in), along with many other people from the ship.  The climb was intense, and several of us kept together, encouraging each other and helping each other to find the path when it wasn't so obvious.  The view from the fortress was well worth the climb, and as with most European forts/castles we'd visited we were free to walk all over all the unsafe places.  On the way back down we took a particularly unsafe looking wooden ladder out a window because I wanted to explore the ruins of an old church we could see in the distance.  We continued along a different path back from there and ended up having drinks at an old man's old house halfway down the mountain, where he advertised amazing views on a handwritten sign on two rusty headboards.  We finished out the day souvenir hunting in the old town.  Overall it was just a really fun day, we so enjoyed our independent adventuring in the grassy hilltops above the city.

Looking down at the ship from the top of the fortress

Climbing down the very safe wooden
ladder from a window in the wall

Enjoying lemonade and a view at the old man's house

The most unremarkable stop of the Princess voyage was at Messina, Sicily.  We did not book a tour here, and perhaps that was a mistake, as there was not much of interest to us in Messina itself.  We did visit the Messina Cathedral with its famous bell tower, and that was cool, but that was definitely the highlight of the day.  We attempted to go to two different forts, but could not find the entrance to either one.

Messina Cathedral - we sat through two of the 15-minute chimes
watching the figures on the tower move

Inside the cathedral there were two of these 3-D pieces of 
artwork showing the nativity - I'm not sure we've seen anything
like this in a church before

Our last stop was the one I had been most excited about before the cruise - Naples, Italy - for Pompeii and Vesuvius!  We took a tour to both Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius.  Pompeii was AMAZING for the incredibly intact architecture...sadly though they had removed all but one of the body castings due to COVID (they were causing too much crowding??)...so now everyone stands in a tight crowded line to go inside a tiny room to see the one body casting left...I think that plan backfired.  Unfortunately for us it was quite an overcast day, and though we hiked to the top of Mt. Vesuvius, we were walking through (very cold misty windy) pea soup and couldn't see ANYTHING.  It was very disappointing!  We definitely need to return to Naples on a sunny day after they return the bodies to Pompeii so that we can get the full experience.  Still, it was an interesting stop overall.

The one and only body casting still on display in Pompeii

In the main square of Pompeii

Atop Mt. Vesuvius - can't you tell?

The one highlight - we got Aaron some
limoncello (he wanted to have some in
Italy) at a small shop at the top of 
Mt. Vesuvius

Finally, I haven't said much about the ship or the cruise after our wonderful treatment during embarkation.  The staff we met that first day checked in on us throughout the cruise and we felt very well looked after.  We had a great cruise director who headed up some very entertaining game shows every night.  The entertainment in the evening was not nearly as good as Disney, but I suppose that's not a huge surprise.  We felt that it wasn't as good as some of the recent stuff we've seen on the larger Carnival ships either though.  We loved that all the entertainment we wanted to see/participate in was completed by 9:30 or 10 every night - Princess's motto is "Come Back New" and it really feels like that is their goal as they don't try to keep you up all night partying (though there is still live music and whatnot going on if you do want to stay up late).  They had an entertaining and informative host giving destination presentations every day - he was a wealth of information about the port history as well as current things to do.  There was an enrichment speaker as well, though we didn't enjoy her quite as much, but she did tell us Darwin almost didn't make his famous sailing because the captain didn't like his nose!  We enjoyed meeting several friendly fellow passengers with great stories to share.  Overall we felt well-looked-after and enjoyed nearly all of the activities we chose to participate in on the ship.

These guys - "Just John and Paul" - performed on the Disney
Magic as well!  We liked their shows on the Regal Princess 
better for some reason.

Ice carving!

The Queen's platinum jubilee happened while we were on the
ship, and our cruise director, being British, hosted a celebration
on deck

One more cruise to go!  Stay tuned for Part IV!

Europe: Part II - Attack of the COVID

After disembarking the Disney ship, we walked down two spots on the same pier to our intended next destination - the Regal Princess.  After waiting a while for check-in to open, we finally got inside the terminal building and took our COVID tests...and I failed :-(.  Apparently I caught COVID sometime during the transatlantic voyage.  Although I wouldn't say I was asymptomatic, the only symptom I really had was a sore throat, which I didn't think was a symptom of COVID, so I didn't think to get tested on the ship.  After testing positive at the terminal, they isolated me in an unairconditioned room and made Aaron wait separately in the main lobby (he tested negative).  Then began a long long 5 hours of waiting for them to find our luggage, which we had dropped off before entering the terminal, and waiting for them to figure out how to give us our test results - we did some quick research immediately and discovered all sorts of things like reimbursements and the timer to be able to get back into the USA depended on that critical first positive test.

I spent the time making new friends with two other passengers who also tested positive.  Thank goodness they were there - it helped me keep a little more calm and positive to have someone to talk to.  Aaron made good use of his time isolated away from me in the lobby by making friends with all sorts of Princess staff.  The lady who told us I was positive and isolated me was the port agent and was not the most informative or helpful.  However, Aaron found an IT guy who gave us the WiFi password and lent us an adapter and the hotel manager from the ship who was able to give us more information about what was going on and what our options were at that point.  Unfortunately we received some bad information from a few people who thought I could rejoin the ship as soon as I tested negative, and suggested we try to meet the ship in 3 days' time in Marseille.  To add to our bad luck, that weekend Barcelona was hosting a Formula 1 race and all of the hotels were insanely expensive (at least $400 a night) and largely unavailable.  The port agent helped us to book a hotel in a nearby town (still insanely expensive), gave us a map and a brief description of how to find the hotel, and had security escort us to the curb outside.  That was it - we were on our own.  We caught a shuttle (that we had to pay cash for!!) to town, then walked to the metro, metro to the train station, and then a train to our hotel in Viladecans.  This was all made extra challenging by the large bags of luggage I had never thought we'd do more than transfer from a cruise ship to a taxi with!

Kicked to the curb...waiting for the metro

Our very expensive hotel room...doesn't look it!  We slept
in separate beds to make some small attempt to prevent Aaron
from catching anything...though since he hadn't caught it yet
we really didn't think he would.

We ran into a couple other couples while checking in to the hotel who had also been on our ship and tested positive when they attempted to reboard the ship for their back-to-back cruises.  Disney handled things much better, actually driving them in a shuttle all the way from the terminal to the hotel!  Here we learned our first lesson: while all this COVID stuff is going on, ALWAYS get tested before leaving the ship so that they take care of you!  While in Viladecans we didn't do much - we wanted to focus on letting my body kick the virus (though I felt fine, clearly it was still hanging out in my system).  The hotel was nicely situated next to a mall with a grocery store and pharmacy and many fast food restaurants.  We talked to the pharmacist and discovered that the pharmacies in Spain no longer test for COVID - you have to go to the hospital or a 'laboratory' and pay much more money - so we picked up a bunch of home tests, figuring that we won't pay for another proctored test again until the home tests showed negative.  We tried to follow up with Princess about getting back on the ship at Marseille but had difficulty getting through to the right people.  We decided after 2 nights that we would go ahead and head to Marseille with hopes of me testing negative and being able to connect with the right people at some point.

Parc de la Marina was located right next to the hotel and 
we spent an evening strolling along its many boardwalks

Our trip to Marseille was VERY eventful.  To start, the nonstop train we hoped to take was sold out, so we had to take a series of local trains, and the Spanish train operator (renfe) of course can't sell French tickets (SNCF), so we could only buy tickets in Barcelona to take us to the French border.  Halfway or so there, the train stopped at Granollers Centre for about 15 minutes before the conductor came on the speaker to tell us in Spanish that we had to get off the train (I figured that much out)...I found him and he told me in English that someone had been hit by a train on the track ahead, so we had to transfer to a bus.  All the passengers piled on a bus that took us to the next station - Sant Celoni.  This was a pretty tiny station with a lot of very confused employees who weren't sure what to do with the multiple busloads of people who had just been dropped at their doorstep.

The mass exodus from the train

The Sant Celoni people finally decided we should all hop on an upcoming train to Figueres...which did NOT get us to our ultimate destination printed on our ticket (Cerbere, France), but the employees said we'd just have to figure it out there 😳.  Properly freaked out, I spent the trip using Google maps to plot up transit directions and determined our best bet to get to Cerbere was to get off this train early and transfer to another one at Girona.  So we did this and I went to the ticket office to get our existing ticket validated for use on the later train.  We hopped on the train to Cerbere and managed to cross the French border without incident.  A lady with excellent English in Cerbere then sold us our onward tickets to Marseille, which required a transfer at Narbonne.  The train from Narbonne was 30 minutes delayed (added to our already multiple hour delay from all the other fiascos).  We finally arrived at our fun hotel in Marseille around 10pm - a Japanese brand called the Toyoko Inn.  This was cheaper than our hotel in Viladecans but much nicer quality everything - and included breakfast!  There were all sorts of neat gadgets in the hotel room.

Aaron's favorite gadget - the toilet with a bidet
attachment that let you position the water 
where you wanted it and change the 
water temperature.  It also featured a 
nightlight and a heated seat.

We still hadn't heard back from Princess but we decided to make the most of the next day and took the ferry to Ile du Frioul.  The island is basically all a national park with multiple forts.  We hiked to the Fort de Ratonneau, where we walked along ALL the narrow eroded dangerous walkways (this wouldn't have been allowed in the USA!).  I got dive-bombed by a seagull parent when I unknowingly walked too close to a nest.  We had fun!

We chose the 'difficult' path to the fort - you can see me just 
barely in the left of the photo - it was a steep hike!

Leaving the fort, we opted for the easy route just for a change
of pace :-)

The next morning we finally got an email back from Princess saying their policy, per the ship's doctor, was that you had to wait 10 days after testing positive before you could rejoin the ship...which meant we couldn't board the ship in Marseille.  We decided to head back to Barcelona, where flights were more plentiful and where we could show we weren't just gallivanting around Europe during quarantine (both Disney and Princess have COVID reimbursement policies for quarantine, so we wanted to make sure not to jeopardize the possibility of getting our hotel and food expenses paid for!).  Fortunately we looked up travel options early in the day...we discovered they were doing construction on the train line from Marseille the next day, so instead of staying one more day as we planned we had about 45 minutes to pack all our things and get to the train station before the last train to Spain left for the day!!  We made it and spent the night in Perpignan, still in France but past all the planned construction (it was a 5 hour trip to Barcelona, so we didn't see a need to do it all in one day).  The following day we continued our journey back to Granollers, a suburb of Barcelona with cheaper hotels.  We finished out our quarantine there, staying in an extended stay hotel with a kitchenette and walking to stores, restaurants, sites, and even a festival that was going on while we were there!  Granollers was a nice little town and we really enjoyed our stay there.

Our groceries!  It was nice to be able to make our 
own food.

The most important site to see in Granollers - the Porxada, which
has withstood a bit of tragedy.

At long last, a negative COVID test!

All sorts of copyright violations at the local festival!

Shortly after arriving in Granollers we FINALLY found a great resource with Family Assistance UK for Princess Cruises.  After the unimpressive communication we had previously we had decided to just throw in the towel and head back to the USA as soon as possible (which, with the CDC's old policy, meant I either had to test negative or wait 10 days and get a doctor's note saying I was ok to travel...from a doctor in Spain...don't get me started, I had worked out in my head the long letter I was going to send to my congressmen about stranding US citizens in foreign countries...but then the CDC changed its policy), but after talking to this new resource we decided we'd go ahead and join the ship in Istanbul.  We would miss about half the cruise, but fortunately most of the early stops were at places we'd already visited, and we could still see most of the new places we hoped to visit on the Princess cruise.  We spent about a day working out Turkish visas, plane tickets, and a hotel in Istanbul.

We got our required pre-cruise COVID tests before leaving the Barcelona airport (just in case...didn't want to repeat this whole quarantine process in Turkey) and took an uneventful flight to Istanbul.  Aaron had booked us a fancy English-speaking car to the hotel, which ended up being a limo!  We got to Istanbul with an extra day to tour (we figured we should not plan to do anything on embarkation day except jump through all the hoops to get on the ship).  We saw all the highlights - the Spice Bazaar, the Grand Bazaar, Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, and Suleymaniye Mosque.  Everyone we met was very friendly, and all the architecture was beautiful - and so different from what we were used to in western Europe!  We even got trapped by a carpet salesman, which is apparently quite the Istanbul tourist thing to do.  We rounded out the long day with dinner at a riverside restaurant under a bridge - delightful!

The limo from the hotel

Outside Topkapi Palace

Inside Hagia Sofia - you'll note that 
I had to wear a robe to cover my head and 
knees, and we both had to remove our shoes
(this was true of every mosque we visited)

Inside the Suleymaniye Mosque

Eating dinner at a restaurant on the water under the Galata Bridge

What started as a nightmare ended up being a neat exploration of living a normal life in a town in Spain and exploring two neat cities (Marseille and Istanbul).  Obviously we would have GREATLY preferred to skip all of this and get directly on the Regal Princess, but we did feel that we learned a lot from our experience and made the most of the adventure!  Next in Part III...the remnants of the Regal Princess cruise!