We will set sail on our world cruise on December 24, 2021 on the Viking Star. We will try to post every Saturday of our trip. If all goes well, we return to Ohio on May 9, 2022. 

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Week 15 Suez Canal, Red Sea, Jeddah and Yanbu al-Bahr, Saudi Arabia

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 This past week we traversed the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to arrive in Saudi Arabia. Culture shock was the feeling of the week. We will being sailing to Aqaba, Jordan tonight and will arrive there on Sunday. After two days we will return to the Mediterranean Sea via the Canal heading to Egypt.  The Suez Canal is really just a man-made water passage. Most canals require locks to raise and lower the boat/ships to connect two bodies of water. This canal has no locks as the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea are at the same sea level. Only two lakes are used to switch which direction is being traversed at which time. We lucked out as Viking Star was the lead vessel heading south on the canal. There was a long line of ships behind us in the first passage but some switch-up in the second passage. I was amazed at the number of cities along this passage way. I knew there were cities but not of that size. It was beautiful to see this aspect of Egypt. We saw a number of fishing boats i...
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Week 13 Corfu, Greece Kotor, Montenegro Split, Croatia

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 Since this week is so busy with ports of call, I have decided to make two separate blogs. This will entail March 12 to March 15. The next blog will cover Venice, Italy  Zadar and Dubrovnik, Croatia. Corfu, Greece is an island located on the northwestern side of Greece close to the Albanian border. The old town and fortress were mostly constructed by the powerful Venetian Republic and is a UNESCO site today. The city is the birthplace of Prince Phillip, Queen Elizabeth II's late husband. There is also a strong British influence found in the city. Since we have been here previously, we opted to go tour the rest of this island. We visited the beautiful Monastery of Paleokastritsa high in the mountains. It is still a working monastery with 16 monks. The church is still an active Greek Orthodox facility. The history of this island goes back to Greek Mythology with Ulysses getting shipwrecked off its shoreline to the islands shape and beginnings associated with Persephone trying to...
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Week 16 Jordan and Egypt

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 What a busy past 6 days! We left Saudi Arabia and sailed up the Red Sea to the port city of Aqaba, Jordan. It is here that we had two days of touring the city and visiting Magnificent Petra.  We found out that there was a single bus going to Petra on Monday when 12 were going on Sunday. So, Kathy and I went to Guest Services and at that time only Kathy and Mike were able to exchange their tickets. Mike has a hard time on buses and we said it didn't matter to us. Around 5 o'clock I decided to go and see if anyone had cancelled and VOILA I was able to exchange our tickets as well.  On Sunday, Jeff and I took the included tour of the city of Aqaba. The city has a long history of trade and is often called the Crossroads of Africa and Asia.  The city was made famous when Laurence of Arabia coordinated a camel charge on its fortifications when it was held by the Ottoman army in 1916. The charge was successful and the Arabs earned their independence from the Ottoman empire...
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