Med?

Mediterranean cruises come in two different flavors:  Eastern and Western. And of course, there are Med cruises that aren't what I'd consider Eastern or Western, and combine a little bit of both. There are a lot of different ports to visit, and unfortunately, you can't hand pick your itinerary like you can a land tour.  You are at the mercy of the cruise lines and have to find something you like from the hundreds that are offered.  Those of you who know me know I'd like nothing better than to call a cruise line and ask them to take us on the perfect itinerary that I created for us. But, we all know that will never happen (will it?).  

Where you go and what you see depends on how long you want to be gone, the cruise line, and that little thing called $$$$.  Some people think 7 days is sufficient, but there are people who cruise all over the world and are spend months on a cruise ship.  Yeah, when I win the lottery!  We will most likely take a 10-12 day cruise.  

If you look at a map of Europe, the toe of the Italian “boot” is often considered the dividing line, but there are a lot of cross-overs. I wouldn't necessarily think that you'd go from Barcelona to Istanbul, but you can, and you get a little bit of West thrown in with East.  Most of the time, the Western Mediterranean cruises take you to Spain, the French Riviera, the west coast of Italy, like Rome, Naples and Sicily.  On the other side of the boot are Eastern Mediterranean cruises, and you'll visit the smaller countries along the Adriatic Coast like Croatia, Malta, Montengro, some of the Greek Isles, Turkey, Egypt, the Holy Land.  In fact, there are so many choices on Med cruise, that it's hard to make up your mind where to visit. 

Some of us have been to several stops on a Med itinerary, and it's a toss up of whether we spend more time there, or go someplace new.  Every cruise line has a different itinerary so while we try to compare oranges to oranges, it's sometimes more like comparing oranges to tangerines - similar but not exactly the same, because a few ports differ.  A day or two at sea are fine, but I prefer to visit and explore foreign lands.

This guy did a fantabulous job of telling about his cruise, which is pretty close to one of the options we would consider.  No sense in me trying to reinvent the wheel, so go to his website, enjoy and think about whether a Med cruise is for you. 

Ciao!

http://www.thepreismans.com/med_silhouette.htm