If there is a time and place for everything, choose Europe in the fall.
The summer sun has lost its intensity, cities such as Paris and Rome are back at work, children are in school, and hoteliers are glad to see us. There is room to move on the roads, and we don't mind slow-moving tractors piled high with grapes on country roads.
Coming a long way and dreading the jet lag? A cruise ship is perfect for easing your way into a new time zone. Sit on the balcony with a glass of wine and reflect that cruising was born in the Mediterranean with the notion of going nowhere just for the pleasure of it.
Times change and cruise lines now offer a variety of schedules, recently modified to avoid Turkish and North African ports, the aim being to visit the best places in a huge lake richly endowed with treasures.
My choice started with a flight to Athens and departure from the nearby bustling port of Piraeus. The ship was the elegant Silver Spirit of Silversea Cruises, as good as it gets afloat for just 540 discriminating people. For example its cabins are rated among the world's best by the respected website Cruise Critic and good fortune had given me a Silver suite, twice the size of a veranda suite and boasting a coffee machine and big walk-in dressing area.
The marble bathrooms with tub and shower are places to linger, and none on Silver Spirit has the dreaded clingy shower curtain found on lesser ships. Like every other cabin on the ship, we had the service of a butler to shine shoes, bring canapés and generally do what well-trained butlers do.
We had to share the little island of Mykonos, just 97 nautical miles away, with passengers from two big vessels, but they were leaving at around 5 p.m. whereas our ship’s passengers would have the beautiful waterfront to ourselves until 10 p.m. We avoided the worst congestion exploring the elegant boutiques behind the waterfront, venturing back to the port for lunch at Captain’s, a restaurant which had been recommended in every shop we had visited.
Sadly the wind got up and we had to skip the planned dinner on shore, but Riccardo the restaurant manager on board found us a quiet window table.
This was to be a feature of the cruise. Silver Spirit never felt crowded. There was always a table for two in the main restaurant, and for variety there was a cozy Asian room, the gourmet Le Champagne (these two at a $40 per person premium), a supper club, a popular Italian restaurant, and tables on deck serving superb meat and fish on hot rocks.
Contrast this with big ships carrying up to 6,000 passengers, where tables for 10 are the norm and on one line you have to pay for your wine before you even get to see the bottle. On Silversea the wines are included, as are all drinks. Good they are too — there was New Zealand sauvignon blanc and one night we had a 2009 Bordeaux.
It must be the sea air, but food is never far from a cruiser’s thoughts, although the shore excursion department did its best to keep us active. It was ably supported by Ira Feldman, who gave daily talks on ports, and was always at hand with the right information.
And so on we sailed to Chania in Crete, which has a lively market with beautiful, inexpensive cotton shirts and dresses. Why, you might think, did I bring those big suitcases full of clothes drab in comparison?
The main activity, as usual, was finding a good lunch, and here Semiramis got the nod. Most of the time I had a simple Greek salad, a happy memory of Orestes on Vancouver’s Westside.
Katakolon was our gateway for Olympia, where the museum with its statue of Zeus is wonderful. Syracuse in Sicily has very accessible Greek and Roman ruins, although this was not our best day as the lunchtime vongole, a pasta and clams dish I have hugely enjoyed at Il Giardino in Vancouver, was disappointing.
But then Sorrento. It’s said that the philosopher Nietzsche, not known for his effervescence, laughed with joy at the thought of coming here, and the writer Stendhal called it the most beautiful place on Earth. We also took an excursion to Positano where an exclusive hotel opened its doors to a small Silversea group.
At fabulous Portofino we broke the bank at another of the coast's dreamy hotels, and at a little restaurant in the village of Tarquinia, near Civitavecchia, I was delighted to find a vongole to rival that of Vancouver’s Umberto Menghi.
If you go:
– You too can have a superb vongole, probably without the leaving the ship, when Umberto Menghi will be guest chef on Silver Spirit on a nine-day cruise from Rome departing Oct. 7, 2017. Fares start at US$4,550 per person.
– For more information visit silversea.com, umberto.com.
