My Cruise into History took place over the first three weeks of October, 2013. We left Canada on October 1 and flew for 17 hours to Athens. With the time change we arrived in Athens airport at 5 pm the next day.

The Athens airport was rebuilt for the 2004 Olympics and is now some distance from the center of town where we were staying, so we’d arranged pick up at the airport through Cunard. Several other people on different flights were also being picked up, so it was after 7 pm by the time we arrived at our hotel. If I remember correctly, that was about 11 am my body’s time. I’m not entirely sure, because I didn’t sleep on the plane, so I’m a bit hazy about details of our first night.

We had two nights in Athens before we joined the Queen Elizabeth on Friday, October 4. The cruise lasted 12 days. During that time we visited 10 ports in the Greek Islands and southern Italy. We disembarked at Civitavecchia on the twelfth day (October 16) and stayed 3 nights in Rome before flying home on October 19.