Cruise Control?

I know this is crazy.  I've endured 12 flights this year, four across the country. 

There've been air traffic control strikes (France);  six trains in a day, schlepping luggage from one to the other (Switzerland); and a hotel room that stank of cigarette smoke (Heathrow Airport).

Our house needs work.  Our coffers need re-filling.  My studio is an out-of-control mess.  I've told everyone that we're done with travel.

But this weekend, feeling lonely and bored because I was housebound with a flare-up of a chronic illness, I got worked up about travel again.  About cruises, specifically.

Maybe it was my exhausted state.   But of all the trips we took last year, the cruise to Alaska was definitely the most relaxing.  Almost effortless.  And interesting!  Plus lots of time spent relaxing with Jerry, enjoying our time together.

Room service dinner after a day of hiking in Sitka, Alaska

You see more on a land-trip, experience a place more in-depth, and have your own schedule, for sure.  But even Rick Steves says that cruising is convenient and allows you to taste a place with the idea of returning for a bigger mouthful.  (Major validation!  Was amazed to find the book at right at Barnes & Noble!)

Will we ever return to Florence, where we had only hours while we were on a cruise stop in 2011?  Or get back to Rome, where we couldn't get into St. Peters because it was being prepped for Easter services!  Or to  Glacier Bay, which we missed because we were so nervous about being stuck on a ship for more than a week that we took a circumscribed cruise?


Leafing through brochures this weekend,  I came up with two bucket-list fantasies for 2015:

A cruise from Costa Rica, through the Panama Canal to the east coast of Costa Rica, then to New Orleans, Key West, and Miami:

 

Exotic Costa Rican bird. We'd go early and explore national parks.

 

And another from London to Bruges, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Gdansk, Oslo, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and Stockholm:



 

 

 

Onion domes in St. Petersburg, above and below





 

 

Copenhagen

After studying the photos,  I spent some time poring over deck plans and figuring out how we can get an upgrade on a flight to London.  Got me out of the house on a lonely Saturday, anyway.  Who knows if we'll go.

 

 

 

Object of fantasy