Today is February 14th, Valentines day. I was so chuffed. I had worked out all by my self that Valentines Day would occur when we were away. When Roisin woke up she was welcomed by a card and a heart shaped box of chocolates. OK not the most original of ideas but when you're celebrating this day 6,000 miles away it has to be the thought that counts. These chocolates could well have ended up in San Diego! And in my case, I was in the process of giving me a pr...

12/02/13Check out of our hotel was at 12 noon so there was no hurry to rush. The couple of things I wanted to see and had planned to do this morning AND we didn't see on yesterday’s walking tour, we saw on the walk back to the hotel; namely the clock tower and the funicular that services Cero Conception. As I said, nothing to do this morning except relax, take our time. Due to the size of the Cruise Terminal in Valparaiso, everyone is given a check in s...

10th Feb 2013Our first impressions as we sat on the coach from Santiago airport to our hotel was made more relaxing by the mellow tones of the Carpenters 'Close to You' bellowed out (not a word I would have associated with the Carpenters but ‘bellow’ out, they did!!). On our route from the airport our first impression were that we are both surprised as to how advanced Chile appears.Chile is not as cold as the name suggests. The temperature sta...

It only seems like yesterday when we booked this trip. What happened to the prevailing 2 years?? Oh yeah! We have visited the Western and Eastern Med, Sailed through the Suez Canal, been chased by Pirates, transited the Panama Canal and dipped our toe in South America!! If a brief visit to Cartagena in Colombia during our last cruise was 'dipping our toe', we are about to dive bomb head first in to the deep end so we'd better be wearing our wellies!!...