The Cruise!

This was our retirement year and to celebrate we, my wife and I, visited the family in Switzerland and then took a 16 day cruise from Rome to Fort Lauderdale. Wow!
We flew from Montreal to Lyon, France, just before all the trouble started, and then took a train to Berne. While in Berne we visited Gruyere and went up to view the Jungfrau! A few days at our favourite village in Leukerbad and then on to Rome for 3 days before the start of the cruise. Leukerbad is surrounded by mountains. It is a delightful town with plenty of walking trails as well as the Thermal Baths. We had a strool up to Bodmen followed by lunch on the terrace. We took the telepherique up to Rinterhutte, had lunch at the top and then walked down to Torrent Alp before taking the telepherique down to Flaschen and then the bus back to Leukerbad. We eventually flew out of Bale to Rome and spent 3 days in Rome enjoying the sights before boarding the ms Noordam.
We had several ports of call along the Mediterranean before the 7 day Atlantic crossing. Among the ports of call were Liverno (Pisa), Italy, Monte Carlo, Monaco, Barcelona, Cartagena, Malaga, and Cadiz, Spain and finally Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.
The crossing was smooth and the weather was great. It was so hot, 26C I had to buy a pair of shorts to wear on the boat. The ms Noordam (Holland-America) with 1894 guests and 791 crew brought us back to North America. Our stateroom was on deck 8, 4 doors dwon from the bridge!
One of the high-lights was seeing the north of Africa and the south of Europe as we went by Gibraltar.
Now we are home and adjusting to cool temperatures, 2C! Reality!!