The country for travel and trips

Each of the listed sights has its own history, and in order to find out you will need guides in Italy who will accompany you to the most interesting places. Consider also the dates of the trip, because, for example, during the period of religious or national holidays, much more tourists flock to the country.1. Vatican (Rome)2. Pantheon (Rome)When choosing the sights of Italy that you should definitely visit on your first visit, you cannot miss such a monumental building as the Roman Pantheon. Originally built in 25 BC, it was destroyed several times by natural disasters, rebuilt and even "changed religion". But until now, hundreds of people daily strive to get under its arches in order to stand under the dome, admire the beautiful frescoes and statues, feel the breath of eternity and the inexorable destructive power of time at the same time. The grandeur and beauty of the interior decoration of the Pantheon is amazing.Passing under the arch of the portico, supported by 16 marble columns, you find yourself in the main temple building, which is crowned with a dome with a diameter of 43 meters. In its center there is a large round hole, called the Heavenly All-Seeing Eye. According to legend, he was pierced by evil spirits, wanting to escape from the sacred place at the beginning of the Mass.A feature of the light penetrating through the oculus is that at noon its rays do not scatter, but fall clearly vertically, forming a kind of light column and moving from one statue to another during the day, paying tribute to them. The walls and the altar are decorated with magnificent frescoes, partly created by Renaissance masters. There are statues in numerous niches, and the walls and floor are lined with mosaic tiles. In the center of the temple there are benches for those who want to pray or just relax.

Geography of cruises

More recently, it was believed that sea cruises are a boring, measured vacation for very wealthy elderly people. Recently, significant changes have taken place in the cruise industry: cruisers have become “younger”, and the trips themselves have become more interesting and variable in price. Sea and ocean cruises are now considered one of the most promising sectors of the global tourism business. This segment of the international travel industry is developing most dynamically, and the demand for the services of cruise companies is growing faster than for all other tourism products. According to statistics, the majority of cruise sales (77%) are from residents of the US and Canada.
    Among their indisputable advantages is the opportunity to visit several countries at once in one trip. The versatility of the holiday and the variety of experiences that the cruise promises become very attractive factors. Of course, staying in the cities during the cruise is short (usually the liner stays in the port during daylight hours), but even during this time you can see the main attractions. Finally, some tourists like the frequent change of impressions.The second advantage of cruises is respectability and exceptional comfort of rest. Cruise service is very different from hotel service. Perfect cleanliness and “marine” order reign on the liners: cabins are cleaned twice a day, and linen is changed every day. Hence an important feature - the class of cruise liners is always higher than hotels with the same number of stars. That is, four stars in the sea roughly correspond to five stars on earth.     If you buy a long cruise for 2-3 weeks, it is better to ask in advance where in the cities through which the route passes, there are city beaches and how to get to them.Difficulties during the cruise may arise due to tourists' lack of knowledge of a foreign language.

Vacation on a cruise ship

The luxury of the interiors is the main shock of the first hours of the cruise. All these Swarovski grand pianos, Swarovski steps, elevators, reflections, the diversity of bar interiors... I advise you to take a map of the liner at the reception or in the cabin and spend time navigating the rough Swarovski terrain. This will definitely come in handy in the future. Accommodation. We had a cabin with a balcony on deck 9 (price category 7). Don't be surprised, category and deck number don't match. Those who took the 13th deck (11th category of price) I feel a little sorry for. The fact is that the 14th deck seriously hangs over the 13th, forming, as it were, a long visor, skillfully covering the sky. Therefore, I still consider that we were very lucky with the deck level and number.
Nutrition. Well, everything is simple. If you want culinary troubles and lose weight - a la carte restaurants are your choice. If you want something simple and Swedish: you are on the 14th deck in the huge Boro-Boro. By the way, many do not go deep, but in vain. Behind Boro, there is a Pago Pago restaurant, it is absolutely the same as Boro, only you can sit on the stern and look at the outgoing sea from the 14th deck. I don't know about the rest, but we both had breakfast and lunch in Boro and Pago because of the amazing panoramic views that floor-to-ceiling windows form. Meeting the sunrise at breakfast is something! For dinner, everyone goes according to the places that are written in the map.The dinner menu is, um, very interesting. During the whole week of sailing, we had a strong feeling that the length of the name is inversely proportional to the number on the plate. The name of one dish can take three lines, and when it is brought, the Russian guy needs five times as much to eat. But no one bothers if you order the same thing again. The menu is varied, you can fantasize and experiment. All food is really free. With the exception of individual paid desserts on the menu.Tours. We corresponded with local guides, and, if inexpensive, took a tour from them in Russian. (I can advise Inna Revenchuk in Palermo - the perfect guide, inpirro@gmail.com) Prices for excursions on the ship in English are from 40 to 80 euros per person. Russian groups charge even more. Therefore, we did not bother: when going ashore, we took a taxi (15-20 euros) to the center and walked using maps downloaded from the Internet.

May is the very month when we stop thinking about work. The sun is warming, the calendar is full of weekends, someone goes to nature for barbecues, and someone is already actively rotating the globe and looking for where to go on vacation. The variety of choice is very pleasing, you can choose a beach holiday by the seas and oceans, sightseeing tours in Europe, or travel to exotic islands. In May, there is still no that sweltering heat, a comfortable temperature, the sea is warming up and the season is already starting in most resorts, nevertheless, the prices for holidays in May are not so bite.

Perhaps May is one of the best months to visit European cities. You can forget about outerwear, dress boldly in summer and take a walk along La Rambla in Barcelona, ​​take a picture in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, see with your own eyes how the famous Cannes Film Festival takes place and watch that indescribable riot of colors in the Royal Park of Flowers in the Netherlands, where in early May, thousands of tulips are still in bloom.Before the summer heat comes to Turkey, you have a great chance to go to sunny Istanbul - a city where all the best of European and Eastern culture is collected. The temperature in May is already comfortable for walking. You can walk through the Grand Bazar, see the famous Blue Mosque, or visit the modern art gallery, and in the evening go to one of the many nightclubs. Istanbul is a city of contrasts. Another interesting region worth seeing in May is Cappadocia. This unique place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a hot air balloon flight over Cappadocia will be remembered for a lifetime.    If after a long winter you still want to bask on the beach and splash in the sea, choose the Mediterranean coast: Antalya, Kemer, Side, Alanya are already waiting for their tourists in May. The air temperature during the day rises to +26 degrees, you definitely won’t stay without a tan, and the water in the Mediterranean Sea is not so warm yet - about + 22 degrees, so swimming is refreshing. Do not forget that the prices for holidays in May are very affordable, because this is the very beginning of the season on the coast and the time of big discounts.Morocco Bali 

about cruises in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean with a child

I used to think that only very wealthy people could afford to travel on a huge snow-white liner. This myth was dispelled when, on a travel forum, I accidentally saw a sale of Caribbean cruises: $ 200 for a week tour on a five-star ship! I had a shock in the good sense of the word, and I began to study the websites of cruise companies for a long time and painstakingly. It turned out that a cruise can be bought really inexpensively (including air tickets, the rest will be comparable to a trip, say, to Thailand or Western Europe). As a result, we have already gone on a cruise twice: in the Mediterranean in 2011.
There is an opinion that cruises are boring and such a vacation is more suitable for pensioners. Yes, there are a lot of elderly people on the liners. Moreover, the higher the status of the ship, the more elderly people. This is because it is very convenient to relax on a cruise. Almost every day you find yourself in a new place, but you don’t have to go anywhere, fly, drag a suitcase, plan a route and spend time moving. Loaded things once, settled down and that's it! This is especially important when traveling with a small child or in the last months of pregnancy.If you want - walk, go sightseeing, go to the beach, if you don't want - stay on the ship, swim in the pool, sunbathe, sleep, sit in a restaurant. A cruise can be a very dynamic holiday, or it can become a complete relaxation. It all depends on the wishes of the guests. When I talk about cruises, I get asked two questions all the time.1. Does the ship rock? On modern liners, such powerful stabilizers are now installed that pitching is not felt at all. At some point, you generally begin to forget that you are at sea. It seems that this is an ordinary hotel somewhere on the coast. We felt slight hints of pitching when we went to the Caribbean Sea through the Atlantic Ocean. But it was only swaying when we did not experience any negative emotions, and the child slept better than usual.2. Is there any discomfort from the fact that there are about 2000-3000 passengers and about the same number of attendants on the ship at the same time? No. The ship is huge, and everything is so perfectly organized that we have never seen pandemonium. There is always a free table in the restaurant, you can always swim in the pool, go to the evening show, there are never queues for elevators and so on. Even when the liner berths in a new port, you can always leave freely, and even enter later. In Egyptian hotels there is more pandemonium.How to buy a cruise ticket? Cruises are sold by USA travel agencies, but comparing prices, I saw that the “cheat” from the official price of the cruise company is 50-100%. Yes, the cost of the tour includes the services of a Russian-speaking guide, but is it worth paying so much for an interpreter? The minimum knowledge of English is quite enough to buy a cruise, and, already being on the ship, to navigate and understand everything. Everything is organized so simply and clearly that even with a couple of dozen English words you can safely travel.The ticket price depends on the duration of the cruise and the type of cabin. The cheapest is internal, without a window. The most expensive is a penthouse with several rooms. Both times we took the middle option - a cabin suite with a balcony. With a child, this is especially convenient, because when the child is sleeping, you can safely chat on the balcony, looking at the sea, without fear of waking him up. The sites, as a rule, indicate the cost of the trip per person based on double occupancy. Children are not always free! You have to look at some of the specials. For example, I bought under the promotion “the third person in the cabin is free”, so even if an adult was traveling with the child, he would also be free.What to do on board a cruise ship? The liner has a concert hall with such equipment that will give odds to most St. Petersburg halls. There are real Broadway shows, concerts, dance performances twice a day, at eight and ten in the evening, so my husband and I managed to watch the show in turn (Alice did not appreciate the theater). There is a library with books in different languages, including Russian; game room with checkers, chess, dominoes and puzzles. There is a real casino, a jogging track, a basketball court, a cinema, several shops, a beauty salon and a SPA. And, of course, pools with sun loungers and many viewing platforms where you can sit and admire the sea, sunset and even dolphins.

    Traveling on cruise ships every year is becoming more and more popular not only all over the world, but also in Ukraine. Cruise companies offer more and more interesting routes. But like any tourist product, cruises have their own seasonality. So, we propose today to determine the best time for a sea voyage. To do this, it is important to know the sailing region, because each of them has a high season and low dates when liners are not represented in the region, due to the change of seasons they change the sailing region. Also, the best time for a cruise is determined by the climate of a particular region, the likelihood of storms, excursion opportunities.     The Mediterranean is one of the most popular destinations for summer holidays. Greece, Italy, Turkey, French Riviera, Monaco, Spain - all these countries have access to the Mediterranean Sea. It is here that a huge number of marinas are concentrated. The yachting infrastructure in Europe is second to none. Therefore, if you crave new experiences, be sure to take a trip on a yacht in the Mediterranean. This area covers a large number of countries, cultures and landscapes. You can rent a yacht with a professional skipper or buy a ready-made tour - it all depends on your capabilities and preferences.
    The best time to sail on the French Riviera The Côte d'Azur has a typical Mediterranean climate. The high season lasts from late April to early October. Summer here is hot and dry, the maximum temperature (+35°C) is observed in July and August. Winds in the French Riviera during the summer are usually weak. However, sometimes, for 1-2 days, a strong northwestern mistral blows.Yacht routes in Italy may include the Amalfi Coast, Naples, Portofino, Sardinia, Capri, Sicily, Venice, the Tuscan archipelago. During the trip you will enjoy the crystal clear sea and the untouched landscapes of the Aeolian Islands, the rocky coasts of the Gulf of Naples, the emerald green of the Costa Smeralda.The best time for yacht tours in Italy Continental, alpine, oceanic and Mediterranean climates merge in this region, creating favorable conditions for sea voyages. The best time for a yachting holiday in Italy is from June to early September. The maximum air temperature in the high season reaches +31°C, and water - +26°C.

A small prefaceRecently, cruise vacations have become increasingly popular, and this is not surprising. The cruise provides an opportunity not only to have a great rest, constantly being in the fresh air, but also to get acquainted with interesting tourist sites and natural attractions. It can be considered as the most comfortable form of sightseeing tour. Formally, we can say that a cruise is a group excursion tour in which a ship is used as a means of transportation. In fact, this main feature leads to great differences between cruises and bus tours.

1. Sea cruises

• The mode of passing the route is noticeably different. At night, the ship mainly stays in ports, and the passage of the route is carried out for the most part during daylight hours. This is due to the fact that the observation of the coast, with the cities and natural attractions located on them, is one of the main components of the excursion program itself and is a great pleasure.