Wednesday September 18th, 2013. San Francisco

After all the planning, arranging, list making, booking - oh and saving, we are finally off on our next big adventure. We said goodbye to the house sitter and of course our two cats and then were whisked away to the airport by our son in his big SUV, if only he had a hat he could pass for a chauffeur. We are flying KLM for the first time, through Amsterdam and on to Venice where we will join Cunard Line's Queen Elizabeth cruise ship on Sunday for a jaunt down the Adriatic and into the Black Sea, with few nice stops along the way. 

We are really looking forward to this trip; we'll have a few days in Venice before embarkation - Venice is one of our favorite cities and we are staying at a little boutique hotel that put up with us back in 2010. While we have visited a few of the ports on this itinerary, most are new to us - and sailing thorough the Bosporus and into the Black Sea should be a real treat.

We find there is something mysterious and enticing about visiting Ukraine and Bulgaria, these are places that are just not on our normal beaten path. The ship will overnight in Istanbul on its return from the Black Sea, so we'll get a little extra time in a city we both really love.

After the cruise we'll have one night in Athens and then two nights in Amsterdam before returning to San Francisco. Sandra has been to Amsterdam twice before, but I've never been, so I'm looking forward to a top-notch guided tour of the city.

Boarding the flight in one hour - here we go!