The trip to Pennsylvania was going to be last September. I bought airplane tickets, made reservations for hotels and a rental car. The plan was to visit Pittsburgh and Erie on my way home from Europe to Colorado. I was flying over this area anyway. Why not to have a few days’ stopover and see
Pittsburgh, May 2023 Read More »
Tunis The last day of our vacation my husband and I spent in Carthage. I am sure everyone remembers the phrase “Carthago delenda est!“ (Carthage must be destroyed!) from their school classes of history. The Roman senator Cato the Elder ended with it every one of his speeches regardless of whether he had been speaking
Carthage, Tunisia, April 2023 Read More »
Doha, Qatar The skies were clear and on the way to Tunisia, we could see one of the most recently constructed hotels, Katara Towers, opened to the public in January 2023. The building is shaped like crossed scimitars, the popular Qatari double-sword design. It is actually 2 hotels, the Fairmont and the Raffles, each occupying
Dubai, OAE The MSC cruise was over. In Abu Dhabi, my husband and I left the Opera after breakfast and went to the airport by bus to take a flight to Doha. As we were flying during the day, the coast was clearly visible and the views were amazing. Doha was actually a 1-night stopover
Doha, Qatar, April 2023 Read More »
Khasab, Oman MSC Opera was docked in Dubai for 2 days. I heard so much about this city and was eager to see its wonders. When we looked out of the window in the morning, the skyscrapers filled the horizon. At 10 a.m., we took the first free shuttle bus from the port to the
Muscat, Oman Oman’s geographical location is quite unusual. Besides its main part that occupies the southeast corner of the Arabian Peninsula, it also has two exclaves. The larger one, Musandam Exclave, lies on the Musandam Peninsula. It is separated from the rest of Oman by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The other smaller exclave is
Khasab, Oman, March 2023 Read More »
Sir Bani Yas In Muscat, we were on a mission to visit the Tropic of Cancer, also known as the Northern Tropic. There is a sign posted in the Oman desert to mark this important latitude and we wanted to go to it. It was a 20-minute drive to the sign from the Port of
Muscat, Oman, March 2023 Read More »
Abu Dhabi We slept well and woke up rested. Now we had time to make ourselves familiar with the ship. First of all, our cabin was a lot better than we expected. We paid for the cheap inner cabin but were assigned a cabin with a window. Perhaps, because we bought the cruise close to
Sir Bani Yas, March 2023 Read More »
Denver to Abu Dhabi We landed in Abu Dhabi at 6.00 a.m. After many hours in economy and two sleepless nights we were able to keep upright and to function only thanks to a cup of strong coffee that we had on the plane. Getting to Port Zayed where MSC Opera was docked required taking
Abu Dhabi, March 2023 Read More »
This was not a trip planned well in advance. I browsed cruise offerings and spotted something that looked like a good deal – an MSC 7-day cruise around the Persian Gulf for $209/person. My husband and I are not cruise people. Before that, we only did 2 cruises. We normally organize our trips ourselves. This
Denver to Abu Dhabi, March 2023 Read More »
