Expat Living magazine
January 2, 2008
Europe by Sea

Many of us have fond memories of tooling around Europe during our backpacker days. Hopping on and off trains and making spur of the moment plans was a great way to travel. In lieu of having the time and flexibility to meander around Italy for a month, a cruise can be a convenient way to see the highlights. Espeically with kids in tow and a limited about of time to spare, the typical 7- to 14-night itineraries cover a lot of ground, focusing mostly on Italy, France, Greece and Turkey, but also Croatia, Spain and northern Europe.

To see the sights in port, you can buy the organized tours the cruise lines offer --- hop on a bus and let the guide do all the thinking --- or you can tour solo, which we like to do whenever possible to break out of the cruise ship cocoon. Last summer aboard Disney Magic, one of Disney’s two 83,000-ton ships each with 877 cabins, we went off on our own in most ports to infuse the otherwise super-controlled cruise experience with a bit of the serendipity. As much as we like to tour on our own, we also appreciated coming back to the mother ship at the end of a busy day in port and having everything taken care of for us. On ships carrying 2,000 passengers or more, there are typically 4 or 5 choices for dining and even more for entertainment (including supervised playrooms for the kids, plus Vegas-style shows, dancing, caberat and magic acts) literally just down the hall.

Our itinerary was typical and many other big-ship cruise lines will offer an almost identical route next summer between about May and October, the height of the Europe cruise season. We sailed for 10 nights round-trip from Barcelona, one of the main homeports in Europe along with Venice, Civitavecchia (the port closest to Rome), Istanbul and Athens. With stays of 8 to 12 hours in each, we called on Palermo, Sicily; Naples; Olbia, Sardinia; Civitavecchia; and Le Spezia, all in Italy. In France, the ship calls on Marseille and Villefranche.

The French Riviera calls for something sexier than a bus tour and that’s where the sports car came in. Just steps from the dock, my husband Arun and I tucked into the champagne-colored MG convertible waiting for us and felt instantly cool and very local. Barely suppressing our superiority as the throngs lined up for group tours nearby, the car purred out of the port of Villefranche and we reveled in the four glorious hours of carefree roaming before us ($295US per couple through the ship’s shore excursion department). We zipped along the Bas Corniche towards Monte Carlo, with breathtaking views of France’s Cote d’Zur’s undulating coast and fairytale villages framing the drive. We went to Eze, a magical warren of stone homes and shops built into a hilltop near the ruins of a 14th-century castle. We zoomed on over to Nice, with a drive-by the U-shape yacht-choked harbor and through streets lined with weathered old buildings with flower-filled wrought iron balconies. All good things come to an end and after returning the car to its rightful owner, we consoled ourselves with a stroll around the cobblestoned streets of medieval Villefranche before hopping back on board.

This was my kind of family vacation. Our 4-year-old twin sons were happily climbing on a faux pirate ship and watching Disney movies back in the ship’s impressive playroom while we zipped around the coast in a convertible. Whether we were somewhere else on the ship --- for my husband, that place was the gym ---- or snuck away to do an adult tour in port --- we signed up for a meandering catamaran ride along the coast from the port of Le Spezia which included lunch and wine --- the ship’s children’s club was a nanny, summer camp and pressure valve all rolled into one.

Of course a cruise to Europe offers all kinds of great ways to do things as family, on board and off. Highlights included a 4-hour Palermo for Kids bus tour organized by the ship ($95US adults/$85US kids); it started off with a drive-by of the city’s best known historical sights, including the 250-year-old Garibaldi Theater and the Palermo Opera House (a Godfather III scene was shot on its steps), before reaching the 17th century Royal Palace. There, our group’s 20 or so kids painted clay butterflies in the prince’s former dining room, then we all enjoyed a gelato break before moving on to a traditional Sicilian puppet show. Our boys eagerly sat through the hour-long performance staged by one of Palermo’s legendary family-run marionette theaters. Heavy wooden puppets in elaborate medieval costumes dueled with swords and engaged in comically dramatic dialogue, and no one seemed to mind it was all in Italian.

For Rome, we passed on the ship’s 10- to 12-hour bus tours from the port of Civitavecchia (it’a 90-minute drive to and from Rome) and opted for the local train. Not only a roomier mode of transport than a bus, but way cheaper --- about $50 for four round-trip tickets compared to the $99 to $599 per person cost of the ship’s tours. The ship’s free shuttle service took us the mile or so between the ship and Civitavecchia and then it was a 10- to 15-minute walk to the train station. With several departures hourly, we were on a train within 20 minutes. The ride to the Central Termini station, near the Coliseum, took just over an hour, and was a picturesque journey through the Italian countryside.

We stretched the 20- to 30-minute walk from the station to the Coliseum, the single attraction we decided to focus on, into an eating tour. When in Rome …First it was chapattis and orange Fanta at an Indian fast-food joint where my Indian-born husband could ask directions in Hindi. Then a few blocks later, since our son Kavi was still pining for pizza, we stopped at an Italian café for pasta (pizza, it turned out, was only served at dinnertime) and some delicious grilled calamari. From our table on the tree-shaded sidewalk, we could see a gelato sign down the block. Our next stop of course. Eventually we made it to the Coliseum and through the ticket line, often with our boys in our arms or piggy back. We spent a lovely two hours circling the interior, feeding our sons’ hungry imaginations with stories of how gladiators once fought lions in this ancient arena. We took our time stopping for pictures and rests within the hallowed ruins before getting the obligatory picture of the boys with a for-hire gladiator outside the exit. We took a 5:20pm local back to Civitavecchia and boarded the ship just after 7pm, concluding a lovely family day in a magical city.

In the other ports, skipping the ship’s bus tour might not have been the most fiscally savvy idea. In Olbia, Sardinia, we decided to take a taxi to La Cinta beach instead of signing up for the ship’s bus transfer (at $216 for the four of us). We spent a lovely afternoon building sand castles and playing in the calm, shallow, but chilly, surf. We snacked on pizza, proscuitto sandwiches and mozzarella salad at a beach café and thoroughly enjoyed our day --- except for one thing. We were fleeced on the taxi fare, unknowingly paying three times too much (it should have been about $30 each way). Live and learn.

In Naples, on the other hand, winging it worked without a hitch. Again rejecting the ship’s all-day bus tours to Capri and Sorrento, or a hot day in Pompeii with our young children, we decided to stroll around Naples instead. The ship docked right in town, and at about noon we went ashore (Arun and I spent the morning in the ship’s spa getting massages while the kids where in the you know what) and walked a few blocks before stopping for some pizza. Afterwards we impulsively decided to hire a horse-drawn carriage we saw nearby. This time we were savvier negotiators and for $50, the four of us enjoyed an hour’s tour clip-clopping around the historical city’s cobbledstoned streets. The boys loved their perch, and though the driver didn’t speak English, he was good at pointing and I cross-referenced with my guidebook. Mostly, though, we sat back enjoying the sights and sounds of Napoli, including the playboys posing and lunching along the lovely streets of Santa Lucia, a wedding party posing for pictures at Castle dell’Ovo, and the tunes of a local street musician who our driver seemed to know. Just as the hour was ending, we spotted one of those small traveling Carnivals that had taken up residence in a quiet, somewhat neglected little park not far from the ship. Along with just a handful of locals, our boys enjoyed rides on the shiny carousel and a mini train; a sweet ending to an improvised day.

Seeing Europe with young children has its rewards and challenges, but with a well-stocked cruise ship as our base, we had the resources at our fingertips to forge unforgettable family memories as well as indulge in much-appreciated age-appropriate down time for each one of us.