Janet's Diary

Friday 12th September

A glorious day at sea, including the usual shuffleboard and art sessions, but crowned by the scenery as we first sailed through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara, then passed the exotic buildings of Istanbul as we entered the Bosphorus at the end of the afternoon.  Just absolutely magical.

It was another formal night (very bored with these now) and afterwards decided to go to the cinema, but had to abandon the film after about half an hour as we were so tired.  A pity, as we were both enjoying it, but we knew we had an early start the following day.

Saturday 13th September

We had breakfast delivered to the cabin at 7am as we were heading out on our second tour of the cruise.  We're now in Bourgas, Bulgaria.  It's our first time in Bulgaria, so another country can be scratched off the map that Lisa bought us a while ago!

We'd booked a tour to a small town called Nesebar which is built on a rocky outcrop linked to the mainland by a causeway, about 40km from Bourgas. It has World Heritage Site status. The tour was called Highlights of Nesebar - the highlights are pretty good, but are all churches and fairly similar, so by the end of the morning we were glad to get back onto the coach and return to the ship.  If we come here again, and I hope we do, we will stay in Bourgas and visit the beach, promenade and park which we could see clearly from the aft decks today.

Shock horror... As we went for lunch we saw FOUR children in the burger cafe on deck 12.  Aged between about 4 and 8 I would guess - heaven knows where they've been hiding until now.

Before dinner this evening we went to Carmen's (show lounge), where the Headliners were performing their Queen tribute.  We've seen this before, and a similar show on Fred Olsen cruises, but it's always worth watching. There are 5 singers in the current Aurora troupe, plus 2 male dancers and 6 female dancers.  Thoroughly enjoyed the performance and we went into dinner with big grins on our faces.  Later in the evening we watched Stephen Garcia, a comedian/magician, whose act a bit different from the norm.  Nothing too amazing, but lots of giggle moments.

So another great day.

Sunday 14th September

The morning was mostly cloudy, but still very warm, as we sailed back down the Bosphorus heading for Istanbul, where we have a two night stay.  We've stayed in Istanbul on cruises twice before, and knew that to get the really great views over the water - and Topkapi, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia - we would need to be docked port side on.... Would our luck hold out?  We watched from the balcony as a tug hovered along our side, ready to give Aurora a nudge if necessary... and YES, we almost whooped out loud as slowly Aurora did a 180degree turn to bring us round for glorious views for the next 48 hours - we are currently in the best hotel in town!

To be continued...

Janet