Travel Agents...Our Second Career, perhaps

Me thinks by the end of this trip, both Mike and I could be travel agents. Not that Mike doesn't work in this capacity on some level already - he's the go-to man whenever friends or family need a cheap airline ticket.

The latest development in the itinerary has the last fourth of our trip sketched out, and fits in perfectly with our schedule. We're looking at a week-long cruise of the Mediterranean, starting in Genoa and hitting ports in Marseille (France), Barcelona, Tunisia, Malta, Sicily, and Rome - a port a day! We found a cheap flight out of Edinburgh to Pisa/Genoa, which allows us to roam the Cinque Terre (oooo!) for a few days before departing from Genoa.

We cruised with MSC and rang in 2008 on their ship, the Lirica. Most Americans haven't heard of MSC, as they cater to the European market, but it's one of the biggest and fastest growing cruise lines and is just beginning to target the US and Canada. They have a brand new ship being launched in July, the Splendida. It's the sister ship to the Fantasia, which launched in Fall 2008. The Spendida will be right out of the wrapper - by the time we board the ship on August 8, we'll be the 5th public sailing. Not sure if that's a good thing....

The thought of a week of (relative) relaxation after 2 1/2 weeks on the road makes me absolutely giddy! Even though there won't be any relaxing days "at sea", and the cruise itinerary is a busy port-a-day, not having to drive or ride a train to get to a hotel will be great! Dinner will be ready, the beds will be made, the towels will be clean, and we'll have the best views of the coast you can have. That, and we were really confounded as how to visit all the places in Italy we wanted without a bunch of back-tracking. Not sure yet if we can get a reasonable flight from Genoa to Paris, but we can always take the train to the City of Love before our flight home 3 days later.

However, it's not booked yet...I'm having a tiny anxiety attack over whether the ports are worth visiting. So with that being said, I'm off to do some research on Tunisa. Now, have you ever heard of La Goulette?