Greece & Turkey Featuring the ANZAC Day - Rome to Athens

Gateway to the Eternal City, Civitavecchia opens the way to Rome's incomparable abundance of art, empire, and daily life lived among ruins. From the Forum and the Colosseum to Baroque piazzas and churches, fountains, and cafe-lined streets, the capital unfolds as a continuous dialogue between antiquity and modern Italian elegance, with every corner seeming to hold another masterpiece. It is one of the world's great cruise calls, rewarding curiosity with grandeur, beauty, and endless layers of history, and few visitors leave without wanting to return.

Naples is gloriously intense, a city of baroque churches, noisy streets, and everyday drama unfolding beneath the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. Set on one of Italy's most beautiful bays, it opens onto treasures such as Pompeii, Capri, and the Amalfi Coast, yet its own layers of art, food, and history are reason enough to linger. Few ports feel so vivid on arrival, raw, magnetic, and utterly unforgettable in their mixture of chaos and splendor all at once and without compromise with astonishing intensity.

Days at sea are the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind, and pursue personal interests, whether visiting the gym, the spa, or simply watching for whales from deck. These blue sea days offer an ideal balance to busy days spent exploring ashore.

Katakolon is a small Peloponnese port made remarkable by what lies forty-five minutes inland; ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games. The sacred Altis precinct, the ruined Temple of Zeus, and the stadium where athletes competed from 776 BC form a site of rare historical resonance. The museum holding the original sculptures from the temple pediments is among the finest in Greece. The Olympic flame for every modern Games is still lit here, in the ruins of the Temple of Hera, before beginning its journey around the world.

Days at sea are the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind, and pursue personal interests, whether visiting the gym, the spa, or simply watching for whales from deck. These blue sea days offer an ideal balance to busy days spent exploring ashore.

Istanbul is where Europe and Asia meet and several millennia of civilization overlap with barely contained energy. The vast dome of Hagia Sophia, the blue-tiled interior of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar, and the glittering waters of the Bosphorus form a city that operates on a scale unlike any other cruise destination in the Mediterranean or Black Sea. Ottoman palaces and Byzantine mosaics stand within walking distance of rooftop bars and world-class restaurants. To visit Istanbul is to understand, viscerally, how much history a single city can hold.

Istanbul is where Europe and Asia meet and several millennia of civilization overlap with barely contained energy. The vast dome of Hagia Sophia, the blue-tiled interior of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar, and the glittering waters of the Bosphorus form a city that operates on a scale unlike any other cruise destination in the Mediterranean or Black Sea. Ottoman palaces and Byzantine mosaics stand within walking distance of rooftop bars and world-class restaurants. To visit Istanbul is to understand, viscerally, how much history a single city can hold.

West of Bursa, on the southern shore of the Dardanelles, anakkale is the largest city on the North Aegean coast and makes a very pleasant base for visiting the memorials and battlefields of Gallipoli, a half-hour ferry journey across the straits. The heart of anakkale is in the docks area, and you really don't need to go inland. An Ottoman clock tower is between the two halves of the dock. Head toward the sea from this tower and find the ferry that departs for the historic Gallipoli Peninsula. Hotels and restaurants are spread on either side of the docks, along the seafront; some of the most appealing lodging and dining options, as well as bars and nightlife, are located in the narrow streets behind the seafront to the left of the tower if you're facing the sea. A short ways on the waterfront past the clock tower in the other direction is the Trojan Horse that appeared in the 2004 movie Troy, later donated to the city of anakkale; there's also a nicely done model of the ancient city.

Kusadas? opens the door to Turkey's sunlit Aegean coast and, above all, to extraordinary Ephesus, one of the ancient world's most impressive archaeological sites. Beyond the lively waterfront, a landscape of ruined temples, marble streets, and Roman grandeur tells the story of civilizations that once flourished here. This stop blends resort ease with profound history, offering the rare pleasure of moving from a bustling harbor to one of antiquity's great surviving cities in a single memorable day ashore.

Mykonos has been celebrated since the 1960s when artists and celebrities first discovered its whitewashed lanes, windmills, and pellucid blue water. The secret is long since out, but the island has absorbed its fame without entirely losing its character. Little Venice, where houses overhang the sea, remains beautiful at any hour. At the center of the Cyclades, Mykonos also serves as the natural base for Delos, the uninhabited sacred island that was once the religious capital of the ancient Greek world, and one of the most important archaeological sites in the Mediterranean.

Nafplion was Greece's first capital after independence and retains the elegance of a city that has always known its worth. The Venetian old town, with its neoclassical mansions, shaded squares, and seafront promenade, is one of the most beautiful in the Peloponnese. The Palamidi fortress above, reached by 999 steps, commands views across the Argolic Gulf. Bourtzi, a Venetian island fortress in the harbor, completes a waterfront of rare pictorial quality. Nafplion is where Athenians escape at weekends, which is recommendation enough.

Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world and the foundation on which Western civilization was built. The Acropolis, with the Parthenon at its summit, remains the defining image of the entire Greece, but the city below rewards just as much: the ancient Agora, the National Archaeological Museum, the Plaka neighbourhood's tavernas and neoclassical streets, and the view at dusk from Lycabettus Hill over a city of four million. Piraeus is the port that has served Athens since antiquity; the journey from quayside to the foot of the Acropolis takes less than half an hour.