May 30 to June 9 Segment 10 of our World Voyage onboard the Azamara Onward. This part of the trip was a total bonus for me. They don’t usually have an artist onboard for these voyages with lots of great ports and so few sea days, but since I stayed on for the repositioning they agreed to take me all the way to Barcelona. It was like a greatest hits album, one blockbuster port after another.

It was raining when we arrived in Slovenia, so we decided to skip Lake Bled and Ljubljana, and poke around Koper. We tucked into a cafe for local beer (Warrior by Reservoir Dogs Brewery), then wandered to the Loggia, where I spotted an art show poster in a doorway. The show was closed, but a very cool man invited me in anyways to the Exhibition of the Cultural Legacy of Marko Brecelj, musician, performance artist, and self proclaimed ‘soft terrorist’. Pretty wild stuff. It wouldn’t have been everyone’s cup of tea, but I guess that’s why I was the one drawn the the unattended door. I love that serendipitous side to travel.

From there we went to Zadar Croatia, ancient walled city and home of the giant sea organ. It is an amazing thing, tubes projecting out into the ocean creating a gorgeous and constantly changing melody. We sat on the sea steps with the rest of the crowd to just absorb it.

Then south to Dubrovnik. We’d visited before, so we decided to take a bus trip to nearby Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The bridge is a must-see. It connects the two cobblestoned halves of Mostar, and plays host to Red Bull’s Annual Bridge Jump Competition. The beauty of the town and the fun energy of the bridge jumpers offset some of the heaviness, but the ravages of war are visible everywhere. Bomb and bullet holes mar buildings, gravestones crowd every scrap of public grass; parks, road shoulders and medians. It’s a constant reminder to the locals, and a reality slap to vast majority of us who haven’t had war arrive on our doorstep.

Back in Croatia that evening we were treated to an open air concert up above the city. Waiters floated by with canapes and champaign as we watched dancers twirl and tap on the stage, the smell of rosemary hedges around the concert grounds permeating the night air.

June 3: Montenegro. It was Greg’s birthday, so we spent most of the day in Old Town celebrating in a sweet little piano bar with friends. We found a lovely little art piece in a gallery nearby, a stitched portrait in an oval frame of a woman playing a guitar. It reminded Greg of me serenading him, as I do. Happy Birthday Love. On to Civitavecchia, the Port City to Rome. We’d planned to rent a car and head in to the hot springs at Saturnia, but there was not a car to be had. Instead we explored the port city and let our Jedi Warrior skills take us to a hole in the wall ‘Nona is cooking’ style Italian restaurant with some friends. Stone walls, good local wine (lots of it) and bread followed by the kind of pasta that involved kneading dough in the kitchen. It was perfect.

Monaco was next up, the penultimate port on this journey. The winding streets bring spies and race car drivers to mind. And of course of Princess Grace. The obvious wealth and glamour is everywhere. Teenagers drive Lambos and Maseratis here. It’s’ crazy. We had drinks in the Cafe de Paris and watched the action in front of the Monte Carlo Casino for hours. We explored the wild art and the gardens at the Villa Pamona location of The Nouveau Musee National de Monaco before heading back to the ship for our final white night. The deck with its decorations, everyone in flowing white with the gorgeous hillside encrusted with mansions as a backdrop; it made me fall one notch deeper in love with adventuring this way. Ready or not, time to head to Barcelona and wrap this trip up.