Hi, Jon,
 
Got your note.  Here’s a quick summary of transfers and tours.
 

• The transfers were fine, but I forgot to tell you that the head of the service in Rome (Pallenberg Brothers) called us at our hotel and asked us to “give his best regards to his dear friend Jon Sutter and his family”.  He said he’d only known you a short while.  What an impression you made!

• Excursions (which may be out of order): 
  • Sardinia: was physically beautiful, but had little to see except jet set stores … that made my credit card want to leap out of my wallet.  It didn’t!
  • Corsica:  We’ll NEVER forget this excursion into the mountains to an area called, “calcitains de piano?”!  We had a great guide.  The narrow, curved roads were CRAMMED with cars and huge busses like ours, so we got out to walk part of the way and at the top.  Then some people went to the restrooms and some, like us, got on the bus. 
  • Moments later, we saw our bus driver in a fist fight , which bloodied another driver and sent him to the ground!  Our driver was preening himself when the injured man came back … on the phone to the police.  Our driver hopped back onto our bus, and with only a few of us on board, took off! 
  • After a while, he found a tiny turn around space where he backed into a parked car.  He gave his license and headed us back to the guide.  A police car was blocking the road, so our driver got out and later returned to continue driving.  I was SO nervous because he was clearly agitated, and his phone kept ringing, and the tiny curved road was dangerous, but the guide said she’d seen cars at the bottom of the ravine, but never a bus.  Good news! 
  • To tell you the truth, we’re getting so much mileage out of this story, we’re no longer ticked at the bus company who hired this clown.

•  
  • Portofino:  Bill took a “hike to Santa Marguerita”  that was listed as “considerable” in terms of exertion.  It should have been marked “strenuous”!  My husband, who’s in great shape, and the five other people who went with him, were, at the end, soaking wet, exhausted, and leg-cramped!  When he returned, I, the lazy one, dragged him to the restaurant of the Hotel Splendido de Mare, situated on the beautiful port, where we had the best pasta EVER!  We also saw Michael Jordan and his body guard sauntering by.  What a big deal!
  • Florence:  We’d been here before so we’d seen the all the inside attractions, but our guide did give us a wonderful tour of everything else from the outside.
  • Nice:  There were photo-ops everywhere.  We loved it! (The Hotel Malmaison, incidentally, was fine.)
  • Monaco/Monte Carlo:  This was also a wonderful tour.  Our guide was very knowledgeable … and a colorful character who name-dropped about his meetings with the Grimaldis, and the other wealthy local clients for whom he’d arranged big bashes.  We enjoyed him and all the sights … especially all the Rolls Royces and beautiful people at the Grand Casino!  (If only we could win the lottery!)

 
Overall, we do miss Crystal, but we had a good time and might want to try one of the newer larger Seabournes.  We’ll see.
 
Thanks.
Susan