I got my bags back on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

Amateur Traveler episode 574. Today the Amateur Traveler talks about caves and beaches,

palaces and Roman ruins, cathedrals, war tunnels, and a great big boat.

As we talk about a Holland America cruise through the Western Mediterranean.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host, Chris Chris. the me except for the last third of it. Let's talk about cruising the Western Mediterranean.

I mentioned this show was going to be about cruising the Western Mediterranean.

I was on a cruise recently, a press trip with Holland America

that started in Barcelona and ended in Rome. It was a 14 day trip. And I want to tell you

about that. We're going to do it in two parts. The first two-thirds of this, we're going to focus on the destinations as we tend to do on

amateur traveler because for me travel is still all about the destinations.

But I do want to talk about the ship and the cruise experience that we had

on this particular ship. There were some new things on this boat because it had come out of

dry dock in May. This is the Westerdam from Holland America. We're going to do that in the last third of this

episode and I'm going to have an expert, a editor from Cruz Critic to come on that portion and help

me do that. But first let's talk about the destination.

So this cruise started in Barcelona.

And we've talked about Barcelona on this particular show before,

so I'm not going to spend a lot of time.

Barcelona is still one of my favorite cities. before so I'm not going to spend a lot of time.

Barcelona is still one of my favorite cities in Spain,

if not my favorite city in Spain.

...