Having long heard and read about Viking, I booked their odyssey to Greece, which I had wanted to visit since glimpsing the Acropolis on a page in my 7th-grade geography textbook. For a year I imagined gliding along the blue waves of the Aegean, walking in the shadow of the Parthenon and gazing out from a cafe perched on the isle of Santorini.

Viking turned out to be everything I hoped it would be; the cruise was 10 days of worrying about nothing and enjoying so much, from the consistently superb food and service at The Restaurant, to the excellent tours in port, to my lovely cabin haven, tended with care by stewards Ronel and Made.

Greece offered treasures great and small: the stark promontories of northern hilltop monasteries, the mighty Acropolis of Athens, a luscious date from a little sweets shop on a Venetian lane of Crete. Read more