Europe Sea & Stay Packages

Istanbul, Turkey

Uncovering authentic local finds and having experiences that make you feel like you’ve really connected with a place are important elements in ensuring an extraordinary vacation. We’re taking advantage of our partnership with Travel + Leisure to get their editors’ recommendations and insider tips on the places you will want to visit. Here are their picks for just one of the 150 destinations they covered.

Must-Sees from the Editors of
Travel + Leisure

Blue Mosque
Intricately patterned blue-and-white Iznik ceramic tiles depicting cypress trees, fruit, tulips, and calligraphy from the Koran adorn the interior walls, columns, arches, and domes of this early-17th-century house of worship. Built by Sultan Ahmed I with the goal of exceeding the beauty of Hagia Sophia (which was at that time a Christian church), the Blue Mosque remains one of the few sacred sites in the world with six minarets.

Grand Bazaar
The cacophonous covered market features hundreds of stalls offering every imaginable trinket: elaborate silver jewelry, glass tea sets, silks, spangled cushions, ceramics glazed in azure and crimson, hookahs, candleholders, and carpets that look like they truly might fly. It's not just for tourists, and you won't necessarily get ripped off-there are some genuine treasures here. But you need to be patient and cunning to find them.

Hagia Sophia
The greatest surviving example of Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia reigned as the greatest church in Christendom from the fourth century to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Once Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror took power, he converted the church into a mosque, plastering over the mosaics. It was only in the 1930's, when the site was turned into a museum, that these dazzling original artworks were uncovered and refurbished. You can see them today-along with the site's spectacularly ornate marble interiors, carved stone arches, and jaw-dropping (almost 183-foot-high) central dome.

Be sure to visit our Shore Excursions page or speak with our onboard Destination Concierge for arrangements to any of these must-sees.

To learn more about this exciting port, please refer to our Port Explorer guide.

Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy

Uncovering authentic local finds and having experiences that make you feel like you’ve really connected with a place are important elements in ensuring an extraordinary vacation. We’re taking advantage of our partnership with Travel + Leisure to get their editors’ recommendations and insider tips on the places you will want to visit. Here are their picks for just one of the 150 destinations they covered.

Must-Sees from the Editors of
Travel + Leisure

Colosseum
Though there may no longer be gladiators and staged naval battles at Rome’s iconic Colosseum, it’s still a great hive of activity in central Rome. Built by Emperor Vespasian in 72 A.D. on the site of Nero’s palace, the Colosseum entertained Romans with spectacles and contests until the fall of the empire. Since then, it’s served as a cemetery, castle, convent, and quarry.

MAXXI
The National Museum of Twenty-First Century Arts, which opened in the summer of 2010, has a resolutely contemporary agenda: solo shows from first-rate artists such as South African William Kentridge and Arte Povera movement founder Michelangelo Pistoletto share gallery space in the soaring, vibrantly elastic Zaha Hadid–designed building. The lovely alfresco café and an excellent bookshop are housed in the facing building—one Hadid preserved from the original plan of the square.

Pantheon
Dedicated to all the gods by Marcus Agrippa in 27 B.C., the iconic Pantheon in Rome’s centro storico has twice burned and been rebuilt before assuming its current appearance under the reign of Hadrian. Conversion to a church in 609 A.D. saved the building from the fate suffered by most other “pagan” buildings. Ever since, its architecture has impressed visitors including Michelangelo, who declared it “angelic and not human design.”

Be sure to visit our Shore Excursions page or speak with our onboard Destination Concierge for arrangements to any of these must-sees.

To learn more about this exciting port, please refer to our Port Explorer and "The Sights of Rome" guide.

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