Ready for the Meddy?

If you've ever cruised through the Mediterranean, then there's a good chance that when asked where is your favorite place to cruise, your answer is the Mediterranean.

It is the vacation of a lifetime, one that is so wonderful that you return home ready to return to the Med.

If you have not experienced the Mediterranean yet, why not move that to the top of your bucket list and find out for yourself?

Yes, it costs more to fly to Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Istanbul or Venice than to a close-to-home cruise port, but you owe it to yourself to try the Med once.

And then again.

You have basically two regions, the Western and Eastern Mediterranean from which to choose.

Western Med cruises most often span from Barcelona to Rome (Civitavecchia, actually), calling on ports on the Spanish, French and Italian Rivieras.  The names of ports conjure up visions of lavish luxury bathed in sunshine: Mallorca, Portofino, Monte Carlo...  Great architecture and art abound at every turn.  And delicious cuisine.  They know how to live on the Riviera!

The Eastern Med tends to focus on the Greek Isles, again with names that put excitement in your heart: Athens, Mikonos, Santorini...

Others cruise to Venice along the gorgeous but lesser-known Dalmatian Coast with stunning stops formerly cloaked in gray behind the Iron Curtain, like Montenegro and Dubrovnik.

You can cruise the Med again and again, port-collecting places like Portugal, Malta, Sicily, Rhodes and Crete as twists, or visiting less renowned cities the second time around, like lovely Lucca instead of Florence or Pisa on subsequent stops in the port in Livorno.

If you have a couple of weeks, you may cruise from London (Southampton), adding the cheerful, historic UK to your Med adventure.  Or cruise both the Eastern and Western Med to leverage those long flights.

What's stopping you from living your dreams this summer?

The future is promised to no one, but you can at least plan a great Mediterranean cruise during the next couple of years so that you know your life will have some new highs along the way.