This is our second Viking ocean cruise. The ship is wonderful, the service and food are top notch, the rooms plenty spacious. The staff is great .. always smiling and greeting us everywhere we went. The on-board entertainment was excellent, and the lectures associated with the history of the sites we visited were well done. The tour guides were true experts and provided much insight on the land, the people, and their history. We were able to visit many sites and got a good deal of exposure to the history and culture of the various countries we visited. The cruise started in Athens. We extended on both the beginning and the end of the cruise to maximize our time spent in Europe. Visited several Greek islands and then sailed on to Israel. There we again maximized our time by visiting many key religious and archaeological sites. We even got to swim in the Dead Sea which was an amazing experience. We visited Masada and learned of the heroic stance the Israelites took against the powerful Roman Empire. An amazing three long days jam packed with information. We rested 2 days at sea as we voyaged to Italy, stopping in Naples and Rome, along with an extension in a beautiful Tuscany villa. Having purchased Viking's airline offering, getting from and to the airports was effortless. This is our 11th Viking tour, and we have 2 more scheduled in 2018 to cruise the Caribbean and Amazon, and then later to Eastern Europe.