If It's Friday, This Must Be.......

....Gibraltar! Yes, it is turning into that kind of a trip!

Backtracking just a bit, after three consecutive days in port, Thursday was a most welcome sea day. The weather was sunny, warm and clear, which meant we spent almost all of it inside the ship at the various lectures. One of the things we enjoy about Crystal is the varied lecturers they bring onboard to give presentations on the sea days, and this one is no exception. A port lecturer, talking about the upcoming ports of call, a geo-politics lecturer, talking about the Middle East, and a special interest lecturer, in this case Ken Walsh, who has covered the White House since the Reagan years. Between them, lunch and updating the blog, it was soon time to put on the Formal wear for the Captain's Welcome Aboard Evening. A mere five days AFTER we actually boarded! Ah well, better late than never, and a nice day was had by all.

Friday morning we were up bright and early, so much so the sun had not yet peeked above the horizon, for our tour in Gibraltar, The Rock by Foot. It was still rather "early morning" dark when we sailed in, but "The Rock" was on our side of the ship, so this was our first view;

Oddly enough, it really doesn't look anything like it does in the Prudential Insurance ads!!

Gibraltar has a population of about 30,000 permanent residents living in the City of Gibraltar which has spread all the way around the base of The Rock. After meeting our local guide, a rather colourful fellow by the name of Alan, we set off as part of a small fleet of minibuses on our tour. First stop, the cable car to the summit of The Rock, arriving so early it wasn't even running yet! Felt a little sorry for the bleary-eyed young fellow who had to come to work an hour early to ferry tourists to the top! The top station is actually somewhat below the highest point of Gibraltar, but the view is spectacular!

After a brief bathroom/coffee/photo stop, Alan gave us a brief history lesson about the growth of the city of Gibraltar and the territory in general, followed by "The Monkey Briefing". One of the other things that The Rock is famous for is its resident colony of about 200 Macaques. They have lived on Gibraltar for possibly as long as 200 years, and they have absolutely no fear of man. In fact, quite the opposite, they have "struck fear" in tourists visiting Gibraltar for years. The instructions for the tour said quite specifically, no jewellery, earrings, dangling bracelets, or anything bright and shiny that might attract attention, unless you were prepared to let the monkeys have it! Our ship escort even took off her name tag!! Alan's instructions were fairly simple, if a monkey lands on your shoulder, or grabs your arm or leg, try not to panic and let him deal with it. Easy for HIM to say! So prepared for who knew what, we set out, and found almost no "monkey business", just a few spread out along the road mostly minding their business and foraging for breakfast. As I said, we were kind of early! We did, however, see a few babies, the youngest Alan estimated as not much more than a week old.

This family (you can just see Dad on the far side) had a few
of us trapped on a staircase for a few minutes.

Over the next two hours, we climbed to within about 200 feet of the summit of the Rock, visited St. Michael's Cave, a natural cave within the rock itself, as well as the Great Siege Tunnels.

One stalagmite had been cut and polished
to see just how old it might be. At least
250,000 years!

Gibraltar had originally belonged to Spain, but was deeded to the British after one of the interminable wars of the 1600 - 1800's. Sometime in the late 1700's, the Spanish decided they wanted it back, so laid siege to Gibraltar for something like 18 months, forcing the British Garrison to construct a tunnel network into the top third of the Rock, from which they were able to hold off the Spanish until relief arrived from England. During the First and Second World Wars, this tunnel network was greatly expanded, and while we did not see any of that work, what we saw was most impressive considering it was done mostly by hand over a period of several months, during which the tunnellers never saw daylight, or had much in the way of fresh air either!

One of the scenes set up inside the caves. Another one,
of the officers quarters, has a guard saying 'Halt! Who goes there?'
every time somebody walks by - and there are lots
of visitors.

After leaving the tunnels we drove back down from the Rock and through "downtown" Gibraltar, most  of which is contained within the walls of the old fortress area. Along the way we passed The Tower, used for executions during British colonial times, it now serves as the town jail, capacity 62 "guests". 

Alan told us that while crime is not an issue, during the 13 years, from 1969 to 1982, that the Spanish closed the border (Francisco Franco being highly PO'ed at the Brits for something or other) crime actually dropped to zero, and the town jail was used to store food and other supplies brought by ship from Britain. Now days, while the Spanish border police can be a pain, some 10,000 workers (including Alan) cross into Gibraltar from Spain to work. All of them using that single road from the border that really does cross the runway  of the International Airport! Although we had seen the pictures on the web, until we saw it with our own eyes, we really were not sure they were real! We didn't get much of a city tour, so we'd really like to come back and check it out on a full day's port stop. They say that in some respects, the Gibraltar people are more British than the British, and we did see some really nice looking pubs as we drove by.

Not only does this road cross the airport runway, but those
buildings in the centre of the photo are the border with Spain.

Yes, that's how close the shipping port is to the airport!

After leaving Gibraltar in the early afternoon, we next had to cross through the famed Strait of Gibraltar to get from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. We had always pictured in our minds sailing past this huge rock that, of course, looked just like that Prudential Insurance logo. In reality, the strait is anywhere from 9 to 13 miles wide, not that narrow little passage that many people visualize. Had we been awake and on the bridge during our approach around 4:00 in the morning, we would have been able to see the mythical Pillars of Hercules. About 20 miles out, a sailor can only see the tip of Gibraltar on one side and the northernmost peak of the Atlas Mountains on the other. We're not sure where Hercules comes into it, but it has been referred to this way for a very long time.

Here are some photos of our sailout and the Strait:

Gibraltar - looks more like a cruise ship, doesn't it?

Looking over at the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Took
this photo while we were walking in the morning.

The strait is relatively narrow at Gibraltar. On the left is Morocco,
on the right, Spain.

Tomorrow we will be in Lisbon. Our tour guide couldn't figure out why we needed 12 hours to get there; apparently you can do it in 4 hours by car!

Barcelona's Amazing Architecture and Fabulous Food

Without having done much research on Barcelona, we were not prepared in any way for the size of the city. Don't know why; after all it has been a major city for over 1,000 years and in modern times is large enough to host major sporting events like the Summer Olympics in 1992.

We were docked in the port area and didn't have much of a view into the city from the ship, so we had to depend on our tour if we wanted to see anything. The tour, entitled Tapas and Gaudi, would give us something of an overview with a stop for tapas along the way. The only problem was that since Barcelona is so large, all of our sightseeing, other than the Sagrada Familia, the huge Gaudi cathedral, was done from the bus.

There is so much different and interesting architecture in Barcelona that whenever we stopped, we could have used a little time to just stand and admire it. Instead we normally only had the length of a red traffic light to catch a glimpse of an interesting building façade or balcony. One thing that we noticed is that it would be easy to make an interesting collage or collection of wrought iron balconies in Barcelona, just like people take photos of the Georgian doors in Dublin.

Our tour started off with a ride up to Montjuic, or the Hill of the Jews. Some of the main venues for the Olympics are here, including the high diving pavilion. It must be amazing to watch a diving competition here because the spectators get to see not only the diving, but look over the city as there is no 'front' wall of the building!

Overlooking part of the city from Montjuic

One of the museums. There is a water and
light show in the fountains at night.

               

Back down in the centre of the city, we ended up making two tapas stops. A mother and daughter on our tour had done the same tour a few years ago, and gave the rest of us pointers about how much to eat and what sorts of food we could expect. But we'll get to the food stops later. We'll take care of the Sagrada Familia first.

Antoni Gaudi was born in 1852 and became one of the most notable 'new style' architects from Spain. In the late 1800s he was commissioned by one of the church parishes in Barcelona to design and build a cathedral dedicated to the Holy Family. Once construction started, he continued to work on it until his death in 1926 at the age of 74. Ironically, he was struck by a city tram in front of the building. Maybe he stepped back to admire his work and didn't pay attention to where he was....After his death, the portions of the building already close to completion were finished to his design, but then other architects were called upon to continue the work. As you can see from the photos, it is still under construction and is not expected to be finished for another 12 years, in time for the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.

Not only does the cathedral look like something of a mishmash of architectural designs (to our uneducated view, that is), but the entire project is so ambitious that once the last tower and the huge promenade to the main entrance are finished, it may look so overwhelming that it becomes impossible to appreciate. The inside is apparently quite something to see, but our tour didn't include that and there would have been no time to buy a ticket and get inside. (Nothing better than funding a build with tourist Euros if you can!). Here are a few photos of the outside:

This is actually one side of the cathedral. This
is the part Gaudi worked on himself.

A closer shot of the Nativity. This side of
the church is dedicated to the birth of
Jesus, the opposite side to his death and
resurrection.

Somewhat more modern sculptural style showing
Jesus carrying the cross and his
crucifixion. Larry says that some of the Roman
guards look like Imperial storm troopers!

A side view of the depiction of the Last Supper

The picture of a picture above shows how it will look when it is finished. Note that there will be 18 bell towers, including one for each apostle, a couple for some saints and one for each of the Holy Family. The tallest one, dedicated to Jesus Christ, will be fully as tall as Montjuic, something like178 metres in total. And they think they're going to have it finished in 12 years????

Now on to the food. Our first tapas stop was near the Sagrada Familia, in what looked like a very small restaurant and bar - until you got inside. The place was long and narrow, with counters and kitchen down one side and tables on the other and across the back. Our 30 people only took up about 4 tables. But the really impressive thing was all the dry cured hams hanging from the ceiling. Larry, and probably a few others, were wondering if the restaurant would notice if they snuck a few out to take home. Our second tapas stop was at a restaurant by the Olympic Marina, which is now a seaside restaurant/bar area along with hotels and a small boat marina. Since a picture of food says more than a thousand-word description, we'll just do this:

This was only a very small number of the hams hanging
in this restaurant.

This tastes like slightly longer cured
prosciutto.

Marinated vegetables - eggplant, peppers, onions

The prepared food bar. It all looked so delicious!

At our second stop, this was the paella pan
that served our large table.

Even after all this, we were all able to eat dinner back on board the ship. This first taste of Barcelona decided us on spending a couple of days before or after a future cruise in the Mediterranean. A single day just can't do justice to its diversity of architecture and its great food options.

From Rustic to Rich along the Mediterranean Coast

On Sunday we returned to Crystal Serenity for the first time in about 3 years. Hard to believe, but true! It was a beautiful morning after Saturday evening's rain, and our same driver, Carlo, picked us up slightly ahead of schedule. The drive to Civitavecchia was quite comfortable, and fast. Once Carlo got out of the city and off the secondary highway (the one with the 90 km speed limit), and onto the A12, he could put his foot down a bit. Oddly enough, there were regular sign postings saying that speed was monitored electronically, but we couldn't see any kind of transponder in the car, and Carlo's english probably wasn't up to explaining. Nonetheless, we arrived in Civitavecchia in less than an hour, and then we hit the local traffic through town. There were four cruise ships in, and even though it may not have been a turnaround day for all of them, most of the passengers would have been heading toward Rome for shore excursions.

               

Looking over Civitavecchia from the ship

In the end it didn't matter much because we were still early for embarkation and had to wait a bit. It was looking like a slightly younger than normal crowd of fellow guests, but only by a very few years. We had heard that the shorter Mediterranean cruises were attracting younger people, even lots of families, and we weren't sure if the 12 day itinerary would be any different.

We had speculated that we might run into someone on the crew that we knew within the first 15 minutes of boarding. It turned out to be much quicker than that. Crew members are assigned to greet guests, take over their carry-on luggage and lead them to the check-in table in the Crystal Plaza. Our guide turned out to be Sheila, one of the waitresses from Silk Road whom we've known since Serenity first went into service in 2003. She was genuinely thrilled to see us again, as we were to see her.

We stopped by the Crystal Cove bar and found Marya, one of the bartenders and Ross, the Bar Manager. They were the first to start the chorus of 'Are you staying on for the crossing?'. Once we leave the ship in Southampton, she will be heading across the Atlantic to do the Canada-New England fall season and there are many long-time guests who are doing these two cruises back-to-back. Hopefully she'll have a better time of it than we did on Symphony in 2012 when we ran into the tail end of a hurricane and had to endure about 5 days of very rough seas.

At dinner we discovered one of our tablemates is a couple that we have cruised with and sat with before. The other couple is new to Crystal, as many on the ship seem to be; the fourth pair still hasn't turned up, and we're writing this after Day 4.

This is a very port-intensive cruise and with some of the long tours it is hard to find a lot of time to post the blog, but we'll do our best to keep it fairly up-to-date. Our first port stop was in Cinque Terre, in the northern part of Italy known as Liguria. It is an area made up of five towns, or Five Lands, as it translates. Our guide wondered why they called it that, since instead of being farmers as you would expect (and you'll see why from the photos), the people who established these small towns were all fishermen.

Our tour was to take us into two of the five towns, but we ended up visiting three of them. The sea conditions had been rather rough for the ferries to dock in all but one so we had to get there in order to take the planned scenic route back. The five towns are strung along the coastline over only about 15 km, but getting between them can be rather difficult by road, so we took the local train, which is more of a subway since much of the line is in tunnels rather than on top of the cliffs. The reason for this will also be very obvious when you see the photos from the ferry trip back.

We drove from Porto Venere, where the ship anchored, to Manarola. Porto Venere is a UNESCO World Heritage site because the people have managed to maintain the old part of the town very much as it has been since it was built around the 10th century by the Genoese to help protect the Roman Empire. The area around Porto Venere and La Spezia, the nearest city, has been used as a naval base since then. The area has been so important over history that Napoleon apparently even wanted to raze La Spezia and build a new city called Napoleonia in its place. Not much of an ego there, and fortunately no opportunity to carry out the plan.

   

Porto Venere from our anchorage

          

The harbourside. These buildings are all built the same way
as a wall around the town. There are back exits so the
townspeople could take shelter in the fortress above
in case of attack.

Riomaggiore from above

Grape growing terraces. These terraces actually also
keep the hills from falling apart

             

Manarola

           

All of the towns look very much the same, even though the oldest, largest and farthest north, Monterosso al Mare, was established first. The colourful buildings, narrow alleyways and pervasive clotheslines add to the quaint (and not in a bad way) feeling we got as we walked around Manarola and Vernazza. Wrought iron balconies, a small table and a couple of chairs, a pot of flowers and colourful shutters on the windows are the norm, that is everywhere that there are no sheets or towels hanging outside. Fortunately people aren't hanging ALL of the laundry out to dry, if you get what we mean...

   

After Manarola we took the train to Vernazza and spent some time wandering around this second town. There is a small crescent-shaped beach right inside the tiny harbour that is the focal point of the town.

The coastline from inside the Church of
St. Margaret

Down by the harbourside

A shrine to one of the patron saints,
just at the side of the main street

After a little time in Vernazza, we boarded the train again for the 5-minute trip to Monterosso al Mare. Here we would also have the opportunity for lunch in any of its many restaurants.

A shop selling flowers and terracotta garden
ornaments

The beach and waterfront

Our lunch - Spaghetti with Seafood

And of course, we had to have dessert!

After lunch we boarded the ferry to take us all the way back to Porto Venere and were able to get a wonderful view of all five towns from the sea. It is really no wonder that they were all quite isolated and unreachable by anything other than fishing boats until the 1950s. Here are a few photos of the towns as we sailed by.

Vernazza from the sea

Corniglia, not easily accessed from the sea
so we didn't get there

Manarola

Riomaggiore from another perspective

All in all a beautiful day and a great introduction for us to the northern part of Italy.

The next day we arrived in Monte Carlo, Monaco, bright and early. Instead of taking a tour we were having lunch with Susan and seeing a few of the local sites on our own. We had been expecting to have to tender into the port, but the evening before, Rick the Cruise Director announced that we would be docking instead. This meant a quick e-mail exchange with Susan as we had arranged to meet her at the tender dock before lunch.

Monte Carlo - a bit larger and more built-up than
we expected

Ho-hum. Just another day on the 'boat'. Drove here in
my little black Lamborghini...

On the Bateau Bus crossing the harbour to get downtown

Monaco in general and Monte Carlo in particular is THE place to 'be seen' on the Med. A little too ostentatious for our taste, but here flaunting your wealth seems to be a way of life. We asked about people who work here being able to afford to live here and Susan pointed out that people who work here don't live here, they live in France and come into the Principality of Monaco to work. Apparently if you want to be a resident, you first have to ante up 1 Million Euros, and then you need to find a condo. According to Susan, one of the most expensive condos in the world is up for sale here; goodness only knows the selling price. After all, we saw more Rolls Royces, Bentleys and Ferraris per square metre here than anywhere else in the world, especially in the Casino Square.

The casino from the waterfront

Casino Square filled with lots of tourists

And that's not even talking about the yachts. There are some real beauties here, paying docking fees of around 1,000 Euros per metre. Some of these yachts were quite large even compared to Serenity.

   
     

We met Susan and, rather than wander around, went to the Cafe de Paris for lunch. This, along with the Hotel de Paris across the square, is one of the best places in town. Lunch was fun and quite delicious (and a little on the pricey side, but, hey, this IS Monte Carlo - if they had a MacDonald's it would probably be expensive, too!)

Monica's lunch - Salade Nicoise

Susan ordered Creme Brulee for dessert. They pour
a little something over the sugar then light it so
you can watch the top bubble and caramelize.

Monica and her Strawberry Napoleon

Susan headed back to Antibes after lunch, and we got back to the ship in time to shower and change for the Monte Carlo sailaway party on the pool deck. The clouds that had been threatening all afternoon looked even more ominous from the water, which made it impossible to take a really nice photo of the city. It would be a nice place to visit again and explore a little more, but everything is a little too over-the-top for us to want to stay there.

Ah, well, tomorrow we're back to normal with a visit to Barcelona, Spain.