More Spain - Ibiza and Barcelona

Our first all-day tour was the island of Ibiza. We had always heard so much about it and how popular it is as a tourist destination for northern Europeans, so we thought we'd look the whole place over. Our day included a stop for traditional paella lunch in one of the small towns.

As in all of our previous stops, it was a very hot and humid day; not that we were complaining, but it becomes rather draining with the out-of-the-bus, walk around to see sights and take photos, get a little free time, back-in-the-bus schedule. When we both had sweat running down our faces from only a half-hour stroll, it was a bit much.

Ibiza is the smallest of the Balearic Islands, which also include Mallorca and Minorca. Oddly enough, the tourist season here is from mid-May to mid-October, as they do get cooler weather in winter. Because it is a small island, the Mediterranean Sea regulates the temperature but it does drop to 6-10 degrees C during winter and is then also quite damp. There is very rarely any snow on Ibiza, but Mallorca does get enough to have a ski season so all the winter vacationers go there instead. Tourism is pretty much the only industry on Ibiza, so our guide explained that almost everybody works long days, sometimes multiple jobs, during the season and has to make enough to get them through the winter.

Ibiza is known for beaches and partying, and that was certainly evident on our tour. We stopped in a number of small towns, and they were all bustling except for the artists' village of St. Gertrudis which, being up in the central hills, was very quiet. All of the seaside towns were full of tourists, a lot of them British, trying to get away from their iffy summer weather. There are some towns that were predominantly built up independently by British and German tourists, and they each still have their own different ambience even though there isn't the same separation any more. The best way to describe the day was;  "go to a small town, look at the beach, got to another small town look at the beach, go to another small town, look at the beach and have lunch, etc, etc, etc...." .

The salt flats. Ibiza produces up to 700,000 kilos of natural
sea salt every year. The only other industry on the island.

A small beach near Ibiza Town, so called to differentiate
it from the island.

The countryside up in the hills.

This 'egg' has a sculpture of one of Columbus's ships
inside...Ibiza is just one of multiple places that claim
to be his birthplace. Too bad he never wrote it down
anywhere.

Our paella lunch. Was OK - not the greatest we've ever had,
but not bad

The latest water toy - a paddle boat that looks like a car,
with a slide on top. No, we are not getting one for the pool!

Back in Ibiza Town. The harbour, and the old town on
top of the hill.

Not the best picture, but this condo building has different colours
on the balconies and in the flowers for each level. Also quite
the price tag, as it comes with a yacht berth and a few other perks.
Apparently Shakira would be one of your neighbours if
you bought here.

After another pleasant evening on the ship, Tuesday morning found us in Barcelona, where we awoke to a most unusual (for this trip) sight, overcast skies!!!! The first clouds we had seen since leaving Lisbon a week ago! Still plenty warm and humid though, and the clouds burned off rather quickly.

Our tour was Gaudi's Barcelona and the Colony of Guell. Antonio Gaudi was the most prominent Spanish architect of his time and designed many buildings in his unique style, including what is probably the strangest looking church in the world, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Our tour started with a drive out of the city itself and into the surrounding hills to Colonia Guell. In the late 19th Century the Spanish industrialist Eusabi Guell established the "colony" as a new location for his family textile business and commissioned his friend Gaudi to design the buildings. The complex included his factory, housing, a church and theatre for his workers and was located well outside of Barcelona and away from the unrest of the period and the "socialist" unions that were beginning to spring up in an effort to improve the abysmal working conditions of the time. His thinking was happy workers would be more productive workers, and by all accounts his factory prospered.

Gaudi's designs are famous for his use of flowing lines and natural shapes, there are almost no straight lines in any of his buildings. He also believed in using natural stone and wood, and using whatever material was close to hand. He also believed bigger is better, so most of his buildings are huge! The church he designed in Guell was to be very large, but unfortunately for Gaudi, his benefactor Guell died when the church was only partially built, and his family, tired of subsidizing Gaudi's design fantasies, stopped work where it was. To this day partially completed columns and stone work sit where they were left in a field beside the church. The church as it is today was actually supposed to be the "basement" and crypt of the larger church, and as you can see from the pictures, the design and materials are unusual.

Above the church door. The only Gaudi ceramic mosaic we saw.

The stained glass windows with ceramics. Gaudi was
ahead of his time - the larger windows actually opened
in sections as well.

Inside the church at Colonia Guell. Looks
fantastically different.

No, there was nothing wrong with the camera - that post IS crooked!
Remember Gaudi had a real dislike of straight lines anywhere.

The main square in the colony. Guell's statue stands in
the centre.

Gaudi moved on from Guell and took over the planning and design for a grand, new church already being built in Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia, or Sacred Family, or as Larry refers to it, "the ugliest church in the world"! To achieve his natural lines, Gaudi actually used gravity in his planning process. He would suspend light chains from the ceiling and adjust them until he achieved the look he wanted. We actually saw the model he used for the church in Guell, the chains hung over a mirror so you see the "finished product", which is about the only way to "see" the finished product.

The Guell church, hanging from the ceiling....

...and through the mirror. The black chains on
the inside show the actual structure that was built;
the rest was what he had designed. Over the top,
or what??

La Sagrada Familia has been under construction for over 100 years!!!!!! They are hoping to have everything complete for 2026, which would the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death! Somewhat appropriately, he died in front of the church when he was hit by a truck as he looked up studying the work!!! Since Gaudi's design includes 18 towers, one of them 172 metres high, and so far only eight have been built, there is much doubt that the 2026 date is realistic.

Three sides of the church depict the life of Christ, with one side representing the Nativity, the opposite side the Crucifixion (these sides are mostly complete) and a third side Glory. That side is a blank wall at the moment and would include the main entrance to church at the top of a grand stairway. Of course, as our guide pointed out, completing that side will require destroying the apartment blocks and stores/businesses in a four block area to accommodate the stairs alone! He doesn't see it happening, and if it ever did, it would take until at least 2050 to finish construction!

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so behold the pictures below and you decide!

Gaudi's original work. The part to the lower right was the original
gothic style church that was already under construction when
he took it over. He finished that and then started with
his own design.

The Crucifixion side - we mentioned the last time we saw
it that some of the Roman soldiers look like
Imperial Stormtroopers from Star Wars.

On the right, the house that Gaudi designed, which is
now an art museum. Apparently he also
didn't use any straight lines on the inside.

This was again a Gaudi design; a private house that is now a
hotel.

The one thing that Monica wanted to see was the place that ALL of the cruise lines show for Barcelona in their brochures - the Park Guell. This was also designed by Gaudi, and features his mosaics in the forms of walls, benches, animal figures and the like. It looks like it should be quite spectacular. The problem is that the park authorities are very strict on ticket sales and capacity control. You have to purchase tickets 2 or 3 days in advance, and there are no refunds for unused tickets, so the cruise lines and their tour companies don't take shore excursions there. The cruise lines should all have photos of La Sagrada Familia instead - they never miss that! Oh, well, another reason to come back to Barcelona.

The First Days in Port - Cadiz to Cartagena

One of the things that attracted us to this itinerary is that with the exception of Barcelona and Monte Carlo, all of the ports were new to us. The one down side was only one sea day, and we enjoy sea days! After enjoying our one and only sea day on Thursday (yes, the first day of the cruise), we arrived in Cadiz, Spain on Friday morning. Cadiz is in south-west Spain on the Atlantic coast, and we had arrived so early that we spent most of Thursday evening, and all night, sailing in circles, which confused the heck out of some people, probably on their first cruise!

Our tour in Cadiz was the Chef's Tour of Cadiz Market and a Tapas Lunch. This ship has a Culinary Arts Center (conveniently located on the opposite side of our deck) where they offer cooking demos and hands-on courses. They also have Culinary Tours, and this was one of those, lead by the Center's Chef Instructor, David. After a brief orientation in the Center, and a short bus ride, we arrived at Cadiz Market. There has been a market on this spot almost since Cadiz was first settled by the Carthaginians, and its current incarnation has not changed much in the last 50 years. While there are stalls selling meat and produce, the emphasis is on fish, a staple of the Spanish diet. Located a short distance from the fishing piers, most of the fish on offer was in all likelihood swimming in the ocean 24 hours ago! We will let the pictures do the talking......

After 90 minutes at the market, we made our way to one of Cadiz' best restaurants for a Tapas lunch. A Tapas lunch consists of a number of courses of small bites, served with wine or beer. Lunch started with a local version of warm potato salad served with tuna chunks, and a crisp shrimp cake, almost like a potato pancake, made with tiny shrimp quick-fried in a chickpea flour batter. This was followed by shrimp croquettes, beef and pork meatballs, pumpkin soup and a braised beef dish in a tomato sauce that melted in your mouth! THEN we had dessert! Lunch finished just before 2:00, and as I said to David on the way back to the ship, the only problem with lunch was our 6:30 dinner reservation in the steakhouse!

On the way to the restaurant we noticed that many
people had hung flower pots on the walls and
filled them with geraniums. They looked gorgeous!

The Shrimp Pancake

A vegetable ratatouille with a quail egg on top

A trio of sweets for dessert

After whiling away the afternoon, and before dinner cocktails, we made our way to the Polo Grill steakhouse for dinner. We had requested a shared table and were seated with six lovely people, including a couple celebrating their 54th wedding anniversary that day! Dinner was great, as was the conversation, but the highlight of our evening belongs in the "Small World" file! There were two older ladies travelling together and in conversation it came out that one of them wintered in Florida, in Boca Raton, and in the same building Monica's parents had wintered for ten years. She did remember them, and in fact, when she heard the name Margret, she said that the two of them swam in the pool together almost every morning whenever they were there! Small world indeed!

We sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar about 1:00 AM Saturday morning, and while we did see the lights of Morocco from our balcony before we went to bed, with another early tour next morning, we didn't stay up to watch. Our next port of call was Malaga, on the southern Mediterranean coast, and our second "foodie tour" was a visit to the Atarazanas Market. Like Cadiz, there has been a market in this location for decades, but unlike Cadiz, this market sells meat, fish and produce in about equal measure. Before entering the market, Chef David assigned purchases to some of the group for the ingredients of the Tapas lunch we would make in the Culinary Center after the tour. The fish market was not quite as impressive, but the variety of meats and produce, as well as dried and pickled product was impressive. We actually did buy a small package of saffron for ten Euros that will probably last for years!! Again, the pictures tell the story........ 

The big glass mural over the entrance shows the fishing
history of Malaga

And the Tapas lunch in the Culinary Center was great too..........

Dinner that night was at Red Ginger, the Asian restaurant. We had again requested a shared table and were seated at a table for five. The other two didn't show up, but we had a very pleasant dinner with a fellow celebrating his retirement. He lives in Toronto, in Leslieville, and while he doesn't know Bruce he knows Bruce's street, and maybe even his house! Again, a small world!! 

Sunday morning found us in Cartagena, and after all the food of the previous two days, we opted for a walking tour of the town. We had been docked in commercial ports prior to this and were quite pleased to open our drapes to a beautiful marina for small boats and a very nice cruise terminal. The apparently get something like 100 ship visits a year, much to Larry's surprise! As the name might imply, Cartagena was originally settled by the Carthiginians back in the second century BC, and was subsequently resettled by the Romans, Phoenicians, Gauls and a cast of what seems like hundreds over the years, mostly  because of its natural harbour, surrounded by hills. Five of them to be exact, each one with its own fort on top, including the one we could see from our balcony, and that we visited on our tour. A brief walk and elevator ride took us up about 300 feet to the castle on the top of the hill and an overlook of the town. The Romans extensively rebuilt the town in their time so there are many ruins, including an amphitheatre that also once served a bullfight ring, Roman Baths and numerous other ruins. And then, or course, the obligatory picture of the ship.

The metal structure at left is the elevator. The original Roman
amphitheatre is the bottom brown bricks; the top 2 tiers
were added when the arena was used for bullfighting.

This is the Roman theatre which is still used for
concerts and other events

The ship photo

After a brief tour of the castle, we returned to ground level and continued our tour. Much like Rome itself, every new construction project seems to turn into an archaeological dig first and there a number of well preserved sites throughout the town centre. One we visited is the Casa Fortuna, a quite well preserved merchant's house and "store" which they think was a bakery. Much of the tile and mosaic work has been preserved, along with a section of the road in front of the house! Later we walked past the ruins of the ancient baths as well as what they think may have been something similar to The Forum in Rome, all of this located within the commercial part of the town. The tour ended with frozen yogurt in the town square and a short stroll back to the ship where we had a lazy afternoon.

Inside one of the churches - sorry, can't
remember which one; there are so many!
After all, about 95% of people in Spain
are Catholic.

Nice facades of the apartments above the shops on the
main streets. The story of the peacock feathers on the left side is
that one of our group members, who always seemed to ask a question
just after the guide answered it, picked these up at the
castle and carried them all over with him, hoping that he
would be able to bring them on board. We don't know if
they actually let him.

Dinner Sunday evening was at Chez Jacques, named for Jacques Pepin, who is the Culinary Master for Oceania. No surprises at dinner, just a pleasant dinner shared with a couple from Los Angeles that we had met briefly on our first tour, so I guess that was a BIT of a coincidence. Trying to make it an early night, with our fist all day tour the next day, we sat on our balcony and watched the full moon rise over the Med!

Lisbon and Boarding Day

After two long, but uneventful flights, we arrived in Lisbon early Monday afternoon. Lisbon is about as far south and west of Munich (where we landed from Toronto) as Ft. Lauderdale is from Toronto, which probably explains why so many Germans go to Spain/Portugal for the winter! A short taxi ride delivered us to the Sofitel Liberdade, located, oddly enough, on Avenida Liberdade (literally Liberty Avenue) not far from the centre of Lisbon. Our room, a Junior Suite on the 6th floor was quite comfortable, with a separate sitting area. Being as neither of us got more than maybe three hours of sleep, the rest of the afternoon was passed in high impact aerobic napping!!

Monica had checked out the menu for the restaurant in the hotel, AdLib, and thought it unimpressive, but since neither of us was in the mood to wander far, we decided to check out the lobby bar, and then the restaurant. We were seated at a very nice table on the patio (AKA - the street in front of the hotel) and had what turned out to be a very nice dinner from their tasting menu. Started with a marinated octopus salad, followed by a soup, then two entrees, sea bream and veal tenderloin, and then dessert. Sounds like a lot, but the portions were small, and very tasty. Sometimes the info on the internet can be deceiving!

For Tuesday afternoon we had booked a private car tour of Lisbon, so after breakfast in the hotel, we set out to explore some of downtown Lisbon. We knew the historic district in the centre of town included the castle, and that it was on a hill, so we set out to find it. We discovered we were only about a ten minute walk from"downtown", and we also discovered the castle sits on a REALLY HIGH hill! Sort of like Hamilton Mountain! Always up for a challenge, we decided to try and walk up. And got lost! Well, not really lost, we had a map, but we couldn't seem to find any road that went up the hill. Stopping at a nearby tourist kiosk we found out it was just as well, as that area is known for pickpockets, and we were directed to the two elevators that take one quickly, and with much less sweat, to the top of the hill. Along the way, we bumped into a couple and his Mom, travelling from Sydney, Australia (!) who are also on the ship, though we have not seen them on board yet.

The Castle Saint George was originally built in the 11th Century and served as the home of the various and sundry Kings of Portugal. It sits atop the highest of what, we found out later, are the seven hills that make up Lisbon, and as you can see from the pictures, the views are quite impressive. We walked all around the castle grounds, and up onto the castle parapet as well, which had Monica's vertigo kicking in just a bit! Most of what was the Royal Residence has disappeared over the years, and what little interior there is  was given over to shops and restaurants, so there wasn't much else to see.

After about an hour, we had seen what there was to see, and given that our tour was set for a 2:00 pickup at the hotel, we decided to head back, retracing our steps without even getting lost. Along the way we decided lunch was in order. Av Liberdade is a very wide main street, but on either side are access roads (for want of a better word) to get to the actual shops, hotels, etc. These streets are separated by wide boulevards on each side of the main street, and the whole thing is arched over with enormous mature trees! It is a very impressive sight, and makes for a comfortable walk. Dotted along the boulevard are little outdoor cafes, small kiosks with tables and table service and we stopped at one near the hotel. No pictures, but the sandwiches we had were both very large and very good! And the beer/wine that accompanied lunch wasn't bad either!

In the afternoon our driver, Fernando, arrived a little early, and off we went. There is a usual route for the half-day city tour that includes The Monastery that started out as a small fisherman's chapel, the monument to the Explorers, and a visit to the Belem Tower. We had already seen these when we were here two years ago, on our way out to the town of Sintra, so we asked Fernando if we could substitute a trip across the river to see the Christ the King statue that overlooks Lisbon. He had no problem with that, saying that it actually gets a little boring doing the same trip every time, so it would be an interesting change for him, too. Not only did we go to the statue, but since we were on the other side of the river, Fernando also took us to see the beach area where the entire city goes on nice summer days. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic on the 25. April Bridge (which looks just like the Golden Gate and was named to commemorate Portugal's independence day), so we got there very quickly and spent some time at the overlook.

The story of the statue is that the prime minister of Portugal, having visited Rio de Janeiro and seen the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado, promised the people that, if they remained neutral and did not enter World War II, with donations from them he would have their own Christ statue built. They did stay neutral, and he kept his promise. The statue was dedicated in 1966 after 10 years of work. The interesting point here is that, although this statue itself is much smaller than the one in Rio, the total height of the statue and the pedestal is exactly the same as just the statue standing on Corcovado! That one is huge - we saw it in 2000, but at the time it was covered in wooden scaffolding, so we didn't get the full effect.

One can even take an elevator up to the statue and
walk out on the tops of the arms. Fernando said he
would pay for us to go, but it seemed a long
way up, on top of a long way above the river.

The chapel inside the base - can also be
used to pray for courage to walk out on
the arms if needed!

Stained glass opposite the chapel altar

After our quick visit to the beach, which is also very impressive, as the boardwalk and small restaurants and shop buildings stretch literally for miles and miles, we headed back into Lisbon and did some of the usual things; visiting churches and taking a look at the various parts of the city, each with its own particular ambience. As an interesting and humourous side note, each time we left the car and returned, Fernando had to wave a card over the satellite system so the office would know where he was. At one point during the afternoon, being WAY off the normal route, his boss called to ask him if he had decided to go to the beach for the afternoon! He told his boss he had been kidnapped by a "big guy from Canada" who wanted to go to the beach instead! We all had a good laugh over that one!

Fernando then took us back across the bridge and showed us some of the neighbourhoods of Lisbon. The streets are very narrow so it is hard to take a photo that shows anything, but we made a couple of stops at churches and parks before he took us back to the hotel.

 Having had a bigger taste of Lisbon, we were ready to board Oceania Riviera on Tuesday.

At Sea Once More

After a very hectic spring we are finally headed back to the sea! It's been longer than usual for us without a cruise and we are expecting an exciting trip. We will be sailing on a line we have not traveled with before - Oceania, on the Riviera. Our route will take us from Lisbon to Rome with lots of stops in Spain, where we have only visited Barcelona before. We are looking forward to relaxing a bit, but we also have a few full day tours planned, a number of them culinary, sampling Spanish, French and Italian regional cuisines. Hope you enjoy following along.

Sorry, no picture of Franklin again; he wouldn't have had time to climb around the suitcases since they were only packed yesterday!