Hola!

Once upon a time I wrote about race cars for a living. I was quite disappointed, therefore, when I discovered that we were missing the Monaco Grand Prix (held, as you can imagine, in the Principality of Monaco) by one week. To Europeans, the Monaco Grand Prix is the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500 all wrapped into one, it is certainly the “Grand Daddy” of the Formula One circuit.

Our stop in Monaco came last Sunday. I was pleased to see that they still had many of the stands set up on the race course area (it is a street course) including the start finish line, pit boxes and press box. I had some fun pointing out all the racing stuff to Dennis and Grace and explaining what everything was.

The ship docked Sunday morning around 9:00 AM. We had to anchor out in the port and tender in. The sea was kind of rough and the tender ride (although a short distance) made me queasy. Jennifer had gotten off the ship before the rest of us because she wanted to try and take the train into Nice. Being a Sunday, however, made the trip difficult and we ended up running into her later in the day.

Monaco is only a few miles large. The two big attractions are the Casino in Monte-Carlo (of James Bond fame) and “the rock” (or palace area) where the royal family still lives and where Grace Kelly and her husband Prince Renier are buried.

Like many of the cities that we have stopped in, much of what is worth seeing is up-hill. Dennis, Grace and I climbed up the hill to the Casino. Everywhere you look you see something more expensive then the moment before. We enjoyed the views of the million-dollar yachts, condos and cars. I saw at least three Ferraris just driving down the street. It was pretty cool.

We didn’t go into the casino, you have to be properly dressed (no open toed shoes, no jeans), you have to have your passport on you (I guess so that they can prove who you are when you start to lose money) and to get any further than the lobby you have to play one of the slots, which start at 10 Euros. Still, it was impressive even from the outside.


After hanging around the casino for a while Dennis decided to go off and do some exploring on his own. Grace and I made our way over to the other side of the principality to “the rock”. Monaco has a series of lifts and elevators that take people up the hills, I couldn’t find the one that was supposed to get us to the top of the rock though and so we climbed the stairs.

I liked “the rock” the best. There were narrow streets full of cafes and kitchy shops. We didn’t go into the palace but did go into the cathedral where many of the royal family (including Princess Grace) are buried. We ran into Mark and Leslie in the Cathedral, which was kind of funny, and eventually made our way back toward the famous aquarium that sits on a cliff by the sea.

The Aquarium was started by Jacques Cousteau and holds a collection of exotic sea animals that he gave to the former prince of Monaco. I considered checking it out (we had a lot of time in Monaco, 10 hours) but decided that the 12 Euro entrance fee was too steep. There was a series of elevators by the aquarium that took you back down to sea level so Grace and I descended the hill and headed back to the ship. By this time, the Ms. Rotterdam had pulled into the only dock available for a ship her size. The Ms. Melody (who had been docked there previously) had pulled out to leave for the day. I was glad that we didn’t have to take the tender again.

After we boarded the ship I spent a relaxing afternoon hanging out on deck. They had a barbeque on the lido deck so we skipped the dinning room and went to that. Jennifer and I hung out at the Lido bar and chatted with our friend Johnson while sipping Apple Martinis. We didn’t pull away from Monaco until after 10:00 PM. The stars were out and somewhere in the distance they were shooting off fireworks. It was a very nice end to the day.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Our stop on Monday was supposed to be Marseille, France. A few days beforehand, however, the captain announced that there was a strike at the dock in Marseille and we were forced to change our destination. As a result, we spent Monday in Toulon, France.

Toulon is about an hour from Marseille. As I had not done any research on Toulon, and as we were coming off a few very long days in port, we decided not to try and find our way to Marseille but to stay in Toulon. I have to be honest that I was not too impressed by our new port of call. Toulon clearly does not have many cruise-ships visit often. There really isn’t much to see there and the port area was more run-down than most we’ve been in.

Jennifer and I got off the boat in the morning to see what we could see. She needed to find a post office and pharmacy which we eventually did. Most of the shops in France are closed on Monday so there wasn’t much to do but wander around. We came back to the boat in time for lunch and then spent some time at the pool. I also hopped on-line and posted the blog entry about Italy. It was actually pretty nice to have a relaxing day and from what we were told by our dinner mates, Marseille was ok but we didn’t miss much by not going.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Today we docked in Barcelona, Spain. Besides Rome, this was one of the stops that really intrigued me. We got in early, around 7:30, and were cleared to leave the boat about 8:00 AM. Grace had decided that she couldn’t keep up with Jennifer and I anymore so she signed up for a tour through the ship. Dennis just wanted to get off and see what he could see by wandering and decided not to join us girls on our day in Barcelona.

J and I left the boat around 8:15 AM. The cruise terminals are in an industrial area requiring passengers to take a bus from the cruise terminal to the starting point of Las Ramblas, the main thoroughfare that leads into the heart of Barcelona. We were on the first shuttle (around 8:30 AM) with a few other hearty souls. Our goal was to get to a famous church designed by the architect Antonio Gaudi (called Sagrada Familia) before the tour busses from the ship did.

Most of Barcelona is very easy to explore on foot. Sagrada Familia however is a bit further away, requiring either the Metro or a taxi. We opted for the Metro and had a very pleasant experience. So far, the Metro systems in most of the cities that we’ve tried (Athens, Rome, and now Barcelona) are very nice and easy to maneuver. Barcelona was perhaps the easiest; it had signs in Spanish, Catalonian, and English. There were signs all over the old part of town pointing tourists to the main attraction. And, most convenient for us, La Sagrada Familia has its own Metro stop.

I did not know much about Antonio Gaudi before visiting Barcelona. To be fair, all I know is what my trusty guidebook told me. Gaudi died before he finished Sagrada Familia. It is a grand church with crazy sculptures (including fruit topping the spires) on the outside and pristine white on the inside. There was scaffolding on the inside and out… the city is still trying to finish the church more than 100 years later.

One of the attractions (besides the pure craziness of the architecture) of the church is the trip to the top of one of the spires. Jen and I decided we would like the birds eye view so we paid the two Euros for the lift up the tower, climbed the 40 or so stairs to the very top and then took the windy stairs all the way down. The view at the top (and on the way down) was well worth the money.


After descending the tower we took a spin around the rest of the inside of the church and then headed on back to the Metro to go back to the area closer to the port. We knew we wanted to see the Picasso Museum but we were also hungry so we decided to find some lunch in La Ribera area, a very old area of Barcelona that once was a haven for artists and now has many night clubs (which were not open, obviously) and artist’s studios. We ended up eating at a little café in the garden of a Textile museum very near the Picasso museum.

The Picasso museum was very interesting. It focuses mainly on his younger and later days (ironically, his most famous paintings are not actually housed in the museum), specifically the time he spent in Barcelona. The museum did a very good job of describing the evolution of Picasso’s artwork. Although most people associate him with crazy, abstract art, Picasso’s early days saw him copying the styles of the Impressionists and other famous artists of the time.

After the museum we headed back through La Ribera area to the Bari Gotic. This area, also known as the Old Town, also has winding, narrow (cobblestone) streets and cafes galore. We walked past the large cathedral and were disappointed to discover that they were doing construction (scaffolding covered the façade). We ended up wandering our way back to Las Ramblas and strolled the famous boulevard. There was a fascinating market that was selling all kind of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood and spices. Eventually we made our way back down Las Ramblas to the statue of Christopher Columbus and boarded the bus back to the ship.

I liked Barcelona. The architecture was amazing (everywhere you turned there was a different shaped building, many times with crazy art work on it) and the town was easy to navigate. Barcelona has a lot of green space (parks, piazzas, etc.) which made it feel much more like a small town than a big city. When we took the Metro back from Sagrada Familia we got off around the University of Barcelona. It was very nice looking area with tall trees and pretty flowers.

Interestingly, I saw more American restaurants in Barcelona than in any other city we’ve been to. There was a Burger King, KFC, Subway and Pizza Hut, just to name a few.

Perhaps the topper, though, was this…

Jennifer and I returned to the ship around 3:30. We ended up being on the same bus back as Grace who had exited her private tour and did a little shopping before heading back. I’ve decided that I really like getting up early, seeing the sites and then coming back to the ship in time relax a little before dinner.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Our second day at sea; and a relaxing day it was. I spent the morning working on this blog post (it takes longer than you think to write all this stuff) on a deck chair on the third deck while listening to music. After a while I went up to the pool to layout in the sun a bit. It was chilly in the shade on Deck 3 but nearly perfect by the pool. I’m on my second book of the trip already. The first I finished last week (not long after we got here) and J is now reading it. I brought another from home but saw they had the seventh Harry Potter book in the ships library and decided I wanted to read that again. Those who know me well won’t be surprised that I’m almost done with that book too… reading is a great activity on a sea day.

We had our second formal night last night so I eventually went back to the room to clean up and make myself pretty. The highlight at dinner was a group (pack?) of whales that came close to the ship (at least we were told by those who were closer to the water that they were whales). We were in the dinning room so all I could see was a bunch of animals with fins coming up for air… it was still pretty cool though.

When dinner was over, Jen and I visited Johnson in the Lido Deck Bar and hung out there until he closed around 9:30. Then we found one of the smaller bar areas on deck 5 and hung out there until it was time to go up to the Crows Nest for the Black and White Ball.

The Black and White ball featured “Nice and Easy”, the live band that’s been playing on the ship, plus an appearance by the Captain and his crew. Everyone was dressed to the nines and the Crows Nest was, for once, pretty crowded. All in all, it was a good time. The party was a cross between a fancy wedding reception and an adult prom. It made for great people watching (there is nothing cuter than elderly couples dancing).

Around Midnight last night we passed through the straight of Gibraltar (Africa was on one side and Spain was on the other) and therefore past the Rock of Gibraltar. Dennis and Grace stayed up try and see it but Jen and I went to bed. Once again, the older folks stayed up later than the younger folks… it’s a pattern we’ve been joking about.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

This morning, about 7:30 AM, we docked in Cadiz, Spain. Cadiz is known as the “gateway” to Seville. Through my research I knew that there are actually just as many things to see here in Cadiz as there are in Seville. Knowing that we probably wouldn’t have the energy to trek to Seville we decided to stay in Cadiz. We exited the ship around 8:30 AM this morning. The entire city is on this kind of peninsula in which we are docked at the port area. It is small enough that we were able to walk to the other side and see the beaches on the Atlantic Ocean.

Much like the more gothic areas of Barcelona, Cadiz has narrow cobblestone streets lined with shops and café’s. It also has a plethora of churches, including a huge Cathedral that sports a golden dome (although it isn’t as impressive as the one at ND). They do a lot of fishing in this town, and even now (sitting on the ship) I can’t quite shake that sort of slightly fishy smell from my nostrils. Apparently there are well known for Sardines here.

We were on shore today for about five hours. We didn’t really need more than that as everything is within easy distance from the ship (unlike Barcelona you literally get off the ship and are in the main square area) and the main attraction is just kind of wandering around, getting lost in the maze of streets.

All four of us started out together today but eventually Dennis peeled off and then Grace too. Jen and I stayed ashore for lunch at a café where we had some terrific Spanish paella full of yummy rice and fresh seafood. I was surprised by the number of dogs roaming the streets of Cadiz. I would have thought, with all of the fish around, I would have seen more Gatos. I did see one, come to think of it, keeping my streak of meeting a cat in every country we visit alive.

Tonight there is a special Chef’s Dinner on board and then I think I might go see a movie (August Rush) in the ships movie theatre. Tomorrow we will be in Lisbon, Portugal, another city that I am very interested to see. I’m not sure yet what my plan for Lisbon is so I suppose I will spend some time this afternoon to figure it out…