Bilbao, “el paises vascos”

The Spaghetti Files, day 5

Discovered yesterday that we have two free tours included in the cruise package! Trips to Bilbao and Santiago de Compostella.

Bonus!

Early alarm call at 7am, already in Getxo harbour, then a quick cuppa and a stroll round the deck while V gets herself ready for breakfast. There was the usual scrum for breakfast, then on to the tour bus and away in to Bilbao. My initial impression is the similarity to Sheffield; not just because of its recent past as the steel capital of Spain, but the situation with high hills and the post-industrial landscape, now filled with new housing and shopping areas.

The bus took us past the sights, the Titanium-clad Guggenheim museum with its floral dog, and dropped us in the old town where we were left to wander around on our own due to the guide setting off before giving everyone a toilet break. Bad form if you ask me! Like most of Spain, going to the toilet involves buying a couple of “cafes con leche.” The extent of my Spanish these days.

Bilbao is a very impressive place; it has had huge amounts of investment to transform a run-down steel town in to a modern European city of culture. Clean? The total lack of litter in the streets made me realise what shit-holes London or Manchester are by comparison and, having watched the feral looting thugs on Sky News last night, I just felt even more ashamed to be British.

I asked our guide where the money came from to fund this investment and it seems to be a very good example of the type of public-private partnership that the new UK government is moving towards. I asked him about debts and apparently Bilbao is the only Spanish city that does not have any! If that is true we have something to learn from them.

Returning to Getxo, past the mansions of the rich and influential of Bilbao's past and present, you realise that this is the Monte Carlo of Northern Spain; mansions owned by olive oil magnates and steel barons who've now sold their old steel mills, brick by brick, machine by machine, to Mital, to rebuild in India where the labour's cheaper and less demanding. I guess it must be these same companies that have backed the government and invested in Bilbao's reconstruction.

La Belle France

The Spaghetti Files day 3-4

One full day, sailing South West getting warmer as we go and beginning to feel like a holiday. Despite its bad press, breakdowns, collisions with Argentinian harbour walls the MSC Opera is not half bad. Not half good either, when compared with the “Independence of the Seas” that we sailed on last year. Like it or not, the Americans know how to do customer service, and entertainment. The “Opera” is clean and well kept but somehow the food and the service, while adequate, doesn't quite match the genuine 5 star rating of the Independence. It's been said before, but I think they suffer slightly from doing everything in 5 languages, causing it to all be a bit “rushed” for my liking. That said, if you want a “multicultural experience” the Opera is for you.

La Rochelle was only memorable for the industrial harbour that you land at, where you are “carted around in buses surrounded by.........” In fact I remember very little of note in La Rochelle, apart from three defensive towers, a craft market, and a very pleasant Frenchman with immaculate English that sold us a lovely bracelet, sorting out at least part of the annual “what am I going to buy for a birthday present for Vicki?” nightmare.

La Belle France

The Spaghetti Files day 3-4

One full day, sailing South West getting warmer as we go and beginning to feel like a holiday. Despite its bad press, breakdowns, collisions with Argentinian harbour walls the MSC Opera is not half bad. Not half good either, when compared with the “Independence of the Seas” that we sailed on last year. Like it or not, the Americans know how to do customer service, and entertainment. The “Opera” is clean and well kept but somehow the food and the service, while adequate, doesn't quite match the genuine 5 star rating of the Independence. It's been said before, but I think they suffer slightly from doing everything in 5 languages, causing it to all be a bit “rushed” for my liking. That said, if you want a “multicultural experience” the Opera is for you.

La Rochelle was only memorable for the industrial harbour that you land at, where you are “carted around in buses surrounded by.........” In fact I remember very little of note in La Rochelle, apart from three defensive towers, a craft market, and a very pleasant Frenchman with immaculate English that sold us a lovely bracelet, sorting out at least part of the annual “what am I going to buy for a birthday present for Vicki?” nightmare.

Dutch Spaghetti met kaas

The Spaghetti Files day 2

Day two took us to Amsterdam to drop off and pick up the Dutch contingent. Now I understand the strange diversion North; the Cruise actually starts and ends in Amsterdam and they drop off and pick up stragglers on the way.

The Amsterdam Ship Canal from the North Sea in to the city centre is quite an experience, floating along at 15 knots, 10 storeys up, looking over the flatland vista of huge wind turbines, and massive barges.

Amsterdam city looks a somehow more modern since the last time I visited without a taxi dispatch salesman in tow, some 20 years ago. The harbour and docks area has (like most European cites) gone gang-busters with expansion; what is it about city dwellers that attracts them to slightly smelly former docks? Maybe it's our distant amphibian genes.

We spent the day wandering amongst the narrow streets and canals of the old quarter, still awash with Asian restaurants, cannabis cafés and (this always amuses me) signs for “slagroom” maybe that's what the note in the ship's instruction manual “go as hore” referred to, but I'm reliably informed that it has something to do with cream cakes. Oh the joys of language!

We ended up with a gourmet lunch of pizza, muffins and coffee squatting on the floor of the memorial in Dam square. We know how to live... :-)

A final wander round a market that seemed to consist mainly of junk, bicycle parts and tee shirts with vaguely drug-themed logos, then we made our way back to the ship in time for the lifeboat drill.

Now, imagine if you can, what Italian lifeboat drill is going to be like. Firstly, everyone will be checked for the correct designer labels and issued with Armarni sunglasses. Then the ship's hairdresser ensures that none of the ladies get in to the lifeboat without a shampoo and set, and a full manicure, while all men under the age of 40 are instructed on how to ensure that their mothers get a seat with a sea view. At one point a potentially dangerous situation occurs where a group of Italian teenagers flatly refuse to don the life jackets because, “like , orange-a just does not-a-go with my green shoes!” Finally, in a flurry of arm-waving everyone else makes a mad scramble for the boats.

Tomorrow a full day at sea, sailing down to la Rochelle for our first landfall in France.

“Standing on the Dock at Southampton, Trying to get to Holland or France”

The Spaghetti Files day 1

We were woken up at 7am by a ring on the doorbell from Slavek, our Polish Builder calling for the keys to workshop@g4bao so he could finish off. We got a tale of woe from him; poor lad's van had broken down and he had had to drive up to Doncaster late last night to look at a replacement. From the sound of it, the local pikeys must have had a good deal, but he seems to think the van is sound. Once up and about we eventually got away by about 9-30 and had an uneventful drive down to Southampton. Ended up in an Industrial estate instead of the docks at one point, but the embarkation went like a dream. One our from pulling up at the dock gates to going in to our cabin. So far so good. Compared to the “Independence” the “MSC Opera” is a pale second best, but so far they seem pretty efficient, the cabin is compact and functional and so signs of breaking down or hitting the harbour wall as we cruised out of the Solent and up the Channel.

I was amused to read in the ship's manual, “instructions for going as hore”

Clearly one of the evening events will have a “Tarts and Vicars” theme. Now, where did I put my suspender belt?

The spaghetti files - day -1

Well 21 hours to go. Just watching Leeds lose their first game of the season 3-1 at Southampton. I will NOT be wearing my Leeds shirt on the quayside tomorrow.

The Spaghetti Files Day -2

We're off cruising again! 2 days to go.

This time on the aptly named MSC "Opera" an Italian-run cruise liner famous for breaking down in the Baltic last May shortly after taking a chunk out of an Argentinian harbour wall in March.

Obviously a Comic Opera

It's going to be fun!