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!

Epi(b)log(ue)- The sea legs blog - last entry

The last 3 days of the trip were another blur of ports; Cadiz, Lisbon, and Vigo, then back across the Bay of Biscay and in to Southampton on a dull damp English morning.

Of the three, Cadiz was the stand-out place; a modern city but one in which you could still smell the salt, and feel the ghosts of Magellan, Drake and Columbus. Its old quarter, with narrow streets and Moorish tiled buildings retain much of the feel of an old port, while still having a modern city immediately adjacent.

Vigo on the other hand, was more like Leeds-on-sea than the Spanish version of Whitby that I expected. Much bigger a genuine provincial city.

Sailing out of Lisbon under the "Golden Gate Bridge in miniature" while playing Volleyball on the deck will stick in my mind, mainly due to the precision with which highest extreme of the ship fitted under the bridge by what looked like less than a metre to spare! and a carefully (mis)placed serve would have put the ball amongst the cars and trucks passing above!


Well, we've been back home now for just over a week, and the 14 day trip has begun to sink in, along with the return of reality. We had more fun than I ever expected, and the service, facilities and entertainment were first class.

“You’re in the mood for a dance; ….. and when you get the chance!!!.....- The Sea legs blog day 10

Day ten at sea was uneventful, really. Hot as hell and a day for hiding in the cooler parts of the ship; the gym and the coffee bars; watching the shows and generally chilling out.

I have to confess to a horrible realisation …….

Today I finally realised I was not going to make “Strictly” next year after a Cha Cha lesson from…

“…………Our resident Dance champions Olga and Dima……”

1,2,3 cha-cha, 1,2,3 cha-cha………….well it is a cruise so you just have to, don’t you?

I exchanged my sea legs for a pair of “Cuban knees” and got the basics of the steps but I don’t think I’ll be taking it up as a hobby…..

Turning back West- The Sea legs blog day 9

After the crush in Rome on Saturday, we set sail back West, and our next port of call was Cagliari on the Italian Island of Sardinia; quiet as a mouse on a Sunday morning. Just a few tourist shops open and locals lounging in cafes or heading to morning mass.

My lasting impression of Cagliari, sadly, is of a run-down town where every available vertical surface appears to be tagged with graffiti. What makes these people want to put their “art” on show on someone else’s property is just beyond me. Much of it is not actually “art” in the “Banksy” mode; kissing constables are acceptable to me as free public art if they are well drawn or say something.
I can live with that.
Tagging seems just so much scrawl in a language that escapes me, or just goes over my head. While not quite “Kevin 4 Sharon” as you might get in some of the more run down areas of England, it just seems as much pointless vandalism; an expression of frustration with a society where the majority already have far more than our grandparents ever dreamed of, and, at least in the European Union, many more opportunities to better themselves.

Cowering between the graffiti, Cagliari has a few nice touches; churches, cafes, little squares and statues to distract you, but we soon returned to the ship and left it behind. Sardinia’s mountainous inland is meant to be worth spending some time exploring, but that would have to be left for another trip.

Yes, I’m feeling, Glad (iator) all over! - The Sea legs blog day 8

Rome! The eternal city!!

Bl***y hot and busy if you ask me! Well we did arrive on a Saturday in high summer, so serves us right really…

Our shuttle bus deposited us outside St Peter’s square, and in the in the five hours we were there, we had plans to “do” The Spanish Steps, The Trevi fountains, Colluseum, Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and the Pantheon.

We didn’t count on the queues in the Vatican Museum

Fortunately we forked out 25 bucks each to get a “queue jumping pass” in to the Vatican Museum and sailed past the queue that by 11am was snaking round the Vatican walls and off in to the middle distance. Once inside and through the metal detectors, it was all Italian efficiency and organisation. J The guide did not have enough tickets, so we had to hang about until she found some more, but at least the audio guides worked. We had a map with numbers and buttons to press, but the first number, an Egyptian gallery was not to be found. Even at Orford castle in sleepy Suffolk, they could come up with the “neat” idea of marking the galleries with the same numbers as on the guide map, but not in Rome, oh no, just the Gallery names, in Italian on the walls and English on the map!

We decided rather than follow the numbered route; we’d just follow the crowds and push the relevant number when we found a gallery name we recognised.

There are corridors upon corridors of sculptures and treasures built up by Popes over the centuries. I wonder if that is what St Peter intended his successors to do with his church’s money? I doubt it, but I that said it was a vast and wonderful collection. As we approached the Sistine chapel the crowds got more and more dense, and in once in there (much smaller than I expected) you couldn’t see the floor and a sea of faces seemed to merge seamlessly with Michelangeo’s stunning ceiling artworks.

The excellent audio guide described the images of the Last Judgement in great detail; from St Bartholomew, at the feet of Christ, flayed alive and holding his skin, to St Catherine, broken on her wheel and St Sebastian, body pierced by arrows; the horrors of the end of days in all its gothic detail. While at the foot of the painting, the boatman took the dead over the Styx, and the tourists just below them milled around and chattered like more souls in torment.

It was powerful stuff, and three hours of our five gone, seemingly in a flash. Coffee then out in the sunshine again, the earlier rain showers having abated, and the pavements had steamed dry we dived in to the back streets of Rome with a pitifully ineffective map. Too long in the Vatican meant that we missed out the Spanish steps and the Colliseum, but we flew past the others, found a magnificent market, got lost and just made the bus with 2 minutes to spare.

I’m sure we’ll return and spend some quality time in this magnificent city. Trying to do it in 5 hours can only be a taster.

Taking the Pisa and dodging the Tourist Police - The Sea legs blog day 7

Pisa and Florence today, on a 5 hour whistle stop tour. The one thing about cruising that could wear a bit thin is that you never really have enough time in port to appreciate the finer points. Most ports seem to be a long bus ride from the place of interest.

With only 30 minutes at Pisa, it was another James Burke – inspired itinerary:

Hike to rendezvous point
Drink Cappuccino
Take picture of your partner pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower

Drink Water (31 degrees in the shade)

Let partner take picture of you pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower

Buy Pisa Hat

Battle through crowds to Bus Park
Back on bus

Florence was slightly (but not much) more relaxed. In Florence you run the gauntlet of Africans selling dodgy goods. Dolce and Gabbana bags (or Dodgy and Kabanos as they say in Poland), and posters of the great works of art. You get dire warnings on the street that you as the purchaser can get fined for buying this stuff as well as the street hawkers. You really have to give these guys due credit though, they work for the few Euros they make, and it has to be better than scraping a living and dodging bullets and beardy religious police back in Somalia or Chad.

Vicki liked one of the posters so we started the bartering process.

“How much?”

“35 Euros!”

“(expletive deleted)

J & V begin to walk off…….He follows…. (got him on the hook)

“I can do you special price!”

“Oh Yeah?”

“20 Euro for two!"

“Give us a break ……….”

Walk off again… he’s still following us. It’s looking like a 5 euro poster to me…..

“15 Euro, two posters…..?”

“We only want one…… 5 Euros, no more!”

We get a look like we’ve just drowned his pet dog, then suddenly he realises he’s wandered too far away from his pitch and must have got the tip from his buddy, because he grabbed his posters and scarpered behind a colonnade.
So close to a deal I couldn’t see him giving up and sure enough, a few metres further on he popped out from behind another colonnade, poster ready wrapped in an elastic band with a resigned look on his face.

“Five Euros?”

“Five Euros…..”

I love bartering…..