“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…..

In Ken Bates’ back garden - The Sea legs blog day 6

Today we landed on the Cote D’Azur, the little seaside town of Villefranche sur mer, just down the road from Monaco, home of the grumpy, beardy Leeds United and pre-Abramowitz Chelsea, chairman This town is the main cruise port for Nice, but clearly they want the hoi-polloi from cruise liners to keep away from the posh bits. Trust the French not to have a cruise port big enough to dock cruise liners, so we queued for 45 minutes to get on a tender to take us ashore.

Hot enough to boil a monkey’s bum, but lovely all the same. After lunch we hopped on a train to Monaco, only 15 minutes away, and spent the afternoon in a harbourside café and staring, open mouthed, at the Gazillion Euro yachts in the harbour. “Yacht” does not really do them justice; these are really miniature cruise liners. They have teams of lackeys cleaning, polishing, serving, and maintaining 24/7. They are the size of a respectable detached house and probably cost 100 times as much.

Playground of the rich and famous indeed…….

A scrum of Japanese metro proportions, missing only the uniformed “beaters,” got us on to the return train to Villefranche and back to the tender; mercifully no queues this time.

After dinner, which was enjoyed watching Monaco disappear in to the mist, we went to the now obligatory evening show. This evening, it was what Dad would have called “A Good Club Turn” from Dewsbury via Blackpool. He entertained a rapidly diminishing audience with a selection from Neil Diamond to Kurt Weil and finished with the inevitable “Amarillo.”
Sadly quite a few people walked out during his show; rude I thought, the guy had a good voice, probably as good as Neil Sedaka and certainly as good as Tony Christie, but, like Joni said in “Real Good for Free”

“They knew he’d never been on their TV, so they passed his music by”

I couldn’t help wondering that if he’d had just one good, original, song written for him and the right contacts, he might not have been getting off the cruise liner at Linorvo and flying back to Blackpool, but might be sitting on one of those yachts in Monaco harbour sipping champagne and staring back at us staring in.

The Wheel of Fortune,
goes spinning around.
Will the arrow point my way?
Will this be my day?

(Kay Starr)

It’s just another day, de de de de de do! The Sea legs blog day 5

Another day at sea today. Just chillin’ out and enjoying the facilities as we sail past the Balearics at a steady 21 knots up to next landfall at Villefranche-sur-mer.

Pulse rates above 140 again in the gym today. Either I’ll get fit again or drop dead…..

The Ice show was pretty spectacular, but the evening show was average. We managed to avoid the 70’s night…….. too close to reality for me…….

Did we really look that bad 30 years ago (Yes.)

Land Ahoy!! The Sea legs blog day 4

I was woken this morning by a blast on the fog horn at 0715. Out on the balcony the fog was like looking in to a wall of grey-white. Even the still-calm sea, nine decks below was in a grey haze. Every now and then, you could catch glimpses of the Spanish coast; points of hills drifted out of the mist then back in again.

Today it’s Gibraltar, a spit of Britain trapped between Spain and Africa, one of the last remaining specks of pink on that 1950s map I had at school, before the Empire was returned to its rightful owners to do with as they please….

First impressions of Gibraltar were not good; the stench from the harbour after three days at sea was bad. They say sailors can smell land before they can see it; this I now believe!

We walked in to a town centre, crowded with tourists and many shops had signs welcoming our cruise liner. Spanish, not English seemed to be the spoken language of choice here, but the shops and road signs were all in English. In fact you could have been in a small English town, with Marks, BHS and Next all prominent.

The queue for the Gondola up the Rock snaked round the corner, so we took a 25 Euro minibus tour instead. Good choice!

You remember James Burke the manic Tomorrow’s World presenter?

“Look at this, look at that, look at me!”

Well I think he planned the tour.

Eight of us bundled in to a minibus and John, our Gibraltarian driver took off up the precipitous road up the rock like Jason Button. We screeched up behind a queue of similar minibuses and were bundled out.

“Gibraltar, British colony for 300 years…Official language English but we speak also Spanish and also our own dialect, Spanglish……(giggle)

“Over in distance you see Atlas mountains – Africa”

“Ten minutes………………. you take photos..................... come back to bus”

We did as instructed then took off again up the road to the Upper Rock to come screeching to a halt behind another line of minibuses.

“Now.......we do famous Gibraltar caves…….. Discovered by Roman soldiers, equipped as hospital during WW2 ……. Too damp for wounds to heal, never got used…….

'Now concert hall, lots of lovely Stalagmites!!!

“15-20 minutes then I collect you by exit”

John’s description did not do these caves justice, they really were spectacular, the rock formations like gigantic organ pipes from floor to ceiling, and the main cavern like some gigantic Gaudi-Inspired Cathedral.

Out in to the blinding light and heat, and back in to the bus.

“Now we go see Barbary Apes”

Up behind another line of taxis and out in to the heat, and, you guessed it …

“Ten minutes………………. you take photos..................... come back to bus”

Well I have to say that the Barbary Apes are cute, sitting there with their babies, but I couldn’t help making the comparison with the Albanian beggars we saw all those years ago in Montenegro. They sit there with their beautiful sad faces looking up to you and staring; seemingly oblivious to tourists shoving cameras in their faces and cooing. These apes are as tame as those in a zoo and just as dependent for food on the British army (whose job it is to feed them) as their cousins at Whipsnade are on their keepers.

“Back on the Bus please!”

That was the end of our time on the top of the rock, and we hurtled down for our final stop, the 14^th Century Moorish tower.

“Ten minutes!……………….you know the rest…!”

Back to the town, hand over the 50 bucks and out in to the shops again.

While we were up the Rock we missed all the fun in the High St.

Outside Swarovski Jewelers was a mass of yellow tape, Bobbies in pointed helmets and men in those blue paper suits, rubber gloves and boot covers that you see on “Waking the Dead” and similar cop shows.

CSI Gibraltar (yes it DID say that on the side of their van) were out in force.

We had missed an armed robbery…..damn! It would have been at least as much fun as the visit to the Moorish tower……..!

To boldly go - The Sea legs blog day 3

As expected, my sea legs were issued overnight and I’m beginning to feel at home on this floating hotel. Cruising down the West coast of Iberia we are now marking time until landfall on Tuesday. Vicki went to her second makeup seminar; “colour” this time, while I relaxed in the sunshine.

After lunch we checked out the cinema The new Star Trek movie passed a couple of hours, I’ve seen it before, but enjoyed it just as much the second time. After a sedentary couple of hours we hit the gym again for 45 minutes with the sweating hordes, followed by another 45 playing half-court basketball on deck. After a few moments we were joined by a slightly podgy young lad and his mates, to make up a game of three on two. Vicki immediately dropped in to “Teacher mode” and it became almost a coaching session for her two. By 6pm I was wilting in the sun, so we finished a close 20-18 game to Vicki’s team.

After supper we watched the show, this time a Beatles tribute band that had them dancing in the aisles!

Tomorrow, landfall and Gibraltar

Blow winds blow my bonny - oh! The Sea legs blog day 2

For the first time in 55 years, I really now do believe we live on a ball of water, held together by gravity and spinning in infinity. Looking out from the balcony a horizon line made up of the pale blue of the sky and the darker blue of the sea, reaches from each extreme of my vision. I can imagine it's actually curved down at the ends and if I was at a higher point I could see it. In fact I’ve convinced myself, sitting here that if I line up that blue/blue horizon line with the horizontal of the balcony rail, I can actually see that curvature of the horizon against the rail, but it’s probably just my varifocals.

As we sail South West it’s warming up. So much for the legendary Bay of Biscay storms; it’s flat calm. On the top deck at lunchtime the breeze blows warm, and the sky is azure blue. Teeming humanity lounges by the jogging track. A vast array of flesh, hair and cellulite, tattoos and piercings come at you from all angles, as the breeze blows you cool. Some are walking, some are jogging, but most are just sitting or lying in the sun, their day job a distant memory or their retired - ex salesman, ex teacher, ex manager lives extending out in front of them.

Getting in to the swing of things a little now, the food and service are what you’d expect from a decent 4-5 star hotel, the choice is wide and the quality is good. Today, inspired by yesterday’s “secrets of a flatter stomach” seminar, we hit the gym. 45 minutes of jogging, rowing and cycling was enough for the first day.

At dinner we are sharing a table with two couples from somewhere North of Peterborough and are looked after by a Turkish head waiter called Riza and his assistant, Moses. (I kid you not)

After dinner we, went to our first show, the sort of affair that you’d get at 6pm on a Saturday night on ITV. A slightly camp “Captain Jack Harkness” look-alike singer and dancer with a team that would have made Bruno from “Strictly” rave, and Len shout “Seven!” The show was based on Fairy tales and very well put together.

Ended the day looking at the moon setting over the water…….glad I brought my binoculars. We have another day’s cruising on Monday, then landfall in Gibraltar on Tuesday.

Beginning to “chill"…….I think I may be issued with my sea legs overnight!

The Sea legs blog, Blog Day 1

Check in was a well organized friendly experience. No grumpies, just helpful people. This is a US-run ship after all and, say what you like about the Septics, they do know how to do customer service!

Once on board, it was all a bit overwhelming! The ship is the size of a large hotel, 15 decks and a quarter of a mile long. A crew compliment of 1400 and nearly 4000 passengers.

No sign of deck quoits or Kenneth Williams/Barbara Windsor style fitness classes on the poop deck yet, I’m pleased to say , and the ship’s surgeon DOES NOT look like James Robertson Justice……. ……Left hand down a bit……

The compulsory safety drill was run by a nice Italian-American girl with a voice that sounded if she’d been secretly sniffing Helium round the corner before she started the routine. We were lined up and registered at our muster stations and were shown how to don our lifejackets. The orchestra were briefed on what would be appropriate to play as we headed for the lifeboats, and the “How to crawl over a granny to get there first” drill was practiced.

A Mrs Patel (77) from Cleckheaton volunteered to be the designated granny for this trip.

So briefed, off to explore the ship! A main promenade, looking like a cross between a shopping mall and a Las Vegas casino, runs up the centre of the ship on deck 5. There you can buy designer goods, costume jewelry and expensive watches, or just chill in bars and coffee shops.

There is round the clock entertainment, pools, basketball, rock climbing ands ice skating, and even a surf pool. The expression “Butlins on steroids” springs to mind!

There’s a Fitness suite is full of top notch equipment and the usual collection of sweaty trendies in dodgy headbands and lycra shorts.

If that is all too much, we have our own private balcony where we can just sit and read and watch the waves go past at a smooth 18 knots. We are currently somewhere off Brittany heading across the Bay of Biscay; onwards round the Iberian peninsular to Gibraltar.

Today’s itinerary is a cosmetics workshop for Vicki, “Glamorous evening makeup” while I write this blog, then lunch. This will be followed by “Secrets to a Flatter stomach” in the fitness centre, (apparently this does not involve missing lunch) and tenpin bowling in the Pyramid lounge at 4pm……………

No sign of a Hawaiian bar yet, I’m pleased to say, but I am reliably informed that there is a “sexiest men’s legs competition” later but, as I’ve not been issued with my “sea legs” yet I will not be entering today.

What are "sea legs" anyway?

I'm going to find out if I have them soon, as I'm all packed for our 30th Anniversary cruise round the Med, and ready to head for Southampton.

Cats are "doing porridge" and the car is checked out and ready to roll. Ahead for the next 3 days and nights is a sail across the stormy Bay of Biscay and round the Iberian peninsular to Gibraltar, a land I fully expect to be stuck in the 1960s and consist of odd pseudo-British accents, red telephone boxes and bobbies in pointed helmets..............

............................

Cynical 1960's Copper to "Teddy boy"

"Ere, son do your toes go to the end of those pointed shoes?"


Teddy boy,

No, but does your head go to the top of that pointed helmet?"

.......................................................

Oh yes, and the Barbary apes.....


Perhaps they'll fit us with sea legs on the quayside (hope it doesn't hurt!)