Saturday 22 September 2018. The ship has sailed overnight to Korčula in Croatia and we are anchored offshore which means using the ship's tender boats to get to shore.
Transferring at sea from ship to tender boat is not as bad as it might sound. You walk down the usual sized gangway but instead of stepping onto land, you step onto a square platform against which the tender boat is securely tied, so tight that it is a simple step onto the smaller boat. Crew members are there to help and you are normally onto the small boat without even realising it!
The tender boats reward you with the best view you will get of the ship. Here is Marella Celebration looking much larger from the waterline than it does from a dock!
As we head into the landing stage, Korčula entices us onwards with some lovely scenery.
Onto dry land and the scenery does not get any less spectacular! Korčula is a medieval town and so built on the summit of a hill. We are walking around that hill here with a view to seeing bits we missed when we were here last in 2009.
One of the narrow streets leading to the old centre of town. We will see it later on!
Carrying on, we come to a couple of guns. These are evidence of the need to protect the island in the past from pirates and the Ottoman Turkish empire.
Around the corner from the gun emplacement a small harbour witnesses the sailing of a ferry to the many Croatian islands of the Dalmatian Coast. There are plenty of people still queueing.
Following the path round from the harbour brings us to the opposite side of the old city and the magnificent gateway with its sweeping staircase. The Venetian winged lion is carved into the gateway - the Venetians were here before the Ottomans and their emblem can be seen all over the Adriatic and Mediterranean.
We head down the hill rather than up the staircase and arrive at a sun trap with a view of the Marella Celebration swinging gently at her anchor.
Another change of direction brings us to a museum to Marco Polo, the explorer who lived / visited here. There is a claim he was born here, though most sources favour Venice as his likely birthplace in the year 1254.
Our route brings us back to the same bit of seafront and we have a drink in a pavement cafe with plenty of fellow travellers to talk to. Then I find a bench and spend another hour scratching away with the pencil.
Then we climb the main street and the staircase to pass through the gate into the medieval city.
There are cafes, bars, restaurants, a cathedral and as many gift shops and museums as you could wish for. There's another Marco Polo house, a restaurant with a sign that he found both "food and great love" within. Good job his wife never found out...
We get back to the ship to find Tomas and Maris doing a spot on the Lido deck. Lunchtimes onboard for me are usually catered for with some melon and pineapple and very little else. Cooked breakfasts are our usual start to the day even if only one slice of toast with a few beans and the evening meal in the waiter service restaurant usually defeats us. I can't eat huge amounts any more alas.
It is Maris's birthday tomorrow. To celebrate we have booked a table for the four of us in the Kora La restaurant for our final night.
The evening comes. Tomas has been keen to hear me play something by The Shadows. I play a Fender Stratocaster guitar at home with my duo Creeping Bentgrass and am not sure how it will sound on Tomas's guitar which has a more acoustic tone and has no tremolo arm or whammy bar to bend the notes down. But I play Wonderful Land and it gets a huge round of applause so it must have sounded alright! King, the guitarist/singer from Hemingways bar on Deck 5 had come up to listen too - agh, the pressure, the pressure LOL.
I follow it with a crowd pleaser - Manfred Mann's Doo Wah Diddy Diddy. There is no way that an audience who lived through the sixties can stay quiet through that one and I am able to leave the appropriate gaps for the audience to sing (sing? roar!) out the responses and chorus lines.
King joins Tomas and Maris to sing Wonderful Tonight to Maris for her birthday.
Midnight comes and with it Maris's special day. The Horizons staff bring out a cake and two glasses of some fiery spirit!
I'm not sure what time this was, but somewhere around 12:30am. We are in Hemingways Bar to catch King's last session and are happily messing about taking photos when Fran nudges me. "Your name's being called!"
So now I find myself doing a spot with just my own backing on guitar, no backing track. I do three numbers, True Love Ways by Buddy Holly, followed by Tell Laura I Love Her by Ricky Valance and finally Eddie Cochrane's song Three Steps To Heaven. The grin afterwards is sheer relief...!
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments must be passed by moderator before appearing on this post.