Containment at Livorno Port

Wednesday 22 May 2013. Early morning once again and also once again David and Jeannie are up on deck well before we tumble up the steps to the Promenade Deck. By the time we get there we are well into the port. David has taken a good hundred photos of ships of all sorts and we are passing an empty row of dockside cranes.

Presumably the operator of the nearest crane does haircuts in his spare time...

We are moving very slowly and pass the Catharina Schulte which is being unloaded to our starboard side.

The photos hardly do her justice - she is huge. Each of those metal containers is a lorry load and they are stacked 12 across and up to six high. There are at least ten rows of the same from front to rear of the ship not counting the hold of the ship! So without counting what she carries inside there are 360 lorry loads stacked on the deck.

As we pass by, leaving the cranes behind on the opposite side a couple of hundred containers are waiting for a fleet of lorries to pick them up and take them to where they need to go.

Fran threads her way through the deck loungers. It's still early enough for the deck to be deserted yet. A few passengers are at breakfast, but the majority are being sensible and are still snoring...

This is the self-service counter breakfast bar. David has sneaked into the middle of the unsuspecting half-asleep passengers and snapped them in the midst of their jollity... We decided that self-service was much too common and descended a few decks to be waited upon!

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Breakfast and a Windmill

Yes, you don't often see the two words "breakfast" and "windmill" together, but there you go...!

Saturday started with a celebration.

Miss Franny has finished work in order to be able to look after our granddaughter, Grace, once Gill goes back to work. So the day after the slightly tearful goodbye at Sainsbugs - it was more the rest of the staff than Fran I think - we met up with Eddie and Gill and David and Jeannie for breakfast at Quilligans.

David and Jeannie had phoned to pre-order a bottle of cava and some orange juice and we enjoyed a Bucks Fizz breakfast! Love you guys!

Later in the day we were round at Gill and Eddie's and walked round to the Marsh Mill craft village, where Fran and Gill wanted to buy some things.

I took the camera along to get some shots of the windmill.

And speaking of photography, I'm afraid I bust my film scanner one night this week. So if anyone was wondering why it had gone slightly quiet on my Flickr site (no longer active) then that's why. It's going to have to wait until I find a replacement.

Considering how long I have had it though, I should think I could probably get an upgrade in quality or at least size resolution. And I'm looking for one that can do my 120 roll film negatives and slides too.

Windmills, Wind Pumps Watermills Index

Foreign Food, Winter Gardens and Footwear

Good Friday. Name and nature. We set off this morning with breakfast in town with David and Jeannie. I almost decided to forego the fry-up but I've never liked muesli since almost drowning a while ago - a strong currant pulled me in...

Anyway, Fran had said to take my camera as the Continental market was in town. This was a French pastries and bread stall but the one that had me almost forgetting I'd just stuffed bacon and eggs down my chops was the German one opposite. I've never really trusted sausages that are admitted by the makers to be wurst, but the stallholder had shovelled a massive amount of potato slices into a massive pan and the smell of those scallops was drawing people from far and wide. I desisted easily though after a full English - and I was supporting the home country!

The Winter Gardens has been having a bit of a refurb recently. The doors were open this morning though so we thought we'd have a shufti!

Nice and shiny (I presume they haven't yet got round to washing the outside of the glass panes in the arched roof - and to be fair, access looks as thugh it may be a bit of a job!)

This hasn't really changed but I've never got a decent photo of it before. The Galleon Bar is themed around an old sailing ship and is absolutely stunning inside. Normally filled with people every night trying to grab a drink at half time from the theatre and neck it quick in order to get back to their seats for the second half!

The adjoining amusement arcade has lost its machines and is now a cafeteria. Looks a little bit like Jazz Age styling.

Oh! And there's one other thing to show you...

I've been fancying this front shoe for ages... It's just a touch expensive but wouldn't it look great on stage?!? Sooner or later I'm going to ask if they've got one for the other foot...

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Sailing Into Livorno

The morning of 9 July 2008. The Island Star is making her way into Livorno harbour as we make our way up onto the deck.

We have been here before a couple of years ago but the only thing I could remember about it was that the harbour was as much an industrial port as a tourist port and that there were large piles of gravel waiting to be loaded onto cargo ships.

We sail past this pier with port authority buildings on it. Someone had taken the trouble to design a bit of landscaping and grass on it - a nice touch! It's always fascinating to watch other people work and in particular to see how other industries that you aren't familiar with go about their business.

In addition there's a strong design element to dockside cranes and floating pontoons, small islands and blue sea that a photographer can't ignore!

It must have been fascinating in the days before those huge containers that you see everywhere these days. Watching cargoes being swung up out of ships, wondering whether a car, or a piano, or a large unidentifiable piece of machinery would emerge from the hold, swinging on the end of a chain. There is a large marina attached to the harbour, which anyway, leads into a series of canals. More about those in a future posting.

We carried on along the deck and headed for the Island Star's Beachcomber Restaurant. The previous night we had dined in the Steak Restaurant and someone had a birthday. A group of waiters had come in to sing an elongated and exuberant Happy Birthday to her and afterwards (so Fran says) the waiters nodded the guitarist over to me. "I have a song for you, Sir," he said and started to sing Don MacLean's Vincent (Starry starry night). I knew it would surprise him so I joined in loudly to sing harmony with him. The room went dead silent and a lot of applause burst out as we finished. His eyes were twinkling - there is always a special bond that quickly forms whenever people sing or play music together. Now as we entered the restaurant, any waiters who had been in the Steak Restaurant at the time came forward to say hello and to point out empty tables or just to talk. My guitarist friend made a point of passing a couple of friendly words each time he saw us afterwards.

Breakfast over with, we came back out onto deck to find another cruise ship, the Royal Princess, on the opposite side of our pier. She seemed absolutely deserted. Was she at the start of a cruise, or had they made going on excursions compulsory?!?

I can't recall ever seeing something that lay quite so flat on the water as this green-decked curiosity that came by! Does anyone know what it is or what it does? Leave a comment and put us out of our misery! Ships and boats of all sizes come into Livorno. There are some excellent excursions from Livorno, including both Florence and Pisa. Again though, we had done both of these in the past and were looking forward to a boat trip along the canals of Livorno itself.

Will we be boarded by pirates? Will our canal trip end in disaster? Will I just make something up for dramatic effect? Hmmm... no somehow I never seem to have to do that... Life as a nutter is interesting enough!

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