Ibiza - Sun, Sea and Sadly Nothing Else...

11 August 2006. Our last day on the cruise! We visit Ibiza, island of sun, sea and Sky TV crews trying to catch people being mucky! We hadn't booked a tour this day so again got off the ship and made our own way around. Another very hot day, meant that I was soon looking for something to drink. Luckily bars and pavement cafes are not that uncommon in Ibiza! However this is very early morning. Ibiza seemed almost deserted! Those holidaymakers who come for the night life are not going to be up and about at 9 o'clock in the morning! We found a series of small shopping pedestrian streets and wound our way up and down them. As expected there were lots of music shops selling CDs of club music. Clothes shops too with some stunning linen skirts and dresses but the prices were quite stunning too! As an ex-leatherworker, Fran's nose always seeks out the leather shops! I was almost tempted to buy a suede waistcoat, but the UK, or perhaps all of the aviation world, was in the crisis of a new type of terrorist threat and all hand luggage had been banned on flights so our suitcase space was at a premium as cameras would have to go in! We had a wander through some deserted back streets, full of character and populated only by a few thin cats. The morning approached the afternoon and the streets were still deserted. It felt a bit eerie somehow and we made our way back to the port area and the ship. As it was our last night we treated ourselves to silver service treatment in the Island Star's Steak House restaurant. Then the packing was interesting with my camera and lenses, Fran's handbag and all our books, stereos and phones having to go in the suitcases. It was an absolute joy to get on the aeroplane though. No one standing for ages blocking the aisle whilst looking for that last minute thing they desperately needed from their hand luggage that had already been placed in an overhead locker... I was pleased to see everything undamaged once we got home. At Manchester airport a girl had opened her case immmediately to find her phone had melted in her case! That was the first of four cruises we took on the Island Star. You can find the others on this blog.

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Barcelona by Bike

10 August 2006. The Island Star has brought us to Barcelona on our first ever visit to mainland Spain. The port is a mixture of industrial and cruise terminal with several office blocks and a cable car overhead that comes from the top of a nearby hill, and over to a tower built on a man-made island wharf. Presumably no one gets off there but stay on as the car turns round for the return journey. We were being incredibly active that day... The ship carried a compliment of mountain bikes and today we were going to join the two Austrian bike guides - Ollie and Alex and spend half a day riding round Barcelona. 27 of us went out to tour Barcelona by bike. Our group of 15 was led by Alex, who was far too fit. If I do a tour again I want it to be led by someone as knackered as me! There wasn't much chance to take photos as you can imagine. When I wasn't pedalling and needing to keep hands on handlebars, I was panting and needing to keep hands on knees... Hey, no, come on... I'm not that bad! Here we are at Gaudi's unfinished cathedral, La Sagrada Familia. In truth it was good fun and not too strenuous. We rode about 12 miles over a period of about 3-4 hours and had 3/4 hour to stroll about and visit a pavement cafe for a drink. Here, Miss Franny regards the camera with a look that says "I want to do this again"... And so after a whiz around the city we arrived back at the ship for lunch. The afternoon was spent reading and soaking up fresh air and sunshine. As we finally left at the end of the day we looked over the ship's rail at this unloaded cargo ship riding high in the water with the shadow of Island Star's funnel stack against it's bow. We are heading for Ibiza with its clublife, topless girls and sun, sea and sex... Well... I can hope... Hmmm - was that the reason for Fran's expression...?

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Marseilles Vieux Port

9 Aug 2006. Wednesday morning finds us back in France, in Marseilles. Not having booked any tours, we left the Island Star for a bit of exploring on our own. The free courtesy bus, provided by the cruise company drops us off at the Vieux Port - the Old Port of Marseilles. You can't believe the number of boats here! At least a thousand boats and yachts are sitting in the huge marina, with people on perhaps one percent of them. Does anyone, anyone at all, have a boat based in a marina that they take out every weekend for a sail? It is a hot day - perfect holiday weather! There's a bit of a smell... The fisherman has just landed his catch and his wife is laying fish out in trays of ice, lopping off heads and chucking bits into plastic bags that are being snapped up by enthusiastic buyers. We resist with effort and walk around the marina, coming to one of the two forts that guard the harbour entrance. The Fort St Nicholas was built by the Chevalier de Clerville for Louis XIV. Louis reigned from 1643—1715. The fort was 200 years too late to defend Marseilles from the Spanish of Aragon. The harbour was protected in 1423 like most harbours by a massive chain suspended just above the water. We are talking big links here, not something you could unpick with your fingernails. They were designed to take the bottom out of any invading ships. The invaders in this case nicked the chain and took it back to Valencia. Yah Boo... On the other side of the port entrance is Fort St-Jean. It was built by Louis XIV again at the same time as the other one. The Sun King of France said at the time (this is not a joke...) "We noticed that the inhabitants of Marseille were extremely fond of nice fortresses" Ha hahhhhh! Nice try your Majesty. He actually built the fortresses to quell a rebellion in the city. The cannons of the forts pointed inland rather than out to sea! During the Revolution the Fort St-Jean was used to imprison Louis Philippe II, the Duke of Orleans and two of his sons. During World War II the Germans turned it into an ammunition dump. This exploded and didn't do the fortress a great deal of good... It was far too hot. We did the French thing and sat outside a cafe with a drink on the corner opposite the Opera House seen here. I breathed in deeply hoping for a little aria, but it was just too hot... The shopping streets were probably a bit cooler as they kept out most of the sunshine. At least that was Fran's excuse. Then after a mere lifetime, we made our way back to the colourful waterfront of the Vieux Port before catching the courtesy bus back to the ship. Next, we take a bike ride through Barcelona on four wheels - that's two each, right?

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Florence's Ponte Vecchio

8 August 2006. After our look round the Duomo our hairy-armpitted guide walked us around to the Ponte Vecchio bridge and left us with an hour or so to wander around. Florence is a city of statues. They are literally every few yards. They were littering the place so profusely that they set up a few arches in the Piazza della Signoria and bunged a collection of them there. Every one a masterpiece as it were. Anyway, opposite this scrapyard of famous sculpture is Michaelangelo's David. Not the original, which is in the museum, but a copy. Exact down to the oversized hands - though if you were about to kill the giant Goliath then oversized hands might just have come in ...er... hand-y... Anyway according to Hairy-Pits, it was Michaelangelo's way of saying "I made this with my hands" and more fool him... Should have used a chisel... Pausing only to tie the end of her armpit hair to the whip aerial of a Vespa scooter that was stopped at some traffic lights, we went to have a look at the bridge. I'm kidding! I'm kidding! It was a Lambretta... Ponte Vecchio is one of the great Medieval bridges of the world. This is what London Bridge used to look like at the time of the Great Fire of London. Only with more heads on stakes... The construction of a stone-built bridge was started in 1345. Most of the shops were butchers' shops until 1593 when the city's finest decided they would rather have something more elegant and stylish on their showcase feature and they moved in the goldsmiths, who have remained to this day (although they are very very old and feeble...) The gold shops line both sides of the bridge, though of necessity, the shops are not very deep, even the ones that overhang the side of the bridge parapet! You can, by the way, buy much of the same jewellery much cheaper a few streets away from the bridge. But it's not the same. Well it was for Miss Franny as just looking in the shops costs the same either on or off the bridge... The view both up or down the River Arno from the bridge is very aesthetically pleasing. Another way of saying "nice". It became for some reason a cool thing to do, for lovers to attach a padlock to the gates of the bridge. It has been there for 700 years so the act symbolised a wish for a long relationship. After the first few thousand padlocks again the city's finest stepped in and it's now an offence with a 50 Euro fine attached... Why would a bridge have gates? Because they are a route for friends - or foes - across rivers and into cities. Armed forces the world over have a great affection for the heady combination of bridges and dynamite. Ponte Vecchio was the only bridge across the River Arno that the Germans left intact. Presumably under the express orders of Hitler who had either promised Eva Braun they would take a padlock there, or he had plans to number the bricks and transport it back to the Fatherland... Our meeting place was outside the Basilica of Santa Croce which was started on May 3 1294 with the facade of marble added 1857-63. As if I can be bothered to remember that... Michaelangelo's tomb is inside it. According to our guide who was a bit red in the face with the effort of dragging a Lambretta behind her...

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Florence and The Duomo

8 August 2006. The day started really early. But the scenery as the Island Star sailed into the Italian port of La Spezia was well worth it as this 7:00am view shows. The reason for this early morning scurrying was that we are booked on an excursion to Florence - Firenze, as the Italians call it. The ship docks whilst we have breakfast and we troop off to join a coach. The fun starts straight away. First of all we find the tour operator is called Trumpy Tours which causes a ripple of very British humour along the coach. Next, no sooner have we all got on than there is a bang and a large German camper van swerves and weaves all over the road in front of us, trying to control his shock at having taken off the mirror stalk from the front corner of the coach. He's not stopping. However he's held up in a queue at some traffic lights. Our driver hairs off down the road towards him... but the lights change and he gets away. All this excitement and we haven't gone anywhere yet! Luckily the driver manages to fix the bits of broken mirror back onto the remains of the stalk with a huge roll of sticky tape! And off we go to Florence. There is no let up to the excitement of the day as the look on this young lady's face clearly shows. Here we are in Florence, still laughing at following this large Trumpy Tours paddle when there's a burst of laughter and gasps of disbelief coming from this group immediately behind the guide. The young lady is drawing my attention to the incredibly long underarm hair of the guide... It is long. Incredibly long. You get the idea from looking at the expression on the face of the lady on the right who is staring at it as though she can't believe it... Neither could we. It was at least a foot long. She could have plaited it... In entertainment terms we have had our money's worth from this trip already and we haven't seen Florence yet! This is the impressive facade of Il Duomo. Officially, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (...of Saint Mary of the Flowers). It has one of the most impressive domes of the Medieval world. A cathedral had stood here since the 5th century but it needed replacing entirely by the late 1200s. Building commenced on September 9 1296 and was to last another 170 years, interrupted at times by various project managers growing old and dying and a small matter called the Black Death in 1348. The facade is relatively new. Almost all of Florence seems to be constructed of white, green and red marble and the present facade was added only in 1876/87. The original facade had never been finished, never having gotten above the lower portion of the basilica and by the Renaissance was very old-fashioned in appearance. It was pulled down in 1587-88 and the front of the basilica remained bare for the next 300 years. Some say it is excessively decorated. We just thought it was excessively dirty. It was in dire need of a good wash and brush up. The guide took an incredible 3/4 hours to tell us all this, adding many names and dates that meant absolutely nothing to me and, to judge from the intense boredom on the face of our fellow travellers, to no one else either. If you were a scholar of Italian artists and architects it may have been interesting... We were, however, stuck in the queue to go in! Once inside we could see up into the interior of the dome. The figures were painted elongated so that they appear in the correct perspective when viewed from below. It doesn't look that big from below but it's a long way up to it! In fact the painting covers a massive 3600 square metres and took 11 years to complete. The original artist Giorgio Vasari started in 1568 and then selfishly died in 1574, leaving Federico Zuccari and a few friends to finish it off. There's lots more to see in Florence yet. The place is full of sculptures and statues including Michalangelo's statue of David and there's the famous Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge that the Germans didn't blow up on their retreat in 1944.

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Monte Carlo

7 August 2006. We leave Monaco Ville in the coach and have a short ride down the hill to Monte Carlo. Wait a moment... those are rather strange road markings! We are on the Grand Prix circuit! In a coach! More of that later. The coach leaves us in a coach park where we eventually find ourselves in gardens to the rear of the famous casino. We trotted round to the front to find yet more gardens. We only had an hour or so. Not really time to go in and win a fortune from some thin Sicilian gangster, whose beautiful companion would glare at him before swaying gracefully over to my side. In any case, this is a daytime excursion and I'm in a polo shirt and chinos - not the elegant attire necessary to draw eyes for reasons other than amusement... In 1873 a Yorkshire Mill engineer with a background in mechanics watched the wheels at Monte Carlo, analysing the results of every spin. He found that nine numbers kept coming up more than usual on one of the wheels. He won an astronomical amount for the day before the casino realised and moved the numbers on the wheel every night. After several days of winning that netted him the equivalent of 15 million UK pounds, he went on a two-day losing streak, finally admitting the inevitable and getting out with a remaining profit of 160,000 pounds - say, 10 or 11 millions in today's money. Joseph Jaggers died in 1892, the year that the song The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo was written about him. My car was waiting across the road... Well, I can wish! Aston Martins litter the roads around here. I didn't see a single Reliant Robin all the time we were there. It was extremely hot. Miss Franny and I decided we would have an ice cream and having pulled some money from my pocket, I had to go digging again to pay for Fran's... You could buy an ice cream van for that sort of money where I come from... We had a walk up the hill opposite the casino, through exquisite gardens with intricate fountains, no doubt financed by the ice cream seller. It really was lovely there. Even with the sun so hot that 50 pence worth of ice cream was melting away every second... We got back on the coach and he drove around as much of the Formula One track as he could. Absolute rubbish - he made no attempt whatsoever to drive quickly... We all got off for a few minutes at the tunnel to take photos and then to gawp over the edge of the road where the cars come out into bright sunlight with the sea and harbour just a long drop to the left!

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The Principality of Monaco

Our excursion coach comes to Monaco and we climb out and climb on upwards, past the Oceanographic Museum of Jacques Cousteau to Monaco Ville - the old town up on it's promontary rock overlooking Monaco and Monte Carlo.

We come first to the Cathedral St Nicholas. This is the resting place of Grimaldi princes and princesses.

Inside the cathedral. There were fresh flowers on the graves of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. Considerably more for ex-film star Grace Kelly in fact.

The Royal Palace of Monaco. Currently the home of Prince Albert II, the Sovereign Prince of Monaco.

Monaco is small and does not have an army of its own. The Royal Guard - the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince - are "borrowed" from France. Which at least ensures that it is extremely unlikely that Monaco would ever declare war on France...

Looking over the edge of the promontary in the opposite direction to Monte Carlo we see the ancient defences of Monaco. Whilst the chap in charge of the cannon asked which way to point it, the lookout fumbled for another 20p as the binoculars went dead...

Along this coast you see most of the old towns up on high steep hills. There were many pirates on the Mediterranean and it was easier to run into low lying towns for a spot of looting, rape and pillage than it was to run up a hill, grab a likely wench and then say "Hang on a minute love, I'm all out o' puff..." Also there's a limit to how high the cannon on a ship can point!

Looking down from Monaco Ville to Monte Carlo and the harbour.

The huge yacht in the centre is Lady Moura the yacht of Prince Albert.

The Constitution of Monaco had to be re-written a while ago. Whilst Prince Albert has two children, they were both born out of wedlock and cannot be heirs to the throne. He is now married to Princess Charlene, formerly Charlene Wittstock, a South African Olympic swimmer though no children have yet come from the marriage. The former Constitution stated that only direct children from the last prince could inherit the throne so there was a danger of there being no eligible heir. The Constitution now allows siblings who are direct descendants from the previous prince to inherit, so the current heir to the Grimaldi dynasty is Princess Caroline of Hanover, Albert's sister.

Ah... Princess Caroline... I fancied her from my early teens... She was easily the most beautiful of all the world's eligible princesses before Miss Franny came along and took me off the market! Had she ever popped into our local I might have been Prince Consort-in-Waiting by now...

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Arriving into Villefranche

7 Aug 2006. We arrive at Villefranche, France. We are up early to watch the Island Star sail into the harbour. We snatch a couple of photos and head for breakfast. Today we have booked an excursion that will take us into Monaco and to Monte Carlo. Those two destinations will be shown in the next two entries. For this one I'll stick to Villefranche. This is a tender port. The harbour here is not large enough to accomodate a cruise ship at a dock. Instead we walk down a gangway to one of the ship's tender boats - small boats that will ferry us from the ship's side to the shore. A few women are nervous about the moment of stepping from a walkway attached to the ship onto a small boat that is bobbing about at the side of us. In the event a burly seaman grasps an arm and they find themselves already on the boat. "Ooh! I want to try that again!" says one, reliving the moment a firm hand made contact... The ship looks extremely large from this angle! Villefranche looks everything that you would expect from a resort on the French Riviera. Bright - incredibly bright - colours and a gorgeously blue sky. This is a medieval port. The port was created in 1295 by Charles d'Anjou, though the current waterside buildings don't look that old and appear to have been designed more for the tourism industry than anything else. There's a steep climb up past the fortress from those earlier days to get to the coach park to join our excursion. We set off towards Monaco on the middle of three roads - the High, Middle and Low Corniche. Looking back towards Villefranche which is in the middle distance. We had to admit that you don't often get that blue a sea in Blackpool... The Island Star, anchored in the deeper water in the centre of the bay, dominates this view of the natural harbour. As we approach Monaco, the guide studiously points out the spot were Princess Grace crashed her car and died. And why did we need to know that might I ask?

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The Island Star

6 August 2006 was a day at sea and a chance to have a proper look around our cruise ship - the Island Star. Here's the obvious bit! The pool deck had two pools, one for anklebiters and one for wrinklies. This is where we spent most of our afternoons vainly trying to spot the bodies beautiful which were mainly hidden behind the bodies hideous... One side of the ship was designated as a non-smoking area and the other side was foggier and smellier. Towards the back, just before the chimney stack is a stage where the ship's musicians came out to do a spot during the afternoon and then each evening at sailing time and for the party nights on deck. The Island Star had a traditon of a party night where all the senior officers of the ship from Captain down, lined the sun deck balconies and did a dance routine. Spectacular! This was our cabin, with Miss Franny demonstrating sole use of a bunk. I did try bribing the captain to rock the boat at night side to side so we fell out on top of each other but he said if he had to be up all night on duty then why should I enjoy myself... The Beachcomber Restaurant was at the stern on the Pool Deck and was the self-service cafeteria, open 24 hours a day with two identical sides so they could open one side whilst replenishing the other. Although self-service there were plenty of bar waiters circulating so you could order wine or other drinks with your meal. Miss Franny was eager for me to include something about the shopping experience, but I try not to have shopping experiences on holiday. There were clothes shops and jewellers and an "offie" selling spirits and tobacco as well as a general store selling snacks, books, souvenirs, sun cream and toys on board. Each night there were specials where tables would be outside the shopping area, loaded with perfumes or gold or watches. I even bought a watch myself as mine decided on the second day to run out of battery and that was one thing you couldn't get! The Ocean Theatre. An energetic team of dancers fronted by 5 singers performed every night supplemented by two star cabaret acts and a resident magician. One of the male dancers, Hugo must have had rubber bones - no male should be able to kick both legs up sideways beyond the horizontal, surely... I also have to mention one of the singers, Lisa Core, who had a stunning voice she really was excellent. The year after Island Star was taken out of service we saw her performing as part of the team onboard Ocean Village II. And around the ship a variety of bars with different forms of entertainment, there was a piano bar and there was one with a girl duo who were quite good. And once out of national waters the ship's casino opened for those with money to burn. I watched... So this is our environment for the week but apart from today, it's really just a means of getting from one place to another in style! Tomorrow will be our first place of call - Villefranche in France from where we will visit Monaco and Monte Carlo. So for now sit back, relax and... "Waiter!"

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Ships and Boats Index

Mediterranean Explorer, August 2006

The year before I started this blog, we took our first cruise on the Island Star on a tour called the Mediterranean Explorer. I say "first" because it was the first of four cruises we took on this ship. Whilst more seasoned cruisers were calling this ship "tired" or "old" and even "small", it was total luxury to us. We had taken two cruises before, both on the six-deck Carousel. Island Star had twice as many decks almost and more waiting staff than I've seen since on a ship. You only needed to look up for a waiter and one was there. We flew out to Palma in Majorca on 5 August 2006. My camera had died the previous week and I had a new digital Canon SLR which I'm still using now. It took my old lenses, bought in the days when I had a Canon AE1, one of the most popular 35mm SLR cameras ever. Some scroat had nicked the camera during a burglary in the mid 1990s and I sincerely hope it somehow exploded and did painful damage to them... Anyway, now we are onboard we are naturally thinking about food - something which is abundantly plentiful on a cruise ship! Miss Franny here is nursing a glass of wine, probably not her first and we are eagerly awaiting a meal after finding our way around the ship. To come during this week are trips to Monaco, Florence, Marseilles, Barcelona and Ibiza. After the meal we took the (pitiful) remains of the bottle of wine up on the rear deck and drank whilst watching the evening grow darker. As the street lights came on and lights on the marina piers lit up, Palma was transformed into a fairyland of lights set against an orange sky.

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