Join us for a week's cruise on the Marella Dream, starting and ending at Palma, Majorca. Our Itinerary for the week is: Palma, Majorca > Day at Sea > Propriano, Corsica > Piombino, Italy > Sete, France (changed to Palamos, Spain due to weather) > Tarragona, Spain > Palma Majorca.
Each day is shown on its own separate entry, reached by clicking/tapping the seven photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Monday 23 September 2019. A busy afternoon onboard the Marella Dream, packing all our stuff into suitcases ready for the trip home tomorrow. We still had a final evening to look forward to.
It was Maris's birthday. So we were treating her and Tomas to dinner in the ship's Mistrals restaurant. One of three speciality restaurants, there is a small cover charge for the food but it is well worth the price as the food and service are both wonderful.
But first there's time to get settled and pull funny faces...
Or slightly more serious faces... The meal started with an aperitif - "What do you mean, waiter? I've still got most of my own..." This was a cauliflower tempura, a small cauliflower floret encased in batter and served with a sprinkling of chopped chives.
Starters included a prawn cocktail with mini lobster-type thing on top. Maris said it was just a big prawn...
...and then tried to make things up in case she had hurt its feelings...
Massive chunk of steak topped with dressed crab meat and hollandaise sauce with small salad on the side and side dishes of fries and mushrooms. Yum!
Maris went for full-grown lobster. Tomas mixed lobster and salmon fillet. Miss Franny also had steak but without the trimmings - she doesn't do vegetables or anything remotely green...
Maris received an extra dessert! Everybody in the restaurant all sang Happy Birthday to her, which was a nice moment.
Fran and I had a sampler dessert, with small portions of three different scrumptious sweetie stuffs!
A quick coffee and then its time for Tomas and Maris to go to work, singing in Tides Bar.
My backing vocalists were trying out their choreography tonight! After a week onboard I was struggling with the air-con drying out my throat which limits my range. I sang Doo-Wah-Diddy-Diddy which meant I could leave several lines to the audience!
As my last song of the cruise I sang Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire which has no high notes for me to struggle with! And it went down very well too!
We ended the night as always with a late night (early morning!) coffee in the Lido restaurant with Tomas and Maris and then the sad business of saying goodbye to these two lovely people until the next time we meet.
Monday, 23 September 2019. Monday sees us in Tarragona, Spain. We have been told it is a festival day and that it will be crowded.
The port is industrial and a shuttle bus takes 20 minutes to bring us into town where it drops us near the city wall between the ancient Roman town and amphitheatre.
The amphitheatre was built over the change from first to second centuries and seats 15,000. In 259 CE during Emperor Valerian's persecution of the Christians the local bishop and his deacons were burned alive here.
The city wall. It once enclosed the city but currently only half of it remains, marking three sides of a rectangle around the old city and Roman basilica complex.
Just behind the city wall was the Roman circus - think Ben-Hur chariot racing. The ground has all been built over but many of the underground passages and rooms are still there and free to walk around.
Passing through one tunnel brings us to the source of those Roman draughts they used to complain about. In front is the wall of the modern museum of Tarraco - the Roman name for Tarragona.
I wonder what my house will look like in 2000 years...
Underground passage with rooflight - attributed to the exceptionally tall legionary Kevin after the order "Shoulder spears!"
I bet it was easy to lose your way down here in the days before electric lighting!
This led to the modern public conveniences, which again were free to use and spotless. Whilst toilets were segregated, the washing area was common to both sexes.
A statue of a woman, probably a memorial as it was discovered in 1992 in an area that in Roman times had contained several burial areas.
No doubting the role of the coffin. It has an inscription from Valeria Primula whose husband Firmidius Cecilianus was laid to rest in it. He was a consular beneficiary of the Seventh Legion, Gemina Pia Felix.
Having climbed several flights of stairs I am now gasping in ancient Roman Latin and looking down on the curve of tiers that would have held the seating at one end of the circus - the bends are where the worst chariot pile-ups can be enjoyed...
Whilst I'm up here and too knackered to move, let's have a look all round. The museum and conservation shop. A sign says "When you have been exhibited all over the Empire, you need some time to look your best again." Tell me about it...
I've come down two flights and there are still just a few to go before I get back to ground level!
The Romans may not have had the ability to fly anywhere, but they were not afraid of heights!
We leave the Roman remains and are wandering along a street when suddenly a series of explosions can be heard.
"The festival!" I say and we follow the smoke to see if we can find a spot to see the merry-making.
A chap sits on a horse with a huge kettle drum on either side. He's waiting to join the parade at the appropriate spot when his horse sees a rather large relation coming along!
Once he spots his place a bang on the drums soon clears a path for him to join the parade.
Huge papier-mache figures (but with seemingly tiny legs) come down the street at regular intervals.
The Sultan makes an appearance with his Sultana... (are you sure that's right...?)
I'm presuming this is a caricature of a local politician from the past as his face and figure can be seen shortly painted onto a building.
Orcs, goblins, bogey-men! They were good fun, gently swishing their hairy rope ends at random people. The local kids were lapping it up.
The building with a few of the characters we have seen in the parade.
The parade comes to an end. The streets are absolutely filled with people. Knowing we will have a full evening, we head back to the ship to do our packing as tomorrow will see us flying back to England [sob]
A short one this time starting with our evening on Saturday , 21 September 2019.
We spent the night (as we always do when 2 Intense are onboard) in Tides Bar, listening to Tomas and Maris do their thing. They knock the socks off any other act I've ever seen on a ship.
>.With a friendship going back nine years now, I usually get invited to do a couple of songs a night. I don't take this for granted and it's a privilege to be able to do it. Tonight my two numbers are an instrumental: Wonderful Land, originally by The Shadows and Roy Orbison's Penny Arcade
Sunday, 22 September 2019. We were due to be in Sète in France today, but Captain Steve has been keeping an eye on some bad weather and as it is hovering around Sète and added to the fact that there are limited tugs available in Sète in terms of both numbers and power, we are diverted to Palamos in Spain.
We have been to Palamos before and it has a small centre with shops and a great beach. But it is Sunday so most of the shops are closed except for those catering to the cruise and tourism trade. We have a long walk up the sea front and there are several of these old cannon set in a framework of curved white walls. We sat on a bench and I sketched as best I could, whilst people stood in front of the gun and kids climbed on it. From the state of them I'd hazard a guess that they have been lifted from the sea bed at some considerable time since they fell there! It's our sixth day out of seven on the cruise and we are both ready to fall asleep... We made our way back to the ship and spent the afternoon doing just that for a couple of hours! Going on holiday should be restful? What a strange thing to contemplate, ha ha!
Anyway we are back up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for another night in Tides. My two for tonight are another Shads tune Shindig and then Gerry Rafferty's Stuck In The Middle With You.
Tomas and Maris finish their set and we head for the Water's Edge bar where Tri-Vibe persuade Maris to do a number.
Tomas, meanwhile, is showing off his new handbag...
