Join us for a nine-day cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Lines' ship NCL Pearl, starting at Trieste and ending at Athens, sailing down the Adriatic Sea. After five years of not cruising because of Covid and cancer we at last manage to catch up with entertainer friends Tomas and Maris!
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 19 August 2024. Our first cruise for five years. First one with the Norwegian Cruise Line and therefore our first on the Norwegian Pearl cruise ship. First one since I had had to start using a walking stick and the first one since being diagnosed with cancer two and a half years ago. But enough with the grotty side of things - it's our first meeting since 2019 with Tomas and Maris, the entertainers we first met fourteen years ago on Marella ships (they were still Thomson then!) and with whom I've shared a stage so many times in the past.
But let's not jump ahead too soon. It's also our first flights for five years and they come first. We are joining the ship at Trieste in Italy and to get there we have to fly from Manchester UK to Munich in Germany, transfer to a flight from Munich to Venice and then a bus ride to Trieste.
At Munich and with no-one to ask we followed the signs, passed through passport control and found ourselves surrounded by opaque white glass walls with a staircase leading down and a lift with an aircrew member getting into it. He stepped into the lift before we could ask any questions so we followed him in which turned out to be the wrong move... It took us to the Departures section meaning we had to go once more through security - long queue and flight leaving in just 20 minutes.
In retrospect I reckon that some of the panels in the white glass may have been sliding doors but there were no signs to help. Luckily the aircraft from Munich to Venice was delayed and we made it, though not without a few stressful moments! Once at Venice our luggage turned up eventually and we found people to direct us to the busses for a bus ride to Trieste.
Onto the ship with relief and ready and raring for a coffee. We had a nice cabin (9522 on Deck 9) with a balcony and a bed made up of two generously-sized singles pushed together. We unpacked, shoved stuff quickly into drawers and wardrobes and went in search of a drink.
We found the Rose Garden buffet restaurant on Deck 12 which was the pool deck. Staff at the entrances stand by ready to squirt you with hand gel - "Washee washee!" came a regular cry as people walked in.
Later we found Tom and Maris already playing in Magnums bar. It was an emotional reunion, Maris had started dabbing at her eyes from first seeing us and we all exchanged hugs and kisses. You form deep attachments to fellow musicians you work with. It was disappointing that I couldn't join them on stage. My voice just won't stand up to it after years of inaction, and probably neither would my back...
Tuesday 20 August 2024. Overnight we have sailed from Trieste to Ravenna. From here trips are going to Venice, but having done it so many times and being on a new ship, we decide not to join the inevitable crowds and instead take ourselves for a tour of the ship. As you can see there is a bit of rain coming. It ends up being very light and only lasts a couple of minutes before the sun comes out again.
This is the Pool Deck on Deck 12 as seen from Deck 13. There's a jogging track on Deck 13 running around the top of the ship. The joggers must be as tired as we are though... Through the doors at the far end are the spa on the right and through the doors on the left the fitness centre, which we didn't trouble at all during our cruise. I did treat myself to a head, neck and back massage one day though as I developed a sore neck, probably because in all the bars the seating was at right angles to the stage, meaning you had to sit with your head turned all the time to watch the artists.
The red stripe is the jogging track with a one-way system that most people seemed to ignore completely. Fran had run out of black counters so stood hopefully on the corner spot waiting to be crowned...
The Ievoli Shine is an oil/chemical tanker built in 1998 in Livorno, Italy for Marnavi Spa of Naples. Ravenna may have had a beach on one side of us, but the other side looked quite industrial as are so many ports used by the larger cruise ships. The smaller cruise ships are fast disappearing I'm afraid.
The Summer Palace restaurant at the rear of Deck 6. We never actually ate in there, but had a couple of meals in the adjacent Indigo Dining restaurant which shared the same menu.
Another view of the Summer Palace restaurant. Both this and Indigo were waiter service restaurants.
Back on Deck 12 where we spent quite a bit of time during afternoons either when we had stayed onboard or after we had returned from an outing. I did several sketches from there which got quite a bit of interest from both crew and fellow passengers.
The now ancient and decrepit old soul that encloses the young vibrant witless (sorry..."witty", I meant "witty") inner being still trying desperately to break out every now and then.
Walking with a stick is very limiting too. In a buffet restaurant not only can you only carry one plate at a time but you can only hold one side of it so that any tremor of the hand sets it wobbling and threatening to flick food over anyone passing. Well, yes... it has its lighter sides too! It also means I leave the camera at home these days and make do with my phone. Which is subject to much the same wobble potential. Hence there won't be the hundreds of photos that I was accustomed to take during the course of a cruise. But it's a nine-day cruise so sit back and wait for the next episodes to come.
A series of articles about our first visit to Lake Garda in northern Italy. Staying at Riva del Garda, we would travel around the lake to various towns, visit both Venice and Verona, ride ferries down the lake, a tram in Renon and cable cars in the Dolomite mountains.
Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to each of the articles. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Monday 5 July 2003. We were spending our last full day in Italy around Lake Garda itself.
Having started in Riva at the far northen end of the lake, we had travelled by coach to Gardone, two-thirds of the way down and then by fast boat to Sirmione where we found ourselves at the start of this article written twenty and a half years later... The well in the photo was our group meeting point for later on.
We had an hour or so to explore the town - let's go!
Sirmione is one of the most popular spots on Lake Garda. It sits quite strangely on the end of a very thin promontory that sticks out into the lake for 3.3 km (2.1 miles) from halfway along the southern edge of the lake. Unlike the northern edge which is just 3 km (2 miles) from one side to the other, the southern bank of the lake is 18 km (11 miles) across.
The town itself is large enough to walk round and enjoy the shops and cafes and of course the fabulous Italian gelateri ice creams. It enjoys a well laid out street system and weather that allows for a generous riot of colour from window boxes, flower beds and large amounts of purple bougainvillea growing on the walls of houses and shops.
Sirmione also has beaches, something denied to the more northern of Lake Garda's towns where the mountainsides drop steeply in cliff faces into the lake.
Dominating the town is the Scaligeri castle. Built from 1277 CE onwards on the very edge of the lake it was meant to protect the harbour where the Scaliger fleet was based. It has the swallowtail merlons that we saw in Verona on the walls.
The castle is surrounded by a moat that on one side is formed by the lake itself.
Trying to storm this castle would involve a waterborne invasion, or an awkward half climb, half tightrope walk from the harbour wall. Or require an army of very good jumpers...
Legitimate access was by drawbridges. One of these has since been replaced with a load-bearing stone bridge,
To my inexpert eye it looks like the two beams would swing down from an upright position with the castle end of the drawbridge permenantly attached in place and the land side swinging downwards until the far end rested on the opposite approach road.
No such problems for visitors in 2003. Top right is a bell tower rising high above the castle. Presumably this would ring out if anything alarming was spotted approaching either from the lake or up the promontory.
Nothing alarming about this approaching loveliness... As James Bond might have said (in The Spy Who Loved Me about someone I've counted as a friend now for 26 years), "What a beautiful craft ... such sleek lines!"
Monday 5 July 2003. Our last full day in Italy dawned with the prospect of a trip around Lake Garda.
Early morning in Riva del Garda and already the sun was up, out, and shouting for us to come and get ourselves burnt to a crisp!
The ferry boats had yet to start, although most of our ride around the lake today would be on the coach. Lake Garda is 30 miles long. To take one of the slow ferries down to the bottom of the lake and back is an all day adventure with not much chance of getting off at all. The ferries criss-cross the lake from side to side in a zig-zag and apart from a couple of hydrofoils are not the quickest things on the water. Neither are some of them particularly well-furnished for comfort. So it would be a full day of breathing in diesel fumes on an open deck to do this by boat.
So we pile onto the coach and find that Christina and her party are already onboard with us. Christina, you may remember, was our Leger guide from a trip to Amsterdam a couple of years previously. I don't know whether there were no "characters" in her party, but anyway she came to sit with us most of the time as our own guide was doing most of the spiel on the coach's microphone. At the northern end of the lake a lot of the road is burrowed into the cliff face with windows opening to the view. They are featured in the second of Daniel Craig's James Bond films: A Quantum of Solace. Here we are overlooking Limone.
This is Gardone. This far down the lake (about two thirds of the way from top to bottom) the mountains have been tamed and are rolling hills of green grass or tree covering rather than sheer walls of rock.
Gardone, also called Gardone Riviera, is aimed well and truly at the tourist. There was a beautiful aspect of the lake from a well kept promenade that had plenty of colour from flower beds and more importantly lots of benches to sit upon.
There was the smallest of harbours, scarce the width of two boats with a harbour wall to protect the boats just in case of a storm out on the water. Poles painted in blue and white barbers' stripe spirals provided mooring points and the sleek motor boat at the entrance to the harbour was, though we didn't realise it at the time, waiting for us!
Mid morning drinkies. The temps are up in the high 30s. Fran opts for the delicious latte machiatto but I've gone for an ice cold cola.
Whilst we were sat having the drinks I sketched the curve of the coast - well, lakeside but it seemed like a coast! Christina said "I didn't know you were an artist!" but I said "Well you took us through the Red Light District too fast... "
Then it was time to get on the boat. We were heading for Sirmione at the southern end of the lake. We sat at the front of the boat with Christina who had made our Amsterdam trip so much fun.
The boat took us close up to one of Garda's islands where the millionaires have their playground. If I were ever to become a millionaire (not likely so please don't hold your breath...) this is definitely a place where I would like one of my mansions to be...
We reach Sirmione and will save the sights of that town for the next article!
