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.
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...
Saturday, 21 September 2019. If you have been following these articles in order you will know that, having disembarked in Santa Margherita, we are now on a ferry heading for the Italian town of Portofino.
This part of Italy has a beautiful coastline and that chap from Steps has certainly done well for himself, well done that man!
The ferry trip from Santa Margherita has taken around half an hour and there was always something to see along the way.
We are now approaching Portofino harbour. Why don't I live somewhere like this? It's beautiful.
First glimpse of Portofino. The ferry is now creeping in very slowly.
Ah yes, perhaps because the Italian skipper has noticed a lady in purple lingerie lingering on her balcony... I think she shouted out at one point, "Ready when you are, John!" but I couldn't be sure as her words were drowned out by the buzz of noise in the harbour and the sound of Miss Franny's slap to the back of my head...
There's a few people here already. The ferry that we were following has just landed and is disgorging a lot more people to join them. The famous view of this place is from a high viewpoint somewhere behind my left shoulder. I pondered quite a bit before deciding not to bring my sketchbook today, but I suspected that there might not be time to do a sketch (I was right about that) and that it may be difficult to find somewhere to sit with a good view. (I was right about that too...)
The ferry in front of us is still disgorging passengers as we dock behind her - you can see her in the bottom left corner. As we start to get off, the available paved area to the left of the photo becomes one huge pressed mass of people all shuffling together towards the back of the harbour. We weren't taking chances. We found our guide, asked where and when to meet and left the tour to its own devices straight away.
They all disappeared up the hill to the left of the harbour as seen from the sea. This would take them to the viewpoint I mentioned earlier. We headed past this very tempting gelateria (ice cream café and whenever in Italy you should try one and I don't mean a cone!)
Carrying on in a straight line we came to a street of shops. The white lacy dresses are gorgeous but need someone with the figure and a certain amount of poise and confidence to wear them to full effect. Imagine one on that neighbour who comes out scowling in her dressing gown in the middle of the day to empty her teapot over the weeds in the garden and you see what I mean...
Towards the top of the hill we come to the coast road, a police station and taxi rank and we about-turn to go back down.
The call of the gelateria is just too much. A couple get up to leave the crowded tables and we take their place. Bar Gelateria San Georgio. St George has a church here, though as far as I know he never came here. He was a tribune in the Roman army (a rank roughly that of colonel). At the start of the Persecution of Christians he protested to the Emperor about their treatment, was arrested, tortured and beheaded. The Emperor's wife, Alexandria, was so impressed that she too became a Christian and was also arrested and put to death...
Strange the things that go through your mind whilst waiting for your strawberries, ice cream and fresh cream with a glass of lemonade... Anyway, if St George didn't live here, then Richard the Lionheart, King of England certainly did in 1190. So also did Rex Harrison the actor, but I don't think they ever met...
As we got up from our table two other passengers from the Marella Dream were waiting to take our place. They told us that the famous view of Portofino was up the hill and pointed out the road. "It's very steep and was very crowded, but well worth it," they said. They had gone up with all the tour guides from our ferry and any passengers from the one in front that were keen to see the view.
The narrow street certainly was steep, but not quite as crowded now that the tours had been and gone.
In fact it was quite a pleasant climb up with several touristy shops to look at along the way.
Not quite at the top but already the view is promising, though seen over a grubby green roof!
At the top, the view looking the other way is also quite spectacular and a lot more natural!
The Church of St George at the top of the hill. The best views are from that short length of railing near the church where all the people are and it would most certainly have been difficult to get a good viewpoint with all the people from the tours had we stayed with the excursion guide.
So without further ado, here is the famous view that we have all been waiting for. At some point I will attempt a sketch or painting from my photos - don't worry, you'll get to see it. (If it turns out ok...)
A little further down the hill you get a view looking into the harbour.
I noticed the marble steps leading up to a villa and the startling red flowers in pots.
I couldn't resist sneaking up the first few steps to get this shot.
We stop at the shops on the way down, but then once we get to the bottom we have a bit of time left to walk along the far side of the harbour where we buy... a fridge magnet... We join the rest of our tour who have had a mere half hour of free time and are now looking round worriedly for the guide, who is standing in a different place than she had told us all...
