A series of articles covering our holiday on the inaugural cruise of Marella Explorer. We'll be calling at Palma de Mallorca > Day at Sea > Palermo, Sicily > Naples, Italy for Sorrento & Amalfi > Livorno, Italy > Nice & Villefranche, France > Palamos, Spain.
Click or tap each of the photographs below for the related article and photographs.
Thursday 24 May 2018. We anchor in the water off Villefranche and use the tender boats to disembark. We are on a half-day excursion to Nice which includes a ride on a road train.
The coach takes us on a time consuming tour of Nice's back streets however before the small train and thus our time on another tour disappears with little time to see the coastline of Nice. You know... the thing that people go to Nice to see... Once on the road train we do trundle along the coast for a short while, passing the harbour where a Club Med ship seems to be spraying water over any passing small boats!
The road train carries us on a winding climb up a hill to this viewpoint which was absolutely stunning. It might have been even better had the coach trip through the back streets not put me in a rather - how shall I say - somewhat exasperated frame of mind! We would have simply caught a train here from Villefranche to do whatever we wanted with our time, but we had been warned that they are suffering from industrial action and at best are unreliable for the day. Added to which it was Grand Prix weekend in Monaco, just the other side of Villefranche so trains going back would have been crowded even if running.
Looking a little closer to our viewpoint. The back end of the road train can be seen to the left.
Looking inland from our hilltop vantage point past another of those wonderful continental cast iron lamp posts.
Eventually the train returned us to a spot just behind the seafront and we wondered for a nano-second whether to join the guide on her walking tour - er... no... We crossed the road to the seafront with a sigh of freedom.
Amazingly the guy on the cycle rickshaw was from Yorkshire! We turned down his offer to take us around Nice's back streets however... Apart from having had our fill of back streets, even with ducking the walking tour, we had only 25 minutes left before meeting the coach to return to Villefranche.
We bought ice creams and sat breathing in the ozone for a bit then set off back towards the meeting place. I quite liked the grassed tracks that the local trams had.
Our route took us uphill a little bit, This was one of Nice's shopping streets just behind the seafront.
This was our rendezvous point. Just throwing a little appropriated French-English word in there. This is Place Masséna, nicely (see what I did there?) situated just a two minute walk from the Promenade, the old town district and the modern town centre. The statue is that of Neptune the sea god.
Another view of Place Masséna. Since the tramway was constructed in 2007 the square is mostly pedestrianised apart from a road running around the statue, where the road trains run from. The trams run on electricity from overhead wires but when passing through this and other areas of beauty, they drop their pantographs to roof level and run on batteries so that the main squares of Nice are not disfigured by poles and overhead cables.
Back on the coach and heading back to Villefranche. We have decided to have lunch in Villefranche itself before heading back to the ship.
We walked along the sea wall to the restaurant we had been to before with our friends David and Jeannie and from where I had sketched the view in 2013. This time we had a meal and very nice it was too. Just a burger and chips but I was asked how I'd like the burger cooking. So refined, the French! If they had been local I'd never be away!
My sketch from 2013.
Reminders of sketches and paintings were everywhere! This was the view from the small harbour from where the tender boats to and from the ship were operating.
And my oil pastel painting from last year inspired by this view.
What? You enjoyed the photo of me on the balcony the other day so much that you want another? Ok.
Wednesday 23 May 2018. We come into the port of Livorno, primarily an industrial port.
A ship to the side of our cabin is already unloading large bales of wood pulp onto lorries and has still not finished when we leave the port at eight oclock that night.
The Kaluga, off our port side, is an oil tanker, built in 2003 and registered in Liberia. I was looking online for a reason why it might be apparently pouring water out of its anchor ports all day, but without any success. Any nautically knowledgable replies will be given due consideration!
From here, tours set out by coach to both Florence and Pisa. You can even do both in one day. We've been here before a few times so this time we have decided to have a walk through Livorno itself, though that will involve getting a shuttle bus through the port as it's a large and maze-like place with lots of lorries and cranes moving about so you are not allowed to walk through the port.
The shuttle bus drops us off at a shopping mall in the centre of the (admittedly quite small) town. But we have forgotten our map and have no idea which way we are facing... We do know that the town is ringed by canals because one year we took a boat trip along them. So I assumed that if we walk in a straight line we will eventually come to a canal. All well and good. Except that Miss Franny doesn't like walking in straight lines and keeps saying "We'll go this way..." until not only do I not know which way I'm facing but I have no idea how to get back to the shuttle bus stop!
So we just set off. I know the canals go all the way round the town so we are bound to come to them sooner or later even walking in zig-zags and as long as we can eventually find our way back we'll be ok. Worst case scenario is stopping people and asking for MacDonalds which might make us appear to the Italians like the ultimate in food buffoons but would get us to the bus stop!
And look-it! A canal. Now, as I said, we have previously done a boat trip along them. But as you can see here, they are set quite low down so from a small boat you don't see much apart from the top storeys of buildings...
From today's viewpoint we could revel in the architecture of such things as doors, kerb stones, all manner of things.
The sun was bright. The temperature was climbing. My vitamin D levels were replenished to bursting. I was running out of things to say...
At around this point we crossed a road, watching for cycles which, a bit like Amsterdam, have their own little road at the side of the main road and which seem to come in both directions regardless of what side of the road you are crossing. A young lady on a bike stopped and waved us on to cross which we did with a wave. As she started to push off, I saw another bike whizzing up behind her and saved her life (well, saved her from injury at least) as the prat zoomed by just an inch or two from her.
You can have too much of a good thing - even canals, so we went in search of a drink which I found in a deserted cafe. So deserted that there was no one in sight behind the counter... I called out "Ciao!" and there was a muffled acknowledgement from the door to the kitchens and I bought drinks and we sat at a table on the pavement watching people stagger past with bags overflowing with veg and fruit from the large market hall up the road.
A bit of shade came as a relief as we headed back - or forward - to wherever we were going, because we had no idea... Hey it's not even dinner time yet, no problem!
We ended up at a huge piazza. This is (though I didn't know it at the time) the Piazza della Repubblica and confused me by being built lengthwise over a canal. I mean - fancy doing that to a man with no map! It was built in 1844, requiring the demolition of one of Livorno's old city gates and joined the centre of Livorno to the east of the town where new districts were growing.
It had statues of both Ferdinand III and Leopold II, the latter being damaged by a crowd in 1849 and thereafter removed. He was seen as a symbol of Austrian domination. We picked a street at random and followed it all the way to a familiar bit and then for the first time in my life I felt a surge of relief upon finding MacDonalds!
Tuesday 22 May 2018. We arrive into the Port of Naples at 7:00am. We have an excursion so the alarm was set for silly o'clock.
We were booked to take a boat ride to Amalfi, but apparently there was only one other couple wanting that particular tour. I did suggest they either got a smaller boat or we would just spread out, but to no avail. Instead we transfer our booking to one doing both Sorrento and Amalfi by coach. It will be a long day and most of it will be spent on the coach...
Norwegian Eric is dogging our footsteps... Right on top at the back is a climbing wall. You'd have to be seriously deranged wouldn't you? We board a coach and settle down for the ride to Sorrento. We spent a week there once and have plans to invest in a bottle of Limoncello, that wonderful lemon-based liqueur so beloved of.. er... me... But what's this? We have made a stop at a Limoncello factory! I want to drink it not watch it being made! But that's not a problem as it's still so early in the morning the factory isn't actually working yet. However we still get the talk and tour. When we reach the shop we gasp at the prices... Our plan to buy in Sorrento does not change... Having wasted half an hour out of our day we get on the coach and waste another 20 minutes as the guide tries to find another bored couple who have left the factory to sit on a hidden bench in the factory garden...
A photo stop above Sorrento. This is "above" in the same sense that Blackpool Tower is "above" Douglas on the Isle of Man. Sorrento's harbour is the one against the cliff dead centre of the photo, not the one in the foreground.
Being familiar with Sorrento we decide we will duck out of the guided walking tour. Especially when we find that we have just one hour ten minutes and the coach has to stop well outside the town so there will be a 10 minute walk both in and out. I'm not sure what the guide showed them, but none of them seem particularly thrilled when we catch up with them later.
I suspect they may have had time to buy a drink but not to sit and take their time over it. Which is pretty much what we did and then went in search of our bottle of yellow nectar.
The little market streets of Sorrento are interesting and fun places. At night the locals promenade here, all dressed to impress and to meet friends and socialise. We find lots of places with Limoncello at much less than factory prices. Strange that...
Then there's literally 5 minutes to do whatever we want before we see the guide and coach driver legging it back towards the coach park and we head back too. One of the passengers is limping and supported by his family, obviously in pain. We were quite worried, but he seems to be alright after a bit so perhaps it was a turned ankle or something.
It takes ages to reach Amalfi. The roads are so narrow that in many places they are governed by men with stop/go signs. They don't seem to have any way to talk to each other. I think that they just turned the sign to "go" when there was a break in the traffic. So it leads to scenes like this halfway between the two signs where we meet other traffic and one vehicle has to reverse to a slightly wider bit of road. Miss Franny watches a wing mirror pass by literally one inch from her window. It doesn't look quite so dramatic on the photo but believe me... one inch...
Our total time in Amalfi was two hours. Again because we had been here before and knew the town, we ducked out of the guided walking tour (we are real rebels, aren't we?) and surprised a restaurant barker by accepting his entreaties and taking a seat to order a pizza. Pizza margherita in this part of the world is as good as you will taste it anywhere in the world.
We didn't have a great deal of time for a detailed sketch so I kept it to half a page (so roughly A5 size) and when a few drops of rain started to fall we headed over the road to buy an ice cream. Again, ice cream - gelato - in Italy is something to die for. We got into the shop just as the young serving girl dropped a large metal tub of ice cream sideways into the space it had come out of and then struggled to get it out again. As the owner looked at me and raised his eyebrows, she got the giggles and there was a moment that severely tested my rudimentary Italian but was very funny! We left with our ice creams and a pat on the shoulder from the owner. I glanced back and the girl was grinning at me with mischievous eyes through her fringe. Dammit, when did I get so old...? Miss Franny grasped my ear to help me safely across the road.
It was a long drive back to the ship. Out of an eight hour day we have spent over 5 hours either on the coach or at the Limoncello factory that we didn't want to visit. Ah well... We repaired to the Squid and Anchor pub on Deck 7 and a pint of Guinness disappeared quite quickly!
It was quite overcast but very warm and we sat on our balcony until it was time to sail away. A fine figure of a man...
I read until the harbour wall started to slide past as we got under way which was our signal to get ready for our evening meal.
