Down the Road to Lowestoft

Monday 19 August 2002. We are staying in Great Yarmouth for a week and after a relaxing day in the town yesterday, we wake on Monday morning ready for a bit of exploring.

So we set off after our customary trip to the beach hut for coffee and make our first stop of the day at Lowestoft just down the coast. It is the most easterly town in the United Kingdom and consequently the first town to see the sunrise every day. Well... on the days when the sun isn't blocked by clouds, rain, fog, snow, and vast alien space ships... The photo shows the East Point Pavilion from where you can sit in complete dry and strain to see the sunrise through the clouds, rain, fog, snow... (I may have exaggerated about the vast alien spaceships...)

As with many seaside fishing villages, the harbour has turned more into a marina for pleasure craft owned by people who rarely visit and even more rarely actually take them out to sea.

The Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club. Founded in 1859, the clubhouse of 1902-3 superceded an earlier one of 1866 that the club quickly outgrew. Meetings and races are held both at sea and on the easily reached Suffolk and Norfolk Broads, the nearest of which - Oulton Broad - we shall see in the next article.

Me, wistfully wishing I could afford to buy a boat and moor it and ignore it here... The yacht club does advertise its membership and mooring rates as competative, so I really should look wistfully at more exclusive marinas, perhaps in Monte Carlo or Portofino. At least I've now grown out of looking wistfully at the Marina in Stingray...

Lowestoft railway station. Opened as Lowestoft Central Station by the Great Eastern Railway in 1847, it was the eastern terminus for lines from Ipswich to the south and Norwich to the north west. A second station, Lowestoft North, was closed along with the direct line from Lowestoft to Great Yarmouth in 1970. It is now a residential site - Beeching Drive.

The station is half a mile from the main centre of town and they were originally separated by green fields along a cliff top. We walked through today's streets to the main shopping street.

In fact we walked up the shopping street further into the town than we had on previous visits and found the old part of the town. Here we found the old High Street with buildings kept in the character of the old town.

Narrow alleyways known as "scores" led from the High Street to where the fishermen had their huts in the old days. The name here suggests the brewing of beer may have taken place somwhere near! Malsters Score twists and turns - turning to the left at the far end of this photograph. In the past because of these blind turns, it was known as a dangerous place to walk at night and there were instances of robbery particularly of sailors using the score to return to their ships.

Spurgeons Score has no such twists and turns, but starts as a stepped alley and continues today down a long straight street. In the past dwellings would be much more crowded than they are today...

South Flint House is faced with knapped flints, a feature of many older buildings in this part of the UK. This one goes back to the 1500s.

Here and there what is obviously a building of greater age sits amongst the more modern box-shaped shops and whilst this is no different to almost every town in the country the sight of a more attractive and less severe building does make you wish that modern architects could apply a little more creativity into their work these days.

Inside the old pharmacy. The old shelving had been retained and preserved but had, of course, modern-day products on the shelves. I suppose most of us buy liquid soap these days, but I can still get nostalgic about a sudden whiff of Cusson's Imperial Leather soap bars and was amazed once in a "living museum" at the familiarity of cakes of pink carbolic soap that I wouldn't have smelt since early childhood in the 1950s at my grandparents' house. Not that I'd particularly like to go back to living like that, but it brought back memories of Mum scraping a cake of dark green Fairy soap on collars and cuffs before putting shirts in the washing machine.

Great Yarmouth 2002 Index

Barcelona

Monday, 20 May 2019. Our last port of call for this Mediterranean Medley cruise is Barcelona. Marella Dream docks away from our usual spot opposite the statue of Columbus and we will need to take a shuttle bus to that area before we can have a wander.

We've done Las Ramblas, we've done the outside of La Familia Sagrada, we've done the Gaudi park and houses and we've done the aquarium. We've even done the bike ride (just the once!) so this time we are going to walk round the harbour over the swing bridge and just take things easy.

There's enough going on to keep us amused and there's a variety of ships and boats for us to look at. This is a training ship. It looked as though they were taking on a new crew as we walked past it.

An outdoor restaurant and bar at the side of the training ship. It soothes the nerves of the instructors after a voyage...

The obligatory arty-farty photo of the cruise. A bit of a stench was building up. Ah... it's the refuse truck come to empty the bins!

There were a few large yachts amongst the private craft in the harbour area. No doubt some were biding time before heading off to Monte-Carlo for the Monaco Grand Prix the following weekend. I would have been too, but I'd told the gardener to take the yacht home...

We went all the way round the harbour to find the far end full of fake goods sales people. Notices on poles warned that you could be fined for buying from them. There's no way for the police to stop this trade other than that. They have lookouts and there are so many of them that you'd need hundreds of men to be able to contain them and then what would you do with them? They just gather their goods up in the blankets on which they are displayed and dodge round corners until any police have gone past.

We stopped for a slush drink each from a cafe. Miss Franny had strawberry and I had lemon. It was very warm and pleasant sitting outside drinking it. Whilst we were there a bright green parakeet flew just over our heads and sat in a tree behind us for a few minutes before making us duck again as it came back and disappeared off in the distance.

We came back to our starting point and I made myself sit near the swing bridge and draw the sailing ship seen at the top of this page. A French family came to sit next to us on the bench. They had cooked meats and breadsticks which they shared round with each other and a growing collection of seagulls which made me a bit wary. I kept my cap pulled down...

Then it was back to the bus for the return trip to the ship. There were a lot of Italians at the bus stop and it was a bit before I realised that the buses served more than one ship. Ours would be the third of four stops along the dock. As we passed over the bridge onto the dock the Volcan de Tinamar, a Ro-Ro ferry was just leaving port. From what I can gather she usually sails for Armas between the islands of the Canaries. She was built in 2011.

We spent the afternoon packing - otherwise known as "throwing stuff in the suitcases". It would be a late night as we spent our last evening with Tomas and Maris, Bob and Anne and Eric and Jean. A glance out of the window showed that there was a fittingly superb sunset for our last night onboard Marella Dream.

For my last song of the cruise I played Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. "Will you?" I asked cheekily with a grin at Maris. She nodded. "All tomorrow..." she confirmed. And seeing as we had to leave the ship first thing in the morning, she knew she was on safe ground...

Anne's photo of us all from the previous night. We'll be back on Marella Dream and with Tomas and Maris later on in the year.

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A Cool Day in Savona, Italy

Friday, 17 May 2019. We moor alongside the dock in Savona, Italy. Excursions are available for Genoa, where we have been before, Turin and Portofino (where we hope to go later in the year). We have never been to Savona so we opt for a look around on foot.

The harbour elongates and narrows into what could almost be a river, but it's not. At the end the harbour does a dog's leg bend to a marina for small boats.

The walk into the city takes us past several Africans selling cheap goods, mainly blankets, all of whom are happy to see us walk past their colleagues, convinced that they will be able to persuade us to buy.

A swing bridge divides the harbour from the marina, affording a pedestrian shortcut to the city. Passengers happily ignore the warning klaxons and red lights to walk across, only starting to panic and run for safety as the barriers at each end start to close prior to swinging...

We crossed without need for running (happen as well...) and set off towards the castle that we can see beyond the marina. We pass some bell towers and equally narrow buildings.

The castle was built by the Genoese in 1452 to keep the population cowed after their conquest of Savona. From 1820 to 1903 it served as a military prison.

The space in front of the castle was raised from the road and afforded us this view of the marina. We walked towards the right and descended some steps doing a full circuit of the marina which meant we had to re-cross the swinging bridge, which of course opened again just as we got to it... There is a museum dedicated to Apple computing and technology here. I'm not a fan of i-equipment so will just make the following observation. There is just the one Apple museum here. I now invite you to count the windows...

We crossed the bridge once it had swung back into place and wandered up an arcaded shopping street, where Miss Franny went looking for fridge magnets. We bumped into Eric and Jean from Edinburgh and Bob and Anne from Glasgow who were also on the ship and who we had met on the first night. Bob was what I'd call irrepressible, always impishly cheerful and with a joke never far away. We bumped into them several times during the cruise and our holiday was made all the more enjoyable because of them.

We returned to the marina and found a small cafe to sit outside of with our favourite Italian beverage, a latte machiatto. This is like the British version of a latte, but without the froth which to my mind adds nothing but fresh air to fill your cup. The temperature was around 17 degrees centigrade, an improvement by around 5 degrees on what we had left behind in England, but we noticed all the locals were wearing jackets and in some cases heavy coats and we were being looked at as though we were slightly deranged in just t-shirts and summer thickness trousers. We don't take coats on holidays to the Med. We may, however, just slightly regret that tomorrow...

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Parked In Palamos

Friday 25 May 2018. Our final port for the week is Palamos in Spain. Excursion trips include Barcelona but, as most cruises on the western Mediterranean call there, we have been there five times so we are going out on foot to explore Palamos itself.

Our route from the ship takes us past the marina. According to the map there is another, the other side of the small headland we are moored against. There is a local chap standing watching us at the point where the path joined the road. His whole attitude suggested he was thinking "bloody tourists!" I nod and say "Hola!" and before he can stop himself he has half smiled, lifted a hand in greeting and said "Hola!" back.

We decide to have a look at the other marina. We have to get to the other side of this. Walking to the end of the pier and taking the road seems preferable to clambering over it, so we follow the road to our right and ... clamber up the steep road!

There are plenty of chandlers and boat build/repair companies about. There's a few Euros worth of stock in this particular warehouse!

A nice jumble of rocks too on the other side of the headland. There are steps up from the road to reach a small path on the top of the rocks, so where I am standing is a lot safer than this appears!

There's something hypnotising about the sea washing over rocks. I stand, fascinated and in my own little world, until Miss Franny slaps my face hard a few times and we carry on.

We reach the other marina. It looks as though we might have to make quite a long detour to get to the road leading back into the town and we decide it is probably quicker to re-trace our steps and go round that way.

We walk up into the town and through its shopping streets which are enjoyable without being spectacular. We spend a good hour or more wandering through it, then decide we will head back towards the seafront and have a sit for a bit.

We find a vacant bench and sit down. After a while this couple start waving and then wave in unison and then dance up and down the beach. It looks as though they are waving at us but we don't know them from Adam. (Hello, Adam, what are you doing here?) They could be waving at people on the benches to either side, or to any number of people in the bar which is the building to the left. Whatever... They keep it up for a good ten minutes then he leaves her and instead of walking straight towards us, he walks at an angle until he gets close enough to crane his neck to stare at us properly, then he turns back to his wife who is still doing semaphores and dancing from side to side and he starts making chopping gestures at his throat. They have obviously mistaken us for someone else!

The Marella Explorer cutting a bit of a dash at her mooring. She's certainly dwarfing the boats in the marina!

We have a wander up the promenade and bump into John and Vera. John was one of three Johns in just six seats on the plane as we flew over. It turned out he was on the ship and we saw them most nights and exchanged a few words and later this particular night we will spend an hour with them having a drink and chatting. A nice couple.

It is very warm. We sit on another bench for a while and decide to go back into the shopping are so Miss Franny can buy the inevitable fridge magnet and a few other bits to take home. There's a lot of whistling and shrieking going on as we walk along one street and Fran spots the culprit - a parrot in a cage outside a first floor window over a shop. It could have been saying "Bring me in - it's too hot out here!"

The view from our balcony that afternoon. Some packing must be done before we head for our evening meal unless we are going to forego all the pleasures of bars, lounges and shows for the night. And we are not... Tonight we sail back to Palma de Mallorca for our flights home tomorrow. Our cases must be packed, locked, labelled and left outside our cabin by 2:00am so that the crew can pick them up and crane them in cages off the ship so we can pick them up off the dockside in the morning.

Saturday 26 May 2018. The following morning it has obviously rained during the night! We hadn't heard anything at all but we are told that the ship had sailed through skies lit by sheet lightning. We had noticed our first bit of movement on the sea, but it just gently rocked us to sleep!

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First Night on Thomson Dream

Saturday 18 May 2013. We had our evening meal in the Orion Restaurant on Deck 4. This was huge (and will be shown in a later entry). Then after the meal it was time to go to muster stations.

The safety drill always used to be held during the morning of the first day on a cruise, but since the Costa Concordia disaster of January 2012 it is now practice on Thomson ships to hold one on the evening of embarkation with a further drill the following morning for any passengers who joined the ship from later flights.

Here we cut dashing figures in our orange life jackets. Miss Franny promises she "will never let go, I'll never let go..." Hope she doesn't change her mind as fast as Kate Winslet did... Two seconds after saying it she lets go, prising his fingers off and Leo sinks into the depths...

And here is how not to wear a life jacket as demonstrated by the one who has spent years at sea... One strap under the arm and the other side over the arm... The tapes should be passed around the body and tied over the life jacket to stop it flapping up and whacking you in the face if you ever have to jump into the sea - definitely a "everything else has failed" option! Thank you Mr Macho, you may stand down... You have to understand that the exercise was seriously interrupting his photo taking mission...

Suddenly it went dark. Palma Marina at night is quite a spectacular thing to look upon and the large basilica on the far side of the bay and the old Moorish castle on the hilltop add to the atmosphere. I take this same photo every time we go there to pick up a ship...

Up on the aft deck David shows an interested audience the photos he has taken so far... He is trying to teach me port and starboard and doesn't seem all that impressed with my suggestion of "the landie side" and "the sea-ie side"!

An hour later...

Highlights of The Mediterranean Cruise Index

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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