Join us for a week's cruise on the Marella Dream, starting and ending at Palma, Majorca and sailing to and fro across the Western Mediterranean to ports in Monaco, Italy, France and Spain.
Each day is shown on its own separate entry, reached by clicking/tapping the six photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.
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.
Sunday, 19 May 2019. The Marella Dream docks in Toulon, France. We had booked an excursion around the famous French naval harbour by small boat, but had received notice that not enough people had booked to allow that particular tour to go ahead. As regular cruisers we have visited lots of nearby places in previous years and one trip we had particularly enjoyed was to two little seaside resorts on the Cote d'Azur called Bandol and Sanary-sur-Mer. We changed our booking to do this again.
Our trip today did them in reverse order, so this is Sanary-sur-Mer. It had been our favourite of the two anyway. The tour guide was doing what all tour guides do - stopping at every kerb stone to describe it and give the date it was made so we quickly ascertained where and when to re-group and scarpered to explore on our own.
There was a stiff breeze, but otherwise it was bright and sunny. A short walk along the seafront brought us to the marina and a small market.
There's something about small boats in France and Italy. They are colourful and just aching to be photographed. I hate drawing them, but would love to be able to do so convincingly.
It was a Sunday, so only food stalls were open on the market. They were doing a brisk trade though.
This is a tuna fish. They are a large fish and you'd get a few tins out of this fellow!
We carried on walking around the harbour to the far end, by now thinking that it was time for a morning drink.
I'd never heard of the name "Rapax". It sounds like it should perhaps be a French sanitary product but it turns out to have been the name of a Roman legion formed in 31 CE (Common Era - same dating as AD) and means "Predator".
The local hippy boat...
It was time to turn round and walk back. We drifted off the seafront and came back down the streets behind the promenade buildings. Just a few shops were open, but to our advantage they were the ones mainly aimed at the tourists.
I had about half an hour to spare and sat drawing the harbour. This had to be finished later but I forced myself to add a boat into the scene!
Then it was on to Bandol. What can I say? The entire seafront road was a building site. A shame. The last time we were there, we had wandered along a massive market where stalls of crockery were a delight and Miss Franny tested my command of the French language by wanting me to buy her a top. With it being Sunday there was again just a handful of stalls selling food open. We stopped at a cafe for a drink. Now, I speak a smattering of a few european languages but French is the only one I studied, albeit some 50 years ago now. I managed to get Miss Franny a weak and milky coffee - "...un petit peu de café et beaucoups de lait" but how did they manage to interpret my "vin rouge" as a small beer??? I asked the tour guide later "Do they have a strong local accent here?" She pursed her lips. "Ooh ye-e-s!"
That night at our usual table in the main dining room our waiter thoughtfully plonked this on my head. "I have made you some Goofy ears!" he said kindly.
I had been playing a couple of songs every night. "Don't worry, the John Burke Fan Club..." announced Tomas, "He'll be on in our next session!" I do like a tolerant audience!
Saturday, 18 May 2019. We arrive in Livorno to find dark skies and teeming rain. We have brought no coats. We are booked on a boat trip around the canals of Livorno. We are at the back of the queue which means everyone else gets under the awning...
It was raining far too hard to think of taking photos. The tour guide (under the canopy) held up a few packets of polythene raincoats and looked directly at us. "We have some rain jackets for sale..." We're from Blackpool. We won't dissolve. I drew the sketch once we got home from a photo taken on a previous visit. I left a few boats out that were tied up along the side but otherwise this gives you an idea of the view, if not of the rain.
After the boat ride we squelched towards a large building that we recognised again from a previous visit. This is the indoor market of Livorno. The Mercato delle Vettovaglie, as it is known locally, is a huge building which dates from the late 1800s and houses 34 shops and some 230 stalls, primarily selling food but with a few craft or gift stalls here and there. You will find butchers' stalls with beef hind quarters and rows of rabbits hanging, fresh fish stalls, cheese and dairy stalls, wine, biscuits, sweets... There's lots to see and smell! It was crowded. Apart from the usual clientele just about every tourist in Livorno was sheltering in there! We managed to bag a table at a cafe stall and had our beloved latte machiatto - the same size as a small latte over here in the UK but costing less than two euros each! Again, the sketch was done at home. Last night in fact...
Finally our morning excursion was taking us to "the seaside". It had almost stopped raining by now but, as you can see, the weather was not promising to be good quite yet! To get to this checkerboard promenade we have had to wade a bit through puddles and standing water.
I thought I'd spotted a shortcut by going into the aquarium and out the far end of the reception area, but the rear doors opened onto a large flooded area and there would have been no hopping across that particular puddle!
It looked no brighter out to sea, where a handful of ships were heading towards the industrial port of Livorno.
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...
Thursday 16 May 2019. We are onboard the Marella Dream cruise ship for the week and after leaving Majorca, we have a day at sea and then arrive in Monaco.
That disobedient butler of ours seems to have ignored my stern instruction not to play with my yacht and he's brought it all the way to meet us here in the harbour at Monte-Carlo! I shall have to have words...
Not only that but he's tagged onto a line of others that are being towed out for a day's sailing!
We realise that the Monaco Grand Prix is due to be staged in just ten days and preparations are well under way in order to turn the roads into a racetrack and any bit of open space into a grandstand.
Our way into the town is by walking along the pits lane, overlooking the main bit of track for the start and end of the race. It's too early for any cars to have arrived just yet, but teams are knocking about getting the row of pits sorted and the grandstands are already built up in tiers supported by miles and miles of scaffolding.
We make our way into the main area facing the famous casino by something of a zig-zag route. We made use of lifts and escalators at the railway station in order to climb upwards and then found that the park we were hoping to wander through down to the casino was covered in a huge construction of tiered seating. The photo shows the Cafe de Paris. We stopped for a small bottle of Sprite each, a snip at 8 euros each, but you should expect to pay more when your maitre d' shows you to a table in full dress suit (the maitre d', not the table...) In fact I felt distinctly under-dressed in t-shirt and slacks in this area where Aston Martins, Ferraris and Lamborghinis are the norm and you are not going to turn heads even in a nifty open-top Jag. I felt sure my Mazda 5 MPV might have raised an eyebrow or two though...
Not content with expensive mineral drinks, Miss Franny has me splashing out a fiver for an ice cream! This place is not for the faint of pocket. We were security wanded down just walking into a shopping arcade!
The casino is built onto the Opera House. We didn't go in. I'm not being tied naked into a wicker chair with no seat for anybody. We walked around to the back of the Opera House and found a collection of cars which had been gathered together for some event or other. It was nice to note that British cars made a strong contribution to the display.
We had a wander through the gardens with a great viewpoint over the harbour area, dominated by the Marella Dream.
We realised we must be over the tunnel that is such a feature of the Monaco Grand Prix and walked down to this spot which overlooks the exit from the tunnel.
A lift brought us down to the tunnel itself and I remember that the last time we were here in 1996 there was much work going on in the harbour at the tunnel exit that has now turned into shops, bars and restaurants, seen in the previous photo, along the edge of the harbour.
We descended yet again to the harbour level. Across the harbour is Monaco city, where the royal palace and cathedral can be found. The royal palace can be glimpsed towards the right hand side of the photo.
We returned to the ship and I spent 3 hours doing this from Tides Bar's windows, with a drink or two to while away the afternoon.
