A series of articles charting our progress and antics on a cruise with Island Cruises with my mum along for the week.
Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.
I am, I must confess, a little tardy with this follow-up entry. The first in this series was published in December 2013... But hey! Better late than never! Oh and the "foreign" bit only applies if you do not live in any of the countries depicted... There are several places depicted where I'd quite like to live come to think of it!
El Caldera de Taburiente on the island of La Palma, on of the Canary Islands. The caldera is a massive crater, 17 miles (28km) in diameter. (Disconcertingly another guide on a later visit said it was 17 miles around... One of them was out by a factor of 3.142...) It is said to have been eroded out rather than being a volcanic crater. It reaches depths of 3500 feet (724m). I drew this in 2005 on our second cruise and had borrowed the pencil off the Receptionist onboard! One of the very few sketches I've drawn with a normal pencil rather than my propelling pencil.
This is a bit of a weird one. In 2007 we called at Valencia on the old Island Star cruise ship and we took a trip that included a visit to the Sagunto caves. You are taken through the caves on a boat and it is too dark to take photos and flash would blind the boatman leading to bumped heads on overhanging rock or greater disaster. I bought some postcards of the caves (some of which hilariously show boatmen covering their eyes...) and drew this from one of them after we had got home.
I remember we heard a really disturbing echoing boom whilst we were underground on the boat. "What was that?" gasped a young girl.
"Orcs!" I whispered kindly.
This was also done from a photo of Taormina in Sicily when I was trying to get over my reluctance to draw people. Well, not so much reluctance because I don't want to - it's more reluctance because I am hideously bad at drawing lifelike figures... This did help a little and a friend who is also an artist praised it saying that as a quick impression of a place and atmosphere it had some merit. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to produce photographically correct portraits though!
Santa Margherita in Italy, drawn on site. One of the ones I am most proud of - it stands up to the photo quite well. An old chap who was looking over my shoulder called his grandson over and the lad, who was probably around twelve or thirteen, took one look and went "Whoaaaagh!!!" in admiration. A quite satisfying moment, I must thrash myself with a rusty chain...
We took my Mum on a cruise in 2008 and called at Villefranche - one of my favourite spots on the south coast of France. I drew this whilst Fran took Mum around the small market. There comes an age where old people should have reins like you can get for toddlers... We lost her twice that holiday, having to go hairing after her once having spotted her wandering off in the opposite direction and once when she had taken it into her head to hide behind the back of a market stall to try something on...
Mahon on Menorca is a lovely place and the approach from a cruise ship is just gorgeously picturesque with lots of whitewashed houses facing the long inlet that you sail up. This was a very steep hill with a set of steps cutting the corner. An interesting exercise as far as perspective goes. Electricity was distributed by passing a cable across the street. It would have cleared a small lorry - not sure about a large one...
And lastly for this entry this is from the same visit to Mahon and done from the ship's rail once we were back onboard. Mahon is one of those wonderful places where you step off the ship and are immediately in the town. A long curving road leads up the hill to the town centre, but a wide series of steps gives the walker a more direct if no less taxing route. The table umbrellas of a refreshments stall are seen at the bottom.
Friday 29 August and we have arrived at Mahon on the island of Menorca where the ship has sailed right up the the streets of the town.
Mum made it up the four series of steps from the quayside with a stop to catch her breath every now and then and we found ourselves in the town of Mahon.
We had a short and gentle walk around the immediate area.
Brightly coloured streamers were flying, giving the place a carnival appearance. Put these up in a resort in England and I suspect they would be faded and dirty and giving anything but the right atmosphere before too long!
We wandered the streets and shops for a while and decided we didn't want to buy any souvenirs and that Mum had bought enough new clothes to last a lifetime...
We went back down the steps and along a row of cafes on the port road, but they all seemed to have square umbrellas that made an unbroken roof and were a bit smoky underneath from cigarettes! After they were banned from enclosed premises in the UK we've got used to clean air and notice cigarette smoke more.
We got back to the cafes at the foot of the set of steps that we had walked up into the town this morning. Just up a few steps overlooking the cafe tables was a market with perhaps half a dozen stalls.
Fran and Mum went off to a market whilst I drew a quick sketch of the steep hill seen earlier and then I caught up with them back at the cafe.
Fran had a slush drink - not sure what it was but it was based on some sort of red berry and it was delicious. I got one myself and we spent a pleasant half hour just talking and watching the comings and goings taking place around us.
Mum was happy with a new top that she had bought. Fran was less than happy at the fact that she had taken her eye off Mum for just a second or two only to find she had totally vanished from this very small market. She had gone behind a stall to try on the top without telling Fran where she was going. For a while Fran was on the point of going frantic. Mum remained unconcerned... "I knew where I was..." she said.
We had been told to be up early for our final day on the Island Star.
It was Friday 29 August and the final port of call before heading back to Majorca for the flight home was Mahon on the Mediterranean island of Menorca.
"It's the most beautiful approach to a port in the Med," one of the crew had told me. "Make sure you are up on deck as we come in."
And here is the proof to the accuracy of that statement. Whitewashed buildings, cliffs and a deep blue sea. "Of course it's the same view going out..." the crew member had shrugged, but as a photographer I knew that wouldn't be the case. The light would be totally different and, as it turned out, the morning light was ideal to take photos of the beautiful scenery coming in. Menorca has a long channel down which the ships sail before reaching the port and Mahon itself.
It took 30 minutes from turning into the bay to reaching our docking point.
We sailed past this tiny island with the ruined buildings and wondered what it was.
"It's a plague island!" I heard one passenger say. It could have been a leper or plague colony, but just as equally it could have been a prison, a military academy or a school or a religious colony. As always, Google provides an answer. Its name is Illa Del Rey, the Island of the King. The king in question was King Alfonso III of Aragon who landed here in 1287 prior to his conquering of Menorca away from the Muslims. The hospital was built by the British in 1711 and was so successful that the island became known as "Bloody Island"...
Over the years the island was used variously as a refuge for those with Yellow Fever (plague island - tick), a storage space for coal (didn't think of that one...) and in 1843, a military hospital with a much better reputation than the British effort. In 1888 traces of a very early 6-7th century Christian basilica were found and in 2004 a "friends" organisation was formed to restore and take care of the island.
We stayed standing against the ship's rail until the call for breakfast became just too much and the rumbling of our tummies rivalled the ship's engines! We went down to the Beachcomber restaurant and ate, then came back out into the daylight to be astonished at the view.
The ship was docked right at the edge of the town as this shot shows. Mum was looking slightly askance at all the steps leading upwards but we knew she'd make it ok if she wanted to! Ok, hats, cameras, suntan lotion, money, sunglasses - oh, no, the sunglasses are still in the car in Manchester aren't they... Too bad! Let's go!
