Thomson Majesty Leaves Kusadasi

Monday 15 June 2015. We have returned to the ship following our excellent excursion to Ephesus. Most days once back on board I left my camera in the cabin. All of the photos on this entry therefore are courtesy of David Lancaster esquire, fellow traveller, friend (...he must be somebody's...) and sometime singer extraordinaire (strange singer...)

Time for the daily blockage of the gangway photo... Whilst David gives precise directions for us to pose, the couple waiting to get off, decide to go back in and have lunch...

We head up top to have a look over the side at the tall ship moored on the other side of the jetty. I've seen lots of these on various cruises but can't recall ever seeing one with sails set...

Lunch onboard for Fran and I tends to be a plate of fresh pineapple and melon. Just about anything is available from salads to full blown hot dinners but with a hearty breakfast and the excellent evening dinners of several courses I just can't eat a big lunch as well. I think fondly of those days on holiday in seaside resorts as a teenager when I would eat a full English breakfast, a burger at ten o'clock, a dinner involving chips, another burger at three in the afternoon, a full meal at tea time and then probably another snack mid evening and possibly something for supper aswell - and maintain a slim figure! What the hell happened...?

It's mid afternoon and we are sitting, reading or doing puzzles out of the sun cooling down with fruit juices.

...or maybe not fruit juices... Cocktail of the Day is a San Francisco - "a vibrant mix of dry martini, vodka, orange juice and crème de banana".

It comes time to sail away from Kusadasi. We head back up to Deck 11 at the top of the ship to watch us sail away. The little Greek tugboat stands by. Don't you just love those? No wasted space at all, they are just long enough to provide a bit of stability - a round boat would bob all over the place and require more power to move - and the tiny bridge is totally glass, giving a 360° view.

Thomson Majesty having moved away from the dock, the tug crosses the bows ready to assist if needed as we swing around to face the open sea.

Kusadasi's island fortress. It covers the entire island which is linked to Kusadasi by a paved causeway. It was built in the 13th century and restored by the Ottomans after their invasion, a hundred years later, to protect the town and port from attack by pirates including the famed Barbarossa who operated in this region. The Ottomans added the walls around the island which is called Pigeon Island due to the migration of birds to here and "Kusadasi" itself means Bird (kuş) Island (ada).

Successfully swung, we head out and away from Turkey, following the setting sun back to Greece. Tomorrow we will be in Piraeus, the port for Athens.

Rested, showered and changed and ready for the evening aboard and dinner. Having only had a light lunch, we are now eagerly anticipating our dinner, which is a leisurely affair with anything up to six courses - appetiser, soup, salad, main, dessert, coffee. Every course involves choices from three or four alternatives (even the coffee course has several varieties of tea available).

Yankee and Marwill are all agog, wondering what we will choose to eat tonight! Marwill always starts immediately by serving us a glass of white wine and a glass of water.

Above and below are two of the desserts from tonight's menu. Small portions ensure that you are not over-faced and for those with large appetites, they would actually be happy to serve two desserts anyway.

Someone on the table behind us had a birthday. Cue for the waiters to gather round and sing Happy Birthday!

Deck 5 people-watching station... Apart from myself (I'm sporting a pair of my "posh" shoes), there is a fine array of toes on display!

We go to see the show that night which is a comedian. Muzzik Unlimited play a set before he comes on.

And finally back to the cabin. "Hey, Fran, where's me towel gone...?"

Hellenic Classics Index

Thomson Celebration in Funchal, Madeira

Monday 7 April 2014 and by the time we surface out of our bed the Thomson Celebration has arrived at Funchal and is moored in the harbour close by other cruise liners, Aida Stella and the Braemar. The crews of these had arranged a 3-way football tournament.

We have been to Madeira twice before, on the tiny ship Carousel of Sun Cruises. The first time Sahara dust turned it into a foggy place of only a few hundred yards visibility and the second time we got soaked by rain which came on as we started to walk back to the harbour from town. Today is much kinder!

Opposite the ship a large fortress, Fortaleza do Pico, occupies the hillside. In 1566 Bertrand de Montluc led a force of French corsairs in eleven ships to attack Funchal. They moored outside Funchal and attacked overland which meant that the defences of the town were unable to bring any large guns to bear as they were all sited to fire out to sea. Small pockets of resistance were dealt with easily and the city was subjected to a violent sacking for a fortnight. A community of nuns fled the town and took refuge high up in the mountains of Madeira. Their sanctuary, Curral das Freiras, is spectacular and a feature of excursions to this day. The fortress in Funchal was constructed between 50-100 years after the pirate raid.

We hadn't booked a tour for today and instead got off the ship and walked into the town. I was going a little gingerly due to still having the blister from a couple of days ago, but it behaved itself and I stopped worrying about it after today!

We found Funchal filled with street musicians, some of them quite large bands and this one featured this curious instrument with bright red plastic tubes. They looked like and probably were drainage tubes. The ends were open and the musician whacked them with a sort of paddle and startlingly it sounded just like a bass guitar!

This is the doorway of City Hall. It has some nice ironwork and leads through to a courtyard with a statue. It was just one of several pleasing buildings in the centre of the town.

Being on the side of such a steep hillside, Funchal has a few rivers flowing down from the interior to the sea. This was taken from Ponte Do Bettencourt, "ponte" meaning "bridge". The river did not look as if it warranted such a deep ravine, but in 2010 a deep depression over the Atlantic and a few other factors led to Funchal experiencing several months' worth of rain over a short period. The rivers flooded, causing damage except where they were contained as here. They washed so much material down that there is extensive building work going on now to rebuild the Promenade which was badly damaged. Much of it is being rebuilt with the material washed down by the swollen rivers!

We dropped into seats at a table and ordered a drink opposite another similar cafe that seemed to be occupying a building originally a cinema or theatre. A beggar was moving from table to table, telling some sob story. I just thrust out a hand, palm out as he approached our table and motioned him away. It worked so well I must try it again...

After a couple of hours we were ready to start moving back to the ship and instead of going back down to the Promenade we walked along the back streets for a while. This was a wide pleasant street with cafes, bars, hotels and a few shops on one side and a park on the other.

Looking down a side street I saw the panels on the side of a hotel, filled with blue ceramic tiles which showed scenes of Madeira. One was of the wicker toboggans that can be taken down the mountain, being pushed and guided by two "gondoliers" who scoot the toboggan and just hope no motorised traffic will cross their path from a side street! We did it once and it was great fun.

We were back on the Promenade walk and nearing the harbour and I was just putting one foot in front of the other, happy in my own little world when I heard a voice say "We think we know you!" I came out of my daydream to find Tomas and Maris smiling at us. We laughed and chatted and Tomas took this selfie of the four of us. I put my camera on the wall and used the self-timer and managed to chop off the top of our heads... I'm sure Tomas won't mind me using his photo!

Back on the ship, later that afternoon we watched the replica of Christopher Columbus's ship Santa Maria return with her cargo of tourists who had gone out for a spot of dolphin watching, swimming and deck swabbing. They must have been friendly as the fortress guns remained silent. Next time, we'll have a look at a few dolphins ourselves!

Oh and our crew lost the football tournament...

Colourful Coasts Cruise Index

The Principality of Monaco

Our excursion coach comes to Monaco and we climb out and climb on upwards, past the Oceanographic Museum of Jacques Cousteau to Monaco Ville - the old town up on it's promontary rock overlooking Monaco and Monte Carlo.

We come first to the Cathedral St Nicholas. This is the resting place of Grimaldi princes and princesses.

Inside the cathedral. There were fresh flowers on the graves of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. Considerably more for ex-film star Grace Kelly in fact.

The Royal Palace of Monaco. Currently the home of Prince Albert II, the Sovereign Prince of Monaco.

Monaco is small and does not have an army of its own. The Royal Guard - the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince - are "borrowed" from France. Which at least ensures that it is extremely unlikely that Monaco would ever declare war on France...

Looking over the edge of the promontary in the opposite direction to Monte Carlo we see the ancient defences of Monaco. Whilst the chap in charge of the cannon asked which way to point it, the lookout fumbled for another 20p as the binoculars went dead...

Along this coast you see most of the old towns up on high steep hills. There were many pirates on the Mediterranean and it was easier to run into low lying towns for a spot of looting, rape and pillage than it was to run up a hill, grab a likely wench and then say "Hang on a minute love, I'm all out o' puff..." Also there's a limit to how high the cannon on a ship can point!

Looking down from Monaco Ville to Monte Carlo and the harbour.

The huge yacht in the centre is Lady Moura the yacht of Prince Albert.

The Constitution of Monaco had to be re-written a while ago. Whilst Prince Albert has two children, they were both born out of wedlock and cannot be heirs to the throne. He is now married to Princess Charlene, formerly Charlene Wittstock, a South African Olympic swimmer though no children have yet come from the marriage. The former Constitution stated that only direct children from the last prince could inherit the throne so there was a danger of there being no eligible heir. The Constitution now allows siblings who are direct descendants from the previous prince to inherit, so the current heir to the Grimaldi dynasty is Princess Caroline of Hanover, Albert's sister.

Ah... Princess Caroline... I fancied her from my early teens... She was easily the most beautiful of all the world's eligible princesses before Miss Franny came along and took me off the market! Had she ever popped into our local I might have been Prince Consort-in-Waiting by now...

Return to Mediterranean Explorer 2006 Index

The Most Southerly Town In Europe

More from Sunday 23 August 2009. Having left the Minoans wondering where their roofs and most of the walls of their houses had gone, we carried on south to Ierapetra

This is the most southerly town in Europe. I looked in vain for a sign at the sea edge that said "Welcome to Europe" though figured it would have needed a large sign for all the bureaucracy and subtitles like "Europe welcomes careful drivers, whether in motors or on camels" and "Europe is proud to have more overpaid bureacrats thinking up absurd rules to make life hell than any other federation"

The town was at its most powerful during the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. The Romans conquered it, knocked it down and rebuilt it in AD66 along classic Roman lines. The Saracens came along and destroyed it again in the 800s but then rebuilt it again and it came to be used as a centre for piracy.

There's a more peaceful air about the place these days. No one called us "scurvy dogs" or did anything more threatening than sell us a bottle of water when we asked politely. Well, to be honest she did look a bit bemused when I asked, but was happy enough when I just opened the fridge and took out a bottle. Luckily it turned out we were in a shop...

We walked around the old town, passing a gorgeous little Byzantine church - note the two domes. This is the Lord Christ Church. Napoleon Bonaparte anchored off here on his way to Egypt and stayed in a house that remembers him still (he nicked an ashtray...)

Along the seafront - known as the Mole for some reason. The beach was a grey beach of pebbles and pretty much deserted.

We passed a series of bars, mostly empty but for a few local men swapping yarns. After we passed one I heard some shouts but couldn't understand the language so didn't think they were directed at me, but later I found my filter must have dropped off the camera and they were probably trying to tell me as I ignored them... duh...

This is the Kales, an ancient fort attributed to a Genoese pirate called Pescatore and built in 1212. It was free to enter and even housed a toilet block in one room.

We walked up the precarious and well worn steps to the left and back down the slope from the battlements in the middle of the photo. The slope actually felt safer... There was a commanding view over both the sea and the land and you can see from the above photo that the fighting platform ran around both sides of the fort so that cannon could be situated to fire inland as well as towards enemy ships.

A couple of doors had rusted but interesting ironwork door furniture.

Looking back at The Mole from the fort ramparts.

Looking on the opposite direction, it's time for us to think about making our way back towards the pick-up point for the coach.

Our path takes us along the edge of the small harbour.

Our hour was up. A last look at the sea off Ierapetra. By the time it hits land again the breakers will be lapping against the coast of Africa.

Pearls of The Aegean Cruise Index

Arriving in Villefranche

Thursday 28 August 2008. We wake up, anchored off Villefranche, France. Luckily we are still on the ship...

Tours are heading off to Nice and Monaco and Monte Carlo, but we have a leisurely breakfast. Mum after her experience in Santa Margherita, is looking forward to another day using a tender boat to get to shore.

By the time we are ready for the tender boat there is quite a queue for it.

Quite a queue too to get into the harbour. The tender curves its way from the ship close to the Villefrance shore but has to stand away from the harbour mouth whilst traffic in and out eases. It affords us a look at the town's fortress.

The waterfront is extremely pretty with brightly painted multi-coloured buildings lining the promenade roadway. Having stepped off the tender boat we passed through a customs or security building and into the town.

The town is set against a hill. This is what streets leading off the seafront look like! Steep steps.

Behind the front row of buildings is a dark covered passage, lit with modern electric bulbs in ancient lanterns. With its barred doorways and windows looking from buildings into the passage, it looks just as though it is a set from Pirates of the Caribbean.

We are nowhere near the Caribbean Sea of course, but the coastal towns of the Mediterranean were no more safe, as there were plenty of pirates operating in this region, from Africa and (one imagines) many sheltered well-hidden refuges where the locals could be persuaded through fear to keep quiet about the pirates' whereabouts.

Oh no... There's a market and Fran and Mum have spotted it... Well I think I may leave them to it and I'll climb the hill for a closer look at the fortress!

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