Month: March 2024

Arriving on Easter Sunday, Genoa the 6th biggest city in Italy.

Today we are going to join a full day excursion of the and explore three cities, Santa Margherita, Rapallo (was Portofino but changed to Rapallo at last minute due to bad weather… Portofino needs to access through ferry) and Genoa… the towns that helps define the Italian riviera

First stop is Santa Margherita, little seaside town lined with little bars, cafes and shops that opens even on Easter Sunday and in this awful weather….unlike the French rivieras which are on flater land and with deeper beaches, the Italian rivieras are hilly right by the beach…. The guide told us the reason Mediterranean diets mainly has vegis and fish is because meat is hard to get due to their hilly landscape… Interesting….

Second stop is Rapallo, another small town by the beach just next to Santa Margherita … There is much excitement in the air with kids running around trying to score Easter eggs..

Back to Genoa, lunch at Zeffirino, the chef show us secrets of making a authentic pesto sauce (pesto alla Genovese)… This restaurant is famous for their pesto source and according to the guide, one of the favorite restaurants of Sinatra… We had a wonderful meal there with the group, very festive and happy…

City walk tour of Genova after lunch reaffirms our love of Italy as our favorite country to visit… Their architecture is big scale astounding, the weather also clears up a bit with light drizzle only instead of actual rain earlier

Cant wait to visit the other 4 cities of Italy in the next 4 days…..

Arrived in soupy Toulon port… Suffering from wind and rain from Africa today… According to the guide, it’s rare

They told us there wasnt much to see at the Navel Port town of Toulon, so we booked an excursion. Tour starts at 7am…. The excursion goes to Aix En Provence (will call it Aix from here onwards).. It’s a Former capital of Provence. A small university town. Famous painter Cezanne was born here, love hiking near the mountains of Aix

It’s an hour away from Toulon…. Wonderful to enjoy some Provence scenery on the way….

First stop Cathedral saint sauveur

Turns out the soupy weather is due to this, 👇

Marseille, 2nd largest city of France and a very important Hub for commerce… Also a city that is busy prepping for this year’s Olympic where the sailing events will happen here

La Major Cathedral

Mucem (Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean) … The museum highlights the culture of Mediterranean….great building design and it link up with the neighboring Tour du Fanal castle and makes a perfect old and new pairing

Walk from Mucem to old port

Lunch by the vieux (old) port. I ordered the famous Marseille bouillabaisse (fresh fish soup with cod sourced from local fish market) P ordered the grilled Limande (sole 龍利）…he loved his dish so much but mine is a little too fishy

Capucine food market

Cour Julian… Street famous for graffiti that were deemed artsy

Random street scene during our after lunch stroll

Marseille is very Metropolitan and very multi cultural … A port town whose vibe reminds us of Kaoshiung in Taiwan

Btw… We saw a lot of Carrefour (家樂福）stores in Barcelona and in Marceille….all this time I thought they are a Taiwan chain…. Now I know Carrefour was founded in France and based in France

When we were here 20 something years ago (honestly we can’t remember the year, but it’s before Euro) on our first cruise of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Barcelona, Barcelona being the last stop…we were absolutely stunned by her beauty, all those curvaceous lines and colors and uncompromising glamour is unlike any city we had ever experienced… Like seeing a beautiful flamenco dancer in her full regalia…. So we are happy to be back

La Sagrada Familia

Pg. De Gràcia

Casa miro

Casa Batlló

Placa de catalunya

Arc de Triomf

Hotpot lunch

La Palau de la musica…. My pictures did not do the place justice… You can Google the place if it piques your interest….it’s not Gaudi’s modernist style so the ticket is not as expensive but to our opinion, we love this one better, it has a good balance between modernist and art noveau style

Boqueria market

La Rambla, the busiest street in Barcelona also the most dangerous where lots of pick pockets traverse

The effect of over tourism is everywhere in this city… We survived the rush and made it back to the ship…..

So we are savoring this single sea day as the next 8 days is going to be super busy with stops: Barcelona, Marseille, Toulon, Genoa, Florence, Rome, Naples and Sicily.. We remind ourselves to take it easy since half of them we already been and it’s never possible to see everything, so just chill and soaked in the vibe

Today they are having an art exhibition of students work during sea day classes, and P attended 3 classes, thus 3 water color paintings….

This seaside town is charming and glamorous with a lot of Roman remains and relics

The busy buzzling street lined with buildings with glorious ornate facades

The Roman Theatre of Carthago Nova

The Roman forum museum

Once again we were overwhelmed with lots of beauty and details… Its going to get worst as the next stop is Barcelona….. The downside of cruise travel is we only stop for average 8 hours and some cities needs at least a week…. Now we can understand why a lot of the cruisers onboard do the world cruise multiple times… Each time check out different places….

The captain announced the change of sea Port from Cardiz to Cartagena due to weather conditions so we are actually trying to outrun a storm….

Crossing the Gibraltar strait today…many cargo ships in sight…. Not sure if this is busier than usual volume due to red dea/ Suez canal crisis.. It’s interesting to sail in the middle of the strait and view the land of morroco on the right and Gibraltar on the left.

Some specialty meals on the ship is not free and requires an up charge… Today For lunch we tried the seafood bucket lunch for $40 per person and it’s great value… The bucket is packed with lots of goodies such as lobster tails and claws, crabs and shrimps, mussels and clams…and this feast also comes with hush puppies, seafood chowder and desserts

Princess invited a person name Pete Best who is the original drummer of Beatles to give us a talk about how they first started and one of the interesting little thing he mentioned about Beatles is in the beginning they wore leather clothing like rock bands, it’s when they have a new manager later who suggested that they wore suits, an idea they first resist but later became their signature

Before we enter the Mediterranean, we need to visit the sea Port of Portugal, Lisbon.. Again, we had been here more than two decades before so instead of focusing on the city of Lisbon we are going out of the city to the popular hilly town of Sinatra and beach town of Cascais both establish since the 19th century

Sinatra is a very scenic spot, since it’s Sunday… It’s packed with cars and tourists…. Kind of scarry to see our big tour bus winding down and up the narrow streets

Caicais is another touristy spot by the sea, 45 minutes away from downtown Lisbon …

Back to downtown Lisbon, vibrant town packed with shop, cafes, restaurants and bakeries

We combed the narrow cobbled stone streets of Lisbon for hours, finally gave up….. There’s never enough time or energy…. Persistence is key… Looking forward to tomorrow’s sea day to rest

P will follow up some other day with his random photos of our stop in Lisbon that do more justice to the place… There are so many textures and flavors and colors that’s hard to capture all…. Hopefully by now we all kind of have an understanding that this blog is just a rudimentary summary of travel events that happened😉

After 3 consecutive port days, this sea day is much welcomed and needed to regain our bearings…back to zumba, painting, destination port talk… etc…

Last night’s Theatre performance was an interesting one where the performer played with innovative instrument (xylophone like synthesizer), laserbeams with sounds and led light dance

Oh, forgot to show a selfie with the new captain Paul Slight from Wales…. There’s a change of captain of the ship at Mauritius

A port city of Morocco… We were in Tangier almost 30 years ago so we kind of knew what to expect…..but we had never done a camel ride before… So it’s two hours of camel caravan slow ride from land to river, passed by military base, royal palace, sheeps  chewing vegetations, Bee hive farms, river beds, other caravans….. Camels are such wonderful docile animal….. Mine is called bogoreu, P’s is called Atlas and our wonderful guide’s name is Mohamad. P doesn’t like to make animals work but R just wants to experience it, at least once…. So here it is….

The sceneries on the way to the river is serene… Camels linked in a caravan moved slowly and sturdily… Rocking up and down I imagined Lawrence of Arabia crossing the dessert…

Next stop is Souk El Had one of the biggest market place in Morocco

Beautiful beach scenery