Cruise Barcelona to Nice Sept 2015
Ibiza – Very steep walk into the walled old city. Visited the cathedral and museum, then just a walk through the old town. After lunch walk through the lower part near the water. Mostly touristy style shops. Is the 3rd largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands. A popular holiday destination.
Palma de Mallorca (Majorca) – is the largest of the Balearic Islands, is the capital of the islands. A popular resort area with winding streets and numerous churches including the Gothic Cathedral which dominates the sky line. Unfortunately the museum was closed. The cathedral we’ll be going to tonight for a concert and tour so we spent the morning walking the streets. The concert was fabulous with organ music and a choir.
Mahon, Menorca – 2nd largest island in the chain. Resort areas but remains relatively unspoiled. Wonderful natural harbour – we took an hour and a half harbour cruise on a glass bottom boat. There was also a lot of historical information given. Again a walled city with steep steps up, just walked the town and visited the museum. The permanent collection of artefacts was closed for renovation but they had an exhibition of paintings of women since C14th which was very interesting especially when a C16th art work was next to a C21st piece and you noticed the change in how women are depicted. Shopping streets quite good here, most closed for siesta at 2pm.
Propriano, Corsica, France – the island where Napoleon was born. Gain we just walked the town. Tourism has brought a lot of growth. The inland areas would have been great to see but there are no buses, public transport os taxis.
Amalfi, Italy – The Amalfi coastline is World Heritage listed. Great natural beauty and wonderful scenery. Picturesque fishing villages, houses/churches cut and built up the steep cliffs. We took a tour to Ravello. The road was narrow, a lot of traffic and we were in a 40 seater coach! The road was windy with hair pin bends. There was a lot of backing up by vehicles coming down the hill and many near misses. I am glad we did the tour and not hire a car and do it ourselves, we’d have probably turned around. Ravello was a beautiful old town, our guide gave us lots of information. Pottery is made here so I bought a small bowl. On our return to Amalfi we had a tour of the Cathedral museum and Cathedral after which we wandered town before returning to ship.
Sorrento – Italy – 2 nights. Day 1 we decided to take the local train to Ercolano (Herculaneum) where the old town was covered with volcanic ash, mud and pyroclastic materials (pumis) in 79AD after Vesuvius exploded. The town has been excavated and is now 250m from the shoreline – in 79AD the shore lapped the walls. We spent a few hours touring the site with the aid of an English language recording. Unfortunately all the artifacts that survived looting, have been removed to the Naples museum. We took the train into Naples where we only had time to walk to the port and wait for a ferry back to Sorrento. A trip to the museum would have been good as Pompeii artifacts are also there.
Day 2 – Pompeii with Vesuvius as a backdrop. Our tour left early for a coach drive that took us about an hour.We were taken first to a shop where they carve cameos out of shell. We saw a brief demonstration before being taken down to the shop. The cameos are beautiful and very intricate but also very expensive.
The walking tour of Pompeii was approx 21and a half hours, our guide was excellent, very thorough imparting information and taking us to the most important areas of the ruins. Pompeii was also covered with ash, mud and pumis so was easily excavated. If it had been larva, as in other towns nearby, it would have hardened like rock. Pompeii was very crowded with tour groups and people doing it on their own. A great experience. Unfortunately most of the precious stones, silver, china was looted by Roman emperors around 100AD who wanted the artifacts for their palaces, the remainder are in Naples.
Returning back to the ship for a late lunch – 2.15. Later we went into Sorrento to look around. Lots of leather products plus inlaid timber boxes, cabinets etc.
Day at sea travelling between Sorrento and Livorno (Florence)
Florence/Pisa
Early start to the day for a one and a half hour drive to Florence. First stop Hill overlooking Florence – magnificent view. Then drive down to Gallery Acadamia to view David by Michaelangelo. Very impressive statue. The remainder of the time in Florence was walking past the various sites and plazas.
Pisa – we were only there an hour but again the tower and other buildings were impressive.
