Ponte Degado, Azores

Today we docked at oour last port of call, 780 nautical miles from the European coastline at 10AM.

we had a princess shorex this morning that took us to Terra Nostra park near the town of Furnas (aptly named for the numerous hot water springs that erupt in hte area). The park is a botanical garden created by the British, and then American ambassador to the Azores. IT is now a state held private garden boasting flora and fauna from the four corners of hte world and all seem to thrive in this temperate climate. Temperatures range from a high of 80F in the summer to a low of 50F in the 'winter' and the volcanic soils create a healthy environment for plants to thrive. THe main industry of the Portuguese held chain of 9 islands is dairy products and tea. The Island is checkered with fields of holstein/friesen dairy cattle munching on hte verdant meadows.

After a great lunch at the Terra Nostra Garden Hotel, we proceeded to visit the hotsprings that erupt in the area. Locals actually cook corn on the cob in the springs in the summer, and chestnuts in the winter. We then proceeded to the PIca Da Barrosa overlook to view the caldera of an ancient volcano that is now a lake. The tour ended at Ribeirio Grande, a quaint village and the island's oldest town before returning to Ponta delgata and the Ruby Princess.

We dined with L&L in the Bottecelli dining room with fixed seating at 615 before retiring back to our cabin.

I am fighting off a cold/sore throat that I managed to pick up from one of our fellow travellers who apparently doesn't believe in covering sneezes with tissue or washing hands...... a hazard of the cruise trade.

Hard to believe that the last port of call before disembarking came an went today. It has been a great excursion with many memories, photos, and laughs along the way. We are now facing an anticlimactic 6 days at sea so blog entries will be few and far between depending on our prowess at trivia.

This port was one of the hidden beauties that few get the opportunity to experience and we are grateful we were able to visit it.

Lisbon, Portugal

After spending a day and a half at sea playing trivia and winning a bottle of champagne at music trivia because one of us is an outgoing, dance maniac (not Peggy) we went to bed and set our clocks back an hour.

We woke up in time to see us entering the Tagus river estuary en route to Lisbon. Overnight, we passed through teh Straits of Gibraltar and were rocked and rolled all night long causing a lack of sleep. Afer breakfast and trivia (15/20) we got ready to disembark for a Shore excursion to teh Maritime Museum and the Jeromina Monastery as well as Alfima, the oldest part of Lisbon. As teh ship docked at noon, our tour didn't start until 1PM and with our tour guide, Rita, we set off. The maritime museum was awesome and I got some great pics of model frigates as well as the royal barge. We stoped for photo opps at Edward VII park, in honor of the priince from England, the Belem Fortress, and the Monument to Henry the navigator. We also toured the Monastery cathedral (ABC) where we viewed Vasco de Gama's tomb. While walking through the Alfima district, we learned of the conflicts with the Moors in the 1100's which gave way to the Kingdom of Portugal until Salazar formed a dictatorship, which was overthrown in the last century giving way to a democratically elected president. Salazar did some good, ordering the bulding of schools, hospitals and a bridgein his name (now know as the April 26th bridge, the date the dictatorship ended) as well as bringing economic stability to the Country. His pechant for wars in Africa to protect Portugals interest, at great cost, made his regime unpopuar and it was ousted in a military coup.

Tomorrow is an at sea day as we sail towards Ponta del Gata in the Azores and our trans-Atlantic crossing back to North America. I look forward to yet another of John Maxtone-Graham's lectures tomorrow.ma's tomb. After walking through the Alfama district, and learning about the history of the oldest section of 
Lisboa, we returned to the ship

Barcelona part two

After the HOHO ride, we went back to La Rambla for lunch at a nice little place off teh main street. WE had paella, PEggy had Chicken and mine was oaded with seafood, and washed it down with a 1/2 litre of Sangria. WE walked back to the World trade center to catch the shuttle bus and returned to the ship around 330PM in time for afternoon trivia (12/21) with Mary, Susie, Dennis and Lou, our ad-hoc team. We will be heading down to meet L&L at 630PM for a 'light' dinner and to hear a recap of their day.

Tomorrow is a relaxing day at sea before we go to Lisbon.

Barcelona

We arrived at the port of Barcelona at 7am backing into our berth below Montjuic mountain, the home of the 92 Olympics. After breakfast in the dining room, we caught a local shuttle bus ($6USeach way each) for the 5 minute (advertised as 5 miles ) run to the World Trade center. From there, we walked up La Rambla exploring the little kiosks full of souvenirs, trinkets, flowers and seeds. PEggy bought two more tea towels. THe weather was a perfect fall day, 68 degrees with bright sun an blue skies, a big departure from the storm yesterday (we learned today that the same storm hit Monterosso, one of hte towns in Cinque terre, Italy, killing 9 with more than 30 souls still missing).

As we reached the top of La Rambla, about 1 KM from the start, we decided to board the HOHO bus for a 2 hour circuit of Barcelona. It is easily one of hte cleanest and best laid out cities we have every been in. The main roads are wide boulevards with separate lanes for scooters and bicycles. The city council is promoting the use of bicycles by installing clusters of bike stands with generic 'loaner' bikes for residnents to use for a fixed annual fee. One can get a bicyle in one location and drop it off at their destination. It is a greaty system. WE saw the Olympic stadium from 1992 whch was part of the 1928 worlds fair that ywas held here as well as the 100,000 seat Barco football stadium for the city's soccer team and rabid soccer fans.

Nice part deux

To continue, it seems Android and blogger don't always see eye to eye. Blogger auto saves my work, but moves my cursor up into the text andI cant get it back to where I left off :-( !

I bought a two bottles of wine, a Bordeaux and Chateau something (6 euros) and agot a hair trim (10 euros). We then caught the tram back to the Opera stop and retraced our steps back tohte flower market where Peggy got two dozen mini roses (5 euros) and some french brioche at the bakery stall (they were delicious). We had lunch at an Italian (?) bistro before reconnecting with the tram back to the NIce train station. Back in Cannes,, we hailed a taxi who took us past the site of the Cannes film festival before depositing us at the tender dock. Back on board, we four had 'real' coffee in the Piazza (thanks Leslee and Linda) before trivia (we scored 18/20 and came second.

Tonight we will head back to the dining room after cleaning up from our soggy day's outing. It was a very memorable day and we are all glad that we made the effort.

Au revoir to France for now, and on to Barcelona in the morning.

Cannes to Nice, via the train, in the rain

The Captain Tony Yeomans gave us a heads up that we would have heavy winds and rain for our visit to the Cote d'Asur and, sadly, he was right. We anchored at 7am and then we caught the tenderr toshore around 8AM into Cannes and disembarked into a driving rainstorm. PEggy and I donned our ponchos and looked like bubble boya tand bubble girl as the wind inflated the outfit. WE trudged to find a cab with Leslee and Linda, but stumled on a city bus that took us two blocks from 'le Gar' for a euro each.

We had pre-ordered train tickets to Nice on hte net, but Linda and Leslee bought easily at the station's kiosk and we were on our way by 830 ( an hour earlier than the train we had intended to catch). Not much to see as the rain pelted the windows of the observation deck of the train car, but we did see the waves crashing onto the beach and washing up onto the roadway that follows teh coastline.

We arrived in Nice about 910AM and, after reading Rick Steeves, opted to catch the local tram (1 eauro for 72 minutes) and got off at teh Opera house stop and walked towards the water. Nice is a very 'nice' town, with palm trees and beautiful hotels and it reminded us all of Hawaii. We found the local flower market and a small bakery kiosk before catching the tram to hte end of the line at Ponte Michel. The rain was now torrential, but we found a nice shopping mall across the road and warmed up over a Cafe Americano before venturing into a Superstore-like store where Peggy got a wine colored sweater for 20 euros.

Arriverci Italy

Today we docked in Livorno, the port town for Florence and Pisa. We took aPrincess Shore excursion and were greeted by Katia, our guide and Diego our bus driver at 730am. We then travelled to Pisa to view the tower and the adjacent cathedral before the throngs arrived later. WE had to walk about 800M from the bus parking lot to the site and negotiate our way through the many dark skinned street vendors and beggars. The tower was closed a few years back to stop it from falling over completely. It is still 5 ft. out of plane after some heroic efforts pumping concrete under one side of it to take it back to it's 1800s posture.

After leaving Pisa, we made our way to Florence through the Tuscan countryside. Our group of 38 strolled the side streets past the famous Duomo and Baptistery to the Statue of David (the double) at the Accademia . The Uffizi gallery of renaissance art was closed (today is Monday) so the normal lineups and crowds didn't materialize. We stopped for lunch at a little bistro restaurant before walking to the Church of Santa Croce, where among others, Michaeangelo, Machieavelli, daVinci and Galileio are entombed. We had an hoour of free time to browse the many leather and gold shops, but even at a season ending 50% off, the prices were exhorbitant.

I must say, Florence left us slightly underwhelmed. Maybe our expectations were too high, or maybe we have been spoiled by the earlier ports that really were special and memorable.

Tomorrow we are off to Cannes, France.

Arrivederci Roma!

Today we took it easy and passed on returning to Rome. Instead we left the ship around 10AM with Leslee and Linda and caught the courtesy shuttle into Civitavecchia, the town adjacent to hte port. Being SUnday, most shops were closed, but several remained open so we embarked on a hunt for new sport shoes for Linda, as she had lost one in Rome two weeks ago. Civitavecchia is a town in two parts, old and new, with its old sections dating to 2 AD. We ambled up a main promenade in the new section and discovered a glass covered excavation showing ruins of a building some 20 centuries old! We visited the local museum and saw a statue of Athena dating to 200AD which had survived the bombing of the original museum in WWII. Later, we caught a free shuttle to the local shopping center, but came away with just a few items. WE returned to the main part of town and had lunch at a great little restaurant overlooking the beachfront promenade. I had grilled squid and shrimp and some of Linda's pizza and we all shared an antipasto platter for an appy washing it all down with a nice 'house' wine. It is Leslee and LInda's anniversary tomorrow, so we treated them to the lunch.

We found a newly erected monument depicting the famous picture from WWII (one that has a special place in Jennifer's home) and Peggy and I posed to replicate it for photos (event two ladies from Missisauga took pictures). WE then returned to the ship for trivia at 415PM and scored 15 out of 20 to come third overall. NOt bad for an ad-hoc team.

LInda and Leslee returned around 5PM and we broought out some of the local foods, Cheese, bread, salami, olives and wine, and sat out on the balcony until 830 talking, laughing and just enjoying each others company. WE are lucky to have found them and will remain good friends long after teh cruise ends.

Tomorrow, we arrive in Livorno, the port for Florence, and have an all day Princess tour lined up starting at 710AM, so room service will be the order of the day.

Naples and Sorrento

We arrrived in Naples at 8Am and the four of us disembarked at 9AM and made our way to the Marittimia terminal tBbo catch the boat to Sorrento (11 euros each). THe crossing took around 40 minutes, passing Capri on starboard and Mt. Vesuvius to port. Sorrento is a throughback to the Italy 50 -60 years ago, and boasts some very upscale hotels. We disembarked the ferry boat and walked to a new elevator (1 euro) that took us up from the baeach to the town. The other options are a winding, 1800 foot long pathway or bus or taxi. The elevator seemed fairly new and wasn't mentioned in any of out travel guides although it is along a fairly sketchy looking walkway along the waterfront. We spent the day walking the narrow (and I mean narrow) cobblestone streets and we managed to get there before most of the ship tours arrived, so we had hte place more or less to ourselves for the first 1 1/2 hours. Linda and I bought shoes at a clearance place, mine were 20 eauros and hers were 15 euros, as the 'season' is winding down. PEggy and I were both interviewed by somoe local high school age students doing an assignment on TV watching and were photographed and video'd for their project (We both said the amaziing race was our favorite program). As it is late in the season some of the shops had already shuttered.

We then went to 'da Gigino Trattoria' a bistro Rick Steeves recommended ( and now so do we). WE had salad and Pizza and washed it all down with their red table wine. We sat next to a couple from Vancouver who were just finishing spending a week in Sorrento, and we all agreed it is one place we would like to return to and spend more time.

We walked up through the town to the train station and caought teh 220PM train ( 4 euros each) back to Napoli via Pompeii. The trip took just over an hour and was great value for the money, although we entered Naples through it's grubby 'back door'. A cab ride back to the ship from the train station took 5 minutes (and 10 euros) and we arrived back in time for TRIVIA(15/20) at 415PM.

WE depart at 7PM and head for Civitchevechhia, the port for Rome, where we will spend the day.