Last day in Nice. 29th May

Bottling perfume in Grasse

Gourdon

Gourdon

Tourettes sur Loup

Tourette sur Loup

waterfall between villages

St Paul de Vence

Where we saw David and Fiona

just outside St Paul de Vence

The theatre in Cannes sans red carpet today

Shop in Antibe

Lovely Art Deco building in Antibe (for Pearl)

First nun spotted ANYwhere this trip. In Antibe

Posh yachts in Antibe

Amazing Marriot hotel facade in Nice

Local Friday night talent in Nice. See the blue chairs- trademark of the Cote d'Azur

A day in Provence.
Frank, our tour guide and chauffeur picked us up from the hotel bright and early this morning in a mini van for our full day excursion around the towns and villages of Provence.

There were six others on board initially but after lunch they were returned to Nice and Frank collected two new people for the afternoon section.  It appears we were the only ones doing the full day version.

We had quite a full day with a visit to Grasse and the Fragonard perfume factory there; Gourdon, one of France's most beautiful villages; Tourettes sur Loup where violets are harvested and the views over the mountains are stunning; and St Paul de Vence, which is a walled village and now an artist colony.
After lunch we visited the resort towns of the rich and famous:  Cannes and Antibes and were then returned to the hotel.

Although it was interesting to see how perfume is made in Grasse, to see the famous beaches and the theatre where the Cannes Film Festival is held each year, and to see the luxury yachts at the marina in Antibe, it was the medieval villages in the hills that were the standout attraction for me.  I loved their quaint architecture and each's love affair with flowers.  I confess I went a little snap happy in the three mountain villages when every turn in the narrow laneways revealed something breathtakingly beautiful, naturally framed for a photograph or simply artfully positioned.

While Frank was rearranging passengers, we were able to enjoy two hours in St Paul de Vence.  That allowed us plenty of time to stroll around and find some lunch.  We ate in a tiny restaurant with oodles of character, then wandered around until we found a place selling gelati.  While we were enjoying that in the shade of the village church tower, one of Vaughan's old CBA workmates, David Hickman and his wife Fiona, walked by. He and Vaughan were equally astonished at seeing one another, even though Vaughan had known David was somewhere in Europe at the moment.  Photos were duly taken, stories exchanged and bon voyages shared.

Back at the hotel we decided to avoid a high priced restaurant as a cost saving measure, caught a bus part way into the city and slummed it with a MacDonalds meal.  That would have been fine but the last bus on the route back to the hotel failed to showed up despite the fact that people were still hitting the nightspots and restaurants in droves.  We finally gave up at around 9:30 and agreed to share a cab with a young woman equally stranded and heading in the same direction.   Our next trick was to find a free cab, and that proved challenging in itself.  Once the cab was secured, it was a simple four km drive down the road, but  even with sharing the fare, we ended up spending more on our transport than we did on the entire meal!

As I write this, we're finishing off the bottle of  a very delicious Vinsanto dessert wine that I bought in Santorini with some thought of taking home with us. Restrictions on carrying liquids onboard aircraft meant that it would have had to be packed in our suitcases - and basically, I chickened out.  Although I would have loved to drink it at home, it has met its end here in Nice and it sweetened an otherwise sour note on our last day,

We will check out of the hotel at midday Saturday ( tomorrow ) local time and that will be the beginning of our return home.  We don't reach Tullamarine until the wee hours of Monday morning and won't actually cross Bass Strait until Monday afternoon -also local time.  Fingers crossed we don't run into any problems.

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Disembarkation: Nice 28th May

This is Bengie. What a treasure he was

The Promenade des Anglais

Nice

The beach at Nice

Everything went smoothly for disembarkation this morning, except we had not read the memo about breakfast finishing at 8am and that we were supposed to have vacated our cabins by 8:30.  The dining room was completely empty when we rocked up at 8:30 but with a bit of fancy footwork we were able to grab a coffee and pastry from the Mosaic lounge then go and quickly finish our packing.

Our baggage had been tagged then collected the night before so all we had to put together was our hand luggage and toothbrushes then wait for our bus to our hotel. We said our farewells to Bengie our steward and to two of the security guards who always greeted Vaughan and his braces with such good humour, then waited for our bus.

The buses gathered on the dock to take people to their various hotels, the airport and the railway station, and ours was ready to leave at around 9:30. In the meantime the main lounge had been converted to a waiting area for us and a check in area for the embarking passengers.   It felt a little bitter-sweet leaving the ship for the last time, knowing that someone else will be in our cabin tonight and that the ship will depart for the first time in over a month without us on board.

We were taken to our hotel, the Radisson Blu hotel, which is WAY down the Promenade des Anglais (the famously long stretch of beach and palm trees here in Nice) at around 10am and were told that our room would not be ready until 3pm.  We were offered shower facilities, which would have been very welcome had we just arrived by plane, but was unnecessary for our circumstances.

We decided to walk into the city in order to find a bag for our excess luggage and were rather surprised by the lack of choice locally.  It was a LONG walk and there was hardly any shade  to be had at this hour of the morning, Then, unfortunately we only found three shops which sold travel goods.  The first was at Gallerie Lafayette (think David Jones) where, not even a small suitcase was under 120 Euro.    We got out of there fast.   We checked out a store called the Travel Hut  (think a small version of Paddy Pallin) a few blocks further on and found two things there  that pretty much made our day: an English speaking sales assistant AND a duffel bag with back pack straps. It was relatively expensive 68E, so we decided to check out the final store (which the sales assistant directed us to -bless her) and could have bought a wheeled duffel for 40 E or a small case for 50 E.

The more I thought about it, the more sense I could see in having a duffel that could be packed flat in our luggage and only used as required, take at least 10kg and be carried multiple ways, rather than buying something that would always have to be carried as an extra piece of luggage.  So after a Croque Monsieur with frites at a local bar, (which Vaughan declares was his favourite meal of the entire trip) we made our way back the Travel Hut, where, bless her twice, the sales assistant sold the bag to us for 45E.

She also directed us to the local HoHo bus.  Even though we would have liked to return to Monaco today, the logistics simply weren't going our way.   We did a circuit of the local route instead, duly admiring the ornate architecture, the parks and green areas, then when the bus reached the Promenade des Anglais, tried to catch a bus back to our hotel.  We encountered some other folk from the ship also aiming to catch the bus but they were having even less luck than we were, so we shared a cab instead for 7E a couple.  We were tired and footsore and basically were past caring.

We finally checked into our room at around 6pm and were thrilled to find there was enough room for two people in the bathroom at the one time AND a bath.  Frankly we were too tired to venture out again so we went to the rooftop restaurant for a meal where we tried counting all  lost the jets taking off from the airport down the road, admired the beautiful colour and glassy stillness of the sea as the sun set from behind us, and wondered if we would see the Quest sail tonight.  It did but we didn't see it go.

Nice. May 27

Arriving in Nice this morning

view over Nice

View of Monte Carlo, snapped from the Middle corniche

Near the village of Eze

Dimi, one of the dancers onboard, who helps run the Trivia contests. We cashed in our participation stamps today for some Azamara goodies

Nice
I can understand why this part of France is so popular with holiday makers and the jetset alike.  It is extraordinarily pretty: with fabulously blue water, green belts, multiple restaurants and bars filling the quaint streets of the old town.  The newer parts spread out as far as the eye can see.  The city has a population of around 350,000 even though it looks far larger.  The reason for this is that many of the houses are not occupied during the winter months.  In summer, the population swells to around half a million.
Many of those who have their second home here, are celebrities.  Some, like Elton John, Julian Lennon and Bono are attracted to the mild seaside climate and others, who can afford to buy a place in Monaco are attracted to its tax free status.  Apparently Monaco has the highest life expectancy AND the most expensive cost of living.  As a rule, the people who work in Monaco, cannot afford to work there. Not surprisingly the train service in and out of France and Italy is very efficient
We went out by bus early this morning and traveled along the coast road, past Villefranche and Beausoleil as far as the Italian border, just past Monaco.  In fact we were in three different countries within about 10 minutes, which was quite hard to process.  Although we were able to get some glorious shots of the coastline in France and Italy we weren't able to stop in Monaco, which was a little disappointing, even though we understood that space is at such a premium, there is actually nowhere for the buses TO stop.  Since we have another two days in the area, we might be able to go back there before we leave, perhaps by boat or train this time.  The cathedral, casino and the palace all appear to be worth a visit on foot.  Of course, the Monaco Grand Prix was only on last weekend, so there might be some remnants of that lying around too.
Our bus' main stop was at Eze, which is a tiny village perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Perfumes are made in the area and we bought some beautifully scented soaps to bring home.
On the way back to the port, the bus took us around the old town of Nice and along the Promenade des Anglais while our guide called out recommendations for meals, which may prove to be useful tomorrow after disembarkation.
One of the best things about cruising is the fact that you only have to unpack once.  The flipside of the same coin is that you have to do a really big pack right at the end - and it can lead to some nasty shocks.  'I'm sure we didn't buy THAT many t-shirts...'  And yet, there they are.

After spending much of the afternoon packing, we came to the realisation that even though we should squeak in with our international baggage allowance (30kg), but because we are using a different domestic carrier, we only have an allowance of 23 kg to use between Melbourne and Launceston. ( If we had stayed with the codeshare airline, we'd have been OK - Rookie error that. Won't do that again.)
Even so, we spent a lovely evening with friends onboard and have exchanged email addresses with them all.  Living in such close proximity to others has forged some terrific friendships- and I hope they will continue when we are all back in our own homes and back into our routines.
So, it's 11at night, the bags are packed and put outside our door, Vaughan is zzing peacefully.  I've got one more blog to write before we relocate to the Radisson Blue hotel on the Promenade des Anglais tomorrow morning, so I'm down in the Mosaic coffee lounge where the internet signal is good and strong.  I still have a few more internet minutes left on my onboard account tonight.  Maybe there will be enough to post this post from the Cote d'Azur.

Marseille May 26th

Arriving in Marseille in the early afternoon

Notre Dame de la Garde above Marseille

See the model boats suspended from the ceiling of the Basilica

Parc Longchamps

One of these vicious carved lions and its prey - an antelope, I think. Remember, this is to commemorate a water supply....

View of the Basilica at night over Marseille

Tuesday 26th May Marseille
We spent the morning sailing along the Spanish and French coast and didn't reach Marseille until around 1pm.  Vaughan's knee has been painful so he opted to remain onboard while I took a  tour into the city this afternoon.   I could have used the shuttle bus service but we were out of town by a good 40 minutes and I didn't want to chance it.
If I was in any doubt that he's done the right thing, our first stop  put that to rest.  Our first stop was at the Basilica, Notre Dame du Garde- and it had over 200 steps just to reach the main body of it, plus it was also blowing a gale out there.

Our guide, Dominic, escorted us from the far reaches of the port complex, where we were berthed opposite a cruise ship at least four times our size, through the section where ferries leave for Corsica or Northern Africa, another section where the petrochemical tankers are berthed, yet another where the container ships arrive and a site where luxury yachts are refitted.  Marseille has one of the largest ports in Europe and it took over half an hour to reach the city from our berth.
It's a very old city with roots going back centuries to ancient Greek and Roman times.  It has always been a port though.  The older parts are marked by narrow and winding roads that climb high into the hills behind the port, especially towards the basilica.  We saw mostly 19th and 20th Century architecture as we drove.  Marseille took a lot of damage during WWII, mainly due to its port's strategic importance.  I saw clear evidence of shrapnel damage on the outer walls of the Basilica at the time of Marseille's strategic capture  by allied forces in August 1944 during operation Dragoon. (from the south rather than Normandy)
It's impossible to mention Marseille without mentioning its links to the French Revolution and the French National Anthem.  Marseille was the only Southern French port which was aligned with the revolutionary forces and perhaps explains why the anthem sounds so bloodthirsty.

It's always a bit of a lottery with the tour guides we have on our buses.  Sometimes they are wonderful and can make even a dreary subject come alive.  Others are not so good - and I've been known to nod off at times.
Now Dominic, who was clearly a very clever and thoughtful man, was also quite distractible and often would not finish his explanation, thereby leaving me (and others, hanging somewhat).  Then there were the subjects about which he felt very strongly, but lacked the English to communicate it to a busload of Aussie tourists, who weren't necessarily as interested in the subject as he was.
 
He'd actually described the basilica quite well, including how people prayed to the 'Good Mother' for salvation from dangerous situations.  When people were delivered from their ordeal, they would offer a marble tile with their name, the date and the inscription Merci on it and these cover entire walls, inside and out.  Some would take things a little further and would offer models of boats and planes that had been in danger- and there is a wall that is covered with military medals.  The basilica celebrated its 800th Anniversary last year with an amazing sound and light show I would have loved to see.

Then we made our perilous way back down the hill to go through the old city to visit  the Parc Longchamp with its four aggressive stone lions at the front.    This is where things went a bit awry.  After we took our photos of this impressive building commemorating the bringing of reticulated water to Marseille, Dominic tried to explain the lions' significance in terms of Darwinism, the French revolution and Positivism - with reference to other, milder,  lion statues in Trafalgar Square.  Frankly, I'm still trying to work out what he was going on about.

We had a little spare time after this so I went off in search of our usual touristy fare: postcard, magnet, a sticker and a badge.  That done, I was able to find the Hard Rock Cafe for our pin collector and meet the bus before the required time.  One of the ship's entertainment team was also waiting and it was interesting to hear what life is like on board for months at a time as a dancer.  Sascha is a from the Ukraine and told me she enjoyed getting to know the passengers on this  long cruise of ours.

About 80 of our fellow passengers are staying on for the next leg of the Cruiseco charter.  They will be traveling up the western coast of Spain, Portugal and France (including the Channel Isles),  touching down in Dublin and Edinburgh then sailing around the Baltic ports before disembarking in Southampton.  It's another very long and busy itinerary, which though tempting, is simply too long for most of us.   Everyone who is disembarking in Nice is saying the same thing: they're  exhausted and are ready to go home.  Not so the others.  They only seem to be hitting their stride now.    I guess it's psychological.

Barcelona 25th May

Statue of Columbus seen through a forest of masts in the marina

The Spanish village - built in 1929 to showcase Spanish culture

The fresco from the relocated church at the Spanish Village

A model of the Pedrada house on display in its attic

the amazing dragon like chimneys and vents on the roof of La Pedrada

Strolling along Las Ramblas

Columbus' statue at the end of Las Ramblas

Leaving Barcelona - from our balcony

Last year we saw Barcelona's most iconic sights but in such a way as that most of the pleasure was sucked right out of them.  We'd done two back to back city walks in 35 degree heat and covered at least 13km to include Guell Park, Sagrada Familia and Montjuic all in one day.  Not surprisingly we were exhausted.
Today's visit was nothing like that.  We took a more leisurely approach and gained a far greater enjoyment of the city.
I think being on the water today made a difference for us too.  We felt we were so close to everything.  Barcelona's port area is clean and modern and there are attractions nearby such as the aquarium, several museums and of course, Las Ramblas. 

What we like about Barcelona today is that it is a liveable city underneath it all.  A solid infrastructure is well in place for the tourist, but it doesn't dominate the city or its people.  There are some cities we have visited who could learn from Barcelona, where the hunger for the tourist dollar comes across as desperation such as Tangiers, or is not as well organised as in Cadiz or Malta.

We took the HOHO bus today, choosing to do only get off three times.  The highlights were:
1 Revisiting the Poble Espanol.  This was the model village created for the Expo in 1929 and showcased the best of Spanish architecture, food, and arts and crafts.  It was so successful it was never demolished and remains a major tourist attraction.  We visited it briefly at the beginning of our Spanish trip last year, but it definitely warranted a second visit.  There is a beautiful medieval chapel that has been relocated to this site and its frescoes are quite lovely.
2 Finally being able to go inside the Gaudi house, La Pedrada, which was built in the first decade of the 20th Century.  It is still a most remarkable looking building, still way ahead of its time.  It was undergoing refurbishment last year and was closed to visitors.   It is still a functioning apartment block but parts have been set aside as a museum: the foyer, the rooftop, the attics and one apartment.
An hour's visit provided a fascinating insight to his use of the shapes of nature, use of fractals and geometry to produce the most amazing structures.
3 Strolling down Las Ramblas on our way back to the ship.  Block after block of stalls, restaurants and street entertainers made it a very easy walk back.  It finishes at the Statue of Columbus, which is incredibly elaborate.

We left Barcelona at around 10pm after being advised by Capt. Jose that sailing conditions tonight and docking in Marseille would be quite rough.    We had swells of 4.5metres through the night, but the ship's stabilisers meant that things never became too uncomfortable.  Unfortunately though, we were not going to be able to dock in the old port in Marseille - and will be a  forty minutes drive from the city centre.  Since we only have the afternoon here, they are arranging shuttle buses to help people get in and out of town.

Cadiz Saturday 23rd May

Cortes statue 1812

Behind Cortes statue

Jacarandas behind the lock sculpture

The cathedral

The 5 metre tall monstrose

Ronalda's ecco huomo

The buskers near our table

A lovely spot for lunch ( and a birthday party)

One of the long and narrow streets in the shopping district

Many buildings have beautiful tiled foyers behind heavy studded wooden doors

Cadiz occupies a small peninsula in Spain with the Atlantic on three sides.  It was a fortified city and the old section is quite small and compact.  Its most striking feature is the incredibly long and narrow cobbled streets full of high street stores and what seemed like a disproportionate number of pharmacies.  Oh, and and there are lots of pubs too. 

There are four recommended strolls the visitor can take during the day  The longest follows the fortifications and the shortest takes in the political history of the area.  We ended up doing parts of the other two: the historical and the shippers' route, but weren't overly worried if we deviated from our leisurely and pleasantly shady walk.

Our first stop was the statue to Cortes which was erected in 1812.  It's a magnificent white stone statue, almost as elaborate at the back as it is from the front - but it's hard to feel any pleasure in it when you consider the havoc he and his men wreaked in South America.

There are other more modern statues near the port.  The most interesting one was a massive open padlock, with the hasp in the shape of a nib.

Our next stop was Cadiz Cathedral, which has an elegant white stone facade and two bell towers.   They hold multiple bells which give a carillon like chime on the hour.  It may have cost us 5Euro each to go in but the entry price included the audio guide and gave a lot of background information, so we didn't begrudge it.  Besides it was lovely and cool inside.  The floors are ornately mosaic'd marble and the ceilings have elaborate carvings.  There are nets suspended below some of these ceiling sculptures and fragments of 'stuff' have been caught in them- no doubt saving people from injury.

Inside we saw: the gorgeous religious statues, unusually carved by a female sculptor named Ronalda in the 1600s, the solid silver Monstrose (sp) - all 5 metres of it, and the crypt where the mummified remains of St Victoria are preserved under a wax mask, and the tomb of famous Spanish composer de Falla lies.

We stopped for a beer and would have liked to stay for tapas, but the absence of an English menu made it too hard.  So we wandered across the plaza to another bar (which did have a menu we could read) but chose the daily special anyway: a delightful lunch of freshly grilled fish and salad - and another beer.   With perfect timing, a busker arrived and played classical guitar music while we ate our bread with olive oil and vinegar.

We saw countless families promenading through the plaza during the Saturday afternoon and its very clear how important family is in Spain.  I indulged in a little people watching of the children's birthday party being held a few tables over.    I'm sure it involved at least 5 generations of the family all dressed up in their finery and I watched cousins playing with each other (except the older ones who were too busy on their phones), glamorously dressed mamas and aunts and proud papas wearing polo neck shirts and taking photos of anything that moved.

We continued our leisurely exploration of the town after lunch, admiring the narrow laneways and the beautiful tiled entrances behind heavy wooden studded doors. 

We left Cadiz harbour at 7pm and are currently going back through the straits of Gibraltar in order to re-enter the Mediterranean.  Captain Jose estimates we will pass Gibraltar at around 11:30pm.
I spent the early part of the evening watching the floor show put on by the ship's entertainment staff, some of whom we know quite well from their hosting duties in the trivia quizzes over the last month.  I admit to feeling like a proud aunt as these talented 20 somethings sang and danced their hearts out us.  They have given us four different shows (doing an early and a late show each time).

Tangiers Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd May

Gibraltar

Cap Spartels

Inside the American Legate

A quiet day in the little souk

Inside the souk

Tea and pastries overlooking the bay

Other than finally getting a chance to recharge our batteries for two days, which was really necessary, the highlight of our sea days was seeing Gibraltar from the deck in glorious sunshine.  The wedge shaped rock of Gibraltar was partially obscured by a layer of cloud - the only cloud in the vicinity by the way - and looked like a layer of meringue, but it was possible to make out some structures such as a mosque and the light house from our position.

Another highpoint for me was to hear the captain talk about our ship - and seeing photos illustrating how the bridge is laid out and the engine rooms, laundry and the galleys operate.    It is a beautifully run operation and things simply happen with a minimum of fuss. Coincidentally Captain Jose was involved in the building of this ship - and seven others like it over three years - in St Nazaire, France 14 years ago. The Quest will be going into routine dry dock in Sept this year due to its age and will undergo a refurbishment not only in the engines but in the public spaces and the suites too.  This will only take about two weeks, which is an impressive turnaround.

When asked about the future of boats like the Quest and the Journey in a market flooded with super cruisers that can carry thousands of passengers, he expressed confidence that there is a growing market for the smaller ships, their intimacy and access to smaller ports.

We arrived in Tangiers, Morocco in the late afternoon on Thursday but as it was very windy outside, opted to wait until morning to visit the city.  The captain had also decided that we would remain on ship's time for our stay here.  Technically we should have set back our watches to GMT for one night only - but it hardly seemed worth it, when our next port in Spain is on Central European time
It was quite a hike from the ship to the buses (about 1km) but once aboard our guide showed us some of the sections of towns representing different countries.  At one time Tangiers was jointly controlled by 8 different countries.  It is now part of Morocco.

We went up to Cape Spartels to see where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean.  After that we visited the labyrinthine alleys of the small souk or petit soci.  If we thought the Greek and Turkish vendors were pushy, they've nothing on the ones we encountered here.  They follow you, stand in the middle of the path so you have to acknowledge them in some way - and don't take no for an answer.  As our guide reminded us,  today is the holy day so many stalls were shut and things were quiet!

Being prepared to walk away allowed me to make some good buys ( I  think I did anyway) of leather, copper and pottery and Vaughan is now the proud owner of a red fez.   We finished our tour visiting the American Legate office ( like an embassy) and a cafe where we were given some peppermint tea (delish) and some Moroccan pastries.I saw a photo of Humphrey Bogart in the foyer from when he was in town for the filming of Casablanca back in the 40s.

Our bus took us right back to the ship - and we could hear some lively music coming from onboard.  The ship's band was on deck playing jazz for us as we boarded.  I think this and the tea and pastries were the highlight of the morning for me.

With everyone arriving back on board for our lunchtime departure, it meant that lunch was a very crowded affair.  Our table was in full sun and copping wind from all angles so we didn't linger.  Besides,  there were three (yes three) trivia events to attend this afternoon before we reach Cadiz this evening.