I forgot to mention that we are “camped” at RW Marriot Marquis Dubai.   Very, very lovely….almost the size of some apartment/condos.  The bathroom has a huge soaker tub, walk-in shower, toilet and bidet all in separate “rooms”.l

Jeanette and I left Victoria this morning …a half hour late.  It seems the system that controls all the flight paths (I’m not sure if it was for just Air Canada or all airlines in Canada), had a malfunction……..so all flights were delayed.  I am glad that we didn’t have a later flight or maybe we would not have made our connections in Vancouver and later in Toronto.   All turned out good!  

While on the flight between Toronto and Dubai, a man fell in the washroom. Our seats were next to the toilets so when he fell, the wall he must have fallen against, slammed against our seats.  It was sometime before a doctor presented himself.  In the meantime I was thinking …..OMG I hope we don’t have to divert this plane.  As it turned out,….not too seriously….his blood pressure fell too low.

Arrived in Dubai so pooped….this leg a 12.5 hour flight.  I must say that being slightly crippled help us out.  Me with my bumb left leg that as yet hasn’t needed a replacement and Jeanette who cracked her pelvis about two months ago in a fall.  We had wheelchairs greet us in Toronto and Dubai.   Because of that we didn’t have to hike for miles, ride for miles and miles on a train and then hike for more miles to get to immigration and passport control (that they just let us through without so much as one question), hiked some more miles to baggage claim and so on and so forth.  This the way to Travel!  I’ll send pictures!  Jeanette though we maybe should have had our “facinators” on for the photo shoot!

Haven’t seen a lot cuz be arrived in the city after dark.  More tomorrow……..

Hello my friends…..this is a test to see if I can actually send my travel blog to Facebook.  Please let me know if you are able to get it.

A huge gothic style cathedral with the largest “Rose” window in Europe…..is.95sq. Metres. in Palma.

2700 windmills on island of Majorca or Mallorca…. 2000 water, 700 grain.  Flat base is for water, conical for grain 

Extremely busy airport ….3rd largest in Spain …….planes landing and leave every single minute.

Control on mountain ……controls the  airspace from North Africa to south of France.

8 kilo of olives to produce 1 litre of olive oil.

Ca’n means house of is language particular to Mallorca instead of Casa as in Spanish.  There are no apostrophes in Spanish language.

Grow almonds and grapes too.  Almonds bloom in January and February.  Crazy weather here like the rest of the world is affecting most crops and esp almonds.  Not enough water especially, like California where they were importing almonds from. Probably will affect the price.

Most towns are built on hills as in Italy and Greece but our guide mentioned that the church is on the highest point and that they are built as a fortresses for the protection to women and children in case of outside aggression.

An amusing story our guide told us after pointing out a monastery sitting high on a solo hill was that a monk or priest asked if she knew why the church built on such a high spot?  To be closer to God?  To be in peaceful place in which to pray and meditate.  Well he says……no, we haven’t been telling the truth, that is what we all say is the reasons.  But really it is because the monks have been making wines and other alcohols for years but the ruling Romans or whoever wanted to tax the product.  So by being high up, they could see for miles and miles  the armies coming in lots a time.  Before the armies got there, there was no alcohols to be found.

Callas mean coves.  We travelled to the Caves of Drach (dragon). Many caves on the island but only 5 open to public.  This is the biggest.  It has the largest underground lake  (Martel) is 177×33 metres.  It is 118 steps to the lowest point inside the caves with more steps coming up.  

This cave with all the stalactites (the ones coming down from roof) and stalagmites ( the ones coming up from the floor), is massive…spectacular, the best cave I have ever seen.  Once at the bottom, we sat down to listen to about 5-6 musicians playing chamber music……on a boat being oared around.  The acoustics of this space made it sound as if it was a full orchestra playing.  Amazing! 

Not much has changed here since I was last here.  It still has that wow factor.  Opulence abounds with the extreme yachts in the harbour, the posh cars, Mazzeratis, Porsches, Rolls, yadda, yadda, the somewhat modern buildings (compared to most areas of the Mediterranean) that climb the mountain side of this extremely small principality.   There are quite a number of cranes indicating that they are still erecting more buildings. There is so much money here that it is almost vulgar.  To enter the famous Monte Carlo Casino, first you have to have to be wearing “proper” attire, show government ID such a passport and pay the entrance fee of 10€….. Just to go in to take a look around.  Several of our couples brought tuxedos, top hats, formal gowns and facinators planning to walk in the casino, putting on the dog.  I believe I posted a picture of them waiting for the hop on hop off bus in their fabulous outfits.  Funny!  Good for them.  Most people though, wouldn’t want to or didn’t have space in their luggage to carry all that gear all the way from home.

A number of us didn’t hang around in Monte Carlo but traveled by train to Nice, France.  The closest I had ever got to Nice before was from the inside of a bus high on the hillside.  That was back in 2011.  Anyway, the train was an adventure.  One has to buy a ticket at a selfserve kiosk that only has instructions in French.  It was a struggle for sure.  Then it was down lots of stairs only climb up the same number to get to the other side of the tracks.  We get there and find out from another of our travelling 42, that we were on the wrong side to go into Nice.  So back down and up the other side.  If you know me you know I have a real hard time with stairs.

Nice, especially the Old Town which is really just older than the rest of the city.  It’s all old by our standards.  We visited the flower market that I understand is everyday., walked through the narrow pedestrian streets….immaculately clean, stopped for lunch on a plaza restaurant, took the hop on, hop off bus where we drove along the seaside street where all those people were killed by the man driving a truck during celebrations a few months back.  Part of the tour was along an area overlooking the water, much like driving along Dallas Road in Victoria.  Only here the roads are more narrow and more twisty.  We returned to Monte Carlo by bus……a charge of 2€…. Cheap!  The drive back was quite beautiful.  It is much more scenic than the train.

It was a good day……especially since the weather cooperated.

Not much has changed here since I was last here.  It still has that wow factor.  Opulence abounds with the extreme yachts in the harbour, the posh cars, Mazzeratis, Porsches, Rolls, yadda, yadda, the somewhat modern buildings (compared to most areas of the Mediterranean) that climb the mountain side of this extremely small principality.   There are quite a number of cranes indicating that they are still erecting more buildings. There is so much money here that it is almost vulgar.  To enter the famous Monte Carlo Casino, first you have to have to be wearing “proper” attire, show government ID such a passport and pay the entrance fee of 10€….. Just to go in to take a look around.  Several of our couples brought tuxedos, top hats, formal gowns and facinators planning to walk in the casino, putting on the dog.  I believe I posted a picture of them waiting for the hop on hop off bus in their fabulous outfits.  Funny!  Good for them.  Most people though, wouldn’t want to or didn’t have space in their luggage to carry all that gear all the way from home.

A number of us didn’t hang around in Monte Carlo but traveled by train to Nice, France.  The closest I had ever got to Nice before was from the inside of a bus high on the hillside.  That was back in 2011.  Anyway, the train was an adventure.  One has to buy a ticket at a selfserve kiosk that only has instructions in French.  It was a struggle for sure.  Then it was down lots of stairs only climb up the same number to get to the other side of the tracks.  We get there and find out from another of our travelling 42, that we were on the wrong side to go into Nice.  So back down and up the other side.  If you know me you know I have a real hard time with stairs.

Nice, especially the Old Town which is really just older than the rest of the city.  It’s all old by our standards.  We visited the flower market that I understand is everyday., walked through the narrow pedestrian streets….immaculately clean, stopped for lunch on a plaza restaurant, took the hop on, hop off bus where we drove along the seaside street where all those people were killed by the man driving a truck during celebrations a few months back.  Part of the tour was along an area overlooking the water, much like driving along Dallas Road in Victoria.  Only here the roads are more narrow and more twisty.  We returned to Monte Carlo by bus……a charge of 2€…. Cheap!  The drive back was quite beautiful.  It is much more scenic than the train.

It was a good day……especially since the weather cooperated.

Well now……..it was a rough night sailing and especially rough come time to anchor.  We were unable to anchor because the winds…..55+knots or 57+ mile per hour were wicked with pretty good sized swells….3 metres or 10 feet high.  It’s a big problem because if we anchor it means we would be tendering.  Not!!!  The ship’s captain attempted to have us dock somewhere else along the coast but as they say, “there was no room at the inn” so onward we proceed, bobbing along.  I have never been seasick in my life but I must admit I am feeling pretty nauseous.

Manarola is first stop on Cinque Terre, Veranazzi is second and  Monterosso is the last stop. 

We go from Livorno that is the port for Florence, (called Firenze in Italian ….on the Arno River) which is in Tuscany to the Cinque Terre which is in the Liguria.  

We passed by Camp Darvy,  a US military base near Livorno…..I never knew they had bases here.  The Medicis built a canal that connects Florence/Livorno to Pisa.  Pisa was originally on the coast but now is quite far inland.  In 1174 it completed.  It had been worked on by 3 different architects over a period of 200 years.

There is a huge marble industry  in this area that we travelled through.  You can see where they have quarried in the mountainsides…….the whole mountain is being cut away block by block. 

 La Spezia is a major naval base and port.

Cinque Terre means 5 villages or lands. Developed in Middle Ages ….1400s.  There 7000 kms of dry wall terraces, as long or longer than the Great Wall of China.  It is preserved as a world heritage centre.

All this info was on the ride there.  

As we are leaving La Spezia it is poring rain.  We are all hoping that it will clear before we get to the Manarola, the first village but it is just torrential. I so loved these villages and told everyone about it.  When we arrived we found no one could look around, take pictures and enjoy it.  We were all so soaked to the bone.  It was just miserable.  We never got to look around that first village.  Our guide made the decision to go take the ferry immediately.  We never got to visit the next one, Riomaggiore (I had visited previously) but went on to get off at Veranazzi.  When we got off the ferry(?), our guide was no where to be found.  What we found out later was that there were 4 passengers plus herself that were left behind because they were fully loaded.  This ferry incidentally carried 350-400 foot passengers.  I would never have guessed it but they just kept packing them on.  I am sure that there weren’t enough life jackets….maybe enough for 75.  When we arrived in Veranazzi atleast it had stopped raining but oh my were we cold.  When you are cold you feel miserable and can’t enjoy the town.  We stopped and had lunch….a great pepperoni pizza…..delicious and a salad with tomatoes and mozzarella …..yum!!!  Just as we were finishing, we found the guide and we were back in lineup for the ferry to the next town, Monterosso.  It was a lovely village but with cranky shop keepers.  That was the stop that we were to have lunch but we had had already.  Oh well!  I think the day was a bust.  All we wanted to do was get back to the ship and have a hot bath.  So disappointing for me.  On the previous visit to Cinque Terre, we walked through a tunnel to get to another town and also walked the “Walk of Love”.  The Walk of Love was a seaside walk along the cliffs where lovers had placed locks and notes proffessing their love.  Unfortunately that area was washed out the month after I was here in 2011 and still remains closed. I am so glad I Thad got to see it.  

Having been to Rome twice before so when there was a mess up with meeting our vans that were to take us into the city….a drive of around an hour and 15 min. each way, I chose to stay back.  I just went back to the ship to have a relaxing day doing not much of anything.  It was a must needed break.  Linda and 20+ others did go in.  They did Rome in 3 hours or less.  Too fast for this “cripple”.

It was a terrible rip off if you ask me.  There were supposed to be 5 vans to meet us……36 people.  Here we all are standing around in a group, no one saw any sign with “Pamela” written on it.  We then thought maybe they were at the entrance to the port so took the shuttle to the entrance.  We then hung around and waited.   Nothing.   We were to meet these vans at 7:45 with all leaving at 8 and now it is around 10:30.  Finally we got communication that they were at the pier waiting for us but would come to the entrance.  When they arrived there were only 3 vans.  They had sent 2 away so of course not all could ride in.  That’s when I chose not to go.  I also knew that the amount of time that we were to be in Rome was pushing it so to have it reduced a further 3 hours was going to be crazy.

Portofino is on the Bay of Liguria….is our first stop after leaving Rome where we left some of our passengers and picked up a new group.

Our tour us a boat tour of the Italian Riviera Out of Portofino.

Since 1933 Portifino and the coastline has been a regional park…a protected area. Another ruggedly beautiful coastline……with next to no houses.

 First stop was a beautiful bay with a monastery ….a two hour walk away from Portofino or the other closest town, San Roche. There are no roads. It is a very hard walk up the mountain, along the top and over. The monastery was built in 12th century. In the winter there are only three people living there because of the difficulty of getting I and out.

Camoglia is the next town.  It’s on the Bay of Paradise. Called the 1000 sailings.  There used to be 580 boats …..lmore than Hamburg, Germany

The houses are very tall and brightly coloured….the reasons are that it is less expensive because it is such a mountainous area and painted so the men, fisherman or sailors could recognized their homes from the sea as they were passing by.

Portofino is gorgeous as is Camoglia.  I would love to return to this area again.