Cartagena, Spain

We arrived at Cartagena early this morning and started the day with a jog along the seafront. One of the must see items is a 95 year old crane that in it's day was enormous and was used on the shipyards to move materials.

Nowadays it sits in the middle of a roundabout and looks quite small.

After taking a break for breakfast we set off again to explore the town. There is a large and impressive Roman amphitheatre and you can climb many steps to a park and look down on it rather than actually going inside.

As we wandered around the town I remarked to Darren that I was certain that we had never been here before.

We were both really surprised by the number of buildings that were just had the front wall remaining and the rest of it was held up with scaffolding.

However, once we got back to the ship I searched this extremely useful blog, and it turns out that we cycled actually here from a campsite in March 2015. 

I took almost identical photos of the amphitheater and in 2015 I was also surprised at the buildings that were just fronts held up by scaffolding!

At that time I wondered why the buildings had no rooms or roofs, and over 10 years later I am wondering again.

There is a big naval base here too with lots of handsome sailors around, and an attractive barracks where a lot of them are based.

Finally, a large sangria in front of the town hall before heading back to our ship.

Lots of steps in Valletta

Back to Valletta today for the second half of our cruise. Lots of passengers got off, but also lots of us stayed on board for the journey to the Canaries.

We are on the 15th floor of our ship, and are about level with most of the town, so that's quite a treck above sea level.

This morning we went for a run around the outside of the town and then up about 100 steps to be level with the town, and then of course, the nice bit back down again.

This afternoon we cheated and took the lift up, which costs one euro for the return journey.

Then we started on a walking tour that took us all over Valletta.

Lots of steps in both directions, and nearly all of them were full of bars and cafes with tables and chairs placed carefully on the steps.

All of the buildings are very tall and close together, probably to provide lots of shade to try to keep the houses cool in the summer, and lots of them had lovely balconies looking out on to the street.

The bars were all serving happy hour cocktails and we sat out on the waterfront to sample Aperol Spritzers which are always disappointing, and then Malta Mules which more than made up for it.

Back on board now and will soon be sailing away.

Ajaccio, Corsica

 I drew back the curtains this morning and was greeted with the lovely sight of Ajaccio harbour.

Ajaccio is the capital and largest city on Corsica and is best known for being the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was born in 1769 but left when he was only nine years old to go to school on the French mainland.

As you might expect, there are lots of statues and monuments dedicated to him, as well as a museum, a beer, an ice cream shop, a hotel, a very large car park, a fountain and many streets.

We went for a sightseeing jog this morning, then an afternoon stroll round the town ending at a nice sandy beach, and even Darren couldn't resist a quick paddle.

Villefranche Sur Mer to Nice

Today our ship anchored off the coast of the south of France at the beautiful little town of Villefranche Sur Mer.

We joined the queue to tender to the shore in one of the ship's lifeboats.

Once on shore we set off to walk on a footpath along the coast to Nice.

However, just as we were starting out we had to walk down a very tight hairpin bend, and were very surprised to see that one of the coaches taking our fellow passengers on a day trip to Monaco had got completely stuck.

The driver had crashed the bus into walls twice, was blocking the road, and was just sitting there with the engine switched off. We left just as the passengers were beginning to get off and mutiny, and I have no idea how things ended up.

We had more success and the route was amazing.

There was many steps, sometimes we were high above the sea then swooped back down again, but a fantastic journey that eventually took us to Nice.

From a distance we thought that this statue was the mini from the film Mr Bean's Holiday, but that was filmed just along the coast in Cannes, and this little car had the title of 'A Saturday in Nice'.

I had the chance to practice my French and ordered two cafe au lait at a beachside bar, and the jambon fromage panini's from a little stand. Both waitresses were very polite, but they both giggled apologetically at my accent and choice of words.

We ate our lunch down at the Nice Marina and I preferred the little rowing boats to the long row of super yachts just across the harbour.

We had two more stops, one for wine and one for ice cream and then caught the train back to Villefranche.

San Gimigiano and Siena

 Today we went on a trip from the ship to Tuscany. It's somewhere that I have always wanted to go to see the rolling hills, the farmhouses with pencil thin cyprus trees and beautiful umbrella trees.

We got my wish and some very dramatic weather too.

Our first stop was the hilltop village of San Gimigiano, famous for it's huge towers that were built to show off the wealth of the residents. 

Originally there was 72 of these strange monstrosities, but only 14 remain, so imagine what it looked like originally. (Little van for scale.)

They made a dramatic site, and the village also had a lovely peaceful monastery, obviously with views of the towers.

As if that's not enough for one village, it also had a gelato school, and allegedly sold the best gelato in the world.

I possibly made a mistake and bought my gelato from 'The most famous gelato in the world' shop, but then a few metres later we came across 'The best gelato in the world' sign, but anyway, mine was very good.

Next was lunch with wine tasting. A good time was had by all, although hardly anyone bought any of the bottles afterwards as the cost was eye watering.

On to Siena, famous in my mind for one thing - the horse racing scenes round the square.

Our guide was very thorough though and had other things to show us. 

We spent lots of time inside two churches, the first of which was definitely missable, and I have searched our photos app and neither of us took any pictures.

But the second was spectacular.

It looked magnificent and the sun was in just the right angle to make the whole thing glow.

There was a big queue to get inside, but again it was incredible.

The floor was covered with huge mosaic scenes, and for most of the year they are covered over and protected by carpets as there are church services most days. For reasons that I didn't quite hear, they are only uncovered for a few weeks each year, and we were lucky enough to see them.

Our local guide walked very slowly explaining all of them to us, and we saw that our bus  guide who was with us all day was looking annoyed. They turned off the microphone and had an angry Italian style conversation and then carried on.

The reason for this argument soon became clear as when we eventually arrived at the main square and the location of the Palio horse race, we only had eight minutes to either have a quick look or visit the public toilets before we had to rush back to the coach.

You could tell that everyone was disappointed and probably desperate for a coffee and a sit down, but we had to get back to the ship. By this time our bus guide was looking frantic, and we got back with 15 minutes to spare before the ship was due to leave.

Ps, we knew that the ship wouldn't leave without us, but the guide was supposed to get us back with 45 minutes to spare so maybe she got into trouble with her boss.

Civitavecchia stroll

 We are on a cruise and have called at Civitavecchia on the Italian coast. Most people get up early for a day trip to Rome, but we decided to take it easy and just spend the day in Chivi, as the locals possibly call it.

It has a large port, and so we caught the shuttle bus outside the dock gates and set off on a walk.

Right at the dock entrance is a fortress that is in great condition. It certainly repelled everyone from the ship as there was no way of getting inside. However, there was also miles of wire fencing so once you got near to it there was no way out apart from to follow it right round in a loop.

Eventually we found a route to the seafront and to the rather empty big wheel.

We followed the promenade to the Victorian Bridge. 

The bridge leads from the promenade to a little island just offshore. The internet said that it had a bar that was open until daily until 3am, however there was no sign of any bar, so it just proves that you can't always trust AI.

We put our disappointment aside and read a noticeboard that told us more about the area. In it's heyday thousands of day trippers used to catch the train here from Rome. They would get off at the station that is just one street back from the coast, and then walk  straight on to this bridge across to the island.

They would then spend the day swimming and sunbathing and then the evening dancing and drinking.

It sounds lovely, but sadly not today.