It was time to bid farewell to Rome for the third time. Once again we liked Rome, but it is a big, noisy, bustling city so we prefer other Italian cities like Venice. Still, Rome has much beauty and of course incredible historical things to see and I’m sure we will return, even though we weren’t able to drop coins in the Trevi Fountain.
We were going to be boarding the Azamara Onward for the second cruise of this trip. That’s right, two cruises in one trip. In the past we did three cruises in one trip, but that’s another (very long) story.
The second cruise is called "Islands of the Mediterranean", and lasts for eight nights, ending in Barcelona, another one of our favorite cities.
So, we woke up, did the usual morning stuff, went to a little cafe directly opposite our hotel and had cappuccinos and cornetto’s, and stopped briefly in the market in the Campo to buy a T-shirt because I didn’t bring enough short sleeve shirts. In case you are weather buffs, I will report that it was cloudy but a pleasant temperature in Rome this morning.
We checked out of the hotel and our Italian lady driver was already waiting for us. The ride to Civitavecchia took about an hour. Civitavecchia is a small, unimportant coastal town which has become much more popular and crowded because it is the cruise terminal for Rome, even though it’s an hour away by car. If you ever take a cruise that claims that one of its port stops is Rome, they are stretching the truth.
At the cruise terminal they took our luggage immediately and then told us that we would not be able to get onboard until 2:00. We expected that. It was mentioned in every document we got from them.
It was about 12:15. They asked us to sit and wait until Group 4 was called to check in. We only had to wait about ten minutes. The check-in process was pretty straightforward except unlike our earlier Azamara check-in they had to photograph our Covid vaccination cards and then enter the data from them in their tablets manually anyway. They gave us our room cards but suggested that we could spend the time until 2:00 by visiting Civitavecchia. It was a very long walk to the town so we elected to just sit in the terminal.
About 2:00 they started calling group numbers. These were different group numbers from the check-in group numbers, where we had number four. Our check- in group was seventeen. The first number they called was eleven so we figured that we wouldn’t have to wait very long. After a few minutes they called group twelve. That sounded good. The next was three. So much for logic.
Anyway it wasn’t too bad. We got onboard about ten minutes after two, which was good. As we were going through security we saw that there was a very large number of people waiting to check-in, so if we had done what the cruise line had asked and arrived at two, we would be getting onboard much later.
Once onboard we were escorted to our muster station, given a glass of sparkling wine, and given another very short muster drill by a member of the ship’s singers.
I’ve just given you a long and boring description of how you get on a cruise ship. You’re welcome.
We went to our stateroom, dropped off our gear and went to the buffet for a late lunch. The food was pretty good. It seemed a little better than on the Pursuit, we’ll need more statistical samples to be sure. After lunch we went back to our stateroom and our luggage was outside. We brought our bags in and started to unpack.
Donnie was all excited because we were only a few doors away from the complementary laundry - wow! So she gathered together all of extremely filthy and disgusting clothes that might have been worn twice and headed off to the laundry only to return ten seconds later to announce that not only were all the washing machines in use but there were three women waiting for free machines. Her high hopes had been dashed. I might have detected a tear. I’m not sure.
So, we went to explore the ship a little. We went down to deck five which contains shops and bars. It was almost identical to the Pursuit. Then we went up to the Living Room on deck ten. It was a big disappointment. The Living Room is the large, windowed room at the top, front of the ship - sorry - topside, forward. On the Pursuit it had a lot of very comfortable chairs, many of which faced forward out of big floor-to-ceiling windows. On the Onward, the whole middle of the forward window area had a stage for the band. What a waste. There were many fewer places to sit - dumb. Do the band’s backsides need a beautiful view?
At five o’clock we attended a "Destination Lecture". The lecturer was an art historian and retired college professor. He spoke about Elba, Sardinia, and Corsica, the next three ports of call on the cruise. He was a good speaker and the talk was interesting. Afterwards we explored the ship a little more but discovered that it was generally the same as the Pursuit.
We went to dinner in the main dining room about eight o’clock and were surprised to see that there was a crowd of people sitting in the bar just outside the dining room and a line waiting to get in. We had never experienced that on the Pursuit. We gave the receptionist our room number and she said we would have to sit in the bar and wait for a bit. So we sat in the bar and ordered drinks. A few minutes later a couple asked if they could sit down at our bar table and we started chatting. It was immediately obvious that they were from Scotland. We were just chatting for a couple of minutes when we were told our table was available. The hostess carried our drinks for us - nice.
We were seated next to a couple from the UK and we chatted with them while they had dessert and we were waiting for our appetizers. We continued to chat until they had eaten and left. Our food was good and, happily, unlike on the Pursuit, the bread was good too.
We had to be at the theater at 7:15 the next morning to meet up with our tour group for our excursion in Elba. So, damn, we set the alarm for 6:30 AM.
The weather was very gray and windy and humid so the photo opportunities looked slim. Later we were told that this was due to a wind called The Scirocco that brings warm, moist air from North Africa. Wasn't that the name of some old Volkswagen model?
Our excursion started with a five kilometer bus ride to Napoleon’s summer residence on Elba. It was very small and none of the furniture inside was really his - it had all been sold off long ago. There were several outbuildings in his property and they were bigger than his house. The tour guide said he was planning his escape from Elba all the time and didn’t really intend to stay. We spent about an hour at his property mostly listening to the tour guide describe his life on the island and how he affected the people. It was a very interesting story. I won’t repeat it here, for two reasons - first, you probably don’t care - and second, I don’t remember the details.
You could have seen his house itself in five minutes, it was that small, only eight small rooms. It was strange. The tour guide explained that he essentially owned the country of Elba. The powers that exiled him there made him the ruler of the island, with full control. So it was strange that he chose to live in a small house. There was a bigger building next door and we were told that was the quarters for his guards.
We then drove around the island seeing the beautiful scenery. Elba has a number of beautiful beaches. It’s a summer resort for many Europeans. Finally we got to Porto Azzurro, a very pretty seaside town. The sun even came out, briefly. We were given over an hour to walk around the town. We didn't take many pictures because of the horrible light.
Naturally we stopped for gelato. It was very good gelato. We took a few bad pictures of the pretty town and then we were bussed back to the town of Portoferraio where the ship was docked.
Later, back on the ship, in the early evening we walked out to take a look at Portoferraio. The town was dead. The tour guide from our excursion had said that the island basically closed down for the winter but we didn’t know that late October was considered the winter.
We walked around the town for a while. Almost everything was closed, so we went back to the ship and went up to the Living Room and had tapas and drinks. A band starting playing. They weren’t good. The drinks were pretty decent.
We didn’t see anything on the dining room menu that was really to our taste so we chose to have dinner in the buffet, which we hadn’t done on our previous cruise. The tables were set with white tablecloths and flowers.
They had been advertising that tonight there would be a Greek Buffet in the buffet restaurant, but we assumed that they would have one or two Greek dishes. To our surprise and Donnie’s delight they had lots of Greek specialties and a big selection of Greek desserts. Donnie loves Greek food. And, for some unknown reason, there were very few people in the buffet so we didn’t have to deal with crowds. The food was pretty good.
The ship docked in an industrial area, 1.5 miles from the town of Olbia. We had considered booking an excursion to see some of the sights around the island but we were not looking forward to getting up real early again so we didn’t book one. We had thought that we would just walk around the old part of Olbia. We didn’t realize that - one, the ship docks far from the town - two, the only attractions listed in Olbia are two churches and an archaeological museum - and three, the churches would be having Sunday ceremonies and not welcoming tourists - and four, the archaeological museum, along with much of the town would be closed on Sunday. Good planning there.
We walked along the port road passing lots of trucks parked in a big parking area. The road itself was completely empty. When we got past the port area we passed a Ferris wheel and thought it would be fun to ride it but when we got close we heard loud raucous music coming from the cars so we didn’t ride
A little while later we got to the old town. It was basically one main street lined with restaurants, gift shops, clothing shops, etc. Since it was a Sunday and near the end of the tourist season many places were closed.
We went into a small church, San Paulo. It was unimpressive. They had a multicolored tiled dome on the building which was more impressive. In the town we stopped at a small cafe for drinks and then wandered around a little. There wasn’t a lot to see. We did find a very fancy carousel and took a few pictures of it.
We walked all the way back to the ship. The road and sidewalk in the port area were deserted. When we got near the ship, there was no entrance, all the openings in the big fence were closed. Donnie waved and yelled to a person standing next to the ship. He slowly walked over to us and Donnie asked how we were supposed to get in. He was shocked that we walked all the way to town and back. He said walking in the port area was forbidden and we were supposed to take the shuttle bus from the ship to the terminal building and another shuttle from there into town. We told him that nobody on the ship had even mentioned a shuttle and we had walked off the ship and out of an open gate in the fence and even asked a guard at the gate how to get to town and he told us to walk to end of the port and then turn left.
So we had to illegally walk to the terminal building, wait in a long line to go through security, wait a while for the bus to arrive and then the bus drove us the one minute ride back to the ship - stupid.
Later on we were told that the fact that we were required to take a shuttle bus to and from the ship was mentioned prominently on the front page of "The Insider", the daily ship’s program. In this case, "prominently" meant in very fine print on the fifth line down under other extremely important notices such as "Please be advised that all onboard purchases will be subject to Italian VAT of 22%". Stupid us for having missed that. They clearly didn’t need to post the information anywhere else, such as a sign somewhere, say at the end of the gangplank.
In the evening they advertised "Italian Night" at the buffet. Since "Greek Night" had been so good, we decided to go. The Italian food was pretty bad. Oh well. Not only that, as we were walking into the buffet we noticed that the ship was rockin’ and rollin’. We had experienced that on other cruises but we didn’t expect it on the short trip between Sardinia and Corsica. On a clear day you can see one from the other.
We woke to fog - very, very thick fog. Looking out of the balcony door you could see - fog. You could hear something through - the foghorn. It sounded unhappy.
After a while, the fog cleared and we could see Corsica, but even though we were supposed to dock at 7:00, by 8:00 we weren’t there yet - strange. The two islands are only eight miles apart. The two ports, Olbia and Porto Vecchio are only 48 miles apart. For some reason, the ship took over twelve hours to go 48 miles - strange.
Equally strange, around nine o’clock the fog returned. One minute we were staring out at Porto Vecchio, the next minute we were staring out at nothing. We felt it would be better to go out later when the weather was better so we went up to the Living Room and sat for a while. About elevenish we decided to go out.
After yesterday’s fiasco with the shuttles we went down to the Customer Relations desk to find out if there was a shuttle to town. The Customer Relations Person told us that there would be a person at the bottom of the gangplank to assist. He was wrong. He also said that it was a ten minute walk to the lower town. He was wrong. He also said that it would be easy to get a taxi or a city bus to the upper town. He was mostly wrong. Once you walked the mile or so to the lower town and kept going a little there was a taxi sign giving the names of the taxi drivers and their phone numbers - very easy.
Eventually we did discover a bus stop and a little electric bus came and the driver told us that the next bus would take us up to the old town and that it would be along in eight minutes. Better still as it drove away it said on the back "gratuite" - free.
After taking the little bus on a longer ride than we expected, we walked around the quaint old town, with the obligatory restaurants and tourist shops, paid two euros each to go up the forty-three steps to the top of the bastion for the view and sat in an outdoor cafe and had cokes.
Unsurprisingly, everything was very French. Surprisingly, almost everything was closed, and today wasn’t even Sunday. Porto Vecchio must be another summer resort, and it’s not summer anymore. The upper town was small, so we saw what we wanted to see pretty quickly and then decided to head back down. Instead of waiting for the bus, not knowing exactly where to get it and exactly which bus to take, we walked, thankfully downward, back to the ship.
We arrived just as a tour bus was arriving so rushed to get ahead of the crowd coming out of the bus so we wouldn’t have wait on long lines at security and the elevator. We just beat them.
In the afternoon Donnie did laundry. A laundered Donnie is a happy Donnie. I suggested that she only travels as an excuse to do more laundry and have Spritzes and gelato. She agreed.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we elected to avoid the Trivia quizzes on this cruise - too much pressure. We’re doing crossword puzzles instead.
In the early evening we attended another destination lecture by the art historian, this time about Menorca and Mallorca. It was good like his first one. Afterwards we watched the ship sail away from Corsica.
We had an early dinner at the main dining room and afterwards we went to the Den and listened to a young lady singer/pianist who was very good. We also had drinks. I had a Courvoisier VSOP brandy. Donnie had a Mojito - nice. Neither were complementary but had to be paid for. It came out of our onboard credit so I didn't care.
We awoke late, looked out of our balcony window and saw - water. We weren’t supposed to arrive in Menorca until one in the afternoon.
Today was another late-start day. We almost didn’t get out of our stateroom in time for breakfast. The buffet closed for breakfast at ten and we left our stateroom at a quarter to. Fortunately, Azamara is good about things like this. The buffet was still running at full steam, there was still plenty of food, some of which was just out of the kitchen. They were still taking orders for omelets, etc. Other cruise lines we have been on were slightly different. If the buffet was scheduled to close at ten, they started shutting down punctually at nine fifteen!
Around noon we were in the Living Room watching the ship sail into the harbor of Mahon, Menorca. Then we went up to the topmost deck to see more. Afterwards we went to the special scheduled poolside barbecue for a small lunch that wasn’t exactly small. They really had charcoal barbecue grills on a ship. Unhappily they also had a very loud rock band. The barbecue included German Bratwurst, one of my favorites. Many times in America they call something Bratwurst but it isn’t. It’s even worse if they call them "Brats". These tasted like the real thing. They even had sauerkraut.
We left the ship about two in the afternoon. It was warm, about 80 degrees today. The Destination Lecture had mentioned that there was an elevator up to the town which is high up on a bluff. So we walked to the elevator, waited about five minutes in line and took the elevator up.
Once there we went to the enclosed market we had been told about. It had once been a convent cloister. There wasn’t a lot to see there today, probably because it was so late. We stopped in the supermarket, which was under the market and got hard candies and cold drinks.
We noticed a sign that reminded us of something we had heard in the lecture, namely that Mahon in Catalan is Maó. Another thing that we learned was that a chef in Mahon had invented a sauce that is now world famous. It was originally called Maónnaise, not Mayonnaise and was not invented in France. As usual we wandered around the town.
At one point we saw one of those little wheeled tourist trains, and we thought it would be fun to take it around the town but as we got closer we saw that it was full. So we went into the fish market that had been mentioned as a very interesting place to visit by the lecturer. Inside, the fresh fish market was closed because it was late in the day.
There were however several stalls open selling Pinxtos which are Basque snacks consisting of various toppings served on slices of French bread. We had them in Barcelona. They were scrumptious. We have definite plans to have them again in Barcelona. We weren't hungry so we didn't have them in the market that day.
We went back to the ship and after dropping off our stuff we went up to the Living Room and had Piña Colada’s. They were cooling and refreshing.
At six o’clock we went to the Azamara White Night, their highly touted combination barbecue/buffet/party out on the pool deck. This one was a bit disorganized compared to the Pursuit. The food wasn’t as good this time either. I waited a long time in a line where one of the cooks prepared fresh pasta for you. The line moved slowly because it took him some time to make. You chose your ingredients and then he cooked it fresh in a saute pan while you waited. I chose tortellini in tomato sauce with garlic and onion. It turned out to be very disappointing. With my memories of Bologna fresh in my mind and taste buds, I should have resisted.
We stayed until the very loud Rock music started and then we escaped. Donnie wanted to go to the buffet and get some gelato but when we got there it was closed so we went to the Living Room to chill but it was closed also so we went back to our stateroom. We can definitely chill there. We chilled until the next morning.
At breakfast we ran into the British couple, Chris and Dottie that we had met at dinner several days ago and have talked to several times since. They gave us some ideas about what to see in Palma. They should know, they live here two months out of the year. Envy was pouring out of Donnie.
We took the shuttle to the center of town right near the Cathedral which we visited. It was very impressive, especially the light streaming through the stained glass windows onto the walls and floors. Then we wandered around the old town. Parts were very pretty. Parts were very touristy. We went to the Placa Major. It was too touristy.
Given where we were, we chose not to have lunch on the ship. Instead we ate outside at a little restaurant called Cafe Antiquari. It was much better than ship food.
We went to the Mercat Olivar, another indoor market that Chris had recommended. It was another marvelous European food market. We love visiting European food markets. Everything looked fresh and delicious. Americans eat crap. There were several places that were selling tapas. They looked wonderful. We were sorry we hadn’t found the market before having lunch.
We walked back to the Palacio Real de La Almudaina, one of the official residences of the Spanish Royal family. It was an ancient Moorish fort which was converted to a royal palace in the fourteenth century. It was interesting and attractive inside, but not quite as impressive as the Cathedral next door.
It was now late afternoon and the last shuttle bus was scheduled for five thirty, so we took the bus back to the ship. We had important items on our immediate to do list - one, drop our stuff in our stateroom - and two, go up to the Living Room and have Piña Colada’s. We completed our to do list very efficiently.
Later we went back to our stateroom to rest, shower, etc. It was about six. At six fifteen the Cruise Director came on the P.A. System to announce that the Destination Celebration show, a Flamenco show, would have two showings, one at six thirty and one at eight thirty. We knew this. Then he made the stupidest announcement of the entire cruise. He said that, in order to control the seats available for the show, passengers whose room cards had muster station group A on them must attend the eight thirty show and those in group B must attend the six thirty show - no choice! What if you had dinner plans? What if you hadn’t yet returned to your ship? What if you were still in the shower? Anyway, we just went to dinner and assumed that, as we had previously experienced, nobody was actually going to check which group we were in, and when we went to the eight thirty show, nobody did.
The Flamenco show was interesting. There were seven dancers, three men and four women. The dancing was good, but the jazzed-up Flamenco music was not to our liking. At one point, they were dancing to a jazzy version of the old song Volare, which is an Italian song. I wondered how many of the audience members realized that. The dancers did do several quick costume changes which was fun. The show was only thirty minutes long.
It was supposed to be cloudy all day but we'd heard that before. It was another shuttle day and another information mess. The Insider which we discovered was the only source of information on the ship, said that there were two shuttle buses - one provided by the port because it was forbidden to walk in the port area - and another into town. We, and some other passengers we talked to, read it to mean that you had to take the first to the terminal building and then the second into town, like in Olbia. No! The haughty Customer Relations Person corrected Donnie when she asked about it. There was a shuttle from the ship to the terminal, but only for people who didn’t need to get into the town. The other shuttle was from the ship to town. It wasn’t confusing at all - to the Customer Relations Person, at least. As usual, there were no signs anywhere.
We took the correct shuttle into Valencia and walked to the old town. The shuttle dropped us off right next to the Turia Park, which is a five mile long, narrow park that runs through the middle of the city. There’s a good reason for that. The park used to be a river. In 1957 the river overflowed and flooded the city. They decided to reroute the river and they turned the riverbed into the park.
We wandered through the old town as we do In every old city and headed generally towards the Mercat central, another enclosed market. This one was the biggest and best we’ve seen. It covers 86,000 square feet and has 1200 stalls! We walked up and down the aisles of stalls which were selling fruits, vegetables, nuts, olives, candies, meats, cheeses, wine, eggs, charcuterie, fish, but especially Jamon, Spanish ham. There must have been dozens of stalls selling Jamon.
It's time for a tourist trap story. The Mercat Central was so chock full of drool-inducing foods that we felt it would be fun to have something to eat and drink in the market, even though we could get free food and drink on the ship. In the market was a stall that had stools around it and you could sit and order something and eat right there, but you had to wait in line for a stool. Luckily we only had to wait a couple of minutes.
We were going to order two glasses of Cava and some tapas. A youngish man behind the counter asked us what we wanted to drink and I said Cava. He went away and came back a few minutes later and held up a bottle and said Champagne. I said, no, we wanted Cava. He shrugged, asked something I didn't quite get, to which I foolishly nodded and he came back with another similar bottle and popped the cork and poured two glasses. I was suspicious because most places in Spain that sell Cava sell it by the glassful and don't open the bottle right in front of you. My suspicion was confirmed when he brought an ice bucket and placed the bottle in it and put it down in front of us. I asked if that bottle was just for us and he said yes. I told him we had just ordered two glasses but he said that no, I had asked for a bottle. Donnie then asked how much was the bottle and he went through a whole rigamarole with the computer and printed out a receipt and showed it to us and said Thirty Eight Euros. I again said that we didn't order the bottle. Fortunately, he probably realized that we weren't going to succumb so he said he could take back the bottle. At that point we weren't going to order any food from the place so we finished our glasses of Cava, got the check from a different person, paid and left.
So, we went out of the market and went looking for a place to have a light lunch. We found a tiny tapas bar a few hundred feet away and had tapas - bacalao croquettes and red, unpeeled gambas, (shrimp). They were good but peeling the shrimp which had legs, heads, antennas and everything was very messy.
Later we wandered to the Catedral de Valencia but found that they charged eight euros to get in. We’ve been to too many cathedrals so we didn’t go in, so we wandered some more and eventually took the shuttle back to the ship. Once back in our stateroom we rested a little and then started packing.
At six we were invited again to the Azamara Circle Happy Hour. We had a choice of the Living Room, with saxophone music, or the Den, with a pianist. We chose the pianist. They were handing out "special" cocktails. Donnie tried one and hated it and ordered a Mojito. I ordered my new favorite, a Sidecar.
Perhaps it's a good time to more fully describe the drinking situation on our cruises. As I already mentioned, Azamara offers complementary alcoholic drinks from a list of spirits, wines and cocktails. Anything not on the list you have to pay for. In addition, like all the other cruise lines, they sell Drinks Packages for which you pay a set amount per day and can then drink the non-complementary drinks all you want, up to some limit and there's some very expensive wines, etc. that aren't included. Not only that, but we had received a special deal when we booked which gave us a very large onboard credit, which was money we had to spend onboard before the end of the cruise or it would disappear.
So, a number of times we would order a drink that wasn't on the complementary list, especially after I tried a complementary Gin and Tonic, one of my favorite cocktails and found it almost undrinkable. Whenever we ordered a non-complementary drink, the waiter would first ask if we had a drinks package. When I said no, they would always get a sad expression and say that they would have to charge us for the drink and ask if that was acceptable, When I said that it was Ok and I would pay for it (it was really just coming out of the onboard credit which we had to use up anyway) they would invariably look shocked before they went to fetch the drink.
Another thing - they were constantly pushing the free Champagne, or actually they usually referred to it as sparking white wine. They offered it at breakfast, they handed it out at every event, they even handed us glasses of it when we entered the room for the muster drill just after boarding. I'm pretty sure it must be delivered to the ship in tank trucks. They probably have two huge tanks below decks, one for diesel fuel for the engines and one for the sparkling white wine. Also interesting is the fact that no matter how many glasses of it you drank, you never felt the slightest bit tipsy - hmmmm.
It might sound from the previous paragraphs and other descriptions in this long-winded tome that we are long-standing alcoholics, but in fact at home we rarely imbibe and even on this trip we are averaging less than one drink a day. Back to the narrative.
Before dinner I went through the technical hoops necessary to see the dining room menu on my smartphone. I won’t bother to describe the complex process you have to perform to do this but it’s the only way to see the menu without going down to the dining room itself. Even the TV in the stateroom couldn't show the dining room menu. There was a page on the TV menu that said "Dining Room Menu" but when you selected that all you got was a QR code that you then had to scan with your smart phone, and doing that was not simple because of the weird onboard Wifi system. I believe that it is no longer possible to exist without a smart phone.
We read the online menu and we both saw that several of the appetizers sounded good so we figured that instead of an appetizer and main course we would have multiple appetizers. Unfortunately, when we got to the our table and were handed the menus, they were completely different from the ones we had seen on our smartphones. Happily, the dinner we had was excellent, much better than what we expected.
Once again the accurate phone weather app said mostly cloudy all day. Once again it was mostly wrong. Once off the ship we took the shuttle bus to the Columbus monument drop off point at the southern end of the the world famous wide promenade street, La Rambla.
We walked up La Rambla until we got to the hotel we had booked for the next day. We had changed our travel plans so we took care of our changed hotel reservations and then did what we do best, we wandered around the old neighborhoods of Barcelona, one of our favorite places.
While wandering we stumbled upon an antique flea market. We browsed a while for fun. Then we went to the Santa Caterina food market which was much less crowded and touristy than La Boqueria, the famous market near our hotel. After wandering around the market drooling, we stopped for a light lunch and then, what else - we did more wandering.
We wandered into the oldest cake/candy shop in Barcelona - La Colmena, founded in 1868. The original family owners don’t own it anymore, however the new family owners are celebrating their 150th anniversary of running the store. We bought some marzipan candies. Needless to say they were wonderful.
We wandered back in the direction of the shuttle bus pickup point and while doing so we stumbled upon another antique flea market. We only glanced around this one. Finally we rode the shuttle bus back to the ship.
Onboard, we rested, did more packing, sampled more marzipans, did a little more packing, etc. Later we went one last time up to the Living Room for our final "free" drinks while listening to the saxophonist. We enjoyed a lovely view of the container ship loading cranes in the sunset.
Tonight was our last night of cruising for this expedition, but not the end of the adventure. We still have nine days to see Barcelona and nearby towns, just not by ship.
We went to our final dinner on the cruise and discovered that the menu we had seen online the previous night, which wasn’t what was being served, was now the actual menu. So now we had the opportunity to try the dishes we had previously picked. They were excellent.
Copyright © 2022 by Jeff Kravitz