November 9 - Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Funchal, Madeira is located just north of Tenerife on a map of the Canary Islands.  As I type, we are just getting ready to go ashore and the results of the American election are not yet final.  

After this stop, we will be 8 days at sea before arriving at Tampa, Florida in the early morning of the 9th day.  

Internet on the ship is very slow and expensive so this will be my last post.  

We have had lots of adventures, seen lots of interesting things, taken too many boring pictures and will have lots of stories to tell when we get home.

Pray for calm seas for us as we cross the Atlantic.

See you soon.

November 7 - Back in Malaga, Spain

We made a second stop in Malaga, Spain today.  The first time, although I went ashore, I didn't last long so I was glad to have the opportunity to see it again.

The information on our ship says that Malaga is Europe's southern-most city and the fifth largest in Spain.  It dates back to 770 BC and is famous as the birthplace of Pablo Picasso.

 The Bishop's Palace.  Bishops did awfully well in the old days!  It is right across from a HUGE cathedral. Roman ruins an interesting bench

November 6 - Cartagena, Spain

This was an unexpected pleasure.  One of the locals told us that 20 years ago, this place was ugly and dirty.  The navy came in and since then, the town has been restoring the buildings.  They keep the original facades and renovate in behind.  This has brought the cruise ships.  It was spotless.

There was a street fair on today with many very interesting vendors. 

Roasting ribs in the square.

 Pork, anyone?

 Roger by the old bull fight ring.

November 5 - back in Palma De Mallorca, Spain

This was our second time visiting this island.  The first time, Roger went sightseeing on his own as I was still not well.  Today we both went in.

The Basilica de Sant Francesco dominates the view from offshore.  It is part of a 13th century convent and has 7 different chapels.

 We visited the Mallorca Pearl Museum.  I restrained myself and did not buy anything.

November 5 - back in Palma De Mallorca, Spain

This was our second time visiting this island.  The first time, Roger went sightseeing on his own as I was still not well.  Today we both went in.

The Basilica de Sant Francesco dominates the view from offshore.  It is part of a 13th century convent and has 7 different chapels.

 We visited the Mallorca Pearl Museum.  I restrained myself and did not buy anything.

November 1, 2016 - Monte Carlo, Monaco

Here we are where the rich and famous play.  We have never seen so many huge private yachts as are in the marina in Monte Carlo.

It was a bit of a walk to get to the casino ( which I thought was a church from the tender) but well worth it.  The 'riffraff' are allowed to go in between 9am and noon without dressing up in fancy duds and they charge you 10 Euros per person to go in.  Talk about opulence.

 Just one of the many table rooms. Here's Roger at the bar (the glass is empty) doing his best James Bond imitation (minus the tux). Roger has picked out his next car.  This was parked across the street from the casino. Partial view of the harbour.

Toulon, France and Calvi, Corsica

 The outdoor street market in Toulon. Cooking Pizza in the street!

We had to take a tender into Calvi.

 The tenders were busy today. The Citadel.  Yes, we climbed to the top. Calvi waterfront. A beautiful beach on Calvi.  We were sorry we had not worn our suits.  The water was clear and the bottom was sandy. Roger getting some sun on our balcony.

Monte Carlo tomorrow.  We hope to get a peak at the casino.

November 2

Having trouble posting on the ship and at Internet cafes in the ports.  The problem may be the pictures.  I'll keep trying.

We are in Livorno, Italy today, Monte Carlo yesterday.

Week 1 - Ocean Cruise

In our first week of the Mediterranean cruise, we have visited ports in Spain (Cadiz, Malaga, Alicante and Palma de Mallorca) and Gibraltar.  I was not well enough to go off the ship, except briefly in Malaga, due to my pneumonia.  Roger bravely toured the other ports on his own.  Of course I worried the whole time he was off by himself but he made sure not to stay out more than a few hours each time as he knew I would worry.  One day he walked just under 9 km!  

SO FAR, (touch wood), neither of us have felt seasick.  The sea has been quite calm except for two nights near Gibraltar where the ship experienced 'some roll' as the Captain described it.  Roger's upper respiratory infection is clearing up nicely and now that I am on stronger antibiotics for the pneumonia, I am starting to feel more like myself.

 This is our ship, the Oosterdam. Our cabin is on deck 7, right at the back of the ship.  Our room is a good size with a nice sitting area and very large balcony.

 The rock in Gibraltar.  

 

 Alicante, Spain

 Sunrise in Palma de Mallorca, Spain - an island.

 A street in Palma

Today, we are in Toulon (Cote d'Azur), France.

 By, the way, the weather on this Mediterranean cruise so far has been sunny and warm - in the 20's- yeah.

Ocean cruise

We are on boozed and docked at Cadiz today.this is the view from our balcony.  We are at the rear of the ship.

 

October 20 and 21- touring Barcelona

These two days we have been touring Barcelona on the hop-on, hop-off bus.  Of course, the highlight is the Sagrada Familia by Gaudi.  He worked on it for 40 years and only constructed part of it.  Construction has continued apparently following his plans and models.  In my opinion, they should have stopped at the parts that Gaudi built as the other parts seem quite different to me. This is one of the many new parts I think are out of place. This is Gaudi's work.

The detail is amazing.  You could spend days looking at it and not see all the details.

 Believe it or not, these are on top of some of the spires.   An apartment block designed by Gaudi in downtown Barcelona.

Dennis and Patsy's second bag has not yet arrived.  They have been assured it will come today.  We embark on the ocean cruise tomorrow.

October 17,18 and 19- Amsterdam and Barcelona (Roger's excellent laundry adventure)

We did a canal tour of Amsterdam, then toured a shop that makes cheese, which we sampled.  We declined to try the pickled herring. We also did not sample any of the canabis products on offer.  

The night before, we had the Captain's Farewell.  Apparently the Rhine is very low and we were very lucky to get through.  One of our sister ships going the other way did not.  There aren't enough superlatives about Scenic Tours.  Everything is first class and not a detail is missed.  The staff were all wonderful.  I just wish they could cure a bad cold and cough!

 

Here we are with our cruise director, the Captain and Second in command

 No, we didn't go in this shop!

Our flight got into Brcelona about 1:00pm.  Unfortunately, one of Dennis and Patsy's bags did not, so we are hoping it will come today or tomorrow before we get on the ocean cruise.

We found a local laundromat.  It must have been quite a spectacle for the locals to see these 4 tourists try and figure out how to work the washing machines.  A tiny older woman took pity on us and showed us what to do (speaking Spanish the whole time).  Roger volunteered to stay while Dennis, Patsy and I went in search of some wine,  when we got back, there was Roger and a very interesting collection of people.  The most notable was an elderly gentleman dressed in hippy style, complete with blue sunglasses.  When our machines were done, we could hardly get the clothes out fast enough for the woman who had claimed them for their next use!  Roger has gone back thIs morning to put some things in the dryer.  I wonder what interesting folk he will encounter today.

October 16-Castles, Castles, Castles on the Rhine Gorge

This morning, we toured a fascinating mechanical music museum.  

This afternoon, the sun came out and we sailed the Rhine Gorge.  The water is quite low and it was touch and go in a couple of spots whether we would be able to get through but we made it!  There was  Castle after Castle after Castle...

  These give you a bit of a taste of the Castles along the Rhine Gorge

October 15- 'Octoberfest'

This morning we sailed along the Main River to Freudenberg.  There we were treated to an Octoberfest extravaganza just for our ship.  The beer and wine flowed, we had sausage, chicken, pickled cabbage salad, potato salad apple strudel and drinks.  There was lots of singing. Roger's beer stein .5 L.  He had TWO?

October 14-Another 'Burg'-Wurzburg

Today we toured the Prince Bishop's Palace, built over 25 years starting in 1740.  95 per cent of the town was destroyed near the end of WW2, including much of the Palace but the Palace has been carefully restored.  Many of the original tapestries,furniture and chandeliers were taken up for safekeeping during the war. It was amazing!   It has the largest fresco ceiling in the world.  A fresco is when the paint is put on top of fresh plaster.  The paint soaks into and becomes part of the plaster.  We couldn't take pictures inside so bought some postcards to show when we get home.  It is much more ornate than Schunbrun Palace and Roger thinks even more impressive than Versailles. The vineyards on the way to Wurzburg the second oldest bridge in Germany as we come into dock.

October 11, 12 and 13- The Locks, Nurnberg and Bmberg

We go through many locks in our journey.  You wouldn't believe how deep some of them are. Here we are with almost all the water drained out.

 Here, the lock is opening up.

On October 12, Roger went to the WWII tour in Nurnberg.  He stood on the podium of the rally grounds where Hitler spoke to 500,000 troops in 1938.  He was amazed at how vast it was.

I toured Nurnberg where we had fresh gingerbread, sausages and beer.  In the evening on the ship, we were entertained with a Bavarian Band playing 'oompapa' music.

Today, we toured Bamberg.  The old town hall in the middle of the river and 'little Venice ' area were charming.

 Bamberg old town hall in the middle of the river.

 Little Venice in Bamberg Brewery where they make smoky beer.  We did not sample it.  Bamberg is famous for this beer.

October 9, 2016- Wachau Valley- Durnstein, Melk, Aggestein Castle

Durnstein is a charming Austrian village in the Danube.  WAY up is a castle ruin where Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned for some time. Naturally, we somehow took the hard path up, with steps carved out of the rock.  We found the much easier path for the way down. The hard path up.  The castle

Then we cruised the Wachau Valley to Melk.  The Wachau Valley is very picturesque - very green with grape vines for wine in every possible spot.

 Field with grape vines in Wachau valley

At sunset, they drove us to Aggstein Castle for a sunset drink and entertainment by an accordionist and guitarist. The music selection was quite etc lectice from Waltzing Mathilda, Alouette, the Chicken dance and so on...

 

On October 10, we had a long day excursion from Passat to Salzburg, Mozart's birthplace, then up in the Alps foothills (we couldn't really tell as it was foggy) for lunch and a show of Austrian music, including some songs from the Sound of Music.  

  

October 6, 7 and 8- travel day to Vienna

We have been very busy so I had no time to update the blog.

First, I should correct my previous blog when I said that Russian rule of Budapest ended in 1989 after a 13 day uprising.   Russian rule ended in 1989 but the 13 day uprising was in the late 1950's.  

We began sailing toward Vienna in the late afternoon on October 6.  That night we were entertained with traditional Hungarian dances by 4 dancers in traditional costumes.  At one point, the two female dances danced with half full liquor bottles balanced on their heads.  That must take quite a bit of practice.

On the way to Vienna, we passed Bratislava and its Fortress (see picture below).

Shortly before Vienna, we passed through a lock- one of about 63 on the trip.  This was fascinating.  There were already two large ships in the lock.  Our captain had to steer beside one of them.  Let me tell you, there was less than a foot between the 2 boats and also less than a foot between the other side of our boat and the wall of the lock.  See the pictures below.  The whole operation of entering the lock, manoevering into position and raising the level of the water in the lock took  little more than half an hour.  

After dinner, we were driven to Liechtenstein Palace for a concert of Strauss, Mozart and Beethoven music just for us.  Of course, I enjoyed the Mozart pieces the most.  The Palace was very grand with paintings on the ceilings and art masterpieces from the early Renaissance to the Baroque era.  We were served Champagne upon entering the Palace.

In the morning on October 8, we toured Schoenbrunn Palace.  I have never seen so much gold leaf all over everything in my life.  Empress Maria Theresa expanded the Palace in the 1700's modelled after  Versailles.  She ruled for many years and was and still is much loved by the people.  She had 16 children in 20 years- one of them Marie Antoinette.  The grounds are huge.  We couldn't imagine how many staff it took and takes to maintain them.

Tonight after dinner, they will be teaching us the  Viennese waltz and we set sail for the Durnstein/Melk area.  Tomorrow, a 35 km bike ride tour from Durnstein to Melk was offered.  We thought about it but decided we might  be quite sore for some days after and are taking a more sedate tour of the Melk Abbey instead.

 Fortress in Bratislave at the concert pulling into the lock.  We came level with the ship on the right with only about a foot between us.  That's the bow of our ship in the bottom left side of the picture.

October 5 & 6, 2016 - Start of river cruise - Budapest

It has been a wonderful two days and it's only 2:30pm our time as I write.

We were picked up at our hotel by our river cruise line, Scenic, at noon and driven to the boat by bus.  Once on board, we were seated in the lounge and served Champagne while our luggage was delivered to our room.  They space out the boarding throughout the afternoon so you don't have long to wait to  get to your room and unpack.  Our room is small but has everything we could possible need.

After a great dinner, we had various presentations about the boat- safety etc.

This morning, we had a 4 hour tour of the City and the Hospital in the Rock.  We learned a lot about  Budapest -probably more than I will remember to record here.  Budapest is in two parts- Buda is on one side of the Danube and Pest (pronounced Pescht) is on the other side.   Buda is hilly and Pest is flat.  About 1.7 million people live here now.  It is a City of many seconds - second largest Parliament  building in 

Europe (after England's),  2nd subway to be built in Europe and second largest synagogue in the world (the largest is in New York apparently).  There are 3 Unesco World Heritage sites here- the Castle district in Buda, the downtown area and the avenue on the Pest side that is a copy of the Champs-Elysees in Paris.  One of the bridges, the Chain bridge is fashioned after the London bridge.  

Budapest was originally settled in the 900's.  It has a long history of  being taken over by others, most recently the Germans in the Second World War and then the Russians after the war. During the war, over 70% of the buildings were destroyed.   Hungary won its independence from Russia after a 13 day uprising  in 1989 and since then elects its government.  

There are many beautiful and architecturally interesting buildings here.  We found the Castle district on the Buda side particularly charming.    

The Hospital in the Rock was constructed in 1939/40 using existing caves as a start.  With the connecting tunnels, it is 10 km in length.  It was designed to hold about 60 patients in WW2, but during the 1989 uprising against the Russians, had over 600 patients.  As a result of the Cuban Missile crisis, the Russians converted it for use as a nuclear bomb shelter with its own power, water and air filter system to enable those in it to live safely for 3 weeks after a nuclear bomb the size of the one dropped in Hiroshima.  It was never used.  Now it is a museum, complete with many wax dummies as patients and medical staff and was very realistic.  On display was the WW2 equipment used for anaesthetics during operations.  I'm sure our daughter-in-law would have found it fascinating.  I know we did.

  Our boat, Jade Scenic -the long one at the top of the picture a charming street in the Castle district - rainy and cool here today

Sorry about the first picture.  I didn't intend to include it but of course can't figure out how to delete it without deleting everything else!