Boats, Busses and Trams

Thursday, September 17, 2015

This was a day at sea in which we traveled from Barcelona to Naples. We needed the time to relax after many successive days of touring various places.

Friday, September 18, 2015

This day was something like planes, trains and automobiles – only it was Boats, Buses and Trams.

We docked at Naples (or Napoli as the locals say) in the early morning. We had a full day tour scheduled – the Isle of Capri, Sorrento and then Pompeii. While we were just about ready to disembark, Steve could not find his cruise ship ID card. At that point, Tim also noted that he had forgot his card. So both ran back to their rooms with Tim retrieving his card and Steve finding his card in his pocket where it had been all along. They raced down to the disembarkation deck and made it to the consternation of the ship crew who were waiting on us. Nonetheless, we got off on schedule at 8AM.

OK, what follows was something like the marine boot camp.

We got off the ship, and promptly walked a half mile to the dock where we were to catch our ferry to Capri. There we had to wait for our tour guide, who had to wait in a line to get tickets for all of us to board the ferry. Then we got in long line to board the ferry and were herded on board to get in line to go up the steps to find seating, of which there was very little. The ferry took 40 minutes to get to Capri, and disembarkation from the ferry was chaos. Multiple ferries from multiple cruise lines were crowding every inch of the pier. Furthermore, as we pushed our way off the pier to the main street of the port area, there were thousands of people crowding the main street. We had to wait for our tour guide to get tickets for the tram that went up to the town square of Capri. Once we had the tickets we had to wait in a long line with 500 of our “closest tourist friends” to get on the tram. At that point Tim gave up and did a self-guided tour of the small town at the harbor. For the rest of us, it took 45 minutes to reach the top of the town.

Now I must say that the view from the actual town of Capri was very, very cool. However, we only had about 30 minutes to look around Capri. So it was now about 12:30, and we had spent 4 hours in some form of transportation or queueing for transportation and 30 minutes of sightseeing. Chan, Michele, Steve and Debbie agreed that Tim made best choice as he wandered the little harbor side village.

When we returned to the harbor, we waited to get our next set of tickets for the hydrofoil to Sorrento. After we got those tickets, we were instructed to go to Pier 13 to wait for our 1PM trip. Did I mention the temperatures were now up to 95, and the sun was very intense, and patience was wearing thin? So, we trucked all the way out to the end of the pier and waited and waited and waited until the hydrofoil finally showed up at 1:30. Did I mention how rude European tourists are? They all forget what the learned in kindergarten and unabashedly push their way to the front of the line at every opportunity. There were particularly egregious examples on Pier 13.

After getting to Sorrento, we disembarked from the hydrofoil (remember it’s still 95) and waited for our tour guide who had to wait in a line to get tickets for us for the bus, as we waited in line to get on the bus. The bus trucked us up the rocky hillside to the center of town in Sorrento where we ate a very nice and well-deserved lunch. By the time we were done, we were left with about 10 minutes of sightseeing Sorrento, then it was back to waiting for our bus.

From Sorrento we traveled by bus to Pompeii (remember, it’s still 95 degrees and Europeans do not ascribe to the theory of air conditioning or cold things in general (e.g. drinks, including milk). When we got to Pompeii, we had to wait while our tour guide got our tickets and then we marched through the ancient ruin. This was actually a cool tour, but we were pretty frazzled since it was very late afternoon. I won’t go into all the cool things about Pompeii, but it was a difficult walking tour since the stone streets were very uneven.

Our tour guide was very, very Italian and proud of all things Italian and Roman. He didn’t seem to mind the time very well, and he wanted to tell us everything he could about Pompeii. Even though the tour was supposed to be done at 5:00PM so we could get back to the ship at 5:30 (the ‘all aboard’ time for the ship was 6:30 with departure at 7:00), our tour guide was still going strong leading us through Pompeii at 6 o’clock. We made it back to the ship at about 6:55PM and our tour group was the last to be onboard. Through it all, our tour guide was unfazed.

Our day of boats, busses and trams was a lot of travel time and a little sightseeing. What we saw was very cool, but we vowed that the next time we would not be so ambitious with seeing multiple sight in one excursion.

Our day ended with dinner, lounging around and watching Chan try to drink as much as he could so he could use up his pre-bought, unlimited drink package.

The Basilica and The Walk

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

We docked in Barcelona and had planned our own tour – a visit to the famous La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family) Basilica and a hop-on/hop-off bus tour.

By far, the highlight of Barcelona and perhaps of the entire trip was Sagrada Familia. We had a guided tour for one hour and then some time on our own at the Basilica. There is not enough space to describe the unique and spectacular nature of this church, but I will give it a few sentences.

·       It was designed by Antoni Gaudi and started in1882 (Note: it is still under construction with expected completion date in 2026 – the 100 year anniversary of Gaudi’s death.

·       The basilica has three facades – Nativity, Ascension and the Glory (which will be the front of the church). Each façade has dozens of sculptures built into its enormous (75-100 feet high) and magnificent entry – each with scenes for the birth of Christ (Nativity) and the death and resurrection of Christ (Ascension). The Glory façade is barely underway, but we saw sketches that Gaudi had done over 100 years ago that show how exceedingly magnificent it will be.

·       Upon entering through the nativity façade, one is immediately struck by brilliant – and I mean brilliant – stained glass windows. The next thing that strikes you is the soaring height of the basilica – one of the highest in the world. The next thing that strikes you is that the gigantic pillars of the basilica are not anything like what you see in a traditional cathedral. They are meant to be more like very tall trees with arching branches and foliage at the top to support the roof.

·       The choir loft seats 1000 people.

It is simply impossible to describe in this short note – or perhaps in any written form. It has to be seen to be experienced … and it is truly an extraordinary experience. I would encourage anyone to go on-line and see pictures even if though can only do partial justice.

We ate a delightful, outdoor lunch on the Place de John F. Kennedy. We did our hop-on/hop-off tour, and got off near the port. Our enormous ship could be seen easily and we decided to walk to it from the bus tour drop off point. You know how really big mountains look close to you, but you end up driving for hours before you reach them? Well, really big cruise ships look closer than they actually are, and a two mile walk later, we were back on board our ship.

As we walked the streets of Barcelona, we all had the feeling of a more modern city, very well planned with wide streets and orderly traffic. There was so much more to do and see in Barcelona, but alas, we had to proceed to our next port of call.

The Pearls and The Bullfight

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Our next port of call was the city of Palma on the island of Majorca, better known as Palma de Majorca. It is part of Spain. Again, the port area was beautiful as it was lined with high-end condo buildings and plenty of fancy yachts in the harbor.

This was a very pleasant surprise as we took the city tour. There are three areas of note – the world famous pearls (especially black pearls), the bull fighting ring and, yes, another huge 14^th century cathedral. [We have lost track of our cathedral count and chapel count at this point.] The cathedral has been updated in more modern times, including some stained glass by Antoni Gaudi as well as a highly decorative ring of 33 lanterns suspended over the altar. It was a preview of things to come when we docked in Barcelona.

Again, we had an easy bus trip back to the ship. We had dinner, some drinks and a show.

The Rich and The Famous

Monday, September 14, 2015

Our second port of call was Cannes, France. This is definitely where the elite meet to eat. The yachts were incredible and the entire waterfront was lined with high priced condos. Our excursions were to visit a small mountain top town called Eze and then on to Monaco (the second smallest country on the planet). We were keeping a watch for Robin Leach as we felt we were in an episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”

The short story is that Eze is a very small, fortified town built in the 13^th century. The street are ultra-small (no cars allowed in this town – they simply would not fit). The current population of the town is 18.

The Principality of Monaco (yes, it is ruled by a Prince) can be seen in one glance from the hillsides overlooking this country. Interestingly, the country of Monaco has 4 cities in it – one being the famous Monte Carlo with its gambling and Grand Prix event. The scenery around Monaco is very, very nice. It is actually nestled at the base of the French Alps which go right into the seas at Monaco. From one elevated vantage point in Monaco you can see building on one side of a street that are in Monaco and the other side of the street, the buildings are in France. Just off in the distance a little way you can also see Italy!

The trip back to our ship was very scenic, and the day ended with a nice dinner onboard and a show in the theater (which seats 1600 people by the way).

The Cancellation and The Announcements

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Our tour of Cinque Terra was cancelled due to rough seas, so we took an alternative trip to Pisa – of leaning tower fame. The weather was threatening most of the morning and the skies were gray as we walked through the city gates to see the magnificent cathedral, baptistery and world famous leaning tower. Our tour guide spoke English but every English word ended in “a” or “o.” “Come-a to-a da cathedral-o and-a see-o de-a beautiful-a example of-a gothic-a architecture-o.” You get the point.

Wandering street vendors were hawking their usual touristy stuff, including umbrellas for 5€. Tim assured us that his ‘weather bug’ app said no rain until the afternoon (it was about 10:30 at this point). We were standing in front of the cathedral (along with 1000 other tourists) listening to our tour guide explain some history when we heard thunder. Tim and Chris brought rain gear, Steve and Debbie had one umbrella, Chan and Michele put too much trust in the weather forecast.

It started raining and Michele joined Steve and Debbie under the small umbrella. Chan couldn’t fit, and some vendor offered him an umbrella for 5€, but he noted confidently, “I’ve played golf in worse than this.” Within minutes, the rain was coming down very hard, and Chan was getting soaked along with many other tourist. The price of umbrellas was now 7€. We ended up buying some because it was just raining too hard.

Interestingly, hundreds of tourist were converted to Catholicism at that moment as they rushed into the cathedral to go to Mass. This included Chan. Mathematically speaking, Chan’s interest in seeing the cathedral increased exponentially as precipitation increased. Chan was asking, nay begging, for a priest in the back of the church so he could confess and convert. By the time the priest arrived, the rain slowed to a drizzle and Chan’s conversion fizzled, so he left the safety of the cathedral. So much for cheatin’ Chan’s conversion.

We ended up in a Burger King (it’s true) and we went for the blow dryers, each of us taking turns directing hot air on our shirts and pants. You have to imagine Chan turned backwards and sideways to the blow dryer, trying to get dried off. You also have to imagine that the blow dryers are motion activated – which is no big deal when drying your hands – and the backwards dance Chan was doing to keep the blower activated was well worth the price of buying something from Burger King so we could stay indoors. Just close your eyes and imagine that.

The evening was a chance for us to go to our first show on the ship after dinner. What caught us by surprise was that every announcement/introduction was done in six languages - English, Italian, French, Spanish, German, and Russian. Sometimes it seemed like even more. It takes forever to introduce the show. With so many versions of introductions, the master of ceremonies spoke extremely fast. So, ironically, in trying to communicate to everyone, he most likely was communicating to no one. We certainly could not understand his English, especially since he speak the Italiano version of Ingleso.

The Museum and The Gelato Stop

Saturday, September 12, 2105

We had a casual morning where each couple did their own thing. Can you guess what that was for each couple?

              Tim & Chris:                     Off to the laundry to clean clothes for the cruise

              Chan & Michele:             Off to do more shopping

              Steve & Debbie:              Visit the Galileo Museum

Sounds about right, doesn’t it? There are two noteworthy comments here.

1)      Tim sweet talked a girl at the nearby laundromat into doing his laundry for the second leg of the trip. The whole scenario brought back memories of Tim’s Notre Dame days.

2)      About the Galileo Museum. Steve and Debbie got to the entrance (there was no crowd for one) and found that the entry fee was 8€ per person. WE didn’t have much time and Debbie was suggesting that I go in and get my science fix while she waited outside. Steve didn’t like the idea and there were no benches or any place for Debbie to sit. At that very moment a women was going into the museum and asked if she could help up. We said we were debating whether both of us should go in or not. She said, “You should go in. It is well worth it.” We explained about Debbie’s visual impairment and not wanting to waste 8€, blah, blah, blah. The women, Karen, said, “Well since she is visually impaired, she gets in free and you, Steve, get in free as her escort!” It turns out that this women 9who was American) was one of the curators of the museum. She told the people at the front desk about the situation, and the next thing you know, Debbie and I are getting our own private tour of the Galileo Museum. There was lots of cool stuff inside for die-hard math-types, including the actual telescopes Galileo used to spot the moons of Jupiter and provide visual evidence that the earth is not the center of the solar system (which was heresy back in those days).

Anyway, it was our day to drive from Florence to the port where our cruise started. This was Civitivecchi, just about 40 miles north of Rome. When we met our driven, he immediately stated, “No Inglesé.” Steve sat in the front seat this time, and we were on a mission to get the best gelato in all of Florence, which we knew was on the way we had to go. Steve was able to communicate that we wanted to stop just over the bridge at the gelato shop. With some gestures and spelling and careful pointing, our driver got it! We got over the bridge and across the busy street, and in true Italian fashion he just stopped the van right on the street corner. We piled out, got our gelato (it was very good), and got on our way. Later on the 3 hour drive, Steve was able to gesticulate “toilettes” at which point our driver understood and said “peet-a stop-a.” We all said, “Si!”

We arrived at Civitavecchia and boarded the ship without incidence.

The Driver and The Dinner

Friday, September 11, 2015

The plan for the day was to go to the Uffizi Gallery, one of the great art museums of the world. We had a voucher that was supposed to give us ‘skip the line’ access to the museum. As we approached the Uffizi on our walk from our hotel, there were incredibly long lines around the museum. We were thrilled with the fact that we had the ‘skip the line’ access … until we learned that we had to redeem the voucher for the tickets before we could skip the line to enter the museum. The problem was the line for tickets was of hundreds of people long and we apparently did not have ‘skip the line’ ticket access. Our assessment was that we would spend a huge amount of time in line just to get our tickets, so we abandoned ship. Who wants to see a bunch of great paint by number canvases from the Renaissance anyway?

So we decided to get inside the famed Basilica (the Duomo) and have a look around. Entrance was free!! Just get in line and walk in! The line seemed long (so what else is new), and there were salespeople trying to sell us a tour that would allow us to (you guessed it) ‘skip the line’ and get a guided tour. We balked on two offers, and just got in line, which was a great move since the line moved very fast and we only waited 5-10 minutes to get in.

The Basilica, which is so beautifully intricate on the outside, was pretty plain on the inside, except for the dome. It is huge and cavernous, but the walls are pretty plain. The dome is exquisitely painted with a view of Mary in Heaven. After 30 minutes there, we went to see another famous church (they are everywhere) called Santa Croce or Holy Cross. Except for Steve, the group had done enough churching, and the ladies wanted to do some shopping in the local markets on the piazza in front of Santa Croce. Tim and Chan sat patiently by and watched the women be gatherers as they collected various items (Note: Florence is famous for fine leather goods). They thought that watching spouses shop was the lesser of two evils, but when Steve returned, Tim and Chan wished they had gone into the church. Note that Santa Croce is steeped with history and culture – it is the final resting place of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, (maybe) Dante, Fermi and Marconi (of radio making fame). It is also a strikingly beautiful church in its own way with many side altars.

In mid-afternoon, we were picked up to go to a rural vineyard (Santo Stefano) where we would learn some Tuscan cooking recipes and would make our own meal. The drive was about 45 minutes from downtown Florence where we stayed. Alessandro was at the wheel once again. The place was remote enough to not be on a Garmin map. It’s never a good sign when your surgeon or your drivers says, “Oops.” Alessandro turned up a very narrow road on a very steep hill. Within 100 yards, the road became gravel and within another two hundred yards it was dirt. We felt like we were four wheeling, except we were in an 8 passenger Mercedes van! We were bouncing through ruts and doing 180 degree switchbacks up the hill while Debbie and Michele had their heads down not wanting to see what was just over the edge of the road. After 5 minutes of jostling, shaking, bouncing, Alessandro told us 3 more kilometers (i.e. two miles). We had gone another 4 kilometers, and that’s when the “Oops” popped out. We had taken the wrong dirt road up the wrong hill. Alessandro pointed to a farmhouse and winery on the next hillside from where we were and noted, “That’s-a where-a we want-a to be-a.” Alessandro retraced his path back down the hill, drove on the main road about 100 yards, and then we started the same trek up to Santo Stefano – jostling, shaking and bouncing all the way.

OK, I will make this concise. When we got to the hilltop farmhouse/winery, the views were spectacular. We got a tour of the cellars and the wine making process. After doing some wine-tasting, we proceeded to the kitchens to make our own meal from scratch with an expert Tuscan chef. The most memorable part of the experience was the look on Chan’s face when he saw Michele cooking dinner … on vacation nonetheless – talk about a miracle!  BTW: the ever-quiescent Chan asked us … “Do you know how Michele calls the family to dinner?” Answer: “Alright, everybody in the car!” Michele did draw the line at doing dishes.

While dinner was cooking, we noticed the sun going down behind the Tuscan hillsides, and we grabbed a few classic pictures before enjoying the fruits of our culinary labors (Note: we made our own sea shell-like pasta from scratch among other things). The food and the wine was very good, including dessert. We even invited Alessandro to join us for dinner, and he enjoyed that.

The story is almost over. We jostled, shook and bounced our way down the dirt and gravel road for 10 minutes, and then Alessandro got on the main road. It was pretty late by the time we got back to Piazza Santa Maria Novella. We gave Alessandro a nice tip, and then he said we had to pay an extra 50€ since we took an hour longer than scheduled. This is the guy who went the wrong way and then ate dinner with us!

In the end, we all agreed that we had just purchased another VERY memorable experience.