November 20 – Lisbon, the beautiful city on the Tagus River

We docked this morning in one of my favorite cities, Lisbon, capital of Portugal.  I’ve been here a number of times and I’m always charmed by it.  To reach the cruise port the ship sails under the impressive 25th of April Bridge, a large suspension bridge which reminds me of the Golden Gate Bridge. On the left bank lies Lisbon and on the hilltop to the right is the Christ the King monument which is reminiscent of the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio.  

The terminal is right in downtown Lisbon so it’s pretty accessible.  Immediately visible is the dome of the National Pantheon which towers over the old district of the Alfama. Also in the distance you can see the Castle of São George.  Many of the buildings are decorated with colorful ceramic tiles which Portugal is famous for producing.  On a visit years ago Al and I went to the national tile museum here and it was fascinating.  Today I had a specific mission in mind.  I wanted to go to the Jerónimos Monastery in the Belém District to take some photos and to go to the one of the most wonderful pastry cafés I know of, the Pastéis de Belém café.

The National Pantheon

Lisbon cityscape

I got off the ship and got myself a taxi to take me to Belém.  The driver didn’t really speak English but he could understand enough of my Spanglish that he understood where I wanted to go but we couldn’t really have a conversation. He must have thought I was okay because as we waited for a traffic light to change he gave me a caramel candy to eat and told me it was “Very good.”  When I arrived at the park across from the monastery it was very crowded.  There was a long line of buses parked and lots of tourists milling about.  I took a walk through the park down toward the waterfront to take a picture of the Monument of the Discoveries. It’s a beautiful monument celebrating the Portuguese Age of Discovery.  I think we often forget that before Columbus there were intrepid Portuguese who discovered the archipelagos of Madeira and Azores and not long after Columbus in 1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama established a sea route around Africa to India.  In fact if I remember correctly at one time the Pope divided the world  between Spain and Portugal, leaving out every other country at the time.  From my vantage point across a very busy street I didn’t get a good picture of the monument but when I looked back at photos from prior visits I found a good one so I’m including it here.  I also realized I was too far away to get to the Belém Tower, a beautiful fortification which was the point of embarkation of Portuguese explorers and serves as the official gateway to Lisbon. The picture here is also one I took as we sailed in one day.

Main square downtown

Monument to the Discoverers

Jerónimos Monastery

Jerónimos Monastery

elé

Belém Tower

After my walk in the park I walked back to the street by the Monastery which is a beautiful building in a Portuguese Gothic style.  Today it includes a church in which Vasco da Gama is buried in an impressive tomb and the former monastery which is now the Maritime Museum and the National Museum of Archaeology.  I’ve been in there twice so I didn’t want to go in again, just take photos.  Then I walked a block or two to my main objective,  the café to get the pastéis de belém.  

Street where the café is

Decorated with typical tiles

It tastes absolutely wonderful!

Just one of the many rooms

I think I’ve written about this place before but here it is again.  This café was established in 1837 and it makes between 20,000 and 40,000 of these wonderful custard tarts each day! You can stand in line for takeout, but the best way to get some is to get a table and order a coffee and a tart to eat there and some to go.  That’s what I did.  The place looks small from the street but it stretches back and back through a rabbit warren of rooms. I had a cup of very strong espresso and a tart (maybe two) and ordered a dozen to go.  When they came they were warm and the puff pastry around the custard was deliciously light and crisp.  They were heavenly! When I finished I took my extras and caught a cab back to the ship.  The pastéis were all gone within an hour.  I shared some with friends, but most of them went to some of my favorite staff members who probably didn’t have any time off to go ashore.

A christmas tree under construction in the main square

Christ the king lit up at night as we sailed past

Sailing west into the sunset! Next stop Bermuda!

I went to a solo travelers cocktail party, dined with some of them and then spent the rest of the evening chatting with friends and listening to some of the live music around the ship.  I went to the Club with the intention of dancing a little, but after I’d danced one time a pair of really plastered passengers (someone told me they were eastern Europeans (?) got out on the dance floor and were flinging themselves around, jumping on chairs and basically oblivious to whether there was anyone else around. I decided the best thing for me to do was avoid them if possible.  It was a nice day and now we have seven sea days ahead of us before our next stop Bermuda. 

November 19 - At sea off the Portuguese coast

Another segment of my cruise is winding down.  Many of my new friends who boarded with me in Athens are leaving tomorrow when we arrive in Lisbon and I’ll be sorry to see them go.

Since last I wrote we stopped in Ceuta, Spanish Morocco.  The city, with a population of about 85,000, lies on a narrow isthmus at the northernmost tip of Africa roughly ten miles from Gibraltar across the Strait of Gibraltar.  Like almost every place here in the Mediterranean it has been inhabited by many civilizations including Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Ottoman and now Spain.  It became a possession of Spain in 1415 when King John I of Portugal captured the city because of its strategic position and importance in trade. In 1580 after the Portuguese king died without a successor Portugal and Spain united and Ceuta became part of Spain.  Eighty years later when Portugal regained its independence under King Alonso VI, Ceuta opted to stay under Spanish rule and so it has continued until today.  There is a certain irony and perhaps a little hypocrisy about Spanish ownership of this land which is surrounded by the Kingdom of Morocco.  The Spanish have for nearly 200 years been arguing that the United Kingdom should give up Gibraltar, yet Spain refuses to cede Ceuta or a few other Spanish enclaves in North Africa to Morocco.  Ceuta, just like Gibraltar right across the water, has a strategic location since until the building of the Suez Canal it was the only marine access to the Mediterranean for trade or any other purpose.  The city has a much more European flavor than other cities in the rest of Morocco.  It’s also heavily fortified because over the centuries it has been attacked frequently.

Now I have to confess that I was lazy the day we were in Ceuta.  I had planned to go on an eight hour to the city of Tetouan across the border in Morocco.  That city sounded like an interesting place because when the Moors and Sephardic Jews were expelled, at different times, from Spain many of the wealthy families of both settled in Tetouan. Unfortunately I was up most of the night before and I just couldn’t get up while it was still dark to go.  I’ll just have to come back here some time.  I heard it was beautiful. I also heard that the tour came back two hours late because to come back to Ceuta the bus had to go through border checks at the Spanish Moroccan border.  A friend told me the line of vehicles waiting to cross was miles long and each was being thoroughly inspected. Apparently that crossing has been a favorite entry point for migrants attempting to get into the EU of which Spain is a member, and there is an effort to crackdown.

This is Ceuta

As we sailed after sunset I tried to get a shot of Gibraltar 10 miles away.  This was the best of the bunch which I thought wasn't bad for an iPhone.

Today we’re in the Atlantic on our way to Lisbon where about half my fellow passengers will disembark and we’ll get a new contingent.  As usual on sea days there was a full schedule of things to do.  My team won the cumulative trivia game.  The main restaurant was open for lunch (it isn’t on port days) and I had lunch with three team members and Barry and Merle, the wonderful duo who play in the Observation Bar every evening.  This evening I’m having a farewell dinner with two new friends Dennis and Chuck who will be leaving. 

I realize when writing this that it probably sounds pretty dull, but I promise I’ve been having a blast.  Here on the ship we forget about what’s going on in the rest of the world for the most part and our differences in opinions don’t seem very important.  We just laugh a lot and enjoy one another’s company and that’s what makes cruising so special.  For now, goodnight. 

November 17 - Elysium Lécrin (Motril, Spain)

This morning we arrived in Motril, a not particularly pretty port in the south of Spain.  Many of my shipmates took tours to Granada, one of the most beautiful places in the world IMHO, but I’ve been there several times both as a teenager and with Al, so I availed myself of another unique experience the ship offered.

I have to “set the table” for you first.  For several years while I’ve cruised on Seabourn there was a corporate Executive Chef who would come onboard to check on and tweek menus. His name is Michael Sandoval.  I had the pleasure of meeting him – in fact I danced with him a couple of times.  Now he and his wife Jasmin, who also worked for Seabourn, have opened a restaurant called Elysium Lécrin in the little village of Melegis in the Lécrin Valley about 25 minutes from Granada.  The tour that I and 11 of my fellow passengers took was the first offered for a tasting menu lunch at this new and very lovely restaurant.

Michael and Jasmin spent five years fixing up an old, dilapidated house built in the 1890’s.  When they bought it there were birds flying around and roosting in the attic and none of the windows had glass in them.  They completely redid the place retaining the old stone elements  and the character, but they added modern facilities and their own personal touches.  Now it has become a boutique hotel with five luxurious suites and a marvelous restaurant which I have no doubt will receive a Michelin star in short order.

They named their place Elysium Lécrin.  Elysium is a state of mind and body, a sensation into which you are immersed. For the Greeks and Romans, it was also a sacred place where the shades of virtuous men and heroic warriors led a blissful and happy existence amidst green and flowery landscapes.  They have achieved the desired result.

We took a short ride through the Sierra Nevada mountains which stretch down to the coast in this part of Spain.  Along the way we could see the first signs of snow in the distant peaks.  We went part of the way on the highway, but then we had to get off onto a twisting mountain road with lots of hairpin turns.  Our guide Maria told us we had to leave the main highway because the new bridge on that road which cost millions of euros is falling apart. We arrived at the venue and were greeted by name by Michael and his lovely wife.

These are a few shots of the Sierra 

We began our experience with a delicious glass of Cava, a Spanish sparkling wine, and an hors d’oeuvres of a tiny puff pastry filled with cream and caviar.  Then we were escorted down to the vaulted cellar where we sat at tables from which we could see the open kitchen and enjoy the 9-course feast.  I won’t bore you with descriptions of everything but I will include photos because I want to remember how good this was. I will say that I ate a few things I didn’t think I’d like at all, like eel and octopus, and Michael’s take on them was absolutely exquisite.  Each course was accompanied by a wonderful Spanish wine. 

This was an appetizer including a Pho broth

A second appetizer with some eel

That curved thing is octopus skinned and cooked in a pressure cooker until it lost all its rubbery texture and tasted delectable

A raviolo stuffed with oxtail

Squab with a black truffle gravy and some dried pumpkin

A pre-dessert dish with foir gras, an orange marmalade, and a crumble made of walnuts and diced celery

Dessert of mango, rice and cream

We were supposed to get back to the ship by 3:30 PM; we made it back around 4:45 instead.  It poured rain for most of the ride back through the mountain roads and Sergio, our driver,  did a splendid job. It was a marvelous day!  This evening I was invited to dine at the Captain’s table.  Two of my new friends who are Australians who live in England were at the table too.  They are great fun and I look forward to spending more time with them in the days to come.  I finished the evening with a Monica Vitte, my favorite after-dinner drink, in the Solis Bar and then a quick listen to some music up in the Observation Bar from my favorite duo Barry and Merle.  I’ve known them  for three cruises now and I’m always so happy they are aboard.  Besides being great musicians they are also really nice people.

That was my day.  It was lovely!

November 16 - Cartagena, Spain and sunken treasure

Today we’re docked in Cartagena, a port city on the southeastern coast  of Spain in the region of Murcia. (This is the first of two Cartagenas I’ll visit on this voyage because in December I’ll be stopping in its namesake Cartagena, Colombia.)

This place holds some very old memories for me.  As a teenager my family lived in Spain and my father came to Cartagena often as part of his work.  We made a few trips with him, but that was long ago and this part of Spain has grown a lot.

Cartagena has a fascinating history. It was founded around 2500 years ago by the Carthaginians and its name is a variation of Carthage.  During the Punic Wars around 250 BC the city was captured by the Roman general Scipio Africanus.  Following the fall of the western Roman empire it was invaded by Visigoths and Vandals until the Moorish conquest of the Iberian peninsula.  It stayed in that civilization’s hands until the “Reconquista,” the period when the Christian kingdoms in what is now Spain united and began taking back the peninsula. The ouster of the Moors was completed by Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492.  During the years of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939 Cartagena was a stronghold of the Spanish Republican faction, the side opposed to Franco and his Nationalists who eventually won the war.

The downtown area of Cartagena has many lovely buildings built in the early 20th century.  Today was not a good day to go and see them because they were having the Cartagena Marathon today so there are many streets blocked off for the runners and lots and lots of people here cheering their favorites on. I could only see a couple from afar because I didn’t know how to get around the barriers that were set up. 

These three photos are what the streets looked like blocked off for the runners.

The Museum of Underwater Archaeology

 Down by the waterfront  is the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology which displays many ancient artifacts recovered from shipwrecks in the surrounding waters.  The most significant part of the collection of the museum is the 14.5 ton cargo of an early 19th century vessel called the Nuestra Señora de  las Mercedes.  She was part of a flotilla of ships carrying gold, silver, hides and quinoa from Uruguay to Cádiz Spain.  The flotilla was intercepted by a British task force off the southern coast of Portugal. Despite the fact that the Britain and Spain weren’t at war at the time, a British frigate fired at the Spanish ships when they refused to alter course to be inspected and a single shot hit the magazine of the Nuestra Señora and she sank with the loss of her cargo and 250 sailors.  I’m writing about this because I find the story very intriguing and I remember reading something about it in the news years ago.  An American salvage company reported finding the shipwreck in 2007. The company recovered half a million gold and silver coins and took them back to the US.  Spanish researchers figured out that the items came from the wreck of their ship and they began a legal battle to recover the treasure.  Peru entered into the lawsuit claiming the Spanish plundered the treasure from them and said it was rightfully theirs. A US Circuit Court finally ruled in favor of Spain in 2012, and in late December of that year the treasure was brought to the museum here in Cartagena. A story about sunken treasure ships has got to be a good one.  The whole find and trial was even given a name that sounds like it came from a Pirates of the Caribbean movie – the Black Swan Project.

November 15 - Ibiza, Spain

This morning we docked in Ibiza, Spain.   I was last here on my 70th birthday with Al.  That seems like forever ago now.

Ibiza is the third largest of the Balearic Islands and lies about 90 miles off the coast of Spain and the city of Valencia.  It has a well-earned reputation of being a party island and it's known for its electronic dance club music scene.  We who arrive on cruise ships which are only here during daylight hours will never experience the real Ibiza.  The last time I came, Al and I took the shuttle into town, walked around a little and then found a place to have a pizza and a drink.  While we were sitting at the little café, a glass of water was spilled on the very expensive camera Al brought with him and that was the end of the camera.  We tried drying it with the blow dryer when we got back to the ship and thoroughly cleaning it, but it still wouldn't work.  In some ways maybe that was good because he stopped lugging all that heavy stuff around with him.

Anyway, back to Ibiza. The name of the island is probably a variation of a Phoenician word meaning "fragrant island."  The previous occupiers of this place are the same who controlled most things in the Mediterranean in the last several millennia.  For a few hundred years it was under Moorish rule until the Moors were expelled from the Iberian peninsula.  It, along with the other Ballearic Islands, is now the Ballearic Autonomous Community, a region of Spain.

Because of its climate, beaches, and clubs  it has become a major tourist destination in the summer months, mainly from June to September.  Although Ibiza only has a population of roughly 160,000 more than 7,000,000 tourists arrive through its airport each year.  That has put a strain on the water supply and for that reason among others the government has imposed tourism taxes and moratoriums on new construction.

So, I didn't go ashore today.  Yes, I'm lazy, but that's not the total cause.  The last time I was here Al and I realized that the place is absolutely dead during the day, and even more so when it's off-season.  Instead I stayed on board and chatted with friends and took care of some business things I hadn't done since I'd been on the ship. I'll include a couple of photos I took from my veranda so you can at least see what it looks like.  

In the evening a gay couple from the St. Louis area invited me to dine with them.  They are two charming guys whose company I have enjoyed while at one of the bars before dinner.  They arranged for a special dinner in the main restaurant and we had a good time.  After I went down to the Club to listen to the music and perhaps dance a little.  Instead of a band, last night there was a DJ and an electronic dance party (maybe a tribute to Ibiza?).  In any event, the music was so loud I could barely hear myself think and I couldn't take it for very long.  I moved up into the far corner of the bar area and talked with some new Australian friends until we all decided our heads were going to explode so we called it a night.  It was still a lovely day. 

Oh, one more thing.   I can't remember if I've written about my new afternoon routine - my quest for the World's Best Adult Milkshake.   I think I have but just to recap, in the afternoon I go to the pool bar, pick out a gelato flavor and ask the bartender to create a milkshake for me using whatever spirits he thinks complement the gelato.  I have had some absolutely yummy ones!  Today's was a concoction of raspberry gelato, white rum, and chambord.  Here's a photo of Isram,  the latest contender for first place.

More tomorrow so for now Buenas Noches!

November 14 - Mahón, Menorca

Today we’re docked just below the town of Mahón on the island of Menorca.  I was just here twice on my spring cruise. During my previous days here I had taken a long tour of the island and then walked around in the town.  Today I made it up in time for breakfast and then headed ashore for a little walkabout.

You can see how Mahón is perched up above the port in this and the next shot

The town lies on a cliff above the pier area and there’s an elevator to take you up to the top.  It’s that or a whole bunch of steps so you know what I opt for.  It’s a cute little town with narrow streets, most of which are pedestrian only. This place has something I like very much – there are lots of benches placed along the streets where I can just sit and people-watch.  When I came in the spring it was much livelier because the season was just beginning.  We’re at the end now and so many stores and cafés are closed. I wandered for a little while and then on a whim as I passed a peluqueria (Beauty shop) I decided to go in and get a pixie cut haircut.  They were able to take me right away and I thought the lady did a grand job.  It was looking like it might rain so I decided it was time to go back to the ship.

I liked this little side alleyway. Those are shoes dangling from those strings.  I don't know if was an artistic thing or somebody airing his shoes out.

One of a number of statues around the streets

I ‘ve written back in the spring about some of the history of this place so I won’t repeat it here.  Suffice it to say that as with most of the other islands in the Mediterranean, Menorca has been invaded and occupied by many civilizations.  The Spanish are the current owners. Speaking of Spanish, there are quite a few crew members who are from Spanish-speaking countries and I have been trying to speak that language with them.  It has been amazing to me how much of my Spanish is coming back to me.  A long time ago I used to be fluent but as they say, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.”  I’m happy to report that it’s still in the recesses of my brain and it’s coming back.

You may have noticed that I skipped a port, Alghero, Sardinia.  The Encore did go there, but I called a sea day because I was tired.  There was a long tender ride to get on land and I’d been to Sardinia before, so I took a day off.  Friends who went in said it was a pretty typical little town with lots of very rough cobblestone streets.  I don’t do well on those so perhaps it was a good thing I didn’t go ashore.

This is what I saw of Alghero.

We have trivia every afternoon and we’re holding our own in this cumulative round.  I’ve been getting invitations to a hosted table every day and I’ve accepted perhaps half the time.  Other days I’ve dined with friends and we’ve been pretty spontaneous about where we eat.  We had a delightful Lithuanian violist perform one night.  I truly enjoyed her concert. We had a West End singer another night and I thought she was a little brassy.  And aside from that life goes on here.