29 June 2013 Ligurian Sea

Hello to all.  What do I say, we have just arrived back from Lucca.  I fell in love with it last time and had to go back, I am indeed more in love than ever.  One walks thru the gates to the town and it is akin to travelling back in time.

We met in the Princess at 7.40 this morning for our tour to Lucca, a very intimate group only three small busloads today.  We met our guide Pierino, lovely fellow, he gave us some info whilst on our 45 min journey.  We docked at the port of Livorno an extremely big port, 160,000 people live in Livorno, many large ships, three in today, but other days more, so one can imagine how many souls there are to get out on to tours etc.  There are also lots of ferries going back and forth to Sardinia and Corsica, one very interesting thing, we saw all these bundles of branches ready for transportation, very many of them, we were told they are sent to Sardinia for their fireplaces etc as they are not permitted to fell any trees there, the world is a funny place, it seems an extremely expensive way to do things, the double, triple etc handling of such an item. 

We were travelling along thru Tuscany, there are 20 regions in Tuscany. Lucca has always been an independent Kingdom even going back 500 years.  They were very isolated and to keep themselves safe they built a wall around the city, it is 4 kilometres long and it completely surrounds the old town, it is the only city with the wall still intact.  The Medici family were very rich and influential in Florence and they pretty much owned everything and everyone, they loaned to people keeping themselves very rich indeed, but they did not own Lucca.  Lucca being as isolated as it was, wanted to keep its freedom, they were great merchants (as they still are –beautiful and elegant shops and this is how their economy still works today) so were able to survive independently. When Lucca became part of Italy when the country was formed in 1861, the townspeople bought the walls from the government for 1,000,000 lire (a large amount at that time) and so they have been retained.  Other cities such as Florence destroyed their city walls at that time. There is a population of 20,000 who live within the walls, and 87,000 live outside the walls.  The walls are now the site of a flowering greenbelt and the tree-lined garden boulevard on the top of the wall serves as the perfect place for a beautiful walk.

A celebration is being held in Lucca from the 9^th July to celebrate their 500 years of freedom, lots of music, Diana Krall, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and Leonard Cohen (who I absolutely love – he must be about 80) all going to be there.  I cannot believe I am missing a concert with Leonard by 10 days.  One day I will get to one of his concerts. This festival is called The Lucca Summer Festival. 

This was a very beautiful day. We had coffee and a Danish in a very lovely little café in our free time, I did some shopping, Sam feels we should get straight back on the bus after the tour none of this free time business, all the men agree with him I think.  We journeyed back to Livorno going via Pisa as it is Saturday today and lots of traffic. 

One thing I did forget to mention yesterday, the port of Civitavecchia sees about 3,500,000 cruise passengers per year, there were only three ships in yesterday but on Wednesdays there are always nine.  As one can imagine they are delighted to see us all those tours, all that shopping, the baby boomers are certainly a presence in all these places.  I am going to hand over to Sam just on the off chance I have forgotton something he said that is most unlikely.

 We had an early dinner upstairs then went to the show, it was the MacDonald Bros very talented boys from Scotland, they came 4^th in the X factor, excellent show.  Time now to hit the hay, very busy day tomorrow in Monaco.    All the best, love Sabine and Sam  XXX

Friday 28 June 2013 Tyrrhenian Sea

Hello to everyone.

What an outstandingly beautiful day we had today.  Anor early start, in the Princess Theatre to meet our intimate group for our tour, it was intimate today, only three busloads.  We met at 7.25, the ship had been cleared and we were off the ship and on our bus by 8.00 am being introduced to our escort for the day, Jackie an English girl who has lived in Italy for 20 odd years, married to an Itialian obviously. We journeyed to a beautiful town about 1 hr 45 mins away, called Orvieto, in the region of Umbria.  This town has been there since around 700BC and was settled by the Etruscans, it is debateable where they came from, but most probably Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey.

When we arrived we met our guide for the day, Isabella a lovely girl who as always was very passionate about the information she was passing on to us, it is huge to take in and one cannot remember it all of course.  The town is all intact, so stunningly beautiful indeed, I so easily could live here for however long and try and see and soak in as much as I possibly could.  We did a walk of the town learning about the battles, how the Church wanted to control it but they finally became liberated around 1853. 

Isabella took us up a small street and rounded a corner and we were faced with The Chatedral of Orvieto (not the incorrect spelling)  gracious me how magnificent.  This Basilica/Cathedral was begun on the site of the church of S. Maria de Espiscopatu in 1290.  The reason it was built was to house an altar cloth or corporal which was stained with drops of blood that issued from the host during the Mass of Bolsena (1263).  This is how the feast of Corpus Christi came about, this is 50 days after Easter. This Cathedral took around 3 centuries to complete for lots of reasons, financial, deaths of architects, painters, sculptors etc, and many other reasons as well.  It really has been ongoing for many centuries, with a modernisation begun in 1622.  I have to say what an absolute privilege to see something such as this.  The only way to do it justice is to see it. 

After our tour of the Cathedral we had an hour of free time, which Sam says it may be called free time but a lot gets spent in that time.  We then met for our lunch in a lovely restaurant and a lovely meal, great company and then back to our bus at 3.00pm for our journey back to the ship.  We arrived back at 5.00pm had a bite of dinner and then went to see the Music Manager (a pianist) do a recital.  I am now sitting on our bed looking out my balcony at a couple of beautiful ships all lit sailing past us, very lovely indeed. 

Sam is going to have a read, perhaps he can remember something I have missed, anor early day tomorrow, dock in Livorno and we are going back to Lucca, which I did love the last time.  Everyone is probably bored to tears by now so I will sign off, hope all is well,  Love  Sabine and Sam 

PS  I did say to Sam few months ago, bet you Kevin 07 becomes Kevin 13 and he would not take a bet, now he is very pleased as I only bet in shoes and I am in Italy could have cost him a bit. 

Thursday 27 June 2013 Tyrrhenian Sea

Hello to all

This morning we docked in Naples.  It was the perfect day for our tour of Capri.  We had been there once before and I have always been able to close my eyes and smell the perfume of Capri.  This tour was the entire day so we chose this.  We assembled in the Princess Theatre at 7.10 not such a bad start considering we have had to assemble at least an hour earlier than this for previous tours. 

We met our tour guide Antonio as we left the ship and it was only a very short walk to our ferry which is about a 55 min journey to the island.  We arrived about 9.00 am and went by bus along very narrow roads to Anacapri on the other side of the island, we had not been there previously.

After a little stroll into the town (village) Antonio suggested we could go with him to the Museum or go on the chairlift and then do what we wished and meet him at about 11.30, we took that option, went on the chairlift up to the top of the island, the most amazing scenery, beyond beautiful, stayed at the top for 20 mins or so, caught the chairlift down, WOW hard to describe really such beauty.  The museum, gardens, perfect really.  We then caught the bus to Capri had a lovely lunch overlooking the ocean, met some more of our cruisers and then on to the rest of the town, through the gardens, did some shopping, the shops are just beautiful, such a lovely place, at one point Sam and I said your know if you were told you had 12 months to live (he said 6) you would just come here and enjoy the time you had left, so funny we said it at exactly the same time.  We then met up with Antonio again, caught the Funicolare down the mountain and the ferry back to our home, there were another two ships in today as well, the new Princess Line “Royal Princess” Kate christened her the other day and the “Celebration Reflection” these two ships made ours look like a tug.  We were back by 6.15 and our Captain set sail by about 7.00pm, we had a quick dinner and came back to our room, I was desperately needing a hair colour, no appt on the ship for at least 10 days so I have done it myself, Sam said it looks so much better than when you had them to do it anyway.  We have anor early day tomorrow, dock in Rome (Civitavecchia) the port which is about 80 ks from Rome at about 7.00 am and we have to be assembled by 7.25 for our tour of Orvieto and Duomo,  I am going to hand this over to Sam he went to the talk by the Chief Engineer so he will you all the details of how the ship runs, cost of fuel for this 104 days etc. 

The Chief Engineer presented all the facts about the technical aspects of the ship, he talked for two hours, very interesting, so now I know how everything works.  He stated many facts but one figure which stuck was that the fuel bill for the whole 104 day trip is $6.5m!  All the fresh water on the ship is produced from sea water either by flash evaporation or reverse osmosis, with 1500 tonnes of water produced each day by the former method and 400 tonnes each day by the latter.  The ship produces enough electricity to supply a city of 100,000 people.  The Chief Engineer has a staff of 95 to keep everything running smoothly.

Time to sign off and post this now. Love to all  Sam and Sabine   XXX

Tuesday 25 June 2013 Aegean Sea

Hello everyone,

It has been a busy few days since we last wrote.

We have had beautiful weather over the last few days, lovely clear skies but not too hot.

Our next port after Israel was Athens.  The city itself was a very lovely place, it looked prosperous and well looked after, you hear lots of adverse comments about the city such as it being dirty and chaotic, we did not see any evidence of this.  The city has been hard hit by their financial problems and lots of shops have closed their doors, unemployment is high, but there was an underlying level of prosperity evident.  We visited the Acropolis, an amazing place to visit. The main feature is the Parthenon which was built in just nine years and completed in 436BC.  The architecture and engineering in this building are fantastic.  The building is undergoing a long term renovation program with extensive scaffolding. We went there fairly early in the morning which meant we beat the heat and the crowds.  We then did a tour of the city and saw such features as the stadium that hosted the first of the modern Olympic Games, and other ruins from ancient times.

 The next day we visited Mytilene which is the main town on the beautiful Greek island of Lesbos.  We went to a beach and stayed there for a couple of hours, and we both went for a swim in the beautiful water.  After that we walked around the harbour and had lunch at a restaurant on the water’s edge, and gradually made our way back to the point where we boarded the tender to take us back to the ship anchored off-shore.

Next day we arrived in Istanbul, a very beautiful and bustling city.  The harbour is a very busy place with lots of ferries criss crossing, particularly at peak times, it made Sydney Harbour look quiet. The city has a population of around 20 million, and covers a large area.  Most people live in apartments but the area of the city is still huge and is partly in Europe and Asia.  Again the city looked very prosperous and friendly.  We saw no sign of the recent unrest or any demonstrations, I assume that it was in a relatively small area of the city away from the touristy parts.

We did a tour of the city including driving on to the Asia side of the city over one of the two modern bridges over the Bosphorus Strait, then returned to the Old City to see the sights such as the Blue Mosque.  All the numerous mosques in the city are beautiful and many of them are massive, such as the Blue Mosque.  We also visited the Hagia Sofia which is a huge church built by Constantine the Great in 325 which has the fourth largest dome in the world, after St Peter’s in Rome, St Paul’s in London and another one being the only larger ones, but at over 1600 years old it is far older.  After the taking of the city by Islam in 1453 the church was converted into a mosque, and in 1936 it became a museum.  We also visited the Hippodrome which was originally the site of a Roman Circus where they held things like chariot races.  A visit to the Grand Bazaar was very interesting, it has over 4000 stores under its roof, we did not venture too far off the straight and narrow as it would have been easy to lose your bearings.  Sabine bought some genuine Turkish Delight in the bazaar.

This morning we anchored close to Anzac Cove at Gallipolli, but we all stayed on the ship. The Captain held a memorial service which was beautiful and moving, and Sabine was part of the choir who sang The Prayer by David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager, they had practiced this song over several days and it was magnificent.

We are now heading towards our next stop which is Naples, we have a rest day today and tomorrow which will will need as all this touring is very tiring.

Love Sabine and Sam xxx     

Friday 21 June 2013 Mediterranean Sea

It is now Friday and having another sea day which we need after a busy day yesterday.  On Wednesday we passed through the Suez Canal, we entered the canal about 7.30am and left it about 3.30pm.  The canal was constructed in 10 years, which seems quick but it was four years later than planned, and it started off being dug by hand with pick and shovel.  It was completed in 1869. The canal is just under 200 km long, most of it is about 200 metres wide, and ship traffic can only travel in a convoy in one direction at a time. There are two points along the canal where ships anchor to let traffic in the other direction pass, one of these is the Bitter Lakes.  At these lakes there were over a dozen ships at anchor heading the same direction as us but we sailed straight past them without stopping which I am sure would have annoyed them.  There are several interesting sights along the canal, the west side has a lot of human habitation whereas the east side is all desert.  There is a large town, Ishmael, about half way along, and lots of agriculture which is irrigated from the Nile about 200km away.  There are only two bridges over the canal, one is a road bridge recently built by Japan, and a railway swing bridge which closes over the canal each night from 9.00pm to 9.00am and lets canal traffic through during the day.

The canal has a long political history with lots of struggles for its control, and twice was closed due to conflict, the first being the Suez Crisis in 1956 and again after the six day war in 1967, when it was closed by mines and sunk ships, and not reopened until 1973.

Over 17,000 ships pass through the canal each year.

Sam had previously passed through the canal when he was 15 but from his recollection there have been many changes along the canal since he was here last.

The next day we arrived in Israel at the Port of Ashdod and did a day tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  This was a full day, we had to meet in the Princess Lounge at 6.15am and got back after 5pm.  In Jerusalem we visited the Mount of Olives, The Garden of Gethsemane, where Judas betrayed Christ, then entered the Old City where we first visited the Wailing Wall, then travelled along the Via Dolorosa which is the route that Christ took from the seat of judgement to His crucifixion on Calvary.  We have been led to believe that Christ carried His Cross to His crucifixion  where in fact He carried the crossbeam and then this was attached to the upright of the Cross.  This is the route with the Stations of the Cross, the narrow streets are teeming with people and lined with small shops.  At the end of this route is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is constructed over the spot where Christ was crucified and where He was placed in the tomb prior to His resurrection.  You can still touch the hole on the ground where Christ’s cross was placed.  This Church has six Christian denominations, being the Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Ethiopians, and two others we can’t remember. The key to the door of this Church is held by a Muslim family and has been held by this family for many many generations, the head of family comes each morning at 5.00am and opens the Church and then comes and closes it at about 8.00 pm each evening.  Our guide was a fabulous fellow a Canadian Jew who has lived in Israel for 31 years.  He was extremely passionate and gave us so much information.  We were also taken to where Helene searched for the Cross in 300 BC she was a very passionate woman and she found the three crosses, the one Christ died on plus the two of the alleged thieves (one of which was innocent of course).   

 

After a lovely lunch including some nice Israeli wine, we crossed into the Palestine area to visit Bethlehem.  There at the Church of the Nativity is the spot where Christ was born, in a cave rather than a stable as we have been led to believe.  This was very emotional for us all, everyone sang Away in a Manger.

All of these tours are done with 1000 at least of your CBFs (Cruise Best Friends), I think there were at least 24 busloads of us but there is no other way of course to do these tours.  Our guide for Israel stayed with us of course for the entire day, but he had to hand over to anor guide when we crossed the border into Palestine, so none of this could be done by oneself.

 These are extremely long and hard days, no slacking on this journey.  Tomorrow is anor day and we are in Greece, Sam and I are doing a half day tour of The Acropolis and a city tour, I believe there are some shops near the port so we may be able to do a little bit of shopping.  We are doing well with our supplies, Sabine’s sister bought all her supplies and gave them to her in Brisbane, thank goodness for that, there is no time to shop after any of these tours or prior.  In lots of the ports we have to all have a face to face with immigration as we leave the ship. 

Anyway we are going to sign off and post this now, then Sabine plans to do her emails. Love to all  Sam and Sabine   XXX

Gulf of Suez Tuesday 18 June 2013

Hello to all

 
It is Tuesday afternoon and a very easy day today,  We have had two very busy days, on Sunday we docked in Safaga in Egypt, a very early start to the day 6.45 in the Princess Theatre then all organised onto the buses for the 3 ½ hour journey to The Valley of The Kings, this impressive wadi has been carved out of a bleak landscape and it is here the great Pharaohs buried their dead.  There were three tombs open for us to explore and amazing really that we can go and see these at all, they do not always have the same three tombs open, they alternate them so as so save the beautiful colours that have been used in the elaborate paintings.  How they built these tombs and carved and painted is mind boggling. We had lunch all 800 or so of us in a hotel, we just wandered thru the hotel to have a look at the pool which was situated on the Nile, quite lovely really.  There are dozens of river cruise boats on the Nile.  Our guide was excellent, so much information.  There are four levels of people in Egpyt, the people who live in Cairo, they are basically like ourselves, live as we do, marry whom they please etc, then peasants who live in the country, they still abide by all the rules and regs they have always lived by, and they live a very poverty stricken life, hard to believe really.  Their housing, their farming methods all pre the Industrial Revolution, one would wonder, this was such a rich country, 1000s of years ago of course and they took it all to the tombs which were eventually plundered, and now the poor devils have less than nothing.   We then drove to Luxor to the Temple, now this was fascinating I enjoyed this immensely.  We left there at 4.30 for the drive back to Safaga, anor 3 ½ hrs and we arrived back to the ship at 8.00 pm had a bit of dinner and went to bed.  The ship then sailed for Aqaba, where at least 1000 boatpeople went to Petra (the Lost City).  Sam did go on this tour, I had cancelled my going a few days previously, that was a huge day as well, 11 hours, long drive, very long walk to the lost city and back.  I caught the shuttle bus into Aqaba, had a bit of a wander, then caught the shuttle back to the ship. Had a cocktail and a very easy day.  We then sailed at about 9.30 pm to head towards the Suez Canal, we are slowly making our way there now, only travelling at about 9 knots as our Captain wants us to sail thru during the day, the Suez is about 100 or miles long and it takes pretty much the whole day as it is very slow, we can see all the ships getting ready to go in convoy. It was a very beautiful sight last night leaving, Jordan on one side and then Israel on the other side, then a little further down we sail past Saudi Arabia.
 
Sam visited Petra, it was built by the Nabataeans who flourished in northern Arabia during the time of the Roman Empire. Petra lived up to Sam’s expectations, it was fantastic to see the buildings carved out of the solid rock and then only be occupied for about 200 years, first by the Nabataeans who did the carvings and then enlarged by the Romans before being abandoned when the civilisation was destroyed for reasons which are not clear.  It was then forgotten until discovered by a Swiss explorer in the early 1800’s.  It was well worth the visit and the highlight of the trip for Sam so far.

We arrive in Ashdod on June 20 and we have a tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem along with an intimate group of probably a thousand or so of our cruise buddies. 

 
We have been very fortunate with our weather, it was 32 on both days and it could  easily have been in the 40s. 
 
It is good having a balcony, we can sit there and improve our tans as Sabine is at the minute working on bits that she would probably not do on the open deck.
 
We hope all is well and will keep up with the info as we go along.  All the best Sabine and Sam  XXX

Gulf of Aden Thursday 13 June 2013

Hello to everyone.  Goodness I cannot believe it is over a week since I last put pen to paper.  I think everyone has settled into life on the high seas, mostly everyone looks quite relaxed now and one knows many more faces now.  We had the first performance of our choir last Thursday and it actually sounded pretty OK there was standing room only at the Princess Theatre, so good fun really.  We are now preparing “The Prayer” for our service at Anzac Cove on 25^th June.  Then the one after this is just the day prior to arriving in Ireland, so lots of work to go into that.  Our musical directors are Alan and Alana and they are very patient with us all.  By the way Ray and Paula thank you for your message on the blog, I gave your best to Alan and Alana and they were delighted and sent their best to you both as well, Sam and I hope your next cruise is great as well.  

 We arrived in Mumbai last Friday, we had actually cancelled our tour, Sam had a nasty cold and we just went for a very short wander and had a ship day.   We then arrived in Dubai a couple of days later, Sam did a desert safari, a camel ride which was fun, I just went for a city drive.  Quite an amazing place and you could certainly do with at least a week to just get an idea of the place but somewhere I would like to come back to.   We are now at sea for five days and arrive in Safaga in Egypt on Sunday, we have a very long day that day, we are going to the Valley of the Kings and that is a four hour drive there and back , the following day we arrive in Aqaba in Jordan and Sam has a tour booked for Petra, I have cancelled that one for myself.  After that day we pass thru the Suez Canal and that will take a day and we then arrive in Ashdod in Israel and we have a tour to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  We are still sailing thru Pirate infested waters and this morning there was  Korean warship patrolling close by, these warships give safe passage to ships thru these waters.  We will be going into the Red Sea tomorrow morning at about 5.30 passing by Somalia so very dangerous waters indeed. 

 We have met lots new CBFs  and our dinners are very good fun.  I have not been to many of the shows I am so busy thru the day, start my day with my stretch class and abs workshop then Zumba so goodness busy indeed, Sam is still pounding the deck.  This afternoon I am going to have a little sleep I think.  Hope everyone is well as we are, we still have not been able to attach our photos, it is quite frustrating dealing with the satellite, I just type everything up in word and they transfer it over when we have connection.  Anyway I will sign off and do some emails.  Love Sam and Sabine  XXXX  

Indian Ocean 5 June 2013

Hello to all.  It is Wednesday afternoon and I thought I should put pen to paper.  Ship life continues.  We had a good day in Kuala Lumpur, had a full day tour, set off on our bus at just before 8.00 and then delivered back to the ship by about5.15 we were due to sail at 5.00 but all the tours were late back.  Our tour guide Lei Chen (my spelling) was a very lovely lady gave us lots of info.  We did go to all sorts of places and I liked KL more than I did Singapore I guess you would need to be in a place longer to form an opinion but the overview I liked KL better.  It is an extremely busy place, and it was the King’s birthday so it was a public holiday. There were very long Qs to get into everything but that is part and parcel of any holiday these days.  We did see the new King’s palace only from the outside, one can go in even meet him but as it was a holiday we were unable to do this. He was first elected King in 1970 when he was 42 and they have a reign of 5 years and he has been re-elected in 2011 and he is now 85.  Just a bit of useless info.  The following day we docked in Lang Kawi we did not do much, I had the beginnings of a cough so decided not to get any worse which I have not.  We have been doing the usual things each day, I have been attending lots of the classes the two gym instructors are lovely girls and do great classes.  Sam has been walking the deck.  Today we had an anti pirate security drill, these are dangerous waters and there is security on watch at all times with all their measures in place, our Captain tells us these drills have to be carried out in the interests of our safety, in 2011 there were 78 acts of piracy some successful most not, he said it is much better this year only 4 so far this year and none successful.  I had read an article in the Good-Weekend a few years ago about these waters and our own as well, very scary stuff really. 

 We have met all sorts of people, I met a lovely lady at the abs workshop this morning and she told me about a good book she is reading so I will download that, thank you Candice for making sure my Kindle has 3G, so one night her and her husband and Sam and myself will go to the steakhouse.  I think this would be an interesting study for someone with the background to perhaps conduct interviews with a percentage of the passengers every three weeks or so just to get their thoughts, their coping mechanisms (dealing with 104 days at sea) the whole thing really.  Sam does not really care how they are coping he is just going with the flow. 

 Our choir is sounding not too bad, we have our first performance tomorrow in the Princess Theatre at 4.00 and then our next one is at Anzac Cove, we have to learn our music for that.  We go to practice at 12.00 each day. Keeps one out of mischief.

 I will sign off, hope all is well    Love Sabine and Sam   XXX