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Another beautiful day in a lovely port. Alicante is the second largest city in the province of Valencia. The waterfront is full of lovely buildings, esplanades and lots of cafes. The city was founded by the Romans who named it Lucentum, city of lights. It was incorporated into the kingdom of Valencia in 1308. The current population is 340,000. The area is mountainous and in the summer the temperature can reach 100 degrees. There were some pretty beaches with white sand.

It was held by the Arabs for 500 years from the 8th to the 13th century. It was a busy port starting in the 1800’s. The fort we visited was built in the 11th century by the Arabs. It is called Castillo de Santa Barbara.

After leaving the fort was did a walking tour of the old city center. We went to the city hall and learned that the first step there is elevation zero for all of Spain. Also in the city hall is a Dali sculpture of St. John the Baptist. When we were in the city hall there were lots of staffs filled with rosemary sprigs. On the next day there were going to be upwards of 300,000 pilgrims walking from Alicante to a church 8 kilometers away in honor of some saint (did not get the name).

Our last stop on the tour was the cathedral named for St. Nicolas de Barre, the patron saint of Alicante. The organ is from the 18th century. The interior of the church was very plain, but the altar was ornate. No columns or stained glass.

We next made our way to the promenade. It had mosaics that reminded me of the walkways in Rio, wavy. They are in 3 colors, red, black and white, and represent the Mediterranean Sea. Along the walkway were tall palm trees. There are exactly 365. During our free time we went to the Ocean Race museum. It was very interesting. The Ocean Race is an around the world race in huge sailing yachts. It always starts in Alicante and this year will end in Genoa. The videos about the people who do this race were amazing to see. Here is a link about the race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocean_Race

All in all a very interest day and it was Bob’s birthday. He got a special cake at dinner and the waiters and staff sang to him.

The port we were at was Motril, but we went to Malaga. It was the longest tour we booked, 8 hours, and we were kind of leary about committing to this, but it turned out to be a good choice. The other main option for this port was Granada, but we had been there just 4 years ago on a land trip to Spain.

The city of Motril is small, around 60,000. It is in the province of Granada. It is mostly an agricultural area with several rum factories. This area is the “costa tropical”.

The roads to Malaga were great. There were many tunnels through the mountains which made the travel time less. Before the roads were improved because of the World’s Fair in Seville in 1992, it could take 4 hours to travel from Motril to Malaga. Now it is just over 1 hour.

Our first stop was at Alcazaba de Málaga. It is like a mini Alhambra. It has served as a fortification for the town as well as a royal residence. It was built in the 11th century. We had a guided tour and saw the different courtyards and rooms.

Malaga means Queen. Picasso was born in Malaga and when we got into town we saw the building where he was born and the church where he was baptized.

We thought we would have lunch on our own, from the tour description, but our next stop was a lovely restaurant, partially owned by Antonio Bandares, who was not there to greet us. We had a lovely tapas lunch with lots of sangria and ended with a glass of the local wine. We were a small group so it was a nice way to have a meal that was very typical of how the locals eat.

The Cathedral was huge and beautiful. It was built between the 16th and 18th centuries. The organ was from the 18th century.

We are on our last sea day. Slept in, did some laundry, played bridge and went to tea.

Starting tomorrow we will have a port every day until we get off the ship. Glad we have been able to have some lazy days so far.

Today’s weather has been very windy with lots of waves and rocking and rolling. Had hoped that when we neared the Straits of Magellan near Gibraltar Rock it would be daytime. However the captain announced this morning it would be around midnight. Would have been interesting to see, but we will be sleeping, I hope.

We have had some very good evening entertainers. A wonderful pianist, very funny comedian, a duo – he played the violin amazingly and she was a dancer, mainly flamenco. Last night there was a magician who did his whole show in mime. Looking forward to what will be coming next.

After another sea day, we arrived in Funchal, Portugal on the island of Madeira. We arrived before sunrise and the hills of the town were lit in orange. The city of Funchal is surrounded by mountains in a semicircle and the sea. The city was founded in 1421 by João Gonçalves Zarco. Because of all the fennel found growing the place was called Funchal. Funchal is the capital with a population of 110,000. All the islands in the archipelago (4) have a total population of 250,000.

It was always a stopping point when explorers were going from Spain and Portugal to the new world. It has been famous for Madeiran sugar and wine.

Our first stop was at Pico dos Barcelos. It was an overlook with nice gardens. The famous soccer player Rinaldo is from this part of the island.

Our next stop was deep in the mountains to Eira do Serrado. We were on a very narrow twisty turny road. It was recently built to replace the very twisty turny steep road. Many of the villages have a road leading to them, but no road into the actual village. To get to a home you park and then walk. The view of the valley and small villages was interesting. We also had a wine tasting of a cherry cordial which was just ok. Someone asked our guide how the old people got around with all the steep walkway and streets. She said that they either stayed at home or if they could afford it go to an old folks home.

One thing we noticed was that the hillsides were terraced, both for homes and for the agriculture. Every where we looked they were growing bananas. The plots of land could be small, but full of bananas. They also had vineyards and sugar cane areas. Other than tourism, agriculture is the way the people earn a living here.

Our next stop was at Cabo Girão. This is a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and up and down the coast. It is one of the highest cliffs in the world at 589 meters. The view was wonderful and looking through the glass observation platform gave you a real feeling about how high you actually were.

Our last stop was at a small fishing village where Winston Churchill used to come to vacation and paint. It was charming with lots of cafes lining the waterfront.

All in all a very interesting day.

We finally arrived across the Atlantic to Ponta Delgada in the Azores. We are still about 1,000 miles from the coast of Portugal. Although they have their own government, the 9 islands of the Azores (pronounced ah-zor-ess) are part of Portugal.

The islands are all volcanic and are clustered in 3 groups. The island we were on was the biggest and the town is the capital of the islands. The total population of the islands is about 250,000 with San Miguel, where we were having about 150,000. Because the islands are volcanic the beaches all have black sand.

Besides tourism, the islands grow pineapples, tea, bananas and passion fruit. They export most of these. There are huge herds of cattle and their dairy cows produce milk which is made into amazing cheeses. Our guide told us they have 2 cows for every person on the island.

Our tour was called Off the Beaten Path. We were in 4 wheel drive Land Rovers and we were on lots of back roads. We went to Lagoa du Congro, a small lake. To see it we had to hike down a path through a beautiful forest. After a stop for cake and the bathroom we went to a lookout where we could see all of the island and a small waterfall.

We returned to the ship, had lunch and then walked into town and saw some of the sights there. All the sidewalks were made of black and white mosaic tiles. The main buildings were white with black trim. We went to the main square and saw the 3 arched city gates and the main church. It was nice to get onto land and walk without swaying.

Since we missed Bermuda, we had six sea days. These are lazy kind of days. The ship has plenty of activities and we did some of them. I went to a needlepoint group and discovered that my eyes need some help to do the fine work. Bob exercised every day, I walked but not on the tread mill. Just on the way to and from activities.

One surprising thing is that we both have been sleeping in. I am usually up between 6 and 7 AM, have been sleeping until 9:30 daily. I guess the gentle roll of the ship has helped.

We have been playing bridge daily, some days even going to the bridge lessons. There are some pretty bad players, and a few really good ones. So far it has been fun.

The evenings are spent having fancy dinners and then attending the shows. They have had a really good pianist and comedian and those shows have been great. The ones with the ship’s company have been OK. I have also been playing the slot machines and I am even ahead!

Today we had some excitement. They had to airlift a passenger off the ship due to a health emergency. It was interesting to watch.

Tomorrow is our first land since Nassau and I think everyone is ready for this.

About 2 hours after leaving Nassau, the captain made an announcement to the entire ship, we were not going to our next port of call, Bermuda. There was some bad weather in the Atlantic on the way to and around Bermuda, so we were going to start directly across the Atlantic to our next port of call, Punta Delgada in the Azores.

We will now have 6 sea days between ports. We have been busy: lectures, needlepoint, walking, reading and bridge. So far we have “lost” 2 hours in our travels. A little easier going to Europe this way, no big 6 hour time change all at once.

There was no big celebration on the ship for Easter, but there was a big display in the atrium of chocolate Easter eggs and we had a little chocolate bunny delivered to our suite.

The entertainment in the evenings have been quite good, a pianist and a comedian and also the usual shipboard entertainers.

Probably no more posts until we get to land. We have not seen any other ships for the past 2 days. Very weird feeling.

We sailed over night and woke up in Nassau. We actually slept in a little which surprised both of us. After breakfast, we left the ship. We had not booked any excursions since they were mostly beach things. I had found a self guided walking tour and so we were off.

We made it to the Queen’s Staircase, built in the 1700s and is 66 steps and climbed all the way to the top. Near the top was Fort Fincastle, shaped like paddle wheel steamer. We then headed towards some other sites, but we were walking in a shady area of town, lots of broken sidewalks and we decided to just head back into the main part of town. Because it was Good Friday, none of the nice stores were open. The straw market was open but we were not interested in shopping there.

After lunch on the ship we went to see if there were any bridge players. There were some, to include a director who will be running games on the sea days. We did not really play, just sat and talked to some of the players.

Tonight is the Captain’s Welcome party. We are meeting Donna and Jerry for a drink before dinner to catch up since our last cruise together. Tomorrow will be a sea day.

We had a car service bring us to the port of Miami on April 6. Check in to our ship, the Oceania Marina was quick and easy. Lunch in the Terrace Cafe and then our suite was ready. On the way to our suite someone was calling my name. It was a couple we had met on the last cruise we did on the Marina from Venice to Athens. Small world.

Our suitcases arrived one at a time, which was nice because I could unload them and put everything away and then the next one appeared. We walked around some to reacquaint ourselves with the ship. After a relaxed dinner we waited to sail away. I had been looking forward to sailing past some of the area in South Beach where I grew up. Unfortunately we were delayed and left well after dark so it was hard to see anything.

We went to the show in the lounge and then off to bed.

Our last port on this cruise. It has been a very busy cruise with very few sea days and port after port. Many others on the trip have commented that they could have used a day of rest somewhere in the last week. We are feeling exhausted and are looking forward to our day of rest tomorrow.

Bob did another hike today. He said it was more of a strenuous walk but enjoyed hiking and not riding on a bus.

My tour was not until the afternoon so I took the shuttle into town. Their library had an art exhibit and I went to see it. It was about a town near here (did not write down the name) that had been a famous artist’s retreat for over 100 years. The paintings were of the town. There was a school group in one of the rooms working on their own art. It was a nice diversion for the morning.

My tour in the afternoon took me to the Roseland Peninsula. We had to use a small bus because the roads were very narrow and we had to take a ferry to cross the river. The area of Cornwall, where Falmouth is located, was chartered in 1661. Falmouth is the second largest city in Cornwall with a population of 20,000. The harbor is the 3rd largest natural harbor in the world, behind Rio and Sydney.

Many of the pretty houses in Falmouth were built by the sea captains who transported the mail in packet ships. The climate is subtropical with many palms and other plants I am used to seeing in Florida. This is because the Gulf Stream runs near to the coast here.

The main river is the Fal. It is tidal and has many salt marshes. Some of the places we passed the river was only a few feet wide. Our ferry crossing was at Harry Ferry. It was a chain ferry and once we and the other vehicles were loaded it only took about 10 minutes to cross the river.

The Roseland Peninsula was settled in the Bronze Age. The roads were very narrow, made even more so by the Cornish hedges. Many of them were taller than our coach. Our first stop was at St. Just in Roseland Church. The litch gate ( where they brought the corpses into the cemetery) was from 1530. We walked through the cemetery which is called the most beautiful graveyard. It was nice. The church itself was nice. The best part for me was all the needlepointed kneelers. Each one was lovely with a variety of patterns and themes. The church and graveyard were on the banks of a pond.

Our next stop was in the harbor town of St. Mawes. This area of Cornwall is called millionaires paradise. The houses looked lovely from the road and were perched on cliffs overlooking the harbor. One of the old homes has stones with the seals of Henry VIII and Anne Bolyne because they spent their honeymoon there.

Because of the harbor and location on the coast, the area was big in smuggling. The main things smuggled were brandy, gin and tea.

We then saw the famous round houses. These were built in the early 1800s by a religious group. They thought that if the houses were round, there would be no corners for the devil to hide in. They had thatched roofs.

When I got back to the ship, Bob said that he had a call from security to see if I was on board. He told them I was on one of their tours and apparently we were late. We got back about 10 minutes after the “all aboard” time.

It was a lovely day. Bright and sunny and interesting things to see.