Portugal Photos

I couldn't get these photos up yesterday so here they are today:

Wined and Dined in Portugal

We arrived in Portugal about 9pm at night and Billy, true to form, greeted us to take us back to their place with a chilly bin filled with beer, wine and water. It was great to see them and it was after 2am before we all got to bed. The next day, after coffee and ham and cheese rolls and the cafe literally next door to their apartment building, we visited a beautiful old monastery in the Sintra hills which is a World Heritage site and forms the hinterland behind Cascais where they live. Cascais is a beautiful seaside town and we have been amazed at how clean and lovely it is. Cascais is almost part of Lisbon – sort of like the Mount’s relationship to Tauranga – but with a population of around 100k is a city in it’s own right. So after we had visited the hills we came down after seeing the beach where they have been honing their surfing skills into Cascais and walked the waterfront boardwalk in order to work up an appetite for the lovely chargrilled chicken with piri piri (a local chilli/pimento sauce) washed down with a jug of sangria for lunch. Half a small, chargrilled chicken each with chips and salad is about 7 E. What we have seen in Portugal is so much cheaper than we have seen anywhere else in Europe. We went to the local supermarket to have a look around; great wine about 2 E a bottle, 10.40 E for 30 small bottles of beer or .75 E cents for ½ doz eggs or a fresh chicken 1.99E. That said though, fuel is expensive at about 1.12 E per litre. We had dinner last night at a small, local restaurant. I tried bachalau which is a traditional fish made from salted, dried cod which is everywhere. You can cook it a number of different ways apparently, but it was served last night with heaps of garlic and butter sort of grilled. Quite a firm, obviously salty white flesh which was quite nice but very rich with all the butter!


Today we have been back to Sintra hills, but the other end, to a gorgeous palace that use to be inhabited by the Portuguese royalty. It is now a museum and very beautiful with lovely grounds and a small town at the bottom with gorgeous cobbled streets and lovely buildings.

The kids have been having a ball and the Sandlant children have been enjoying other kids to speak English to – all 3 of them are fluent in Portuguese.

We have been enjoying wonderful hospitality and it has been very relaxing not having to worry about public transport or to try and speak the quite unusual language.

Photos: At Last!

We are at the Sandlants enjoying their lovely town and having a great time. More on that tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some photos:

Naples and on our Way to Portugal

Naples was another big city – pretty dirty and yuk really. However we went on the ships’ tour to Pompeii which was really interesting. Amazing how sophisticated the city was almost 3000 years ago. Of note was the ‘menu’ of products available both in the food market and the red light district (!) which they had in pictures to cater for the different languages of the people who lived in the city. The ‘menus’ were painted on the walls and as you can imagine in the red light district of Pompeii were suitably graphic!


So we finished up the cruise this morning having had a few drinks with the people we had met last night. The kids stayed out with their friends till late too, it was great for them to have free reign of the ship. So, we arrived back in Genoa this morning and having caught the train to Milan and the bus to the airport we are now awaiting our flight to Portugal to catch up with the Sandlants. We are looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and relaxing in the company of friends.

Our Final Cruise Impressions: (In un-PC format)

Jordan: Too many old Germans. The waterslide was cool. The food is like it has come out of a can and I am really tired. Not much to do for kids. The ship was huge. Favourite Port: Rhodes.

Liam: A lot of old people but it was cool. The shows were good. Favourite Port: Rhodes and Malta.

Chris: A good way to cover a lot of ground and see many countries in 12 days. I thought the ship was great. Favourite Ports: Rhodes/Malta – Malta very spectacular. Great to see these cities from the water. I was ready to get off the boat today.

Lynda: The ship was beautiful, lovely to have such nice surroundings. Feel a little bit ‘peopled-out’ as the ships’ passengers created a huge crowd everywhere we went, particularly bad in places that were crowded anyway. Got my angry pants on a few time with people who were smoking in non-smoking areas and people who were pushing in in queues. All in all, it was a good way to travel, however it’s pretty busy being somewhere different every day and I am looking forward to the next 3 weeks being at a bit slower pace. Favourite Port: Malta – what a beautiful place.

There is no free wifi in this airport so hopefully I can put some photos up while we are at the Sandy’s. X

Malta and Messina, Sicily – Not Enough Time!

We arrived in Malta late yesterday and got on a open top bus tour at 4.30pm, which was a lot cheaper than the ships’ tour, being 30 E for the four of us rather than 40 E each. We only had a couple of hours of daylight though which was a shame because it was absolutely beautiful. Malta is a group of islands, with 3 main islands with a total surface area of about 320 sq km, 90 km south of Sicily. It gained independence from France and England in 1964 and was the most bombed piece of land on the planet in WW2. Limestone buildings and ancient fortifications run down to the sea in the beautiful port of La Valetta, and inland the gardens and vineyards were lovely. We went to the old capital city of Mdina and had a look around. The cities are immaculate with very little rubbish and no graffiti and beautiful buildings in yellow limestone with green shutters and wrought iron balustrades. It was definitely on the ‘must go back’ list, and it was a shame to have so little time there, but we were held up by the previous days’ turnaround and the cruise people did the best they could in the circumstances. Will post photos soon of this lovely place.


Today we are back in Italy, in Messina, the main port of Sicily. We took at taxi to Taormina, which is Sicily’s main resort town and very lovely with labyrinthine streets, gorgeous buildings and probably the nicest shopping we have seen in Europe so far – that is – real shops rather than the tacky tourist fare. It was about 40 minutes drive, and it’s a pretty quiet drive for us in the car most of the way as the exceptionally high speeds the taxi drivers drive render us all mute! We were dropped back in Messina city afterward and found a lovely pizzeria for lunch – thin and crispy pizzas with mozzarella, ham, anchovies, olives and capers washed down with a glass of red wine. My stomach is expanding at a rate of knots. I think Chris is still in credit after being sick! Our last full day on the ship tomorrow, we are in Naples for the day. The cruise has been good in lot of ways, particularly the ease of getting from place to place – go to sleep in one country and wake up in another – but I think the length of time has been enough and we will be ready to move on when we get back to Genoa on Saturday.

Crete and Another Man Down

We had a full day at sea between Alexandria and Crete, and during that time Chris also fell ill. So he was flat on his back for 36 hours and has only come right this morning as we head towards Malta. We only had a short port time in Crete – 4.5 hours – so it seemed like a waste of time to be on a bus for that time so the boys and I caught a taxi into the main city of Heraklion. Crete has it’s own separate culture as it is quite distant from other areas of Greece. We wandered around the town, had a greek coffee in Lion Square (well, the boys had a juice) and went shopping at the markets. We are a little over the food on the boat, particularly because of the illnesses, so I went to a bakery and bought fresh buns, spinach pies and donuts to smuggle back on the boat for lunch. We left port at 2pm only to get 5 hours out to sea and the boat turned around again. Someone on the boat was very ill and they turned around and steamed back and transferred this person to another boat from one of the islands that met us. Apparently they only turn the boat around in cases of medical emergency. We think someone missed the boat when we were in Athens, but it’s too bad if that happens. They do have a hospital on the boat so could deal with broken bones etc., so it must have been quite serious.


So we are a bit delayed for our arrival in Malta, but they have had the boat at full speed - which is around 22.5 knots rather than cruising speed which is around 13 or 14 knots – to try and make up for lost time. We are due in Malta at 3.30pm.

We have spent a bit of time on the ship the last couple of days and the boys have been spending hours on the waterslide and in the spa pools with some American children they have met. I have looked around the shops – everything from clothes, jewellery, watches, perfume, cosmetics, booze – all not really to my taste. They do a roaring trade in duty free cigarettes because as you can imagine, with the ships’ population being mostly European, everyone smokes like a train. And I have been doing the aerobics class. We have met a few people, Canadians, Americans and Aussies. A nice couple who are American (although he was originally a kiwi) and stationed in Germany in the military were great company for me on the Egypt trip and we have caught up with them for a drink since.

Everyone seems to be at full health today – fingers crossed! X

Contrasts and Chellenges - Rhodes and Cairo

We spent Saturday in Rhodes – this is a large Greek island, but as we were only in port for 6 hours we decided to walk the town. It is very gorgeous – the oldest inhabited medieval town in the world and a world heritage site. There is the old town and new town and we just wandered around the cobbled streets of the old walled town and saw where the Knights used to live and the Palace of the Grand Master who was in charge of the knights. It is boy heaven and the boys had a blast – all the beautiful little medieval buildings are filled with tacky souvenir shops with swords, knives, armour and headdresses as well as figurines of all the Greek guys – Spartan warriors etc. – I don’t really know the names! Needless to say, the boys spent up. Rhodes is a pommy package tour destination and it was heaving with people, it would be chaotic in summer, but we could still appreciate the beauty of it.


Alexandria, Egypt was the port of call for the next day, but that evening about midnight Liam came down with what we are sure was a bout of food poisoning (I since know of at least 6 cases of it on the boat from the people we have talked to). We all only got about 3 hours sleep and when the sun came up there was no way Liam was going to be able to cope with the 13 hour tour to Cairo to see the pyramids. So, Chris stayed on the boat with Liam and Jordan and I jumped on the bus – there were 50 buses off the ship today – 2500 thousand people.

We travelled 3 hours to Giza, had a look at the pyramids, looked at more pyramids, went on a jeep ride through some desert area and rode camels back to a country club for lunch, then more pyramids, shops and back to the boat. That’s it in a nutshell, but Egypt is a total culture shock – it is filthy and derelict and I know this is only my impression from a day, but it seems to have little to redeem it. The trip to the pyramids was quite scary – touts were manhandling people, putting headdresses on you and expecting you to pay, one guy was lifted bodily onto a camel and only when he threatened to jump off did they let him down – they were wanting him to pay for a ride, even the guards were offering to take a photo and then wanting you to pay them. We said no to them, but when they are carrying AK47’s that possibly wasn’t a good idea in hindsight! I am also amazed that you are able to touch the pyramids - normally anything like this you would think would be fenced off as it is so precious.
The jeep and camel ride was fun, and it was nice to try some local food, rice with cinnamon spices and nuts, chargrilled chicken, stuffed baked peppers and other stuffed veges, flatbread and dips. I was glad they fed us Egyptian food rather than dish up chips and burgers to the tourists. The trip to a Papyrus factory and a souvenir shop was certainly a case of milk the tourist so Jordan and I refused to buy anything on principle. It was a long day and we got back to the boat at 9pm. Liam was a bit brighter and they had had a very quiet day. Thankfully because Liam was ill they will refund his and Chris’ tickets – they are otherwise non-refundable - the trip was 145 E for adults and 102 for children so for the four of us it would have been a NZ$1000 day. Liam’s ship’s doctor visit and assorted medications cost 105E (about $NZ200).

Anyway, a sea day today and we arrive in Heraklion, Crete tomorrow and hopefully Liam will be back at full speed. Once again, sorry for lack of photos. I will post photos as soon as it is not costing me an arm and a leg !

A Beautiful Day in Athens

We were off the ship early this morning to meet our driver for the day. I had booked a tour from home with Pauls’ Taxis and we were collected by Pauls’ son, Jim who took us all over Athens for the day for 200 Euro. This turned out to be fantastic, because not only did we escape our 3900 friends, Jim was able to negotiate the Athens traffic and get us to all the sights quickly and well before the tour buses. The traffic in Athens in horrendous - as you can imagine in a city of 5 million people and 7 million cars - and as Jim says, the stop signs and traffic lights are just suggestions. That doesn’t seem to stop the multitudes of motorcyclists from running the gauntlet, a lot of them without helmets – we saw a lot of near misses. We also saw the Acropolis, Temple of Zeus, the Greek and Roman Agoras (ancient markets), the modern Olympic stadium, the Acropolis Museum, the top of the highest hill and the changing of the guards at Parliament. Whew, no wonder we were knackered! Liam was quite blown away by the fact that the guards have to stand completely still and barely blink – something he obviously was thinking was impossible. One of the guards had some allergies or something and his nose and eyes were streaming down his face and he couldn’t do anything about it. Poor bugger. Jim also took us to the Plaka for lunch – gyros, baklava and donuts. We looked around the shops and then visited the marina to see some amazing superyachts. All in all it was a great day – the sun was shining and Athens is a pretty cool place. Greece certainly seems like a place it would be worth spending more time. As you can see, I haven’t added any photos for the last couple of days. The internet access on the ship is horrendously expensive and painfully slow, so by the time I upload a photo I have chewed through 10 euro worth of internet access. I’ll add some more photos maybe tomorrow in Rhodes if I can find some free wifi somewhere! X

Katakolon, Greece

Today we were at Katakolon, Greece for the day to visit Olympia. We went on a ship tour (us and our many shipmates) to the ancient site to hear the mythology and see the sites. We then did a little shopping in the village of Olympia. We haven’t done a lot of buying, the odd thing for the kids but other than that the only interesting thing is the lovely greek food and we are not allowed to take anything that is not packaged back on to the ship.
Once again the logistics of moving around this number of people is impressive with 29 buses pulled up and waiting when we docked this morning at 8am. We had a bit of a sea running last night and it’s a weird feeling to be going up and down like a boat in something that feels nothing like a boat – more like a small town. I forgot to mention yesterday the 1500 seat theatre on the boat that had a pretty impressive show on last night. We have been getting a bit hi-de-hi this afternoon – I went to aerobics, Chris went to the gym and the kids have had a great time on the waterslide hanging out with new friends. The weather has certainly warmed up as we have moved south with a high of 20 deg today – okay for a sunbathe if you stay out of the breeze – any yes Kerrie, there is plenty of flesh on display!

The Ship as Big as New Zealand

Well we made it to Genoa and onto the ship without too much more drama. Got our wits sorted re: the train and said goodbye to Mariola and her beautiful hotel breakfast and headed off. Kelvin the Aussie said on the train that the ship would blow us away because it was about the same size as New Zealand. Well, the smart arse wasn't that far off, Here are a few facts:
Length: 333 m Total number of passengers: 3,959 (90% of whom are German!), total number of crew: 1332. 5 swimming pools and 12 spa pools and 27000 m2 of surface area. There are shopping malls, spa centres, fitness centre, heaps of restaurants, tennis court, squash court and on and on. It's nuts. Look at the truck in the photo below to get an indication of the scale:

We are finding it a bit tough being part of a herd of 4000, esp. the Germans who all seem like the cliche you'd expect, but that's part of the experience I suppose. They manage the logistics of this number of people quite well, although it tests our patience. The boys are having a blast though as we knew they would. More soon! X

Cinque Terre and our Last Day in Rapallo

Well the day started at 4am as we are all having a bit of trouble adjusting to the time change still. Hopefully we will sort ourselves out in the next couple of days - it's not good having a 3 hour afternoon sleep and then not being able to sleep at night! Today started as a mixed bag - I got us a 50 euro fine on the train for not validating our tickets in the station - I thought they would have a machine on the train -boo hoo! However, we fared better than Wendy and David from Christchurch who we met in the train station who are going on the same cruise as us - she got her purse stolen in the train station with all her credit cards etc. in. What a nightmare! We were on the train to the Cinque Terre which is 5 beautiful villages all built into the rocky coast. Supposedly they are all still working fishing villages, and they certainly do fish, but tourism would be the predominant income stream as this place is now a World Heritage site and marine reserve. The villages are thousands of years old and all built into the rocky coastline in the most amazingly precarious way. Paths link all villages and you can travel between them by train also. On the trip we also met Aussies Calvin, Colleen and Taylor, who are also on the cruise with us.  They have also just finished a cruise on our boats' sister ship so it was great to talk to someone with some insight as to how the cruise works. Here are some photos of these gorgeous villages. It has really been worth the trip to Rapallo to see these amazing places - Corniglia, 1 of the villages had 382 steps to get to it from the train, so we are not short of exercise, thankfully because we have been drinking our share of beer and red wine and eating pasta, bread and cheese!:

We have really enjoyed Rapallo where we are staying. the hotel has been fantastic and really well located and they recommended a lovely restaurant, Bella Napoli where we have eaten both nights here - lovely antipasti, pasta and red wine (Chris and I have polished off a litre jug each night - I normally never drink red wine!) It has felt like a lovely and authentic Italian experience. Off to Genova tomorrow to board our cruise. We are all hoping to sleep through the night!

Beautiful Italy

We have arrived in Italy after 24 hours of flying around in tin cans and sitting in airports. The fastest tin can may have been the taxi on the ride to Rapallo at midnight last night! Rapallo is a town on the Ligurian Coast of Italy just South of Genoa which is where we are leaving on the cruise on Tuesday. The hotel is just across the road from the beach and a short bus ride from Portofino a beautiful tourist village where we spent the morning. We are quite blown away by how gorgeous what we have seen so far is. The weather is pretty chilly around the edges but if the sun is out it is warm enough. Everyone is rugged up though and staring and Jordan and Liam who have spent the day in jandals. Must also say that the food is a significant improvement on what we had in L.A. What amazing bread and cheese! Here are some pics of our day.

More again soon!

Got The Airport Faces On

We are in LAX. Our flight departs in about an hour and a half. We have an 11.5 hour flight to Munich, a 4 hour wait and then a 1.5 hour flight to Genoa. And none of us are looking forward to it. However, we did have a really nice day today at the Warner Brothers Studios doing the Deluxe VIP Tour. Was a fun time and the weather has warmed up since we got here so cruising round the Studio lot in a tram was quite nice, we saw Cold Case shooting and went on to the set of Two and a Half Men and cruised around looking at cool movie stuff. Then had a lovely lunch. We rest on those memories for the next 18 or so hours. L A is a nice place, we were suprised at how many people we encountered for whom English is a 2nd language - most of the workers and servers were Spanish speakers. Led to a few translation issues! However, I am sure that won't be the last we experience of that!

Photos

Got the laptop charging. Here's photos:

Days 2 and 3 - The Happiest Place on Earth and Universal Studios

Hi All. Well we have been struggling to get power for our appliances, can;t get any adaptors to work in the hotel, so with the last of my laptop battery I write! So, no photos sorry, hopefully the European adaptors will work. Well yesterday was Disneyland and California Adventures. A pretty full on day and apparently it was quiet and will be bedlam next week because Spring Break is on.
Liams Comment: Disnelyland was awesome. The Californa Screamer was insane and blew your head off.
Jordans Comment: You felt like you were in a town of Oompah Loompahs with the little houses above shops.
Lynda's Comment: I felt extremely svelte amongst the crowd of supersized people!
Chris; Comment: I loved the roller coaster, it was wicked. And they can keep the 'Chimichangas'. (Foul deep fried burritos stuffed with what looks like poos - yes, it's a battered deep fried poo.)
Anaheim is a good hours drive so there was added excitement driving out there and back and we were pretty shattered when we got back. Universal Studios was a bit more relaxed today as it is only 10 minutes drive. There are better rides at Universal we reckon. Well, for our age kids anyway.
We will have to come back to L.A, 3 days is not enough to do this place justice. There is obviously more to L.A than theme parks.
Did some shopping  downtown Hollywood this afternoon. Spyed some quite cool off the beaten track shops but didn;t get much of a chance to look. At least I got to MAC and the boys got new jeans and Chris a shirt. Off to Warner Bros for a VIP Tour tomorrow before off to the airport for a 8.50pm flight. More when I get to another computer or can charge this one up! X

Day 1 - L.A - Highlights and Lowlights

Lowpoints: Without question that would  be the flight, no one got a lot of sleep - along with the body search before we left Auckland.
Low Point for Lynda: Would have to be the discovery that the adaptor for my GHD's isn't working - something I discovered after I'd blow dried my hair into an afro in anticipation of being able to straighten it.
Surprise Adrenaline Rush: Driving from the airport to Hollywood after 19 hours of travellng.  Chris also got upsized on the car - the sales guy spotted an easy target and got him while he was down.

Highpoints: Dinner at California Pizza Kitchen - good pizzas, gorgeous salad near Hollywood Boulevard.
Also, very ott friendly and helpful concierge and reception staff at the Hollywood Heights Hotel where we are staying. Surprisingly good hotel for the money. And free wireless in the room.

It is unbelieveably freezing here - we were chilled to the bone this evening walking around. Would have been about 5 deg tonight and windy!
We are all shattered. Off to bed now. X

Goodbye Summer.

3 days till we go. Have spent the day printing off booking forms, info and tickets for things. It's a gorgeous hot day, and I am stressing about clothes to take! Mum says I should travel light, I am wondering if that is her idea for the latest Tui ad! Chris has been down and taken the boat for a run and put that to bed for the summer :-(. It's looking like a pretty cold trip at this stage, with snow in Milan this weekend apparently. Lets hope there are no more freak waves in the Med!