Cruising

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Our last day in Switzerland

The weather was not kind today. I found a couple of warm, dry places to visit but neither opened until 2pm so we had a lovely restful morning in our room. Then we wandered out to find a lunch venue and we found a good one. David opted for a beef burger and I had pumpkin soup with lovely bread.

The DuPont Restaurant where we had lunch. Very classy!

Then we wandered on in the rain to visit the police station. No, we were not in trouble. We went to visit the entry hall because, in 1927, Augusto Giacometti was commissioned to paint the walls and roof. It was amazing. We had to hand in our passport to be able to visit which was interesting but I had them with me because I’d read up on it. I thought it was great. David was not fussed. What do you think?

How could I not like it with all that red and orange?

There seem to be some lovely little alley ways but with the relentless rain,we didn’t dawdle.

The other place I wanted to visit was the Beyer Clock and Watch Museum underneath the Beyer shop in the Main Street. I love old clocks and this was the history of mankind’s efforts to measure time. The explanations were all in German but they give you an iPad to wander with and you can choose your language so we missed nothing. Very innovative and it was very interesting. Fascinating really but no photos to show you. I could have spent quite a few hours there.

To celebrate our last night in Switzerland, we went to a very pleasant restaurant called The King’s Cave, just down the street from the hotel. David chose the steak and a baked potato. I had the fish and ratatouille. Everything was very tasty. Interestingly on the menu they say where the food was sourced. The beef was all from Ireland and my fish, bass, was from Turkey. The shrimps (or prawns as we call them in Australia) came from Vietnam. We were serenaded by a pianist singing jazz songs. All in all, it was very pleasant.

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The whales didn’t like the weather either!

We are enjoying a three day break on Fraser Island, staying at Kingfisher Bay Resort. Fraser is the largest sand island in the world and is world heritage listed. It is 300 km north of Brisbane. The resort is an ecotourism resort with minimum interference with the environment. As I write I’m relaxing beside the pool.

It’s quite breezy so not many people are brave enough to be swimming.

The island is 120km long by 20km wide. The original people here were the ‘Butchella’ people and their name for the island was gari which means paradise. One of the fresh water creeks, Eli Creek, flows over 80 million litres of fresh water into the Pacific Ocean every day.

Yesterday we went on a whale watching cruise from the island. It was very windy which meant it was quite rough. The catamaran took us up to the northern end of the island where there is a sheltered bay on the mainland side. It’s called Platypus Bay and the humpback whales like to stop there for a week or so to rest and to teach their calves some life skills. The lungs of a humpback are the size of a small vehicle and a calf can drink up to 500 litres of milk per day. They can hold their breath for up to 45 minutes and the tail of each is unique like our finger prints.

We saw several pods of whales and some were quite close to us but they weren’t doing any of their party tricks. No clapping or breaching so this was very disappointing.

The wind was very strong and the waves were quite big so our little cat was bouncing a lot. My arm and leg muscles all felt very tight last night as they’d worked very hard just hanging on. It was quite exhausting. Quite a few people were ill but not us, fortunately.

It wasn’t safe to unload us at the island because of the wind so we were taken to Urangan on the mainland and then bussed to the ferry and brought back to Kingfisher by ferry. We have a voucher to do the cruise again because of the weather so hopefully we will get that chance on a better day when the whales want to play.

But we have seen whales. I can’t say we enjoyed the day but we endured the day and we did see whales.

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Oceania Cruises wows us again!

A couple of weeks ago we received an invitation to a luncheon from Oceania Cruises. We thought we’d go along ….. It would probably be finger food and we’d stand around for an hour or so, trying to juggle glasses of wine and plates of food as we chatted to fellow Oceania cruisers before hearing the promotional messages but it would be OK.

So we caught the train into the city, found 480 Queen Street and caught the lift to level 4 and entered Otto Ristorante, a beautiful Italian restaurant with a view of the Brisbane River and the Story Bridge.

This was a special, sit-down, a-la-carte meal with lovely wines. It was Oceania thanking some 60 of us for being loyal Oceania cruisers. The food was delicious as you would expect of a company which promises the finest cuisine at sea. What’s more, they did not use it as an opportunity to sell more cruises.

We were very impressed with the restaurant too. It is a beautiful venue and the food and the service were great. We’d like to return.

So, thank you Oceania. We really enjoyed ourselves.

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Our life on the Oceania Marina is over! So sad!

This morning we had to leave our beautiful Marina. We had a great cruise – loved every minute of it. I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well. The king size beds are the most comfortable beds I have ever slept on and I slept like a baby most nights. They have the most amazing pillows. You can actually buy the bed, mattress, pillows and bedding and have it delivered to your home anywhere in the world. I’d love to but there’d be no room for anything else in our bedroom so I have to give it a miss.

The food on Oceania is outstanding. I think their claim to have “The finest cuisine at sea” is justifiable. Red Ginger is still my favourite restaurant on board but all the food we had was delicious. David loved his breakfasts and for a man who has coffee and tomato on toast most mornings at home, he did very well.

Can you see his plate? Lamb chops, crispy bacon, eggs, tomato to be followed by two pieces of toast and marmalade and he’d already had a plate of berries and an orange juice! Incredible!

We enjoyed the evening entertainment and I think we went for twelve out of the fourteen nights. The entertainment crew put on six singing and dancing evenings and we thoroughly enjoyed them all. We had a British comedian on two nights and he was very funny. David laughed a lot. A very clever pianist entertained us,again for two nights. He could play anything. Last night we had the crew’s salute and the end of the show and we couldn’t believe how many chefs there were.

I was concerned about how long it would take for us to get off the ship, go through border patrol, get a taxi and get to our hotel. I needn’t have worried. It was a very efficient operation. (Not like it was in Copenhagen in 2016 where we were in the taxi queue for two hours. No exaggeration!) Our time to disembark was 9am and by 9:30 we were stowing our luggage at our hotel and heading off to La Boqueria, the famous Barcelona market. We are very familiar with it as it was where we bought our food to take back to our apartment when we were here in 2014.

It’s amazing eh? I forgot to take a photo of the fruit. There’s so much and it all looks so fresh. We will be returning to the market shortly to buy our food for dinner.

We have a lovely hotel room at Citadines Ramblas right on Las Ramblas, the Main Street of Barcelona. We have tea making facilities, a microwave and cutlery, crockery etc so we will be able to buy fresh food at the market and eat in if we wish.

The weather has turned against us today – it’s raining and only 15* but we are not complaining because every other day has been fine and sunny. We decided to visit El Cortes Ingles, the large department store to get out of the rain while we waited to check in. It sells everything you could possibly want. When we were here before, there was no plug in the apartment and we went to a few shops trying to find one. Eventually we went to this store and managed, through some mime, to find the right area of the shop and bought a plug. So we affectionately call El Cortes Ingres The Plug Shop. David was going to buy a plug again as a souvenir but instead he bought two shirts.

We found a pleasant cafe to have lunch – seafood paella and a glass of sangria. Very nice? And they had soy milk so I could have a very good cappuccino. Yes!

A. Great start to our short stay in Barcelona!

Leave a comment Posted on by dapperdaveanddinkydi Books I’ve enjoyed this month, Cruising

Holiday reading

Whilst cruising on the lovely Marina, I’ve managed to find the time to read a couple of books out of the ship’s library

The first was The Paris Vendetta by Steve Barry. I thought this was a fitting choice as I had just enjoyed that lovely week in Paris and I knew exactly where the characters were as they moved through Paris in the story. The book reminded me of The DaVinci Affair by Dan Brown as there were ancient mysteries to be solved, clues to be followed and places to visit. I learnt about the life of Napoléon and his battles through Europe. I wondered if he did really leave a secret legacy and followed the characters as they tried to prevent The Paris Club from triggering a global financial meltdown. It was a little difficult to grasp all the different characters at the beginning but once I did, I really enjoyed this novel. It was full of suspense and twists and turns and it got me in.

The second was The Girl in the Spider’s Web, a Lisbeth Salander novel by David Lagercrantz and continuing Stieglitz Larsson’s Millenium Series. I loved the series by Larsson and was very sad to hear he had died. Lagercrantz has done a great job of continuing these exciting stories and I really enjoyed spending more time with Lisbeth Salander, genius hacker and uncompromising misfit, and the journalist, Mikael Blomkvist. The characterisation fits with that in the original novels and the battle between right and wrong, between Lisbeth and her twin sister, was absorbing. I loved it. Didn’t want to put it down!

1 Comment Posted on by dapperdaveanddinkydi Cruising, Interesting Stuff, Travel

Did we see The Rock?

Last night we cruised through the Straits of Gibraltar and the cruise director made an announcement that we would be able to see it between 7 and 8. So we went on deck to catch a glimpse of the famous Rock of Gibraltar. Only trouble was, no one seemed to know which side was the rock and there was no further announcement from the bridge.

So either this is The Rock

Or this is:

The first photo looks more like a Rock. The second one is prettier. One of them includes The Rock but which one? Your guess is as good as mine.

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Could easily spend a week in Málaga

It’s a lovely city – beaches, beautiful squares, elegant buildings and such a lot of greenery.

This is our last port on our wonderful cruise on Oceania Marina. Next stop Will be Barcelona on Friday and we will have to disembark.

Today we had a late start, banana pancakes for breakfast, did some washing and headed off to the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. The tour here was really well managed and the information was comprehensive and easy to understand so we really enjoyed it.

The Jacarandas were in flower so that reminded us of home as did the colourful bougainvilleas. We even saw a very thirsty, sad-looking gum tree.

We had hoped to visit the botanical gardens but when I looked it up on the web it said that it could be closed because of the May Day holiday. I asked the tourist info people and they looked it up on the web and told me what I already knew. So we figured it wasn’t worth €100 in taxi fares to get there and find it closed. We enjoyed our visit to Málaga nevertheless.

Here’s a few pictures to show why we enjoyed it so.

After our tour we found a little café to have lunch. David wasn’t adventurous and had a burger and chips but I enjoyed pescaîto frito – fried seafood. It was a huge serve and was too much for me. It included anchovies, squid, fish, mussels etc.

A week here in a little apartment near the beach would be very pleasant!

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A mix of the old and the new

Today in Tangier Morocco, we boarded the Hop-on Hop-Off bus for a tour of the city.

Our view from beside the ship.

The port shuttle took us to the car park of the Intercontinental Hotel from where we could cross the road and catch the red bus. The juxtaposition of the old wall and the flash hotel was typical of what we saw here.

We were impressed with the skill of our driver who manoeuvred the bus through some extremely narrow streets and around tight corners.

We drove by a long, narrow cemetery which was filled with grasses and flowers.

We weren’t sure where to hop off and we chose the city centre which turned out to be a mistake. It was a large new shopping centre with no customers, bored shop assistants and only American chain restaurants such as Burger King and Pizza Hut. By this stage, we were ready for coffee but we wanted a legitimate Moroccan coffee so we left here and caught a taxi back to the Souq that the bus had taken us through.

As well as fresh fruit and vegetables the souq contained many long narrow aisles filled with fake handbags, shoes, t-shirts etc. There must have been thousands of bags! Who would buy them all?

We wandered around for a while, still searching for our hit of caffeine and then walked down the steep hill to the waterfront where we found many cafés and were able to get our coffee. It was very strong, delicious and cost €1 each. The currency here is the dirham which is worth US$0.10.

We then wandered back to the shuttle and back to the ship for lunch and our afternoon rest.

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Cadiz, an ancient port

Last night we had a delicious dinner in Jacques, the French restaurant on Marina. Onion soup and Dover sole for me and escargot and fillets of John Dory for David. He managed to fit dessert in as well – an amazing Mille feuille. I pinched a couple of mouthful.

The sommelier convinced David that we should have a Premier Cru Chablis from Burgundy and it was most enjoyable. They put your cabin number on it and bring it to you at the next restaurant you dine at. It will probably take the rest of the cruise for us to finish it. We don’t drink much at all these days.

Today we arrived at Cadiz a little late as we had to turn back to Lisbon last night to put off a person having a medical emergency. I felt for them. I know what it is like to leave a cruise ship on a stretcher and miss the rest of your cruise.

Today we took it easy in Cadiz. You can walk into town from the ship and we just wandered down the main shopping street for a little retail therapy.

As in all Spanish towns, we found some lovely green squares.

I don’t know why there is a padlock in the middle of this roundabout? Very peculiar!

We could have visited Gibraltar from here but we decided that a restful day was preferable. It was most pleasant.

5 Comments Posted on by dapperdaveanddinkydi Cruising, Food, Interesting Stuff, Travel

The amazing blues and greens of Lisbon

We’ve really enjoyed our few hours in Lisbon which began with a full circuit on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. It is a beautiful sunny warm day and the northern hemisphere people are complaining that it’s too hot at 26*C but for me, it is just becoming warm enough. Perfect!

My memories of Lisbon will be all about the blues and the greens. We drove along many avenues lined with trees and past many parks filled with people enjoying the weather; many of them locals as it is Sunday. What really grabbed me was the beautiful sky white-washed with wispy clouds. I loved the blend of the blues and the greens.

The blues are also found in the tiles on the buildings illustrating The Moorish influence from times past.

As you drive around Lisbon you can’t help but notice the proliferation of statues. Of course, I can’t remember who they all are but I think this could be the mayor who rebuilt the city after the massive earthquake in 1755. But then, it could be someone else entirely!

Many people take tours in these Tuk-Tuks. A bit scary for me in the traffic!

There seemed to be hundreds of eateries gathered in eat streets and we found one where we could enjoy seafood paella and a Portuguese custard tart.

Junky souvenir shops were everywhere and we avoided them but I did buy myself a very nice shirt to remember Lisbon by.

So, a very pleasant day all round but undoubtedly it was the amazing colours of the sky that I will remember most.