Views from Crestmont Drive

Day 11, Thu 13Oct16: The original cruise plan called for us to dock next in Portofino, but somewhere along the way plans changed and we landed at Genoa instead. It’s notable for being the birthplace of Christopher Columbus. If Monaco the day before was the most scenic dock view and entrance to a port, Genoa was the worst: from the dock and through an enormous port building, we had to then cross a busy highway and then walk along a street lined with discount shoe and clothing shops, and Asian cafes and markets seemingly exiled to the fringe of the city, to get into town proper. Once there, the city is very compact, as most of these places we’ve visited: narrow streets, many smoking pedestrians, churches and museums and cafes.

The highlight of the city was Via Garbaldi, a street lined with “palazzi”, large mansions once owned by the wealthy of the city. These structures are shoulder to shoulder along the cobblestone street, impressive only once you step inside: each one has a large inner courtyard, the four or five floors of each structure rising on three or four sides around you. Nowadays these are government buildings, banks, and museums. We found a charming little restaurant for lunch, Ristorante Au Cafe, one seemingly local and not tourist-oriented yet which had an English menu, and then spent a rather frustratingly leisurely hour-plus meal trying not to express American impatience while the waiter came by only every 15 minutes or so. I had a “Genoese” minestrone soup, very thick and green, and a Leek Pie, which is pretty much a quiche.

The city has another cathedral, another fountain, more shops… but the day was dampened, literally, by a persistent drizzle. We bought no souvenirs.

Day 12, Fri 14oct16: The dock was Livorno, our last stop before Rome, but there’s nothing to see in Livorno. It’s a gateway to Florence and Pisa, and from here we did our longest excursion, i.e. planned bus tour arranged by the cruise. We boarded a bus at 8am for an hour and half ride (along the equivalent of an interstate highway, through the countryside) to Florence, one of the great cities of Italy and inland from the coast, known for its huge cathedral, or Duomo — the fourth largest in the world, we were told — and its Uffizi gallery full of masterpiece paintings, and its food. Alas, as with earlier trips, the excursion allowed no time to visit the gallery, and we’d likely have had to have made reservations far in advance anyway. (Next time!). It was a day-long tour, and we had a good tour guide, although she seemed preoccupied with advising the group where clean toilets were to be found at every step along the way. She led us on a walking tour through the center of town, past the cathedral, the square full of statues, including a copy of Michelangelo’s David and the statue of Perseus holding the head of Medusa (second photo on this page is the iconic view that graced the front cover of Edith Hamilton’s MYTHOLOGY, a book I’ve had since high school), ending up at the Piazza Santa Croce, where we had lunch in a cafe with great pizza and pasta, and shopped the many leather shops around the area, finally buying two Italian leather wallets. Alas, we didn’t have time to make it into the Santa Croce Basilica, in which lies the remains of Galileo, Dante, Machiavelli, and Fermi.

(Note about the pizza: what we had at this cafe was great, thin crust with cheese and other ingredients on top, perfectly baked; but no better than the best pizza we’ve had in LA or the Bay Area. I’ve always heard stories about how the pizza in Italy so outclasses anything available in the US. Well, maybe, if all you know of pizza are the chain franchises. Later, we had a very disappointing pizza at a sidewalk cafe in Rome, a so-called “Caprese” pizza with mozzarella, tomato, and basil — is was a huge lump of melted cheese with tomato halves and basil leaves dropped on top after cooking.)

Our day-long bus trip returned from Florence to the coast, to Pisa, as a storm front moved in and thunder and lightening and rain threatened our visit. The storm let up only slightly as we arrived in the huge bus parking lot near the square in Pisa. As it happened, a second excursion bus from the cruise, taking a very similar day tour, was there at the same time. The storm was so heavy that our guide suggested that we could make the walk to see the leaning tower, or skip it and return to the ship, but we’d have to reach a consensus. The other bus had a similar dilemma, and so we combined forces, sent those who wished to return from both buses back on one of the buses, and those from both buses who wished to walk in the rain to see the tower stay. We stayed.

The tower really does lean alarmingly. I tried to take photos with the tower upright and the surrounding landscape at an angle, but the view wasn’t convincing. There was no time to climb up into the tower. Our return was delayed for almost an hour by a missing passenger — these tour guides are committed to keeping track of their flock — who’d missed the rendezvous point. But eventually we reconnoitered and made our way back to the ship.

And on Day 13, Saturday 15Oct16, we docked near Rome, actually in Civitavecchia on the coast, the nearest port to Rome; and the way cruise ships work, they want you off the boat as quickly as possible on that last day. You pack your luggage the night before and leave it in the hallway; they carry it off during the night and you pick it up the next morning after disembarking. If you get up early enough, you have time for breakfast, and then you gather your carry-ons and exit the ship for the last time, pick up your luggage, and then you’re free. The cruise company offers various “transfer” arrangements — buses to the airport, to selected hotels in Rome, etc. — but at rather exorbitant prices. Instead, we took a free shuttle bus to the local train station in Civitavecchia, bought tickets to Rome Termini for 5 euros each, and rode the hour-long trip into the city. And then a taxi to our hotel.

So the end of our trip was 2 1/2 days in Rome, Saturday afternoon through Monday, leaving to fly home Tuesday morning. We were at the Ludovisi Palace Hotel, on Via Ludovisi, northwest of the Termini train station and a few blocks east of the famed “Spanish Steps” and the high-end shopping district below them.

Rome is, of course, a magnificent city, full of ancient history and many monuments, churches and museums and ancient sites. The central city is small enough to walk. My primary impression though, as I’ve already mentioned on Facebook, that the city is overwhelmed by tourists, so that visits to any famous sites entails wading slowly through huge crowds. We walked to the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon, both, as I said, so crowded that it was difficult to approach, let alone appreciate, these sites. We had dinner that night at Osteria Barberini, a tiny place with a basement dining room, that currently features truffles, so many they’re features in every dish. We chatted with other American tourists at the next tables.

Still, I think, we did as good an overview of the city as might be done in 2 1/2 days. We boarded a hop-on/hop-off bus on Saturday for a quick tour; boarded it again on Sunday, and got off at the Coliseum, and stood in line for an hour to gain entrance, skeptical of the “skip the line” hawkers. Monday we did a Vatican tour, arranged through the hotel, for a guided tour through the still very-crowded many galleries leading up to the Sistine Chapel (silence! no pictures! God’s butt!) and then St. Peter’s Basilica itself, an enormous structure, the largest I’ve ever been inside.

We walked back along the river and to the shopping district and found a place to buy requested souvenirs. Later, along the shopping streets below the Spanish Steps, we walked back and forth, looking at expensive Italian shoes (400 Euros, for shiny and square-edged fully leather shoes!), and bought instead for much less money a couple perfectly nice pairs of shoes from Geox, an Italian chain; and a sport jacket and a blue sweater from another nice shop.

And that night, while almost randomly picking a nearby highly-rated restaurant (via TripAdvisor), had perhaps the best dinner of the entire trip, at Orlando, a few blocks from our hotel. Not a tourist spot, yet they had one waiter who spoke English. The antipasto starter was served as a series of small plates, all beautiful; the wine delicious and inexpensive; the entire bill no more than any other restaurant we’d been to along the way.

And on Tuesday we flew home, first to Frankfurt, then a long 11-hour flight to San Francisco, already described on Fb.

Monaco (which a tour-guide recording pronounced accenting the second syllable) is a 2-square-kilometer principality of which Monte-Carlo is just one district (the one with the casino). With the immaculate city and its residential towers backed by a high ridge of mountains enclosing and seemingly cutting it off from the outside world, this was by far the most picturesque port of any we’ve visited so far during the cruise. This rectangular harbor, Port Hercule, was filled with everything from fabulously luxurious yachts to small fishing boats. There were three cruise ships visiting that day, and only a dock big enough for one, so the other two sat anchored out in the harbor with tenders to transport passengers to and from the dock. Our ship was the lucky one.

Again we took a “hop on, hop-off” bus tour to get a quick overview. Everything is high-end hotels and shopping streets. Not so many BMWs, I noticed, but many more Maseratis and Bentleys than I’ve seen in any other city. Residents of Monaco pay no income taxes, but on the other hand are not allowed to use the city’s famous casino.

We got off the bus at the royal palace, the Place du Palais, high on the ridge to the south (left, facing land) of the harbor. We did a brief tour inside, guided by that tour-guide recording controlled by individual handsets (this seems to be the common practice in museums now), to see the bedrooms and reception rooms used by members of the royal family over hundreds of years, including the throne room where, among others, Grace Kelly became Princess Grace back in the ’50s.

Just as impressive in the city is a major Oceanographic Museum, founded by Prince Albert I over 100 years ago due to his particular interest in the subject. It has a curious yellow submarine in front of the building, and inside an aquarium comparable to Monterey Bay’s. Fun fact: there’s a species of grouper called the Grace Kelly grouper, because the actress was wearing a similarly patterned polka dot dress in the area at the time while filming something with Alfred Hitchcock. (To Catch a Thief?) There are also two big exhibit halls, one devoted to sharks, and a “petting pool” with little sharks you can reach in and touch! So I touched a shark.

We walked back around this old town peninsula, through a square where earlier we’d seen a large produce market, by now taken down, then down a shopping street and eventually north of the harbor to the famous casino and opera house. We’d read about a relatively strict dress code for entering the casino, but security seemed to be letting everyone in. There’s a 10 euro fee just to enter. The casino itself is not very big, compared to Las Vegas extravagance; a couple rooms of slot machines of various types, and one central room with roulette wheels and other tables. We allocated another 10 euros to play the slots, and left when we had only 68 cents left, captured on an electronic receipt that’s good for 30 days if we happen to return. It’s a souvenir.

Then we walked back to the ship, where we visited the ship’s “Martini bar” and I ordered a “007 Martini” (aka a Vesper, if I recall correctly). A double.

Tuesday was the ninth day of our Europe vacation, and 6th full day on the boat, now at Marseille. This schedule is trying, in that we’re visiting 10 ports in 10 days, with no days at sea, no layovers in any one port. Since we’ve never been to any of these places before, it’s a lot of new experiences in a short time. That’s one reason I’m forcing myself to write up notes and post photos about each city relatively quickly — if I don’t, all these impressions will get mixed up and hopelessly jumbled.

Both Marseille and Monte-Carlo are built up around rectangular bays that serve as yacht ports. Like the other cities, Marseille has an old town, though relatively small (and smelly, a mix of fish market and garbage), and a much larger urban area more resembling Barcelona’s, though this part of the French coast is much hillier, with posh, narrow residential streets south of the harbor (Vieux Port) that afford great views of the Mediterranean Sea.

We walked through Old Town then hopped on a “train car” tour shuttle that consisted of a truck dressed up as a train engine pulling a string of open-air canopied riding carts, all on wheels to drive through the city streets and up and down those narrow residential roads. Our target was the Notre-Dame de la Garde, this city’s landmark on a hilltop. Frustratingly, as with the Barcelona tour that didn’t leave us time to see the Gaudi Basilica even if we’d had tickets, we had only a 5 minute photo op a this location, not enough time for a tour. Then back down the narrow streets to the harbor. We ate lunch at a cafe that specialized in bouillabaisse and paella, then walked up and down the big shopping streets, and bought a couple shirts at H&M, before returning to the ship.

• Everyone has iPhones, or equivalent smart phones. Silicon Valley has conquered the world.
• And we hear the same pop songs everywhere, notable on the ship (with its passengers who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s) and even from the street musicians at various tourist spots — e.g. “Memory” and “The Sounds of Silence” and various Beatles songs.
• Perhaps because I had a better view of the street during our Marseille tour, in the relatively low train car seats, I noticed here that it was a rare parked car that did not have scratches or dents or worse along its side. The price for owning a car in a European city with ancient, narrow streets not originally designed for cars, I suppose.

Monday, 10 October, on our Oceania cruise: Barcelona

The largest of our cruise ports since Lisbon. We did a 4-hour “highlights” bus excursion, part of which was a walking tour, yet saw only a handful of landmarks, beginning with the famous Gaudi basilica, known as Sagrada Familia. (It’s not a cathedral, because Barcelona already had a cathedral when Gaudi started, and there’s only one cathedral per city.) Sagrada Familia is still under construction, after nearly a century, but apparently the pace has accelerated and work on the main structure is expected to be complete by 2026, including a central tower that will be twice the height of any of the existing towers! The structure shows Gaudi’s well-known, primitive grotesque style (which some Americans find resemble Flintstones architecture), and the news for anyone already familiar with it is that a portion on the front, the “Passion façade”, has just been completed in the past couple years — four huge angled pillars, which represent, according to a tour guide we overheard, the tendons of Jesus as he was torn apart by his crucifixion. (How charming.) The entire basilica is a vast instantiation of every religious tradition and belief about Jesus — the birth, the death, the glory — in excruciating detail. To view it is to swing between admiration for its ambition, and disgust for its obsession, to a nonbeliever like me.

Barcelona, we were told, is the fourth largest cruise ship port in the world, the top three being in Florida. It’s also a huge cargo port. And the city and its adjacent environs form a huge view from the hilltop where our bus tour ended, Montjuic. The bus tour took us to the Sagrada Familia, but only for 20 minutes, not long enough to go inside. As it turned out, there are so many tourists anxious to see the inside, that you need to reserve tickets in advance, via the internet, days in advance. (The cruise ship folks might have advised us of that…)

The bus tour took us down the major shopping street, Pg. de Gracia, which was much like the Avenida in Lisbon, but even more grand, wide and lined with shops. We passed by two other well-known Gaudi buildings, one apartments, another commericial. We disembarked from the bus for a walk through the old-town district, one of narrow streets and ancient buildings, as in all these cities, and which took us into the city’s cathedral. Our tour guide was a character; a man who’d grown up in Oklahoma, of a Spanish mother, but who learned the language only after moving the Barcelona as an adult. He spoke fluent Spanish, but in what even I could tell was a flat manner, without the intonation of vowels distinctive of that language. He had an Oklahoma accent.

Our bus tour ending in time for us to lunch on our cruise ship, we returned to shore mid-afternoon, taking a taxi back to Sagrada Familia, only then to discover the ticket situation. We then walked all the way back through the city, down that shopping avenue and through the old town, to the shuttle bus pickup. (We’re getting 15,000 – 20,000 steps each day on this vacation.)

Also notable: a statue of Christopher Columbus, in a large square along the waterfront, famously pointing in the wrong direction.

(Running two days behind.)

Sunday, 9 October: Palma de Mallorca. This is the city of Palma on the island of Mallorca, a largish island south of Spain and west of the better known islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. Palma, we’re told, expanded considerably in the 1960s, and we saw dozens of high-rise apartment buildings resembling those in Malaga and Alicante; while the rest of the island, which we didn’t see, is apparently traditional and rural. We didn’t take an excursion, though one of those available was a train ride, across the mountains, to an ancient monastery, so we saw only the town.

We took a shuttle bus from the port to a city landmark near the cathedral. Like our previous stops, Palma has a cathedral, a castle on a hill, and an old-town with many tiny narrow streets. A difference here is that the streets aren’t windy, just straight — but intersecting at so many odd angles, we got lost a couple times, even with a map and iPhone, before we got our orientation and found our way to the city center. We had lunch at a sidewalk cafe, an open-faced sandwich and tapas, where the service was slow because there was a lone waiter for the many tourists needing service.

The cathedral in Palma is the largest of any we’ve seen — an enormous structure complete with a rack of flying buttresses — though, alas, closed on Sunday, so we didn’t see the inside. We also visited an “Arabian Baths”, a lone remaining structure dating from when the Muslims dominated the city. It was illuminating: it consists of three rooms, one a circular domed room, with holes in the ceiling, that served as a steam room; and two adjacent rooms, one where you would be soaped down and scrubbed, and a final one where you would take a cold shower to close your pores. It was a facility owned by a wealthy family, and those services were available only to the family and their guests.

Which reminds me of a comment by our guide in Alicante, as we walked through the busy town hall square where two or three wedding parties were gathering: until recent times, residents of the city might take only three baths in their lives: at birth, at death, and for their wedding.

Times change.

We walked the shopping street in the rain, searching souvenir and shoe shops for a particular type of slip-on shoe that Michael’s girlfriend asked us to look for.

Our final stop was the Almudaina Palace, immediately adjacent to the cathedral. Built as an Arab fortress 1000 some years ago, it became a Spanish royal palace in the 14th century. I got a good photo of the interior archways in one of the main rooms.

Palma is apparently a busy tourist destination; the flight path into the airport was over the bay where we docked, and there was an incoming plane roughly every two minutes.

More general notes:

• Tourism is now a major industry of many of these cities, and I wonder how far this trend will go. We visit these many towns and cities, and think how charming it might be to live there — until realizing, your neighborhood would be overrun by tourists most of the year. Is this the future of all unique places around the globe? On the other hand, perhaps most people live in the suburbs, which might be just as pleasant as the downtowns, and never see the tourists. That’s our situation back in California.
• In Palma, many of the shops and cafes were indeed closed on Sundays, as we were advised might be true. But not all, at least not in the tourist areas, which meant the entire old town area of the city.
• There are indeed American fast food restaurants in all these cities — especially McDonald’s and Burger King, and less frequently KFC and Domino’s; and there seems to be one Hard Rock Cafe in each city, at the center of the tourist area.
• I was going to mention how unexpectedly warm it had been on this trip, October in Europe; we brought mostly long-sleeved shirts and worried about inclement weather. Instead, it was unseasonably warm and sunny the first several days of our trip — until Palma, and again Monday in Barcelona, when it was mostly overcast and sprinkled a bit both days. We even broke out our umbrella in Palma.

Monday we were in Barcelona; today, Tuesday, in Marseille. Notes on those to come.

Saturday, 8 October–

The Spanish port city of Alicante. Short version: another port city, another castle, another cathedral, more old-town narrow streets filled with cafe tables, another bullfighting ring.

We did an excursion here, i.e. a bus tour, and the first stop was the castle on the hill, up a narrow road originally designed for donkeys, as the guide pointed out, and which allows for only one bus at a time, alternating uphill and downhill. This castle isn’t as old as the two we saw in Lisbon and Málaga; its famous moment in history was that it was severely damaged during the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, and sections of it have only been partially rebuilt. We spent over an hour there, then the bus took us through parts of town, the shopping district, past the bullfighting ring (they’re like football stadiums but circular, and increasingly used for other things than bullfights, our guide explained), and then let us off for a walking tour, past the city’s rather plain cathedral, the town center plaza full of wedding ceremonies in preparation and some kind of handball tournament, then leaving us at the esplanade along the waterfront, a palm tree lined walkway decorated with two million tiles in curved patterns, for an hour of free time. We found a cafe on a side street to eat paella and fried sardines. We’ve noticed that on the one hand, the cliche that Europeans don’t do ice in drinks (as Americans do) seems no longer an issue, in our experience so far; they provide ice with soda or cold tea without being asked. On the other hand, we still have to beg for the bill (check), even when we’re on a deadline to catch our tour bus; you’d think the local vendors, especially in tourist areas, would be a bit more attentive in that regard.

Now I have several observations about our whole trip that I’ve neglected to mention so far — I’ve been collecting them in my iPhones notes.

• I should have mentioned that the historical significance of our first two ports, Cádiz and Málaga, is that they were the westernmost settlements of the Phoenicians, the first great civilization to sail the Mediterranean and establish an empire, albeit commercial rather than militaristic; and this hundreds of years before the Romans came along and took over those settlements and renamed them. Alicante, in contrast, has no pre-Roman history.
• Cod is everywhere on the Portuguese menus but, one waiter explained to us, it is not a local fish. It’s all imported from Norway.
• The cars they drive: In Portugal and in Spain, they’re mostly German and French. Lots of VWs, lots of BMWs (though smaller models, nothing larger than a 3 series), quite a few Mercedes, even a few Audis. Then the French: Citroen and Peugeot. Japanese cars, Toyotas and Hondas, though usually models you don’t see in the US. Virtually no American cars, though I have seen a couple Fords, again models you don’t see in the US. And then makes and models unfamiliar to me: Toledo, Clio, Ibiza, Skoda. I could look them up.
• In Portugal, there’s an item on every restaurant tab for “couvert”. It’s a charge for the bread, olives, and whatnot that would be ‘complementary’ anywhere else.
• In Málaga, but no other city we’ve been to, the stoplight pedestrian signals display an animated walking man when it first turns green. There’s also a count-down counter in seconds. As the counter passes 30 or so, the walking man animation starts running. When it gets down to 10 seconds or so, the animation runs really fast. When it turns red, the counter resets and counts down the red light.
• Especially in Málaga, all the young men have beards.
• Tapas, we’ve been told, is a term that originally described complementary pastries set on a plate that covered your drink.
• The sommelier’s story: Anyone who’s been on a cruise probably knows about the work conditions of the staff — working round the clock for months or years without a break. On our ship, the first night we had dinner in the Grand Dining Room, and ordered wine, a sommelier came to help us choose. He’s a young man with a red beard, a maroon vest, and big chain around his neck that signifies his status. I asked casually about how long he’d been with the ship, and he explained that he’s on his third contract, how each contract is for six months, and how he never has a chance to leave the boat — like living in a prison, he explained cheerfully, and then went on to service other guests.
   
  We saw him again two nights later, and he remembered our stateroom number and the bottle of wine we hadn’t finished (a Spanish white) and had saved for our next meal there. (A useful function of cruise ships!) We’d also noticed how the dining room hostess had remembered us, and complemented him on his memory. He explained that he had trained as a classical pianist, and was good at memorizing scores.

I’m posting this Sunday morning, local time, while we do our own laundry in the provided laundry room. We’re in Palma, on the island of Mallorca, and will head out in an hour or two to explore on our own.