Final Stops for This One

A day at sea brought us to Ponta Delgada in the Azores.  Ponta Delgada is on Sao Miguel Island, the largest in the archipelago.  And that island is absolutely beautiful.

We took a tour to the Sete Cidades Crater Lake area.  There's a lake under there.  Really.

Apparently this cloud cover is not unusual in the morning.  What is unusual is this building.

It was a five-star hotel and spa.  After opening in 1989, the hotel only operated for a little more than a year before shutting its doors. According to reports, for about a decade the empty halls were patrolled by guards and dogs, but with no one interested in paying them any longer, it seems that they simply disappeared some time in the mid-2000s.  We understand that the nightclub was the bomb and the views from the suites were fabulous.  In the afternoons, of course.

We stopped in the nearby village and had a walk around to enjoy the sights and sounds of a lazy weekend morning.

They grow pineapples on Sao Miguel at the Arruda Pineapple Plantation, and not the ones we are accustomed to seeing at the grocery store.  These are kind of shorter and fatter, and much more flavorful.  They are grown in greenhouses under very strict conditions and are pretty costly.  They make some very tasty (and very strong) liqeur from them.  We had a free taste.  Our advice:  put it on ice cream.  Here's a few more examples of the island's scenery.

Next day, more Azores.  This time we were in Horta, on the island of Faial, and we were off to see the Capelinhos volcano.  This one erupted as recently as 1957, so it is really young.  The area is a moonscape and we were reminded of our "adventure" on the volcano in Nicaragua...this was much safer and easier, but we did take a hike through the volcanic cinders.

From Capelinhos, we walked a good five miles down a vegetation lined path to the village of Varaduoro, a resort town with natural swimming pools near the sea.  It was a pretty hot walk, but worth it for the ocean views.  This was one time that we were glad to see the air conditioned bus!  Overall, the Azores were a pleasant surprise and an area we would consider visiting again.

Four days at sea lay ahead.  We took a leisurely pace, deviating a little south to avoid the Hurricane Florence disturbances, and heading for Bermuda.  On the last day out, it was so much for leisure.  We had a medical emergency and Captain Atanas (Captain Ubaldo bailed out at the last stop) poured the coals to it.  We arrived at St. George's in the wee hours of the morning, discharged the patient (he was recovering well at last report), and drifted around until morning when we could dock.  There's not too much to see in this little town, so we hung out on the ship on this overnight stop.  One more day at sea and we were back in Manhattan.

Wow.  What a trip.  So much to see and absorb.  Icebergs, midnight suns, Soviet blocks, quaint seaside villages, vinyards, volcanos...but only three wiener dogs. 

Final count?  Gordon wins, as usual, two dogs to one.

The Last Leg Begins

The ship turned over in Barcelona.  We shuttled into downtown, grabbed a couple of things we needed at Decathlon, cruised the sale rack at Desigual and then bought a take-out dinner:  Bread, Iberico ham and sausage, olive oil, and two bottles of Rioja.  Mission accomplished, return to the ship, have a glass of champagne, get ready to sail.

OK, so here's the thing.  Some people on the cruise would almost kill for this little piece of paper:

Us?  We said WTF?????  How in the heck...?????

The next day, we called at Ibiza.  Sailing in, we noticed an area perched on top of the hill that reminded us of Eze in France. 

Ashore, we joined an excursion that took us up there to walk through the area and down the hill to the fisherman's village. 

It's not really a fisherman's village anymore, it's a tourist trap.  Ibiza is a popular tourist destination due to its well-known and nightclub based nightlife.  The amount of people coming and going around the ferry dock was staggering.

The guide said that the tourist season is about April to October.  After that, half of the place shuts down and all that's left is Spanish pensioners.

Next stop, Cartagena.  We made it into a sea day and waited to get into Malaga for our next mission.  There, we hot-footed it ashore for Marcona almonds and dried figs.  It isn't Spain if we don't have those!  After Malaga, we headed for Portimao, Portual.  We'd never seen the Algarve area, so we took a bus ride-around to check it out.  We always suspected that we would not like the Algarve  very much and our suspicions were confirmed.  It's got some redeeming qualities if you're really into beaches.

A day at sea brought us to Funchal, Madeira and our last chance for Portuguese goodies.  We walked into town for Rissois and custard tarts and returned with more candy (oh, the candy that was in our suite by this time!) and a bottle of Madeira.

Birthday, Regent Seven Seas Style and SOWAS

It was Gordon's birthday.

Our Steward, Vipin, gave Gordon a pet dog.

All this and the wait staff sang "happy birthday" to him in the Compass Rose restaurant, much to his embarrassment.  Pati swore that she had nothing to do with it.  And that was actually true.

Anyone who's cruised has heard of Safety of Life at Sea, or SOLAS.  It's thanks to SOLAS that we go to so many (expletive deleted) lifeboat drills. 

This, however, is SOWAS:

Around the West Side

More France!  We docked in Le Verdon and drove to Bordeaux, receiving an education (and a map) about the wines of the Bordeaux region.  We drink these all the time when we are in Nice, so a better understanding of what all that stuff on the labels means was exciting for us.  We had free time in the city, so we ate Cannele and got caught in the rain.  But check out this fountain!

The next day found us in Bilbao, Spain.  Yes, this was a really busy cruise.  We left town and wound our way up through the hills, often on one-lane roads.  Really, we'd come around a corner with the bus and screech to a halt, facing opposite direction traffic.  Lots of hand signals were exchanged and someone backed up into a driveway or wherever they could find to let the traffic pass.  It was fair, though, we backed up a couple of times, too.  Our destination was a place called Torre Loizaga, an estate owned by the family of Miguel de la Via, who benefited very greatly from Franco's modernization plans.  He owned a quarry and Franco needed construction material.  With his fortune, he bought cars.  Mostly Rolls Royce cars.  And so, the family now has the largest collection of Rolls Royces in Europe.  See the museum's website at    www.torreloizaga.com

This is really a private collection of automobiles, but Mr. de la Via hit a snag.  In Spain, or at least in this part of Spain, insurers will not cover classic cars.  The only way he could get them insured was to open the collection as a museum.  So, it's a museum, complete with restrooms, a snack bar, and a gift shop, but it's only open on Sundays for a few hours.  In hindsight, he said that he should have started an insurance company.

This is a huge collection!

This one was purchased from a wealthy gentleman from India.  How about that horn?

Later, we drove into Bilbao past the famous Guggenheim Museum with "The Puppy" out front.  Look it up for yourself, we don't take pictures through bus windows.  Or coach windows either.  We did walk around the old Quarter Casco Viejo where there was a festival taking place.  It was wild, but fun.  Here's an example of a typical Bilbao street (shooting over the heads of the revelers).

Next came Ferrol, Spain.  We drove to La Coruna and walked through the old town.  La Coruna is called the crystal city because of the sun glinting off these typical buildings.

Pretty place, really.

And there is still a convent with cloistered nuns.

And then a photo stop at the Tower of Hercules, built by the Romans in the First century.  Originally it was lower and wider, and underwent several modifications over the years, finally being coated with the current facades in 1788.  This started out like our visit to "Jesus of the Andes" in Rio.  The clouds kept sweeping over the tower:

But then, the clouds cleared and behold!

After Ferrol, we stopped in familiar Porto.  We hopped on the shuttle and went into town to see if our favorite liquor store, Cabaz do Infante, was still there.  It was exactly as it had always been, right down to the cashier, who looked at us and seemed to recall seeing us before.  The only difference we found was that a couple of the employees spoke some english.  We bought port.  Of course.

On to Lisbon, and this time we got the dock that's closer to the main shopping area.  We skipped breakfast and headed in for a brunch of Rissol de Camarao, Bacalhao fritters, and Pasteis de Nata.  We even brought back some Portuguese belly busters to have for breakfast the following day, which was going to be a long one.

The long day was a trip into Seville from Cadiz, Spain.  We added to the goody stash with sugared almonds, Iberico pate, and tortas from Ines Rosales.  www.inesrosales.com.  These are wonderful with some French duck mousse or terrine on them.

And then, finally, a day at sea.  Next stop Barcelona to turn the boat.  Again.  And go to lifeboat drill.  Again.

New Places on the North Side

The ship turned after an overnight in Amsterdam.  We just took a stroll around town (for once it wasn't raining) and got ourselves some stroopwafels.  First stop on the new leg was Zeebrugge, Belgium.  We've become very interested in WW I and WW II history.  Remember this poem?

At Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row by row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We visited Ypres, Belgium, which sits among the fields of Flanders where horrible trench warfare took place in the Ypres Salient.  A salient is a bulge in the front line of battle and it's dangerous because of the probability of becoming surrounded by the enemy.  Ypres has a wonderful museum that explains it all.  The area remembers these times with memorials and cemeteries all around the area.  First stop was Tyne Cot Cemetery:

Then on to the Menin Gate memorial:

And finally, Essex Farm.  See how the graves face different directions, and are not in orderly rows.  This is a battlefield cemetery and those who are buried here died either on the front line about a mile away or at the dressing station that immediately adjoins the cemetery.

This soldier was 15 years old.

Our next stop was Nantes, France, where we took a walking tour around the heart of town to see the castle:

And Saint Pierre Cathedral.

The good news was that we had about thirty minutes of free time and found a Monoprix store nearby.  Duck mousse, Duck terrine, and paprika peanuts were added to the goody stash that was growing in our suite.  By now, goodies were stashed in just about every available cubby hole.