11/9–Fornalutx

The drive from Valledmossa to Fornalutx is lovely, if not a little harrowing with narrow lanes, sharp turns and rocks sticking out of the hillside making clearance an issue.  It is sort of like Amalfi, only less traveled. 

We follow the coast, winding around the hillsides with the pounding surf way down below us.  We pass through the adorable little town of Deia, where we stop to take pictures of the gorgeous terraced hillsides and the old stone buildings perched all above the sea.

The road towards inland, curving along in between those typical stone walls and up into the mountains where there are acres and acres of olive trees. Everywhere you look, olive trees flourish. We didn’t really realize there were so many olive orchards here.

The drive to Fornalutx takes us through the outskirts of Soller so we get a taste of what our afternoon will look like. Soller is a larger town than Fornalutx and they both vie for the title of “prettiest town” in Palma.  We’ll be the judge!  Ten more minutes and we arrive in the teeny hamlet of Fornalutx. And teeny it is.  We drive right through the tiny, one car width main street, passing the main square and then down the hill and poof  - we are out of Fornalutx.  It is tiny. 

Ed expertly manages a u-turn and we head back through the tiny, one car width main street (with the blind hair pin curve at the main square, btw) and find parking in a little lot above the square.  This place is adorable!  Gorgeous old buildings with ivy creeping up their walls and flowering plants everywhere.

Meandering about  here takes about 2 minutes!  We were getting pretty hungry by this point, and decided to give up on restaurant on the hillside and just eat here.

We end up on the main square at one of the few cafes open.  Sitting on the square, we order tapas to share – a mixed grill platter with egg (Ed is in heaven), mixed vegetables and beef ( a local specialty) and pork tongue.  Yes, pork tongue – after all my years of eating beef tongue, this was a first – and it was totally yummy. Atmosphere and great food – what more could you want?

11/9–Palma–Valldemossa

Another day, another change of piers. We are not coming into the dock closest to town. Today, we are somewhere different, out where the ferry boats load.  There is a shuttle into town, but we have a car arranged at Avis, which is pretty much equi-distance between the pier and where the shuttle allegedly drops off. So – we’re passing on the 9 Euro shuttle and just walking the mile plus to the car.  It will be our morning exercise.

It’s a gorgeous day again, just a little breezy and chilly.  We make our way off the ship and out of the pier area quickly, walking with the pianist from last evening’s show who is going home.  A delightful guy who we enjoy talking to as we wait to be released and then walk together out of the pier area.  We start our trek into town, but as we cross through the parking area, I spot a little office “hut” in the middle that is advertising rental cars.  Hmmmm…..Avis isn’t pre-paid, so we go over and get a car for actually a little less than our reservation at Avis – and it is right there at the pier. Bonus!

The rental agent is lovely, and we’re signed up and in the car quite quickly.  We have plans today to go to Fornalutx, Soller and Valldemossa, in that order, so that we can head back to Palma on the twisty turning hill roads and stop at a restaurant up in the hills that we’ve read about.  But the rental agent says we should go to Valldemossa first, then head up to Soller and Fornalutx.  She says that is the better way to go – so we take her advice and head up to the town made famous by Chopin, who visited with his lover, George Sand in 1838.

The drive isn’t too taxing, starting out on 4 lane highways, then narrowing into smaller 2 lane roadways climbing up through the hills.  The main road leads right into Valldemossa and we find the car park pretty easily.  It is windy and sort of blustery up here, so we get our bearings, taking a few snapshots of the surrounding hillsides and great cobblestone streets…

… then ducking into a cafe called – Le Cappuccino – for, yes, you guessed it – cappuccinos!  Probably the most expensive cappuccinos we’ve had since Florence all those years ago, but it is warm inside (with a real wood burning fire going strong) and there is wifi – not that we really want to catch up with the world after this awful election, but….we do.

Done with the depressing news, we make our way back out into the chilly wind and head up to the Real Cartuja de Valldemossa, the monastery, church and palace here in town.  Timing is everything, and we manage to get about a 5 minute lead on the bus tour that is pouring into town – so we have a very peaceful visit.  The Monastery was founded by Carthusian monks and active until 1835 when they were expelled.  Afterward the ownership of the Monastery transferred into private ownership and 9 different people split up the living quarters. This is how Chopin came to spend a winter here in these rooms.

The first section of the visit is the church, the interior of which is completely dark wood,  making it incredibly warm and welcoming.  We don’t spend a lot of time here, but head off into the Monastery and tour all the available rooms.  The monk’s pharmacy, still outfitted with all the items that were in the dispensary, the Prior’s cell with the huge library and art collection…

…then out into the garden overlooking the hills outside of town.  More rooms contain Chopin’s collection of art, as well as handwritten letters from George Sands about their stay, lots of handwritten music sheets and artwork.  It’s quite a collection of Chopin memorabilia, supposedly the “world’s second most important, after Warsaw.”

After the Chopin area, we continue through the Monastery to the municipal museum which has a display of the old Guasp printing press, which is really amazing. The old wooden press and a lot of the engravings are on display. Next is a collection from the archduke of Austria, and other pieces of art. There is also a Chopin museum in the center of the Monastery, but it costs extra so we don’t bother with it. 

The end of the tour takes us through the Palace of King Sancho, built by the king’s father – supposedly because the air was better for Sancho’s asthma.  A church built on the end of the palace is used for Chopin concerts now, but we don’t have time for the concert with our jam packed schedule. We continue through the palace though, marveling at the artwork, the grandiose staircase and decorations.  At the end of our tour, we exit through the cool little garden with the nymph fountain…

….and make our way back through town and into our little car heading toward Fornalutx.

11/8–Girona and back to Barcelona

Back in the car, we head in the direction of Barcelona with a pit stop in Girona.  Alice manages to get us out of the Figueres – with a little glitch at the start – we cannot go the wrong direction on a one way street!  But, eventually we make it out of the narrow medieval streets and onto the broad boulevard out of town.

We make a quick pit stop at the Dia grocery story and pick up some great peanut snacks – along with way too much chocolate.  Oh and liquid refreshments as well for me – I have my opener in hand! Then off we go to Girona – an ancient town, several thousand years old, that is renowned as the preferred city in which to live in country wide polls.

The drive doesn’t take us that long, as we are aiming for the north end of the city, beyond the ancient walls, to go to a restaurant that gets fantastic reviews.  We manage to find the parking areas I scoped out online – free – and right behind the restaurant. Unfortunately, they are chock full with narrow lanes that are almost one-way.  We drive around a couple of times, and are just about to give up when we spot a teeny spot up against a little sapling tree. That’s for us. Yay Smart Cars!  We fit in there perfectly and go off in search of Txalaka for pintxos.  And darn our luck!  We get there to find a sign explaining they will be closed from 11/7 to 11/11 for repairs.  Aw, come on! We had so been looking forward to this place – and now we are on our own trying to find an alternative.

Poop.  I have the address of another place, inside the walls, but we can’t find the street on the map app, so we decide to just head in the direction of the old town and see what we can find.  We end up finding a bunch of cafes on the Placa Independencia.  We scour the menus and end up at Xibarri – which looks like they have good tapas and pinxtos.  The waiter speaks broken English, and when we about the pinxtos menu (3 for 11.50 euros) he says that menu isn’t good today. And, well, we don’t really understand, so we order off the tapas menu – Albondigos (meatballs), canneloni, chorizo and and pulpo alla gallega as a main.  It’s all excellent – too much food – as usual, but still so good. Sitting out on the placa, in the sunshine, eating and drinking. 

Later figure out what the waiter was trying to tell us – today all the pinxtos are only 1 Euro.   Bummer. But then again, the tapas were not that pricey, and they were all excellent, so really, in the long run, it didn’t matter.

Now that we’ve staved off hunger, it is time to wander.  We find our way across the pedestrian bridge into Girona and wander the neat little narrow alleys and lanes.  Up the steps to the cathedral, there are some gorgeous friezes and then on the cathedral plaza, beautiful views of the Saint Felix church tower soaring against a blue sky studded with white puffy clouds.

We could probably use more time here too, but decide not to press our luck with Barcelona traffic or construction diversions – so we gaze out over the town for a bit, then head back over the bridge..

..and into our car.

The drive back into town is not that bad at all.  We make it without any diversions whatsoever – no construction issues, and not much traffic.  We come out of a corkscrew tunnel up onto the circle in front of the World Trade Center (I always wondered from where those middle lanes appeared!) and navigate our way (without Alice because she’s lost satellite reception) back to Sixt to drop off the little Smart Car.

Easy enough!  As we walk back to the shuttle bus, we find a little mini market where we score those tall, skinny beers Ed needs – then manage to get the last seats on the next shuttle and are all aboard in no time at all.  Nice diversion from our normal Barcelona city wanderings.

11/8–Barcelona and Figueres

We have a full day planned today.  Getting a car and driving out of the city, north, almost to the French border.  So, we are of course, up and out first thing – before the announcement that we are cleared.  We chose to take the city shuttle out of the port – instead of the blue port shuttle bus, which will stop at other terminals.  May have been a mistake.  They said the first shuttle was at 8:30, but as it turns out, it doesn’t leave until closer to 9:00.  In the meantime, the blue bus has already come and gone.  Oh well…not much we can do….we have all day, we just want to be back here before 5:00 so we don’t have to drive through Barcelona in the dark.

The bus finally leaves, and we make our way up the Paral-lel to the Sixt office.  It’s an easy walk, Ed has checked in already, so we just show his passport, sign the form and we are off an out in our little orange and black Smart car.  How cute – it’s our first Smart car and it is great – roomy inside and just the right size for Europe. 

We get off to a good start, heading out of town on the ring road near the water. But then construction hits.  Argh!  There are lots of diversions here for construction around the Olympic stadium and we end up missing a couple turns, trying to listen to Alice and navigate closed roads and new turns around road construction. At one point we get stuck in the middle of an intersection, on the trolley tracks with an articulated bus in front of us. 

We finally manage to get out of the city construction mess and out onto one of the thoroughfares that will lead us to the highway.  We lost about 15 minutes, which at this point could be an issue.  But, we’ll just play it by ear as we go.

Our first destination is Figueres, home to Salvador Dali and the museum he created in an old burned out theater at the center of town. We navigate there beautifully once on the major highways – after paying enormous tolls – wow – they know how to keep their roads funded, that’s for sure – and watching the Alps come into view. It is a gorgeous day and the mountains look just like a painting off in the near distance.  There is no way to get a good photo unfortunately, but trust me, they are absolutely stunning out in the distance ahead.

We drive into Figueres without further issue and find the garage behind the museum easily. We are lucky it is not summer, or a weekend.  All the reviews say the museum gets packed and the line to just buy tickets can be over an hour.  Off season, we are able to walk right up, purchase our tickets and walk straight into the museum.  And what a museum!  Dali is an incredibly interesting – and incredibly odd – man.  He has taken the burned out hull of the municipal theater, ruined at the end of the Spanish Civil War, and turned into into the largest surrealistic object in the world. 

It totally defies description!  We enter into the courtyard where we are immediately immersed into Dali’s strange universe.  An old car with mannequins dressed as Dali and other passengers inside, a warrior chick statue on the hood, an odd ship of some sort on a pole towering above, and naked mannequins perched in all the tower windows surrounding the courtyard.  Truly bizarre.

Once inside, the oddities don’t stop.  In the stage area, there is a huge mural we don’t really understand – but hey – it’s Dali.  We’ll have to get a book when we get home to sort out all of this.  There is also this amazing portrait of a naked woman, painted from behind her.  When you look at it with the naked eye, you see the woman and all sorts of cubes of color. When you take a photograph of it, you see a man’s face who resembles (is???) Abe Lincoln.  Cool.

The museum winds you through a total of 22 rooms with various displays – from Dali’s works –paintings, sculptures, installations -  to other artist’s works to jewelry designed by Dali.  To get to all the rooms, you use the rounded corridors of the theater, also lined with art and sketches and bizarre installations – like this one made of corn cobs, baby dolls and hanks of hair that, from a distance, looks like a face in the doorway.

There is also the Mae West room – a huge installation that uses a sofa in the shape of lips, some bizarre other sculptures and 3D paintings on the wall to approximate Mae West in 3D.  From the ground – it looks like random pieces of bizarre art….

…but once we wait in line and climb up to a platform above the installation, the framing of the photo makes it appear like a 3D face….

The whole place is like this! Even the rooms where he lived are an interesting mix of styles – which a representation of his famous watch painting above his bizarrely footboard bed and the totally cool sofa next to it.

We could spend hours here (and I’d love to post more photos, but that will have to wait until we fix the photo reduction program), unfortunately we don’t have that luxury, so we wander through, marveling at all the different periods and styles Dali has gone through. He really is prolific and we are both interested in reading more about him and his life.

Perusing the gift shop, I find another glass case with Port Alguer, one of the paintings that I love, so I snapped it up as a back up for my Monet case, which I use every day and am terrified it will break one day and I won’t be able to find a replacement.

That purchase made, we head back to the car and on to Girona.  There is much more to see here in Figueres – like the Rambla, the castle, the other Dali museums, including his house and his castle – but not today. Maybe on our next visit…next year.

11/7–Toulon

For us – our first port.  LOL.  We awoke to a beautiful, if not chilly, sunrise in La Seyne-Sur-Mer

Today, we have purchased a shuttle boat ticket from the ship – which cost a couple of Euros more than the city public transportation shuttle, but leaves right from the port dock – thus eliminating a 10 minute walk just to pick up the shuttle.  We’re off the ship pretty quickly and find the shuttle stop right outside.  The meeting time is 8:15, but there are hardly any other passengers here.  We stand around, freezing.  It is so cold here – with the wind that hasn’t died down yet.  It’s brutal.  Of course the people in line behind us are whining and complaining.  One of the shuttle guys and I just roll our eyes.  I tell him somebody just has to complain, don’t they? He says, yes, c’est la vie.  Yep – that’s right.  LOL.

We finally get on the boat, then take the quick little ride over to Toulon. It’s early when we arrive, just a bit before 9 am.  We have a whole day planned visiting a few cool looking museums.  Unfortunately, as we peruse the map the TI girl has provided, we see that all but one museum are closed on Mondays.  Darn.  We know Monday’s are typically bad days for museum openings, but we’d not seen anything about this in our research.  Oh well – at least we have 1 museum we can visit. But not until 10, so we’ve got  oodles of time to kill. 

We do so by wandering through the pedestrian area in town, and finding a little cafe for a cappuccino.  Turns out to be the most expensive cappuccino since years ago in Florence, but, heck – it’s warm inside, we have wi-fi and we’ve nothing else to do.  It works!

Back out on the street, we head toward the Photography museum, which is the most interesting on our list, just in case they are open as a special thing today.  No such luck, but we do find a lovely little piazza right out front with a cool globe fountain.

Continuing to wander, we meander along the promenade beside the docks, looking at restaurants and the odd little souvenir shop.  It’s still too early, but we head to the Maritime Museum anyway, and end up sitting outside in the gorgeous sunshine until they open.

We are among the first inside – there are only 3 others ahead of us – and we get out discount tickets (show our cruise sea pass and we get 1 Euro 50 off), don our audio guides and commence the tour.

It’s actually a very interesting museum.  The first thing we get to do is go back outside.  With our audio guides!  Totally unheard of, but it is perfect because here we get a history lesson on the ornate building entrance, which was once  actually a free standing arch used as a gate to the city.  They moved the gate, in one piece to the building here to create the entrance. It is ornate and beautiful and must have been quite a spectacle slowly inching its way through the city.

Back inside, we follow the yellow submarines (yes, yellow submarines) through various displays.  There are paintings depicting the harbor and the shipyards from ancient times to current days.  It turns out that Toulon harbor is the largest naval shipyard in all of Europe.  It grew and grew over the years, adding more dock space, and eventually adding  two drydocks for shipbuilding.  The they dredged the harbor and made it possible for the largest aircraft carriers in the world – the nuclear Charles D’Gualle and the USS Wisconsin to berth here. It is now the home port for the Charles D’Gualle. 

There are a great many models and charts and displays.  There is a miniature dredging machine from the 1800s which is amazing.  A replica of the rope factory – which is a huge long (but not wide) building where rope was made in a single long strand reaching all the way through the halls of the shotgun type building.  There ship bells and steering mechanisms…

…and huge replicas of sailing vessels used to train soldiers how to sail and fight…

So much to see and do.  We spend a good long time walking through the museum and exclaiming over the various exhibits.

Once done, we go to see the actual rope factory building in person (even though the cute girl at the front desk says that it is not as nice as the replica they have on display).  It isn’t as nice – or as detailed, but it is really sort of cool, looking at this huge structure that was used only to make rope in the day.

After the rope factory, we slowly make our way back to the waterfront promenade, this time looking at restaurant menus in earnest to determine where we will eat later.  We check out one place that looks good and has a mixed antipasto type plate for me – it’s mussels for Ed  - this place is the mussel capital and you know Ed won’t miss out on his moules frites!

But first, we are looking for a grocery store.  We have seen people with Carrefour bags, but we can’t seem to find the store. We meander up another pedestrian only street, in search of the “provencal food market” (sic) that is shown on our tourist map. That’s is not to be found either.  Sigh.  We do find a little, teeny grocery store – more  convenience store on steroids – where we provision Ed up with beverages.  I’m eyeing a lovely looking French Sauvignon Blanc for 3 Euro when I realize I left the darn corkscrew on the ship.  Darn it.  Oh well, my supplies will not be stocked here in France.  Pooh.

Having wasted enough time walking around, it is now time for lunch. We head back to L’air du Temps restaurant and snag a perfect table outside in the sun.  The menus are a hoot – a comic depiction of all sorts of American TV shows and movies…

…but however odd the menu cover is, the food is not. Service and food are outstanding – and we enjoy everything immensely while we bask in the warm sunny weather.

Fully sated, we head back toward the shuttle boat, passing what we are calling a young Neptune, and the lovely little sailboats all bobbing in the harbor.

Then it is back on the shuttle boat, across the harbor, and back onto Silhouette in time for afternoon canapés!  And the gym of course.  Another day done, and another day closer to our Atlantic Ocean crossing.

11/6–Not Livorno

Our first port was scheduled to be Livorno, where we had a car rented and had plans to visit 2 small hill towns, then lunch in Lucca at our favorite little restaurant there.  Unfortunately, those plans were derailed as a huge cold front rolled in with heavy, gusting winds.  The Captain changed the port to La Spezia, a little ways up the coast, closer to Genova and Cinque Terre.

We decided, first time ever, to skip going into town and make this an unscheduled sea day.  It is pouring outside, it is Sunday, and we know nothing much will be open in town – not until later if at all.  So, we are staying inside and hanging out.

End of blog!  Seriously – we hung out and didn’t do anything remarkable….so end of blog for the day.

11/5–On to the Silhouette

We are up and out very early (unfortunately!). We’d prefer to hang out here longer, but the car must be back before 10am so we aren’t charged an extra day.  We’re already packed and ready – so we quietly lock up and walk down to the elevator (carrying the suitcase because it makes way too much noise on the cobblestones) then into the car and out of the garage.  I walk the parking pass back to the cashier and we’re off – heading up in the Umbrian hills, and out to the coast and our ship.

The drive is actually lovely, on little lanes through countryside and farm land then into bigger villages and towns, finally hitting the new auto-way – new at least to Alice who doesn’t recognize the road and thinks we are driving in the middle of the fields.

It is an easy hour and a half, and even though we miss the first exit for Civitavecchia (again, because it is new and Alice instructs us to take the exit 1 KM past where it actually is), we make it to Eurocar without any real issues.  Except parking!  Thank heavens for small cars.  Ed is able to masterfully stuff the little Fiat Punto into a space right in front of the rental place.  Then we wait…in line…for a while.  There are 7 ships in port today, so there are many folks here picking up cars after their cruise, and probably for day trips.  There are 3 of us dropping off, and we finally are able to turn the car in and wheel our way across the street to the shuttle.

It all works out perfectly! Including the fact that just as we reach the shuttle bus, that is ready to leave, it starts to rain. Perfect timing – we barely get wet.  I just love it when a plan works!

At the port, all goes smoothly. We are one of the first groups to check in and to board, we only wait maybe 30 minutes total – and we are aboard before the Oceanview Cafe is even open for lunch. That’s a first.

We eat, hang out, finally get to go to our cabin and then just hang out, enjoying the balcony and waiting for the muster drill and sail away.

A seamless embarkation day.  Onward we sail toward Florida.