Cruising the Med To Barcelona

Saturday April 16^th

Day at sea on our way to Spain and it’s a lovely warm day today. The first officer said it was 18 degrees at noon so another alfresco meal on deck at the patio grill – making the most of the good weather – while we can!!

Played shuffleboard this afternoon after a few glasses of red and I won...again...hooray.

Sunday April 17^th

Happy Birthday Vance......60 minus 1 today!!!....sounds better than plain old 59.

Arrived in Barcelona at 8am to another beautiful warm sunny day. Palm Sunday today so we decided not to brave the queues to visit Gaudi’s famous cathedral The Sagrada Familia. Instead we walked Las Ramblas the pedestrian promenade that runs down to the port. It is something for everyone.... somewhere to see and be seen, a meeting place, a street market and somewhere to just stroll or take a cup of coffee in the warm morning sun. Apparently it’s even better at night with mime artists and musicians but we sail at 7pm so we’ll miss it. We have decided to ‘do’ Barcelona again on a long weekend direct from Bristol.

In the afternoon I visited the Codorniu cellars on a complimentary shore excursion. Vance stayed onboard in the suite as he’s still a bit poorly and wanted to rest up ready for his big night!! The tour of the famous Cava cellars was amazing. We were taken around on a little train that sped through miles of underground tunnels. Afterwards we were treated to flamenco dancing while we enjoyed drinks and snacks.

Civitavecchia the Port For Rome

Friday April 15^th

Today is the last change-over day of our World Cruise and we have lost some of our world cruisers and there are now only forty of us left - the rest of the guests are ‘seggies’. So glad we are staying on for the final segment to Southampton...I would have hated to leave early because we have become one big family.

We went into Civitavecchia to do some shopping and then just walked around looking at the local sights. Lots of the guests took  the train, coach or taxi into Rome – about 90 minutes -  but we didn’t bother as we’ll probably do a long weekender direct from Bristol later.

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Civitavecchia is a major cruise and ferry port and the main starting point for sea connections from central Italy to Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Tunis and Barcelona. Iin fact docked next to us in port was the MSC Fantasia - a huge cruise ship with over 3000 passengers - that dwarfed our beautiful Sojourn. But ours is best!!

Today was very cold at just 13 degrees – not what we’ve been used to – can we go back to Papeete please???

We left Italy at just after 6pm and will sail between Corsica and Sardinia this evening heading for Barcelona in Spain.

Cruising the Strait Of Messina to Sorrento - Italy

Wednesday April 13^th

Day at sea today and we meet up with the Seabourn Spirit around 9am this morning. Good to see one of what is known as The Little Sisters again as she circled our Sojourn as the captain brought us to a full stop for the event. Both ships greeted each other with the traditional three blasts of the ship’s horn.

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At 6:30pm we sailed through The Strait of Messina which separates Sicily from mainland Italy. Not really much to see but I took a couple of photos anyway. Later that evening at 10:30pm we sailed by the volcanic island of Stromboli which is still active. I hoped to see the fire and smoke erupting from the top but due to cloud cover all we saw was a triangular silhouette in the dark. Sorry folks no photos of this one.

Thursday April 14^th

Arrived in Sorrento at 8am to a beautiful clear, sunny, warm morning. The town overlooks the bay of Naples and its luxury hotels which hug the vertical rocky coastline regularly attract the rich and famous...and us!! It’s also famous for Limoncello, a digestive made from lemon rinds, alcohol, water and sugar. Most people drink it neat or ‘on the rocks’ but I like mine with Champagne...surprise, surprise.

We went up to the town square and wandered the old cobbled alleyways and shopping areas buying little gifts and trinkets. We met most of the other guests, apart from those who had taken the ship tour to Pompei, who also had the same idea.

Back on ship for an Italian lunch of pizza, salad and wines in the lunchtime sun at the Patio Grill – bliss!!

Heraklion – Crete

Tuesday April 12^th

Arrived 8am at Heraklion which is the largest city and capital of Crete. It is also the fourth largest city in Greece.

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Our tour today was to the ruins of Knossos which were excavated and restored by Sir Arthur Evans an English gentleman of independent means. It was March 16^th 1900 that archeologist Sir Arthur purchased the entire site and started massive excavations. He named the culture he discovered as Minoan and the whole site he named The Palace of Minos.

It’s amazing that even though we’ve been to Crete so many times over the years this is our first visit to Knossos.

Returning to the ship we had a lazy lunch on the back deck of The Colonnade and drinking dry crispy white wine while watching the stunning coastline of Crete pass by. What a lovely way to spend a Tuesday afternoon!!

Clocks go back one hour tonight so we must be almost back to GMT...I think!!

Cruising the Med

Monday April 11^th

There is a real temperature change today – downwards - so no sunbathing. We spent most of the day in the Sojourn Square catching up with friends, drinking coffee (with a danish...or two) and reading the Daily Mail.

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Tonight was a special World Cruise Event – The Black & White Party. It started with a cocktail party in the Grand Salon which the staff had decorated in the black and white theme and it looked really stylish and fabulous. Everyone was dressed in black or white.During cocktails we were shown a DVD of highlights of our world cruise to date with pictures of us all in different places around the world. It will be updated at the end of our sojourn and we will all get a copy.

We then moved upstairs to the Colannade restaurant where the tables and surroundings had been decorated in black and white for a fabulous meal. A great evening was had by all.

Transiting The Suez Canal To Ashdod – Israel

Saturday April 9^th

We have a convoy!! There are 21 ships in our transit convoy – we are first (of course!!) and The Queen Elizabeth is 18^th in line astern from us.

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It’s amazing to spend the day seeing land on both sides of us and still cruising as usually all we see on sea days is water.

The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt connecting the Med and the Red Sea. It opened in November 1869 after ten years of construction work and allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without having to navigate around Africa.

The canal is 120 miles long, 79 feet deep and in places 673 feet wide. We were told that Egypt charges $250,000 for our ship The Sojourn to transit – big bucks...wonders who has been getting all the money Mr former prime minister!! We were all asked to keep our balcony doors closed during the transit due to the high concentration of flies in this area – sun bathing today was a bit annoying as they were all over you...hope they stay in Egypt when we leave the canal.

Clocks go forward one hour tonight as we will be going eastwards to Ashdod in Israel tomorrow.

Sunday April 10^th

Arrive 7am at Ashdod in Israel. The port of Ashdod is Israel’s largest port accounting for 60% of the countries imported goods.

Most people have gone on tour to Jerusalem but as we are both still feeling a bit under the weather we have decided to stay on board and recharge our batteries. It’s a pity to miss the holy city but I’m sure we can share in other people’s stories when they get back.

Decided to play the golf putting game again this afternoon...and I came second!!...Vance reminded me that there were only two people playing!!

Sokhna, Pyramids and The Sphinx – Cairo

Friday April 5^th

Arrived 7am at Sokhna the state of the art port that is the gateway to the legendary city of Cairo. After an early morning call and breakfast we took the two hour drive through the barren desert to Cairo. The city is a mix of poverty, filth and the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World – The Great Pyramid Of Cheops.

First we visited the Giza Plateau to see the three pyramid complex known as The Great Pyramids for a photo stop. We then descended to The Great Pyramid of Cheops where we could walk around and actually touch the stones and if you wanted to you could go inside. As the tunnel was only four foot high we decided against it. No bad backs for us thank you.

From here we further descended to visit the mysterious guardian of this ancient mortuary complex, the Sphinx. This massive statue with the body of a lion and the head of a human was carved from a single piece of Giza Plateau bedrock  - we took some fabulous photos.

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After a wonderful photographic session which included beating off the local trinket sellers who after offering to take our photos then wanted dollars for their help we travelled to the Nile to board a river boat for lunch. We cruised along the Nile through Cairo viewing all the local sights which included the burnt out building made famous by the People’s Revolution in Tahrir Square this February.

While on the riverboat we heard the sounds of the celebration protest being held in the square and then the sound of what we thought was gunfire but turned out to be firecrackers. However later that night it turned ugly and there was gunfire and two demonstrators were shot. Luckily we were back on board by then.

A long day but well worth the experience and we’re so glad we made the effort.