What I did on my holiday

After Stratford sort of took priority over the last week, (what, I got distracted by Shakespeare and David Tennant, who’d have thought it!), it’s back to the holiday. I do enjoy being able to share holiday pics on line.

Anyway, our cruise… we went from Genoa, to Naples, to Palermo (Sicily), to Tunis, to Palma, to Barcelona to Marseille, and back to Genoa, in the space of a week. For something that was supposed to be relaxing, in that we got transported to all these places and only had to unpack once, it was absolutely exhausting.

When we chose the cruise, we selected one which took us to a different port everyday, thinking that days at sea would be ‘boring’. As it turned out, it would have been nice to have had the chance to relax. Yes, I guess we could have just stayed on the boat in port, as some of the Italian families did, but where would the fun have been in that? I came back feeling I needed another holiday. But I’d seen a lot.

We went with an Italian cruise line, so there were only about two dozen Brits on board, but lots of Italians, also French, Spanish, Germans, Austrians, Canadians, Estonians, Americans (usually living up to their reputation and being loud and obnoxious), so we got to talk to lots of nationalities, though we didn’t use much Italian as most of the crew were from Indonesia.

My highlights were:
On board
· Just looking at the sunset over the sea
· Dressing for dinner (though only 3 nights out of 7, what’s that about?)
· Posing in the posh frocks at any opportunity
· Walking the almost deserted decks after dinner
· The Atrium where the string quartet played every evening, and you couldn’t tell you were on a boat (well, when the floor wasn’t lurching, that is!)
· Talking to two guys from…York!

In port
· Eating pizza in Naples

· Tunisia – I was in Africa, I could hardly believe it

· A fabulous café in Palma
· A rooftop restaurant on La Rambla, Barcelona, where we met our Estonian dinner companions
· La Sagrada Familia – pictures just don’t do it justice. You literally do catch your breath when you see it.
· Aix en Provence – Cezanne lived there, he even bought a flat, but our guide was far to interested in the cathedral to tell us anything about him.

I guess this sort of holiday is a ‘taster’, to discover places that you then want to go back to. I was pleasantly surprised with Palma, and I’d love to see more of Barcelona, as I felt we only scratched the surface. I fell a bit in love with Provence, I want to see more of the area, I want to go to the Chateau D’If, (I need to re-read the Count of Monte Cristo), Arles and Avignon.