Bills Posts

With a picture from Rome.

Not comparing towns, commenting on the pronunciation of Civitaveccia which is done with a hard capital C as in Church whereas I had been saying it with a soft C as in Citizen. I’ll have to break my habit as the former is correct.

I managed to get out for a bit of a walk this morning. It was rather nice, but I confess I think would rather have stayed in bed. But not to worry.

Sorry, a feeble post today. Late to bed and I’m feeling tired.

Yes, it’s still a picture from the cruise, but no, this isn’t about the cruise. Instead it’s about the book I am reading.

Have you ever bought a book, not knowing what to expect, but as you get into it, it become so exciting that you become almost breathless with what is happening and the anticipation of what is going to happen next?

This is what this book is doing to me. So what is it this tome of excitement? Is it a book of high eroticism? Or perhaps intensely action filled? Well, actually, they’d guess it’s more of the latter really, with none of the former unless you are the type of person who, if you will forgive the expression, gets their rocks off…on rocks.

Rocks violently crashing into rocks with sufficient force to liquify them, and fold them into the alpine mountain range, with the ripples running through the earths crust to end up at the Lulworth / Purbeck Monocline. All happening at the lightening geological speed of several hundred millimetres on years.

The book? Oh yes, it’s the Geology of the Jurassic Coast – The Isle of Purbeck, Weymouth to Studland by Paul Ensor and Malcolm Turnbull. Seriously, a riveting read.

Our third port of call was Livorno. Normally Livorno is the gate way to Florence & Pizza, we’ve been there before, so we decided on a different adventure. We wanted to experience Tuscany, which saw us on a coach heading for Sienna.

Sienna on a map looks pretty much as being in the middle of this classic area of Italy as it’s possible to be. It’s entirely understandable why it is such a popular area. There is no doubt that the iconic cypress trees and gently rolling countryside make for some beautiful scenery.

Of course, you do have to have a love of unremitting hot weather. Now, I don’t mind a bit of hot weather but not all year round, it was lovely to experience, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I wonder if there is a time of year when it’s a bit cooler?

Our visit to Monaco meant Azura anchoring at Ville Franche and the passengers being tendered in to the port. The tender could be a locally hired craft or one of cruise ships craft. In either case each craft can carry 100 – 150 people.

To smoothly get anything upto 3000 pax’s off and back on ship before it departs to its next port of call. There were two boarding points, our transit was quite smooth with the only delay waiting for the tender to load.

A five minute move across the water brought us to the port authorities. I’ve already written about our trip here; https://localitystories.com/2023/09/11/1101-out-of-sequence-monte-carlo-monaco-monte-carlo-or-bust/

Processing back through the port involved a bit of queue probably fifteen minutes or so, a short walk to the tender.

I remember being slightly frustrated at Elayne’s choice of seating location. I can’t remember why I was frustrated though. Perhaps I was because I was feeling a bit hot and bothered.

Either way, it had been an interesting and lovely day. As usual, we were pleased to get back on board.

The Capital of Corsica is Ajaccio. Of what we saw it’s was neat and well kept. We hopped on the road train which gave us a tour with a couple of photo stops on the way round. The first stop was at a big monument to Napoleon.

I know who Napoleon was of course, but what surprised me was the degree to which he is revered by Corsicans, and perhaps the French?

I have never thought of him like that. This wasn’t the only monument, there were statues including one of him surrounded by his four brothers.

He was born in Ajaccio, and his house is just off a small but very busy street. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to visit it.

Things like this remind me just how much I don’t know.

The train journey from Havant was smooth, except the train was loaded with cyclists and their bikes heading towards the Isle of Wight we think. I didn’t find out if there was an event on. There was no room for the luggage so we were partially blocking the aisle. We managed.

We only had a couple of minutes to wait for the ferry. One of the reasons I’ve separated out was because I want to write about the crossing. Many of the ports that we go into on cruises are very basic, basically a concrete platform designed just to accept cruise ships, with the town being a small village that just happened to be there, nothing that really attracts the interest of passengers. I was very struck how different tthat situation is with Portsmouth. A cruise ship comes in through the narrow entrance fortified on the starboard side (inbound, eastern) built in Henry VIII’s time, pass over the buoy that marks where the Mary Rose sank, Spice Island – an 18th century den of iniquity, on the Gosport Side For t Blockhouse, the Submarine escape tower, the submarine museum and Gosport. How could new arrivals not find these sights interesting and be curious about them?

Then we got home. Before we’d unpacked we went to get Misty from the cattery. She was both delighted to see us, and was very clingy and affectionate and very angry as well.

We had a lovely time, but were glad to be home.

Our pick up was due at the hotel at 0825, and lo and behold there he was. It was rush hour so we took a back route to the airport that was interesting, we saw a part of Malta that we hadn’t seen. It appears that the Maltese authorities have changed regulations private taxis are not allowed to drop off at the official location. Admittedly only a two minute walk to the airport main entrance, not really impressed with that but was it the taxi drivers fault?

Transit through the airport was actually ok, the queue wasn’t too bad and our hold luggage was pretty much spot on, fractions of a kilo out. We had arrived a little early so we had about 40 to 50 minutes to wait before the gate to board opened.

The open gate doesn’t mean we just get on board, a round of document checks and priority boarding first. We boarded the plane pretty much on target for our 1135 departure time. Except we didn’t move. The captain informed us that Gatwick had asked us to hold for an hour because of bad weather in the UK.

We actually sat there for about thirty minutes before the captain gave us the go we had a short taxi and then we were off. The flight was routine, except we went into. A bit of a holding pattern before our final approach for probably about twenty minutes ending in a nicely smooth landing.

Processing through the airport went quite smoothly, no customs, we got the monorail to South terminal. You’d think wouldn’t you that they would have a nice big lift to transfer people from the airport level to the train station, not one that would take only three people and their bags. We took the escalator.

Now, there is the possibility that someone pressed the emergency stop or, it might have been an overly sensitive relay that, when Elayne’s bag connected with the bottom of the trackway caused the escalator to stop. Either way, we kept quiet and slunk away from the rather full mechanism.

We had to wait maybe ten minutes for the train. The journey was smooth no problems, even the change at Havant didn’t need a change of platform and a wait of just a few minutes for the train to Portsmouth Harbour.

To be continued. Perhaps I should give one spoiler; nothing bad happens in part two.

The ship docked at Valletta early, and we had to be out of the cabin by 0800. That wasn’t a problem we’re prepared and headed up to breakfast. Whilst we had access to the ships facilities for as long as we needed our transfer to the hotel wasn’t due until 1130 and as were weighted down with hand baggage we didn’t have time to do anything other than hang about and wait.

When the time was due, we left the ship, customs was unmanned, and the imagine cruising rep was waiting at the meeting point. We had to wait until everyone had gathered by which time, the coach was waiting for us.

Arriving back at the Hotel Solana in Mellieha we were told that ŵe had to wait until 3PM for the room to be ready. Elayne headed for the swimming pool, I sat and read. Within a few minutes I was approached by one of the reception staff and offered a room. A free upgrade no less, with a balcony but no sea view. That was ok, it was only for one night. I have to say it was a very nice room.

We went for a walk up the hill, interesting, but not what we were expecting (more shops than what there were). A bit bored, we jumped on the bus and headed down to the beach.

We found a quiet bar, sat and watched the water. Boats coming to and fro, people wandering around. It was really quite pleasant.

Rather than eat in the hotel, just a few yards up the road was a local Maltese restaurant very nice. Empty when we arrived, full when we left of mostly Maltese including at least one very big family – always a good sign.

Katakolo on the western main coast of Greece was Azura’s last port of call before our return to Malta and then home. We had a visit booked to see the site of the first Olympic village. Ok, that does it a massive injustice.

Olympia the mountain is the home of the Greek gods, and is nowhere near the site of Olympia. The site itself was of religious significance to the Greeks long before it’s role in the original Olympics, the first of which was held in 776BC.

The site has been subject to earth quakes, the original buildings are beyond derelict, but efforts are very slowly being made to restore columns are being rebuilt. The segments of the columns are lined up ready for reconstruction.

Buildings that include the Temple of Zeuss, gymnasiums even hotels for spectators. There’s a separate museum for the artefacts that have been found during excavations. Even the Olympic stadium can still be used. People run the length. It really is an impressive sight.

Our guide was very enthusiastic she became breathless as she described the area. It’s well worth a look around.

We returned to the ship, grabbed a light lunch and then went for a walk in the village, only five minutes from the ship, a little bit of window shopping and then stopped at a bar for a drink.

The ship left berth at 1830, and started what would be a very smooth trip back to Malta. Giving us our last full day at sea to pack.

Oh Dear. We’ve just been going through what we have done over the course of our holiday and I was looking at my blog and I suddenly realised there was no post that had covered our visit to Ville Franche. I knew that I had written something but it was not where it needed to be. So, here is the story of our visit to one of the most exclusive casinos in the world.

The Sunday morning trip was relatively straightforward and required only a little effort.

Our tour guide whose name I have sadly forgotten was very good. She was quite a cheerful person without being overboard.

One of the first things she did was something I had never thought about and that was to clarify the relationship between the two. It turns out that Monaco is the second smallest principality in the world, the smallest being the Vatican. Monaco is politically divided into four quarters, of which one is Monte Carlo. Easy when you know isn’t it?

I can’t check who rules Monaco at the moment as I don’t have an internet connection, but whichever Prince it was was clearly interested in marking Monaco’s place on the world map. Gambling may not be one of its main industries, but it is certainly one of, if not the biggest earner. (Afternote; it is of course Albert II, Prince of Monaco).

By far the biggest and most opulent casino is the Grand Casino. This building dominates the square. It doesn’t open for business until 1pm but it is possible for a small fee in the morning to view the casino as a museum. We wanted to have a go on the slot machines, but sadly weren’t allowed to.

I’d love to know how much money changes hands on a typical day, I’m willing to bet it’s hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds.

Of course Monaco is also famous for the Grand Prix, and even I can admit that it was interesting to stand on part of the track (route really – it’s all normal roads).

We went to the palace, we saw where Princess Caroline lives and watched the changing of the guard, an impressive little ceremony involving much slamming down of rifle butts and slapping of thighs. I don’t mean to paint any kind of silly pictures. It’s just the was it is. It was nice to see.

There were several old American Second World War vehicles lined up on the square, and there was a rather good jazz band playing ‘40’s music. A little bit of digging revealed that the day we were there, 3rd of September was commemorating September 1943 when leadership of Monaco passed from the Germans to Mussolini but much more importantly, 3 September 1944 when Monaco was liberated by allied forces and this date is a public holiday.

We returned to Azura via small village called Eze. It is to be found at 1400 feet, making it one of the highest villages on the French Riviera. A very interesting and informative day.