Trip Report
Chapter 2
The cruise
Corsica, Portofino, La Spezia, Villefranche
Getting started: Monday, Oct. 3
Before we can really start cruising, we have to get to the cruise ship, complete the “registration” process, find our cabin, and get a little familiar with the ship. We’ll take this step-by-step, starting with our arrival at the Rome airport.
Rome Airport: I had looked at some maps and had a general idea where the airport was in relation to the port of Rome, which is really in the port town of Civitavecchia. As we approached the port, flying over land but within sight of the sea, I thought I could see the port. From the plane, all I could see were a couple of bumps in the port but these turned out to be large cruise ships.
The second big “bump” from the left was the Beyond.
The Rome airport (officially the Rome Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci Airport) was about like any large international airport. We got through passport control, claimed our luggage, and easily found the Celebrity cruise people meeting the flight. We had to wait about 15 minutes to gather a full bus load and then we were led on a walk to the bus parking area. After turning over our luggage to the Celebrity people at the airport, we did not see it again until it was delivered to our cabin. The ride from the airport to the port took about 50 minutes. There was a minimum amount of “administrative” things to go through, and we soon had our “sea passes” (our on-board IDs and cabin keys) and headed toward the ship.
Up close to the Beyond: The orange mechanism on the side of the ship is the “Magic Carpet”.
We found our cabin on the 9th deck and met our cabin attendant, Valentina, and our butler, Nabil. After settling in a bit, we took a quick tour of the ship to get an idea where the important places were. We got back to the cabin just before our luggage was delivered so we unpacked/organized and got cleaned up a bit for dinner. On our first night, we kept things simple and had dinner in the Luminae restaurant in the Retreat and enjoyed another glass of wine before going to the show that evening, a comedian. Our internal clocks were still very confused, so we called it a night and headed for bed.
Corsica: Tuesday, Oct. 4
As our first port call on this cruise and ship, we were not real sure what to expect and just how things would work. We were at a dock, so getting off/on the ship was easy. This was the port city of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica.
Part of the harbor and town of Ajaccio, Corsica from the Beyond
Our excursion for today was named “The Prunelli Gorges” and from the description, I thought that we would be going to some major geological sight, like a small Grand Canyon or something on that order. After a bit of a tour-bus ride along some rather narrow, twisting roads, we stopped at the Prunelli Gorges. There was a relatively small, non-impressive gorge, but I think the real objective was to ride a large tour bus along some very winding, very narrow roads while offering encouragement to a somewhat different, but very good, bus driver.
This was it… the Prunelli Gorges.
But, we got an extra treat, purely by coincidence, that made the ride much more interesting. From the start of the bus ride, we had seen several groups of small sports cars, many more than would normally be expected in an area like this. After encountering several of these cars, we queried our tour guide and the bus driver; there was a fairly famous Road Rally being run in Corsica (an annual event) and they apparently had chosen the very same road as we were using as a primary part of their rally. Except, they were all going the other direction!
You can see the size of our bus compared to a few of the sports cars.
We would be riding in the bus and go around a corner, using the entire road, and coming at us at a good speed would be one of several sports cars. The people in the cars got a definite surprise, as you can see in this video of a couple of cars “discovering” the bus. The bus driver would frequently maneuver the bus to one side of the road or the other and then signal the driver of the cars which side of the bus to go around. The bus never backed up; it was always the cars that gave way.
We did make a couple of other stops along the way, including at a scenic overlook where we could look out over a lake and valley.
Notice the small town on the right.
The next stop was in a small town where there was a bar/restaurant that had two attractions: a free (included in the tour) drink and, probably more importantly, a couple of restrooms. We were encouraged to try the local Corsican beer, made with Chestnuts and local honey: it was, well, unique. I had to walk off the beer a bit and found a couple of nice views from close to the restaurant.
The old stone building on left, with a metal spiral staircase, seemed a little strange.
After this stop, we headed back to the port and returned to the Beyond in time for a slightly late lunch in the Oceanview Café, a pattern that was to continue for most of our excursions. After lunch, we still had plenty of port time left, so we left the ship to wander around the harbor and into the downtown area a little. It was pretty with the narrow streets and old buildings and lots of shops and restaurants for the tourists.
The main street through the tourist area of Ajaccio
We wandered around the area for a while, managing to not get lost and headed back to the Beyond after having a nice walk.
That evening we had reservations at one of the specialty restaurants, the Normandie. It is intended to be a French influenced restaurant, although I did not think the influence was that strong.
Dining at the French influenced Normandie restaurant.
The entree that I selected would have been called a “Beef Wellington” in most restaurants, but in keeping with the normal French/British “competition”, they could not honor a British general, so they called it something else. It still tasted pretty good. The show in the theater tonight was a “Song and Dance” type show put on by the ship’s “Theater Production Cast”.
Portofino: Wednesday, Oct. 5
Today we were anchored just off the Italian town of Portofino. In the past, Portofino was probably a quaint, pretty, little fishing village: today it is a quaint, pretty, little tourist village. We had a general sightseeing excursion set to visit Portofino as well as a couple of nearby towns, Rapallo and St Margherita. The tender took us to a dock at Portofino where we had a nice view of the town.
The town was pretty, but I really liked that sailboat on the left.
After meeting up with our tour guide for the day she first led us up a hill to a church, Chiesa di San Giogio. Besides the church, which was nice, but not nearly as ornate as we would see later, there was a cemetery with many above-ground crypts. The real reason to climb the hill to the church was actually the very nice view of the harbor and surrounding area.
The orange think at the dock is one of Beyond’s tenders.
This short video should give you even a better idea of how the harbor looks. After looking around a little and taking in the views, we walked back down the hill and boarded a excursion boat to travel to the next destination. Our next stop was St Margherita, another harbor town, but one quite a bit larger than Portofino.
St Margherita, as seen from the excursion boat before landing.
Somewhat surprisingly, we walked directly from the boat to a tour bus that was to take us to the next harbor town of Rapallo, about 20 or 30 minutes further up the coast. From the bus unloading area, the guide led us through part of the city and to a restaurant along the waterfront where we enjoyed an included lunch. Nothing fancy, but decent, and it included a glass of wine. After lunch we had time to look around the waterfront a little, including an old fort, Castello di Rapello, that guarded the harbor hundreds of years ago.
I’m sure the fort was quite formidable when it was built in 1550.
We joined up with our guide again and she led us on a short tour of the town of Rapello. Many of the buildings in this part of Italy featured fancy paintwork on the exterior that was done to look like much more expensive plaster sculptures.
The painters around here must be very good and very busy.
Our walking tour of Rapello included a visit to a large cathedral, the Basilica dei Santi Gervasioe Protasio. It was the first of quite a few impressive churches and other religious structures on this trip. Although changed and enhanced over the years, parts of the Basiica were built in the 5th and 6th centuries and the main structure was constructed in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Quite impressive and, of course, almost 1000 years old.
We reboarded the bus and headed back to St Margherita where we had about an hour of “free time” before catching the tour boat again. In general, “free time” is intended to mean “time to visit the stores and buy some souvenirs”, but we are not much for shopping so we just tend to look around. While waiting for the time to meet the boat, we did notice a large monument to Christopher Columbus.
Notice the spelling of his name on the monument: Cristoforo Colombo
This was the first instance of what would be a surprising (to me) number of monuments, statues, and general references to Christopher Columbus. I knew he was an important person in our history and culture, but I did not realize that he was so revered in both Italy and Spain. We took the boat back to Portofino and then changed to the tender for the return trip to the Beyond.
This evening we had reservations at the Fine Cut Steakhouse and we planned to eat a little beef. Once seated at the restaurant, we started talking to a couple at a table next to us. Susan and the other couple all ordered the 8 oz filet so I had to be different and ordered the New York Strip… the 14 oz New York Strip! While the filets were a nice size, the NY Strip was definitely over doing it but it was so good that I could not let any go to waste, so I managed to finish it. In general, I thought the Fine Cut meal was a little better than the Normandie meal the previous night.
The entertainment in the theater this evening was Tian Jang, a very good pianist and entertainer, backed up by the Beyond’s small (7 piece) orchestra. It was a nice show and relatively relaxing, compared to some of the shows to come.
La Spezia: Thursday, Oct 6
La Spezia is another Italian port city, just a little ways south of Portofino and quite a bit larger. I think the main draw of La Spezia is that it is within “excursion distance” of both Piza (as in “leaning Tower of …”) and Florence, although that one is a bit of a stretch for a day trip. However, we had been to both places just a year previously (check our Italy cruise/trip report) so we didn’t need to visit them again.
Our chosen excursion (much more about it shortly) did not start until 1:30 in the afternoon, so we had the morning to do as we wanted. Since the port, and the Beyond, were adjacent to the city, we decided to explore La Spezia on foot. We had to get on a shuttle bus for a short ride to the cruise center, since much of the port area was very commercial with lots of containers and trucks moving around and not looking for tourists. Once out of the cruise center, we found a very nice waterfront area with wide sidewalks, a couple of cafes, and nicely landscaped grounds.
Le Spezia’s very nice waterfront with the Beyond in the distance
We walked the waterfront until we came to what looked like a fairly main pedestrian street that seemed to lead toward the center of town. This was probably around 9:00 and the city was just waking up: a few shops were opening their doors and a lot of the pedestrians appeared to be workers heading to their jobs.
Some shops were just opening and people were walking to work.
We walked about a mile into town to a square where several streets came together. From that point it appeared that the nice pedestrian street ended and we would have to contend with vehicle traffic, so we turned around and took a slightly different route back to the waterfront. Once back on the ship, we took advantage of some “free time” to check out the gym and get in a little exercise.
We got a fairly early lunch in the Oceanview Café and headed out to our excursion. We had selected a “Tuscan Farmhouse Experience” excursion thinking that it would be a short ride and we would learn something about the crops and farming practices in the area, perhaps even learn more about growing wine grapes. We should have known better…. not that it wasn’t pleasant. The ride to the “farmhouse” was almost 90 minutes, although there was some interesting scenery along the way.
The mountains in the distance were impressive!
I was a bit surprised at the mountains just a short distance from the coastline. When we did arrive at the entrance to the farmhouse (actually a shell/gravel road leading to the farmhouse), we had to wait 10 minutes for the horse-drawn wagons to show up. I seemed to remember something about horse-drawn wagons in the excursion description, but had not thought about it. We climbed out of the bus and loaded into two wagons: one large one drawn by two horses, and one small one powered by a single horse.
That was a pretty big load for two horses to pull!
We must have had 20 people in our wagon and I felt a little bad for the horses pulling such a load. Thankfully, the road was slightly downhill to the farmhouse. I thought that perhaps the road was not sufficient for the bus to pass, thus requiring the wagons, but you can see the bus following us in this video.
I have concluded that tourist “attractions” such as this farmhouse have figured out that all they need to do to make tourists happy and get good ratings is to give them plenty of food and (alcoholic) beverages. So, of course, we were served plenty of pasta and wine. I really was not expecting a full meal in the middle of the afternoon. Other than wandering around the farmhouse and doing some shopping in their “general store”, that was the extent of the visit.
Plenty of food (pasta) and drink (wine) for the visitors.
There were a couple of grape vines growing on an arbor close to the farmhouse and the grapes were nicely ripe: I had to test them by tasting several. We had passed many vineyards on the way to the farmhouse so this was definitely Tuscan wine country. I just wish we could have gotten a bit more information about the growing and processing of the grapes: after all, I’m basically a farmer at heart.
I did a taste-test: the grapes were ripe!
After some time to look around and purchase souvenirs, we piled back into the bus and headed back to the Beyond through some apparent rush-hour traffic. I was relieved that the horses did not have to pull the wagons back up the slight uphill road from the farmhouse.
This evening we ate at the Luminae restaurant and got to know the staff and some of the other guests better. After dinner we made our first trip to Eden to listen to a duo sing/play while enjoying some cognac. We left there in time to get to the main theater for the 9:30 show with a talented singer and Sax player, Danielle Grace Williams. Although you won’t hear it in this short video, take my word for it that she plays the Sax almost as well as she sings.
Villefranche: Friday Oct. 7
Today we were anchored just outside the bay at Villefranche, France. We had signed up for an independent excursion (not arranged through the Beyond) and were not taking the obvious tour from Villafranche. Although we never saw it, Nice is literally just a stone’s throw to the west of Villefranche. But we were going the opposite direction, to Eze, then Monaco, and Monte Carlo. We would be taking tenders into the small port of Villefranche then a small tour van from there.
When we got up and had breakfast, we could see the town in front of us, but it was a bit cloudy and gray.
A pretty little town on the hillside and some beautiful sailboats in the harbor.
I have found out that sometimes you get a good view of the area while on the tender riding to and from the ship, and this was the case today. We got nice views of the town as well as looking back at the Beyond.
Guess which one of these boats I’d rather be sailing on….
We got to the tour start point early and had to wait about 20 minutes for our driver/tour guide and his van to show up. We started with 7 people (and would lose a couple during the day) but the small size of the group made it easier to get around and see things. We climbed into the van and we headed to our first stop; a somewhat unexpected one.
We rode for probably 30 or 40 minutes and arrived at a perfume “factory” (Fragonard Parfumeru). We had an interesting tour of the facility where they actually process the flowers or other substances (spices, fruits, etc.) to make the very strong essences that are then combined into various kinds of fragrances. We were given a demonstration of the various kinds of perfume and related products and then, of course, offered the opportunity to purchase some, which some people on the tour did.
After leaving the Parfumeru, we went literally across the street and a few steps up a hill to Eze. Eze is a beautiful hilltop medieval village between Monaco and Nice (or Villefranche). The old village is known for its spectacular views, great geographical location, and impressive architecture. And, right at the top of the hill it sits on is an “Exotic garden”. Our guide gave us some information about the town and warned us that getting to and through the gardens was a pretty good climb, but very interesting and offered good views.
Part of the old town of Eze
Susan and I took that as somewhat of a challenge. We made our way upward through the village and found the ticket office for entering the gardens and purchased tickets with only about a 2 minute wait. Then we started climbing up through the gardens which consisted mainly of arid climate vegetation, such as cactus and related species.
A view from close to the top of the gardens and over the village: notice all the cacti.
We had to be back to a meeting point by a certain time and didn’t have time to explore the gardens completely, besides, I was getting a bit tired going up and down all the steep trails in the garden. There were some very good views from up there though, including looking back at the beyond.
Beautiful scenery: too bad that big ship spoils the view! 😊
We had apparently timed our visit to the garden very well: when we exited, there was a line of at least 30 people waiting to purchase tickets and enter. We rejoined out tour group, boarded our van and headed for our next stop: Monaco. Our driver/guide gave us a running commentary almost the whole time and also drove us around Monaco a little, including pointing out where the “Changing of the Guard” would take place in about 20 minutes. He then let us out in front of the Catherdrale de Monaco, which he recommended us to visit, and then make our way to the plaza for the changing of the guard. Princess Grace (actress Grace Kelly) is buried in the cathedral and we found the crypt where there are always fresh white lilies.
The Cathedrale de Monaco where Princess Grace is buried.
After leaving the cathedral, we headed for the plaza for the changing of the guard ceremony, or we tried to, since I led us off in the wrong direction at first. We realized my mistake and did get to the “Place du Palais” in front of the Palace of the Prince of Monaco in time for the changing. There were lots of people, as well as a couple of dogs who did not like all the noise but, after a short wait, the “guards” came out of one building and the ceremony began.
The start of the Changing of the Palace Guards.
Most of the ceremony happened at the other end of the plaza and we could not see it very well. About all we could see well was when the guards and escorts came marching by us, such as shown here. Before heading back to our meeting place, I did manage to get a decent photo of our next stop, Monte Carlo. Thankfully, the weather had cleared up and we had blue skies for Monte Carlo.
Monte Carlo: famous for many things, like a casino and a Formula One race.
Our driver/guide found out that I’m interested in cars and racing and proceeded to give us a very good discussion of the Formula One race course and we ended up driving on most of the course. You can listen to our guide as he gives us a tour of two different parts of the F1 race course in this video. There was also a boat show in Monte Carlo the previous week, so you will also hear some discussion of that. We rode around Monte Carlo a little, then parked a short distance from the famous Casino so we could take a look at that. It was a little after noon by now, but the casino does not open for “gaming” until 2:00, so we didn’t go inside. However, two of our tour members did leave our group here so they could try out the Casino when it did open: they would then catch a train back to Villefranche on their own.
It is not quite as impressive as some movies make it out to be.
After looking around a while, the rest of us loaded back into the van and headed back to Villefranche where we boarded the tender and floated back to the Beyond. Next to the parking lot where we started and ended our tour was a fort, which we got a better view of from the tender.
If we had known about the fort, it might have been interesting to visit.
Back on the ship, we had another rather late lunch in the Oceanview Café and mostly relaxed the rest of the day. Susan did get me out on the walking track to do a kilometer or two, but I figured that climbing around Eze and the garden was pretty good exercise. Tonight was another meal in the Luminae restaurant, on to Eden for a cognac and some music, and then to the show in the theater. Tonight was an interesting singer, Jesse Hamilton, Jr. He is a true educated/professional musician, having gotten his degree at Florida A&M (and was on the Rattler’s famous “Marching 100” band) and then a Masters at Florida State. He was certainly a good singer but also a bit of a “showman”. We’ll see and hear a bit of his performance in a few days when he gets together with Danielle Grace Williams for a joint performance.
End of Chapter 2
We said good-bye to Villefranche and continued on our voyage.
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