Chapter 3
The cruise
Marsielle, At sea, Mallorca, Valencia, Barcelona
Marseille: Saturday, October 8
Today we were docked in Marsielle, along with a lot of other cruise ships. There were at least five large ships there at the docks, but more about that later. Rather than going to something in Marsielle itself, we had opted for something different, a tour to Avignon, France. Our choice of this tour might have had something to do with the fact that it included a wine tasting and what could be better than a wine tasting in France? This was another tour arranged through Vacations to Go, rather than the Beyond and it did turn out to be a bit different. We had a little trouble finding our tour guide, but finally did hook up OK. While our tour in Villefrance only had 7 people on it, this excursion was even more “exclusive”: we were the only people on this tour. I assume that it would normally have more people signed up and would use a van or small bus, but with just the two of us our young woman driver/guide was just using her own car.
Susan on our veranda with the busy dock behind her.
We got in her car and headed to Avignon, about 45 minutes away. She gave us some history and information about the area as we rode. The key fact about Avignon is that for about 70 years in the 1300s, it was the home of the Catholic religion and the home of the popes during that time. There was, naturally, a lot of debate about moving the papal home to Avignon and then back to Rome, but while the popes did reside in Avignon, a rather large palace was built/enhanced for them.
The Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes)
The palace was our first and most significant stop on the tour. There was a market and sort of festival in an open area in front of the palace, but it was just getting started when we arrived. (More about it later.) Our guide gave us tickets to the palace and we agreed to meet close to that marketplace shortly after noon. We entered the palace and more-or-less followed what appeared to be the recommended path to follow. We probably should have gotten one of the audio guides that were available, but we just wandered around, reading the various informational signs that were mostly in multiple languages. This was a BIG place and is considered a masterpiece of medieval Gothic architecture.
One of the numerous large rooms in the palace
There were several large rooms like the one shown above and they had displays of the building of the palace with some of the furnishings used within it. After the popes returned to Rome in 1377 the palace was unused and deteriorated for over 300 years but was returned to use during the French Revolution and again by Napoleon.
The “Prominent Figures”
One room (above) had several “statues” and a plaster relief on one wall (left edge in photo above). The figures are labeled simply as “Plaster effigies of prominent figures during the papal rule”. We almost got lost a couple of times, but just kept looking for the “Exit” or “This way” signs and eventually entered a very different exhibit.
A part (a small part) or the Amazonia exhibit.
I had heard of the Amazonia project/exhibit several years previously, but had no idea that it was here at the palace in Avignon. The photos, all black and white, are by a Sebastiao Salgado, who explored the Amazon for over 7 years, taking the photos. Many of the photos were striking, especially the larger ones. You could easily spend several hours in this large space that is apparently a part of the palace. We finally left the palace and wandered around the town for a while.
Fresh fruit stands always make for colorful photos.
There were several markets around the village and quite a few people taking advantage of the Saturday to do some shopping or just browsing. We made our way back to the large square in front of the palace and picked out a restaurant for some lunch. We didn’t need anything heavy, so we ordered a carafe of red wine and a plate of charcuterie, and it worked out very well. After lunch, we wandered around the market/festival a little, enjoying the music and trying to figure out what some of the goods for sale were. There seemed to be a number of booths selling all kinds of cheeses and such foods and you can pick out a few in this short video.
Here is one of the cheese booths: this one has mostly Parmesan and Pecorino.
After looking around for a while, we met up with out guide and she led the way to the wine tasting. It was in a small wine shop just a short distance from the market.
Site of our wine tasting
The manager (owner?) led our tasting of just the two of us. At first, he did not seem very interested, probably thinking “Oh boy: more tourists who just want to drink some wine.” But, when we started talking and he realized that we actually knew a little about wine and were interested in what he had to say, he really warmed up and got excited about what he was showing us. I think he really went out of his way to show us some different wines, not just the normal Bordeaux or Burgandy wines. I was sorry that our travels would not allow us to reasonably purchase and take wine with us as several were different and very good.
After the tasting we got hack in the car, but just for a short ride. Our guide took us across the Rhone river to a park that provided a good view of the palace and Avignon.
The Palais des Papes and Avignon.
The photo above gives a good idea of the size of the palace complex in the relatively small Avignon village but this video may give an even better feel for it. Time to head back to Marseille and the Beyond, so we got back in the car and arrived back to the port in midafternoon. Back on the beyond, we relaxed and had a glass of wine on our veranda. About 5:00 things started happening… the ships were leaving port, including ours. Seeing these large ships maneuver themselves around the docks and other ships was interesting.
No, these ships did not collide, but it sure looked close.
We watched a couple of other ships power up and head out, then it was our turn. I took several videos and then edited them together to give you an idea of what it looked like as we left the dock.
Tonight was another dinner at the Luminae: we had to say “hello” to our friends there. I think this was the night we talked to couple at an adjacent table. They were an older couple from Switzerland and apparently experienced cruisers. We had seen them before and apparently he always ordered strawberry cheesecake for dessert, whether it is on the menu or not, and it is always available for him. I had to try it (after all, I’m a fan of strawberry cheesecake) so I ordered it and, sure enough, our server, Lidu, soon appeared with it and Pauline brought us our excellent coffee.
We were getting into a bit of a rhythm and enjoyed a cognac and some light music in Eden before heading to the show in the main theater. Tonight the “Theater Production Cast” did a show titled “Elements” in which each number was focused on an “element” such as fire, water, air, earth and ether. This production featured the use of the digital background for many of the effects and it was quite effective. This was one of the shows that they asked “No photos or videos”, so I reluctantly behaved myself.
Sunday, October 9
Today was to be a relatively quiet day: no excursions and no major activities. We mostly relaxed and walked the track some in the morning. I did explore the TV we had in the cabin and discovered that it provided a map of our cruise and where we were at the moment.
We were approaching Mallorca at the time.
Of course, the map did leave out several of our ports of call, La Spezia, Marsellie, and Valencia, but it gives a decent view of the cruise.
At 1:00 we had signed up for a wine tasting that was conducted in the Normandie restaurant. It was quite well done and featured some very nice wines. Of course, it should, considering the relatively high cost of the tasting.
We had five wines and a nice cheese plate.
Two on-board sommeliers conducted the tasting, taking turns talking about the wines. They suggested which cheese to pair with each wine and we thought it was very effective. I assume you could purchase the wines on the ship, but I never really saw a complete wine list that would have them.
They were good to very good wines.
I did a quick check on a couple of the wines and the Heitz Cellar Cabernet retails for about $65 and the DOW’S 1994 vintage Port goes for about $140.
Dinner this evening was at the open-air Rooftop Grill and, as I mentioned earlier, this was probably the least successful dinner on the cruise. The sun was somewhat in our faces, although we requested a shaded table, and neither the food nor service were memorable. Even the photo I took of our table came out poorly. After dinner we did enjoy the full moon as it came up over the ocean.
It was a pretty “moonrise”.
And, when I zoomed in a little closer…..
The show this evening was a “magician”, Matt Johnson, and his illusions were very effective. My problem with these shows is that I’m always trying to figure out just how they carry out the illusions so I don’t just sit back and enjoy the show.
Palma de Mallorca: Monday October 10
Remember that “moonrise” photo just above? Well, take a look at this one.
Moonset at Palma de Mallorca
Our ship pulled into Palma de Mallorca before sunrise, and also before the moon, which we had seen rising the night before, was to set. We would not think much of seeing the sunrise and sunset of one day, but somehow seeing the moonrise and moonset seemed strange. Anyway, it was a pretty scene as we cruised into the harbor with lights of ships and the city all around us.
Palma de Mallorca in the daytime
Today we had what was essentially a sightseeing tour, visiting two towns: Soller and Valldemosa. Palma is on a large bay on the southern coast of Mallorca and Valldemosa is a few miles inland from the western coastline, while Soller is a harbor town on that coast. We boarded a tour bus (probably about 30 people) and headed out for the 45-minute drive to Valldemosa. As we approached the town, we got a good view of Valldemosa from the bus.
As with many old villages, Valldemosa was built on top of a hill.
We unloaded from the bus and our guide led us through several quiet streets: it was still early. Some of the streets would not be very quiet when we came back through a couple of hours later. There were shops and restaurants lining both sides of the street below, but the only places open were bakeries that also served breakfast.
In a couple of hours, there would be a lot more people here.
Our guide led us around to an old church, not the biggest one in the town, but it was supposed to be the oldest one. It seemed to be in good condition for its age, but was not open for visitors at the time, so we walked around sort of behind it where there was a very nice garden.
The oldest church in Valldemosa
The garden was interesting to me for the unusual mix of plants. There were olive trees right next to citrus trees which were next to roses and large nut trees.
Keeping the hedges trimmed would be a full time job.
Walking a little further brought us to a nice overlook from which to view some of the surrounding area, as well as to take a couple of photos.
A suspicious looking pair!
Once again, I was struck by having both olive trees and citrus (oranges and lemons) in the same orchard. I sure don’t remember any olive trees in Florida. If you check the short video here, you can see some traffic on the road in the distance. That is where our bus was when I took the first of the Valldemosa photos above.
One of the rather busy shops in Soller.
When we walked back through the center of the village, there were now a lot more people. We had about 30 minutes of “free time” to look around and make the merchants happy by buying something. I noticed one store that had a wall with shelves of liquors in bottles and barrels, and it looked like a good photo subject. Right after I clicked the shutter, I noticed the “No Photos” sign (in the upper right of the photo). I still think it is an interesting photo.
We piled back into the bus and headed to our next destination, Soller. Technically, we were going to Port de Soller and Soller was on higher ground a couple of miles inland, but we just referred to it as Soller. On the way there, we went on some rather narrow, winding roads which reminded me of our drive in Corsica. There was very little oncoming traffic here though.
Part of the rugged western coastline of Mallorca
Soller turned out to be a nice little harbor town with a busy marina full of both fishing and pleasure boats. There were a lot of people on the beach, especially for a Monday in middle October, but it was a beautiful day.
Part of the beach and harbor at Soller
There was a trolly that ran between the beach area of Port de Soller, to the upper Soller, and then on to Palma. You can see the trolly passing us while we walked along the beach and get a better view of the busy beach area in this video. After looking around for a while, we loaded back into the bus and headed to Palma and the Beyond. As we left the dock that afternoon, clouds were starting to form, suggesting a possible change in the weather.
Sailboat heading to Palma before bad weather hits.
This evening was another dinner in Luminae with the usual excellent service, followed by cognac in Eden and the big show in the theater. The show this evening was again Jesse Hamilton Jr., but also with quite a bit of participation with Danielle Grace Williams and even the “magician”, Matt Johnson, got into the act. Hamilton and Williams did a couple of “duets” and one of them was a take-off on a somewhat classic song, originally by CCR but then recorded by Tina Turner in her own style. The total song ran a bit long, but this piece of it should give you a good idea.
Valencia: Tuesday, October 11
Our last full day on the Beyond and we would be exploring in the Valencia, Spain vicinity. As foretold by the clouds the previous night, the rain had appeared: there was almost constant light rain at the dock in the morning as we walked quickly across the unsheltered areas to get to our tour bus. Although the rain would continue to come and go throughout the day, it never really bothered us very much.
You can see the raindrops on the bus window.
We loaded onto the bus and headed out… wait, not yet! We had to take a rather circuitous route to one of the other cruise ships in port to pick up some more passengers for this tour. With finally everyone on board, we headed to our first stop, the “Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe” or the ”Science Museum” which is a part of the large complex, the “City of Arts and Sciences”. The City of Arts and Sciences included multiple buildings for different purposes, but all were in a rather modern architectural style.
Only a part of the City of Arts & Sciences
We did not go inside any of the buildings (well, except the parking garage to make use of their restrooms) but from the looks of the facility, you could probably spend a couple of days trying to see everything. There were even boats you could rent to paddle around on the big pool.
And this view is looking in the other direction.
You might get a better feeling for the size and style of the complex from this video. After looking around for a while (and making use of those restrooms) we loaded back into the bus and headed to our next stop.
The back side of Torres de Serrano
The bus stopped in an old part of Valencia and our guide led us on a short walk. The first point of interest was an old fortification type building, the Torres de Serrano, which once served as one of the gates to the city of Valencia. It was built in the 1390s as a defensive building and is now one of the few medivial structures still standing in the city. The back side of the building (above) looks interesting, but we did not get around to see the front of the structure. In doing the research for this report, I found a photo of the front side of the building and it is much more impressive.
We walked through some streets with the normal restaurants and shops, arriving at an open square called the “Placa de Verge” (The Virgin Square).
Neptune in the middle of a pool of water
There is a big festival held annually in the square and several historic buildings surround it. One of the focal points is a pool with a statue of a reclining Neptune in the middle, surrounded by statues of about ten young women (virgins?). We looked around for a while and then walked back to the bus and loaded up and headed for our next destination. We had to ride about 40 minutes north of Valencia and I was surprised just how tropical the area is. In Florida, one of the main varieties of oranges grown is the Valencia Orange, so I should have realized that citrus would be grown here but, in general, it was a warmer climate than I expected.
We would be riding in boats like this, but with seats.
We arrived at “Les Coves de Sant Josep” (The Caves of Saint Joseph) during a light rain and very little shelter, so we got a little damp. The Caves of Saint Joseph is a subterranean river that flows through an extensive cave with quite a bit of headroom above the water for boats and people. When it was our group’s turn, we filed into the cave, onto a dock, and loaded into the boats, about 10 people per boat. There was a guide/poleman (they poled us through the cave, rather than using paddles or motors) plus we had a trainee who was very quiet. There were multiple formations where we wondered, “just how was that formed?”.
This formation looked like a flowing, organic, living thing.
It was very dark inside and the only way you could see anything was the occasional spotlights that were trained on various formations of colorful rocks. You should get some idea of the darkness and lighting in this video from the moving boat. We rode for about 10 minutes then came to another little dock where we were supposed to get out and take a walk. It was a little “sketchy” because it was dark, the ground/walkway was wet, and we could not see the ground or very far ahead of us, but there were some interesting formations. After walking for about 7 minutes, we came to another little dock where we reboarded our boat to continue the water-born part of the excursion.
Colors are the result of both colored rocks and colored lights.
We meandered through the cave for a while, finally coming to a large open “room” that was named the “Bat Cave”. While there used to be bats in there, the guide assured some of our group that there were not any bats these days. We waited a couple of minutes until several more boats gathered there with us and then they turned on the “light show”. This was a combination of some music/sound effects and flashing colored lights. It was fairly impressive if perhaps a bit “hokey”. It was difficult to get reasonable photos/video during the show, but this video of lights and rocks should give you an idea. After the light show, it was a short ride back to the main dock and the exit from the cave. Overall, it was more interesting than I expected: if you are interested, you can get more information at their website.
This was another day with a rather late return to the ship for a late lunch, so we broke out some leftover meats and cheese and the champagne that was in the room when we started the cruise. This made for a nice light lunch on our veranda overlooking the Valencia harbor.
A very pleasant late lunch on the veranda
For our last dinner on the cruise, we had to go back and visit with our friends in Luminae. Amazingly, they still seemed happy to see us! After all the fun, great service, and good food we had all week, I had to get a couple of photos with our friends.
Lidu (primary server), Pauline (great coffee and anything else), and Raf (wine)
After dinner, we repeated our normal routing with a glass of cognac in Eden and then headed to the theater for the “big show”. Tonight was the “Celebrity Showtime: Arte” show that featured the Theater Production Cast and also the giant digital display behind them. This is the show that I mentioned in the chapter about the Beyond, but here is a little more.
You had to watch for it, but the pictures “on the wall” moved.
When we entered the theater, the display on the screens looked amazingly like a wall in an art museum with familiar and “not-so-familiar” paintings. But you soon noticed, the paintings moved. Or, rather, the characters or objects in the paintings moved. For the most part, the movement was not drastic or sudden, but it was there. The guy in the painting on the extreme left would change expressions and look around a little. The flowers in some paintings would change color or move in an apparent wind. At one point the guy in the hat (right-center) looked up, turned around, and walked out of the picture, then a minute later, walked back in. It was entertaining to watch and try to catch all that was going on.
Like many of the performances in this show, one of the song and dance numbers used the digital screens extensively, I referred to this video as the Marbles Video. See if you can tell why.
Before getting in bed, we had to pack our main luggage and put out it outside the cabin door for pickup during the night.
Beyond – Barcelona – Lisbon: Wednesday, October 12
As one of the many guests who had a transfer to the airport, we had one of the earliest departure times from the ship, so we got an early breakfast in the Oceanview Café and waited in the theater for our group to be called. As is usually the case, the staff wants to get people off the ship as quickly/early as possible, so we left the Beyond before 8:00 and got on the bus to the airport. We were in the port of Barcelona but we were not to see much of the city today, just brief views of the very southern part of the area on the way to the airport. I already mentioned our experience in the Barcelona airport, but we finally got on our TAP plane to Lisbon
On our aircraft, waiting to push back from gate
Once in the air, we turned to the south and I had only a fleeting view of the Barcelona area.
Barcelona is well beyond (north of) the airport.
We did not see much of Barcelona this day, but we will be back in two weeks for a much better look.
End of Chapter 3
We have left the Beyond behind and now head for our land tour.
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