SATURDAY 1 OCTOBER – WILL EASYJET GET ME THERE?
The first part of today’s journey went according to plan. I left Folkestone West at 5.15 am, changed trains at Tonbridge and Redhill, and checked in at Gatwick in good time. I was actually one of the first people through the gate. Then the fun started!
The plane took off about 40 minutes late – having apparently missed its ‘slot’, and appeared to circle around the airport a few times before eventually finding the right direction for Venice. It was quite cloudy, and after a glimpse of Lowfield Heath windmill far below I saw no other familiar landmarks.
Well into the flight the captain announced that there was a lot of fog at Venice and that we were being diverted to Verona. The girl in the seat next to me, who was about 17 and on her first flight, got rather agitated. I assured her that the airline would make every effort to get us to our final destination, but I was now beginning to worry about catching the ship! I had allowed plenty of time, but hadn’t reckoned on a diverted flight…
We landed at Verona and sat on the tarmac for half-an-hour, with no announcements and no refreshments. We then noticed a fuel tanker pull up outside the plane, and I heard someone say “That looks hopeful!” Indeed, about ten minutes later the Captain’s voice announced that the fog in Venice had cleared and that we would be flying there as soon as the refuelling was complete.
The Verona – Venice flight must be about the shortest that I have ever experienced in a jet aircraft – Antigua to Montserrat is shorter, but that’s in a nine-seater Britten-Norman Islander, not an Airbus!
I get to Venice about four hours after leaving Gatwick. I see an NCL representative holding up a sign for transfers, but discover they cost $30, so I board the public bus for eight euros and transfer to Piazzale Roma on the edge of Venice. From here it’s about 20 minutes’ walk to the cruise terminal. Boarding is reasonably smooth and I am soon in Stateroom #10049, on Deck 10, Starboard.
The first event of the day is the Lifeboat Drill. I am in Group B2, which means I have to report to the Medusa Lounge. I get there quite early – it’s rather gaudy with lots of glass jellyfish dangling from the ceiling.
As the room starts filling up, a young woman asks if the seat beside me is free. I say “Yes” and look up. She is not just beautiful, she is stunning. Quite exotic in appearance with a gorgeous smile and lovely eyes. She is also accompanied by quite the largest black man I have ever encountered. A Miss Universe contestant with her heavyweight boxer husband? They introduce themselves as Tony and Patricia, which bizarrely makes me think of Pat and Tony in ‘The Archers’, although I can’t imagine anyone looking less like a Midlands farming couple. I shake hands and we watch the safety demonstration. For a fleeting moment I have a vision of being cast adrift in a lifeboat with Patricia…
It’s then time to meet the Cruise Director Andrew and the entertainments team for the Sailaway Party out on deck, as the Norwegian Jade slips her moorings and makes her way past the palaces and churches of Venice, passing unbelievably close to St Mark’s Square and the Doges’ Palace – an incredible sight! Meanwhile a delicious BBQ is served on deck and afterwards I try out the pool and Jacuzzis!
Returning to my cabin, I look at my programme and see it’s time for the Single Travellers’ get-together, and make my way to the Tankards Bar. The get-together is hosted by a Mexican guy called Hector, and is one of the best I’ve been to on a cruise ship. About 15 people turn up, including two Chinese women, a few quite elderly Brits, a tall, athletic guy from Gran Canaria who speaks hardly any English and a young Italian man. Hector has booked us all in for dinner tomorrow in one of the two main waiter-service restaurants, which is great for getting to know everyone, but rather defeats the object of freestyle dining!
I go to the Welcome Show at 9.30pm for a foretaste of the entertainments to come, and then go to sleep in my cabin – I have after all been up since 3.15am!
SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER – AT SEA
I wake up quite early today and decide to do something healthy, so I go down to the gym and cycle for 22 minutes on the exercise bike, burning off exactly 200 calories! The heart rate monitor on the bike appears to be faulty (I hope it is!) as my heart rate fluctuates wildly between 77 and 199 beats per minute!
I pop in to the buffet restaurant for breakfast, and then go to the Atrium Bar, where people are supposed to meet at 8.15 to walk a mile around the ship, on the promenade that goes right around on Deck 7. However, I am the only person to turn up! Obligingly, a pleasant St Lucian crew member walks around with me, and presents me with a complimentary NCL water bottle afterwards!
The weather is overcast and not especially warm. I test out the otherwise deserted pool and Jacuzzi briefly before going to a lecture on the ports and excursions in the Stardust Lounge, and then have lunch in the Garden Café. In the afternoon I watch a WWII film called ‘Unbroken’, and then attend the ‘Latitudes’ party for people who have cruised previously with NCL. Then it’s the Single Travellers’ get-together with Hector. I sit with one of the Chinese women, Chen Yuan, and we chat: she speaks perfect English, having worked in North America for about 20 years. She’s also very attractive, with long dark hair, olive skin and beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Then a rather large American lady with long blonde hair strides into our group and introduces herself as Katie. This is her fifth or sixth cruise this year. She is about the same age as me and says she’s recently taken early retirement from high-school teaching. At 8pm Hector rushes us all off into the Alizar Restaurant for dinner. It’s nice but the service is rather slow. Chen Yuan has been sitting beside me during the meal, and at 9.25 she announces that she has to leave as she doesn’t want to miss the show, which starts at 9.30pm. We get up and run through the ship, navigating our way hand-in-hand through the crowded Casino, which is rather romantic, and plonk ourselves down a few rows from the front. Afterwards I ask her if she wants to go to the disco in the Spinnaker Lounge. We boogie to ‘Uptown Funk’ and a few other songs before calling it a day around 11.30. I return to my cabin somewhat elated after having spent so much time in the company of an attractive, articulate and intelligent woman.
(to be continued)
MONDAY 3 OCTOBER – COR, IT’S CORFU!
I wake up around 8am from a romantic dream featuring Chen Yuan – this is disturbing! I make my way out on deck and see that we are already moored in Corfu Town. I have a quick breakfast and then go ashore, with a few essentials in a shoulder-bag. I have not booked any shore excursions here.
My walk around the Old Town takes in the former Governor’s Palace, the old cricket ground, the Cathedral and the Church of St Spirydon. In the latter, I join a queue of pilgrims to say hello to the Saint himself, who rests in a glass-topped coffin behind the High Altar. He’s the first real saint I’ve seen since Bernadette in Nevers in 1983, and he’s not in great shape. Surprisingly, the priest moves me on while I am in the process of reciting a little prayer – I’m holding up the queue.
The highlight for me is the Old Venetian Fortress, with its museums and British Georgian-style barracks buildings. I walk up to the lighthouse on top and see Norwegian Jade sitting at the quayside about two miles away.
I walk back to the ship and spend the rest of the afternoon out on deck, enjoying the pool and Jacuzzis. In the latter I meet Dom. He looks like a younger, tattooed version of French actor Victor Lanoux, and runs a pizza restaurant in the French Alps. He and his wife are on holiday with another French couple. Dom is delighted that I speak French, and asks me if I wouldn’t mind translating for him the odd article in the Freestyle Daily, NCL’s daily bulletin, which is only produced in English, Spanish and German!
The Singles get-together is arranged rather early today, at 6pm, and Chen Yuan isn’t there, and I sneak off early, as I want to watch the ship sail out of Corfu. One of the other single men comments that I’m going because Chen isn’t there! She does appear at dinner and we all go off in a big group to see the Barricade Boys – four young British men performing selections from Les Miserables and finishing with a mind-blowing version of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. We drift to the Spinnaker Lounge afterwards and I manage a few dances with Chen Yuan, but the party breaks up relatively early as we are all getting rather tired.
On the way back to my cabin, I make a detour via the Casino. I am not by nature a gambler, but on all NCL ships there is a jackpot machine like those formerly in the Rotunda in Folkestone, where you try to knock coins off a ledge by putting more coins in. The NCL machines take American quarters or NCL tokens of the same value. Now, from 1989 until 2009 the USA issued a series of quarter-dollars commemorating all the different states and territories of the USA – 55 coins altogether, and there are two versions of each coin, with ‘P’ and ‘D’ mintmarks for Philadelphia and Denver. So there are 110 coins to collect, and I am just missing one – a 2009P with the US Virgin Islands on. Guess what I see in the machine? Yes, it’s a US Virgin Islands quarter! I can’t tell if it’s a P or D without seeing the other side, but there’s a 50% chance that it’s the one I want. Unfortunately, it’s not really in a ‘playable’ position, so I go back to my stateroom and speculate on whether I am falling in love with Chen Yuan… I also can’t get Uptown Funk out of my mind…
TUESDAY 4 OCTOBER – LUNCH WITH CHEN, AFTERNOON IN SANTORINI
I am up early again today, and go for my customary cycle ride in the gym before heading down to Deck 7 for the Walk-a-Mile. The gentleman from St Lucia is there again, but this time two very athletic-looking German girls, both about 20 and about 6 feet tall, are with him. We head out to the deck and begin our walk. After 100 yards or so, the German girls complain: “We thought we would be running!” The activity host says they can run if they want to, and the four of us then pick up speed. We cover about another 200 yards before we come across a senior ship’s officer with gold braid and stripes on his uniform, who rather brusquely tells our host NOT to rake people running on Deck 7, and that if we want to run, we have to go up to the jogging circuit on Deck 13. I rather hope that we will go back to walking, but instead the activity host takes us upstairs to Deck 13 where we finish our mile run on the jogging track. This was not really want I’d had in mind.
Exhausted, I head down to Deck 12, enjoy a soak in the Jacuzzi and then go into breakfast. A friendly voice says “Hi!” It’s Katie, the rich retired American teacher. She asks me if I’ve booked an excursion this afternoon. I say that I’ve booked Prehistoric Akrotiri & Wine-Tasting. She says she’s booked the same one, so we say we’ll meet up on the coach.
The rest of the morning was much more relaxing – swimming, going in the Jacuzzi and reading, and listening to the live music on deck. I actually prefer the interludes, as someone has put together a mix tape of some kind, which includes several of my all-time favourites including Forever Young by Alphaville.
Grabbing a mid-morning coffee, I bump into Chen Yuan. Feeling strangely emboldened, I ask her what she is doing for lunch. She has nothing planned, so we agree to meet up at 12.30 at the Grand Pacific Restaurant. Neither of us have been there before, and we can go straight from there to the Stardust Theatre where we must assemble before going on our shore excursions. She’s booked Complete Santorini, which goes out about 15 minutes before my tour.
I have a little chat with Dom and his wife before heading down to the Grand Pacific on Deck 6 at 12.25. Chen looks beautiful. The waiter ushers us to a table and we enjoy a leisurely lunch. I tell her about the Yangtze Cruise that I went on in 2001, and she says I will find China greatly changed if I came back now, and that Shanghai is a really lovely city.
At the Stardust Theatre, we remain seated for ages before our tours are called, but I’m not complaining. Chen joins the Complete Santorini crowd, and the theatre nearly empties. I then spot Katie and make my way across to join her. There is only one bus for our tour. We are ushered to the tender, and, rather than heading across to the nearby pier and village, we take a longer transit to a pier some distance away, where an elderly coach transports us up a spectacular zigzag road to the top of the cliffs.
The ruins are fascinating, but I’m a bit disappointed with the excursion in general. The guide isn’t particularly good, and has a habit of talking with her back to the people. The museum that was supposed to be included is closed, and the guide forgets to give out cable-car tickets to all the passengers so that they can get back down to the tender pier at the end of the trip. The wine tasting is OK, but the first two wines taste pretty cheap and nasty. The third, dessert wine is much, much better, and Katie uses her feminine charm to get extra glasses of it for both of us.
After we leave the coach, we have a walk around Fira Town. It’s pretty but very touristy, with long streets full of designer goods, expensive jewellery and cheap tat. I get the cable-car down to the tender pier with Katie and we chat to the charming Irish girl from the ship’s spa who has been ashore: Katie is a regular at the spa! I have a swim in the pool and sit out on deck to watch the sunset before grabbing a quick dinner in the buffet restaurant. Around 9.20 I head for the Stardust Theatre to watch the Magic Show. I hear someone shout “Robert!” and see that it’s Miss Universe and the heavyweight boxing champion. Patricia is smiling broadly and tapping the seat next to her, so I slide along the row and join them. The show is really good and I cannot work out how any of the illusions are done. Afterwards, Tony and Patricia ask me if I’m going to the Spinnaker Lounge, but I’m scared of oversleeping as I’ve booked an excursion tomorrow and need to be ready to leave by 8 am. Perhaps things might have turned out differently if I HAD gone to the Spinnaker Lounge…
WEDNESDAY 5 OCTOBER – GODS, WINDMILLS AND WOMEN
I must confess I had slight concerns about going ashore on Mykonos – I’d heard it was somewhere that single straight males were likely to get unwanted attention. Perhaps that was why I decided to book an excursion to fill up some of the port call, and ensure that I had female company for the remainder!
I woke up at 6 am, half-an-hour before my alarm, and went to the gym for my usual 300-calorie bike ride. I had breakfast in the outdoor section of the buffet restaurant and watched the ship cruise as far into the port as was possible. This was a tender port. After breakfast I went to the Stardust Theatre and joined Katie, who was on the same tour as me – to Delos! We took the tender to the pier at Mykonos Town and met our guide, George, who escorted us onto the boat to Delos.
Delos is a barren, uninhabited island that was a big religious site in Classical Greek times. It is supposed to have been the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. As soon as we arrive, Katie picks up a tiny black kitten and carries him around for the first part of the visit, until he gets bored and starts wriggling. I am actually quite impressed by George’s commentary as we visit the theatre, ancient houses with their peristyles, colonnaded temples and the famous Terrace of the Lions. Unlike Santorini, many of the carvings and mosaics have been left in situ, and there is an excellent on-site museum, which is open. Katie finds three other cats to feed right outside it.
We pile onto the boat back to Mykonos, say goodbye to George, and Katie and I head for the beach. It is fairly near the pier and the sea is clear and warm. I try snorkelling but only see a few fish and some seaweed. We sunbathe after swimming, and then go our separate ways: Katie decides to go back on board via the next tender, whereas I want to explore the town and, especially, visit one of the windmills, which is open to the public.
Mykonos Town is like Leeds on a small scale: it is impossible to find your way around. If you head along what looks like a straight main street, you sooner or later come to a dead-end and have to backtrack. Then you have to decide whether to go left or right. The sun is pretty high in the sky so that’s no help. I suspect it’s all done so that tourists spend more in the shops. Anyway, I eventually reach the windmills, go inside the open one and take photos. I don’t get propositioned at all, but meet several nice cats: all Greek islands have about half-a-dozen really cute cats that spend their lives posing for tourists.
Having visited the windmills, and confident of where I am on the street map I photocopied from the Lonely Planet Guide, I notice another mill high above the town and see that it is marked on the map as a Folklore Museum. I think it may be interesting, and head for it. After 15 minutes or so, I arrive at a very dilapidated and derelict windmill, devoid of sails, which is definitely not the museum one. I find where I am on the map and eventually locate the museum mill. It’s closed! Guess who I meet there? My French friend Dom, his wife and their two travelling companions. They have hired a car to explore the island and are now on their way back to the port.
I look at the map and work out an easy route that should take me straight to the tender pier, but what looks like a simple downhill walk turns into a tortuous ramble. At last I glimpse the sea between two houses, head for it and find myself… right by the windmills! So I have to try to re-trace my first walk to get back to the tender pier. I get there around 3pm and the last tender is at 3.30.
Someone says “Hi, Robert!” and I see Patricia and Tony, just returning from the beach. They ask me if I’m going on the tender but I say I’ll wait till the next one as I want to look around the shops. After ten minutes, when I’ve got a postcard and fridge magnet, I return to the pier and see that the same tender is still there. The NCL guy on the quayside motions to me to hurry up, and I slip on. The only space on the outside deck is right next to Patricia, so I take it. Then another passenger arrives and we all have to squeeze up to let him sit down. I find my naked thigh pressed firmly against Patricia’s It’s very hard not to stare at her in her swimwear but of course Tony is just on the other side of her! She seems to know a lot of the other passengers and I hear her talking to them in Spanish and French, and then in Tagalog to one of the crew members. I ask her where she is from: she says she is Filipina, but now lives in Toronto! L
The next event of the day, after we’ve sailed from Mykonos, is the Latitudes Cocktail Party with some of the ship’s senior officers, including the very tall and impressive Barbadian chef. I go with Katie, and she manages to get free refills so we carry our glasses out and head to the Tankards Bar where this evening’s Solo Cruisers gathering is taking place. There are two new joiners, Englishwomen who could be Gloria Hunniford’s twin sisters, but no sign of either Chen Yuan or Pedro from the Canaries. However, I don’t put two and two together – not just yet. We all go to the Grand Pacific Restaurant for dinner and I think about yesterday’s lunch date with Chen Yuan. The food is exactly the same as in the Alizar – a feature of NCL ships is that the two main waiter-service restaurants have different décor but identical menus! Most of us head to the Stardust Theatre to watch a Russian acrobatic show at 9.30, and some, myself included, go up to the Spinnaker Lounge afterwards. Chen and Pedro are there and for a while several of us dance in a circle to Uptown Funk and I Gotta Feeling by the Black-Eyed Peas. I boogie a bit with Chen but then the tall lithe Canarian grabs her and whisks her off. A couple of songs later, they are gyrating in unison and snogging, ironically to Calvin Harris and Rihanna singing We Found Love in a Hopeless Place.
They make a strange couple – he is about half her age and about twice her height, and can’t speak a word of English – and I’m sure he doesn’t speak any Chinese – yet...
I’ve never been much good at disco etiquette, and tend to stand by if someone else carries off a woman I’m keen on. This keeps happening to me – Cambridge (1980), Maidstone (1983), Povoa de Varzim* (1986), Winnersh** (1988), Folkestone (1990), Boston (1991), Malaga (1992), Cape Town (2002), Copán, Honduras *** (2009) and others I don’t care to remember.
I boogie for a while with Britt, a tall German woman who looks just like Helga from ‘Allo Allo’, and then sneak off to my stateroom, pausing at the Casino to note that the US Virgin Islands quarter is still not quite in a playable position…
One thing I can say is that I haven’t thought about my forthcoming operation for ages. At the moment I am only thinking of how to dispose of Pedro. Pushing him into the sea seems the best option, but I wouldn’t want to delay the ship, remembering how Saga Sapphire was held up for 24 hours in the Atlantic when someone went overboard. There’s also the small problem that I’d have to get him on his own on the open deck, and that he’s much younger and stronger than me…
* This was an interesting one, as the girl’s mother was watching, and told me to thump the Portuguese yob who was snogging her daughter and grab her back, as she considered me a more suitable prospective son-in-law than him. I was too much of a coward. Perhaps life would have been different if I had acted otherwise? In any case, Chen Yuan’s mother was not on this cruise.
** It’s somewhere in between Gatwick Airport and Reading.
*** Any other sensible man would have done the same in this particular situation, as the rather nice American lady was grabbed from me by a Cabinet Minister from a Central American military dictatorship, who threatened to castrate me (long story).
THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER – LIFE DOES NOT GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS!
Isn’t it weird how when you are having a bad day, fate just seems to add one misfortune after another, and, similarly, when you are having a good day, fortune just smiles on you and things just keep getting better?
I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to face mainland Greece as the ship sailed into Katakolon. I was up on deck as we sailed in, trying to make out the railway station for the mythical train to Olympia, whose existence is confirmed by some websites and denied by others. I located the station and saw a train, but by the time we had actually moored, it had disappeared. It certainly wasn’t there to attract cruise ship passengers.
Katakolon is a strange port. It is only a village, with one long main street. The railway line to the port was opened in 1883, and runs for 33 kilometres via Pyrgos to Olympia. However, the railway is very publicity-shy. Once off the ship, I walk to the building that looked like a station, to find that it’s actually a Museum of Ancient Greek Inventions. There is a bare concrete platform nearby, a weed-infested metre-gauge track and a small concrete shed. Suddenly I hear a two-tone horn in the distance, gradually becoming louder, and very slowly a two-car diesel multiple unit crawls into Katakolon terminus.
The train disgorges about five passengers, and the driver sticks up a handwritten timetable on the wall of the concrete hut. This announces that the train will leave for Olympia at 10am and that there will be trains returning from Olympia at 13.08 and 15.00. I ask him where I can buy a ticket, and he sells me one for ten euros. It’s 9.40 so I don’t have too long to wait. Gradually more passengers turn up, most of them from Norwegian Gem.
The train departs on time and the journey is pretty if not spectacular. The first part of the journey is along the coast; this is followed by a ride through pastoral farmland before the line reaches Pyrgos, where the large station building and goods yard testify to the former importance of this one-time junction, from where one could once travel to Patras and Athens. Sidings are filled with derelict rolling-stock, including a very rusty steam locomotive. From Pyrgos the line heads up into the mountains to reach its terminus at Olympia. The station building looks rather grand but is boarded-up and unused, and there is a rusting turntable outside. A short walk takes me to the Archaeological Museum and the ruins of the ancient city, site of the original Olympic Games. The ruins are fragmentary but interesting, and the museum has some amazing finds on display, including statues of Gods, Emperors and Athletes, and carvings that once adorned the Temple of Zeus, now reduced to foundations.
I am back at the station just in time for the 13.08 to Katakolon, which is quite crowded. Once back at the resort, I head to the beach, go swimming and try a bit of snorkelling. The visibility is great but, as at Mykonos, there are only a few fish to see. The sun feels hot and I take advantage of what may be my last day of good weather.
Returning to the ship around 5pm, I decide that a pleasant narrow-gauge train ride AND a visit to a UNESCO World Heritage Site is probably all I should expect from the day. I stay out on deck to watch the ship sail from Katakolon, and for some reason walk down to Deck 7 and look in the Casino. The Virgin Islands Quarter is right on the edge! I hurry to my cabin, get a little bag of ten US quarters brought especially for the purpose, and start feeding them into the machine. I am down to my last two coins when I manage to knock several others off the higher level; these push the lower ones forward and there is a lovely jangle as a dozen or so quarters fall down. One of them is the Virgin Islands coin. I turn it over and there is a little ‘P’ beside George Washington’s portrait! Perfect!
I return to my cabin with my booty and head upstairs for a swim and a spell in the Jacuzzi. Here I meet my French friend Dom, who asks if I’d like to join them for dinner. I say it would be an honour. I am a little surprised that they are planning to eat in the buffet restaurant, but Dom insists that the food there is better than in the Alizar and the Grand Pacific. To a certain extent I agree with him. I help myself to a selection from the buffet and join the two French couples, who supply red wine and Camembert cheese. They ask me what I think about Brexit. I start telling them of my concerns and they say they wish the French could do the same thing! They are fed up with France losing its independence, and say that the country has completely lost its soul. They are less concerned with Islamist terrorism than with Globalisation – to them, the rot started when the first McDonald’s opened in Paris!
Our civilised conversation with cheese and wine carries on until nearly 9.30pm, when we part company. I don’t want to miss the show tonight, as it is going to finish with a special performance featuring members of the crew and the entertainment team. I grab a glass of water to take with me, and see Patricia and Tony. They ask if I’m going to the show, and we all sneak into the Stardust Theatre together. We find two seats together on one row and one at the end of another row on the balcony. Tony insists I sit with Patricia, as he feels more comfortable at the end of a row. After we have settled down, I ask Patricia if she minds being separated from her husband like this. She replies “Oh, Tony’s not my husband; he’s just a good friend!” I now don’t feel so bad now about staring at her legs when we were on the tender yesterday…
The show lives up to expectations, and afterwards we head off to our respective cabins to change for the NCL White Nights Party – a feature of every NCL cruise, when party guests are encouraged to wear white clothes. It is to be held in the Spinnaker Lounge. I simply change my red T-shirt for a plain white one, brought especially for the occasion, and go up to the party, where I have a short boogie with Margareta, an attractive blonde Ukrainian lady who is one of the entertainers and is wearing angel wings – as do all the entertainers at the White Hot Party. I enjoy further dances with Katie and Britt before catching up with Tony and Patricia in the bar. A glass of Bacardi and Coke is pressed into my hand – they have an Unlimited Beverage Package and it doesn’t seem to matter how many drinks they order! The DJ starts playing ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ and Patricia propels me off to the dance floor, explaining that this is her theme song!
More songs and more Bacardis follow… the night is divided between the dance floor and the bar, chatting to people from across the world, including a Syrian from Aleppo and a tiny American lady in her 80s. Eventually the DJ closes everything down and the last eight or so of us wind up at the ship’s 24-hour eatery, the Blue Lagoon on Deck 8, where I have Chinese noodle soup at 3am before kissing the delectable Patricia goodnight and somehow finding my way back to my cabin…
FRIDAY 7 OCTOBER – A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER
Yesterday just got better and better, and this morning I wake up with a surprisingly clear head, check my watch and find that it’s 10.15am. So I’ve been asleep for about seven hours and it’s too late for breakfast. Then I spot the ‘time change’ card that the cabin steward had left on my bed yesterday evening! We have gone back one hour, so it’s only 9.15! I have a shower and wander up to the Garden Café for breakfast. The ship is surprisingly deserted: many passengers have yet to surface after last night’s party!
It’s quite wet and windy today with a definite fall in the temperature. Checking the Freestyle Daily, I see that there’s a talk by the Cruise Director in the Spinnaker Lounge at 11am, so I head there. It’s very interesting: we learn how much food and drink is consumed on the average cruise, how much fuel the ship uses, what the crew’s quarters are like, and discover that the average age of the passengers on this cruise is 53, ranging from 10 months to 94 years!
After this, it’s lunch time. I see Katie, and afterwards try to persuade her to join me for a swim in the pool, but she says it’s too cold! It’s strange to see so few people on the sun deck today! I do my usual cycling workout in the gym, and meet up with the singles party in the early evening. I join them for dinner in the Jasmine Garden – the Asian restaurant. The food is perfectly adequate, but I’ve had better in cheap Indian take-aways back home. Funnily enough, Patricia had warned me yesterday that she’d eaten there and had also been disappointed… I haven’t seen her at all today, although I see Tony just before dinner and he says she is still sleeping off the effects of last night!
Chen Yuan and Pedro drop by, arm-in-arm, to say hello to all of us, and someone passes a sheet of paper around for us to write our e-mail addresses on. We all get a photocopy of it to take home.
The farewell show at 9.30 takes full advantage of the Norwegian Jade’s huge stage by including acrobats performing on a flying trapeze – one of the most spectacular acts I have seen at sea! But hardly anyone shows up at the Spinnaker Lounge afterwards, and I get the impression that most people are either tired after last night or are packing for their departure tomorrow. A few dances with Britta and Katie and I am off to bed. It’s been a nice enough day, quite relaxing, but not at all like yesterday. Perhaps that’s just as well – I don’t think I could cope with two days like that on the trot!
SATURDAY 8 OCTOBER – BACK IN THE WORLD OF SAGA
I wake up this morning, go up to Deck 12 and see that Norwegian Jade is already in the Port of Venice. I have breakfast on board at the buffet restaurant, kiss a quick goodbye to Katie and say hi to a few other people I know, and then it’s time to get my rucksack and head for the gangway. The way out through the terminal building is clearly marked. Once outside, I turn to my right and there is Saga Sapphire! She has only just arrived and nobody is out yet. I wait for a while and soon see Jacquie and Kathy from Shorex and Andrew from Eurosun, the local agent. I join one of the Saga shuttle buses to connect with a private Saga shuttle-boat to St Mark’s Square, a very pretty journey, despite indifferent weather. I am lucky to be sitting with three female members of the Explosive Productions Cast. Once we get to Venice, I follow my own agenda. I’ve visited the city many times before, but have never been to the police station where much of the action of Donna Leon’s novels about Commisario Brunetti takes place. It proves relatively easy to find, and is slightly smaller and shabbier than I imagined. From here I wander past churches and palazzos to St Mark’s Square and then make my way to La Fenice Opera House. This features in two of Donna Leon’s novels, and I have never actually seen it, as it was just a shell covered by scaffolding on my previous visits to the city, having been gutted by fire some years ago. It looks pretty good now, and has weathered a bit since the restoration, so it no longer looks too new. A short stroll from here brings me to the vaporetto pier, where I join a Line 1 Vaporetto along the Grand Canal, under the Rialto Bridge and back to Piazzale Roma, where I get the bus to the airport. (At €7.50 the vaporetto must rank as a very expensive form of public transport but a very cheap way of seeing some of the most beautiful architecture in Europe).
Easyjet delivers the goods on time, and then it’s back home on the train. I get back through my front door at 8.45pm, about 12 hours after leaving the ship this morning.