Trip Part 1
I know I rarely update this journal, but recently, I've actually had something to write about. I'm sitting on a cruise ship right now somewhere on the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. We're not far from Spain. In fact, the shore that I can see probably IS Spain. It's been a pretty good trip. I'm with Caroline and her parents.
We started things off in Barcelona. None of us had been there previously, so we just took the tour bus around the city seeing the sights. Lots of cities in Europe have buses on which you can use headphones to get a tour of the city. They explain all about the history of the area, and it's not too expensive. A full day is about 20 euro, which is something like 28 US dollars. It's quite a bargain for a bus pass that lasts all day, takes you to all the best spots, and explains them on the way.
After looking around the city and taking a bunch of pictures, we got on the boat. We're taking a cruise on MSC Cruise Lines, and it's pretty good. Overall, the boat is easily as nice as any I've ever been on, but the food and service are just a bit below what I've come to expect on cruises from my side of the planet. But on the other hand, the price is a fair bit lower too. We got a great deal on our cabin, a nice balcony room on the starboard side, which happens to be the side that faces land for the entire trip.
Our first stop was in Marseilles, France. We just took a city tour there via the boat, and it was interesting, but overall, it has been my least favorite city. It's the second-largest city in France, but there's not really that much there. The only thing that was REALLY cool was an art museum with an amazing fountain outside. It ranks up there with the best things we've seen so far.
After that, we went to Genoa, Italy. Again, we chose a city tour, this time focusing on the more historical aspects of the city. Like all cities around here, there are several palaces that were once occupied by various governors and one massive cathedral. But I think the thing that separated this city from the rest is the architecture. When you would go from one section of the city to another, it would change instantly. It was almost like going to another city. It's worth checking out if you're traveling Italy.
Next up was Naples. There were two excursions we wanted to take here: a visit to Pompeii and a visit to Mt. Vesuvius. In the end, we decided to climb the mountain, and in a lot of ways, it was a lot like climbing Mt. Fuji This is my second volcano, and from this, I can assume that they are all pretty much big piles of sand. Contrary to popular belief, Mt. Vesuvius did NOT destroy Pompeii. In fact, it didn't even exist when Pompeii was destroyed. It was originally called Mt. Somma. When that mountain blew its top, a new volcano formed around Somma. At one point in time, their cones were concentric, but now the crater for Somma is on the side of Vesuvius, and there is a gigantic crater on the top. From the summit, we could barely see Pompeii, and I have plans to take Caroline back there someday.
The next stop was Palermo, Sicily. We had planned on taking a really cool tour of temples in the area, but it got cancelled. After that, not much seemed to work. We spent our remaining Euros getting a tour bus pass like we had in Barcelona, and we planned on changing money in the city. I've been all over the world, and just when you step off the boat, there are tons of places willing to change your foreign money for slightly less of theirs. This is NOT the case in Palermo. We spent two hours trying to change money, and we still weren't able to. We decided to spend the rest of our day trying to take the buses, and even they didn't work that well. We only saw about half of the city's sites before deciding to take a break. After resting for a bit, we set back out into the city to try and visit a botanical garden. Since we couldn't change money, I reluctantly used an ATM knowing I'd incur a fee, and we got enough money to visit the gardens, get a canoli (spelling?), and have enough for the next day's travels.
Next up was Tunis. This means I can add Africa to my list of continents and yet another country to my ever-growing list. Overall, I think it was probably my favorite. The excursions looked kind of lame, since they were just tours for shopping and such. I can get to the shops on my own, so we decided to go by taxi. The first taxi we passed offer to take us to see the sights for the low price of 110 euro. I kept walking. The next said he'd do the same for 80. We kept walking. The next guy's price was 60, and we said we didn't have that much. He finally agreed to the 40 that we had and began to walk us to his taxi. On the way, he apparently changed his mind and passed us over to three other taxi drivers that fought amongst themselves to get our fare. The went as low as offering to take us for 20 euro, but we had settled in a taxi with an agreed price of 30. That was fine by me, since I had every intention of giving the guy my full 40 if he was worth anything, and he was. He spoke a broken mix of French and English, but we saw everything there was to see. We were unaware that Tunis had once been called Carthage, and as such, there was an interesting mix of French, Italian, and Arabic culture.
We started things off at the Cathedral before setting off to visit that Bazaar. Sadly, there was no parking, so we just got a passing glance at the shopping, but it didn't look all that impressive anyway. Not like we had the money to buy anything even if we'd wanted it. We jumped on the freeway and started setting off toward the Grand Mosque and the Carthage Museum. I've seen a hundred cathedrals, so getting to see a Mosque was particularly interesting. Caroline tried to go in with me, but they stopped her at the door; her head wasn't covered. I said I'd take lots of pictures, and I did. I was nearly done touring the place when I saw her. The taxi driver had loaned her a towel, and she had wrapped it around her head. Attired in a dirty towel, she was fit to see the holiest muslim place in Tunis, and we were both equally impressed. It was basically a palace made exclusively of white marble. I've never seen anything quite like it, and it might be a while before I see anything like it again.
Then he drove us to Sidi Bou Said, a small town about 19 km north of the bay. It is famous for small, square white houses with blue doors. This is to be in harmony with the sea and the heavens, and really, it was cool to see. I've never seen a town that was all the same color. But it wasn't all white and blue; it seemed that almost every house had flowering trees that bloomed in the brightest colors possible. It was probably the prettiest place we've seen so far, and is one of my favorites for Europe.
Now we're on our way to Palma de Majorca. We plan on taking a tour of the dragon caves here, and that should be pretty neat. Sadly, we're not allowed to take pictures, so I'll just have to take in as much as I can.
It's been a pretty good trip so far, but I'm looking forward to coming home. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Biocoat. We also REALLY miss our bed and pillows. There really is no place like home.