You Can't Silence Us

We arrived in Cartagena the next morning. That city is the main Mediterranean navy base for Spain. Just down the street from our dock was the main gate for the base.

This was the port where fatigue finally set in. We didn’t take a tour in this town. We decided to just walk around the area for a bit before returning to the ship. The architecture was the same as the other ports, the weather was nice, but we were just a bit tired of all of the walking. We had been walking ten miles or so a day, and this day we just walked out, got some lunch, and returned to the ship. To be honest, we have been eating so much gourmet food and good wine that I was ready for just a regular hamburger and a coke at this point.

I’m not faulting the lunch we had. I love the little restaurants and shops, but sometimes you miss the food from home, and at this point we have been on the move for over two weeks. I did see a cigarette machine in a store. I haven’t seen one of those in years.

There were some Roman ruins that I briefly looked at:

We went back to the ship and took a nap. We were tired and needed it. Dinner was amazing as always. We hit the casino and won big. When you play in the casino, you earn slot machine comps. I decided to use up all of them, as this was the second to last night. I picked a random machine, and the damned thing hit for $1200. My wife then hit on her machine for another $1400. So we walked out of the casino that night with more than $2600. Combined with our winnings from previous nights, we decided to pay our onboard expense account. That way, when we left the ship at the end of the cruise, we wouldn’t be traveling around with so much cash. After 2 weeks on the cruise our tab came to over $4000, so we paid it and still had some cash left over.

The morning after we were in Gibraltar, we stopped in Malaga, Spain. This city has been in existence for over 2800 years. It always amazes me just how old European cities are. I really think that’s one of the reasons why Americans are not so aware of history- to us, it exists only as words in a book, but to Europeans, they are surrounded by it. You can walk around towns like this and see old Roman columns and Moorish castles scatter about neighborhoods. In the US, we don’t really get that. To Europeans, buildings that are hundreds of years old are commonplace.

For example, this cathedral in the town has in it’s basement a relic that is simply unbelievable- a piece of the true cross. Catholics claim this is a piece of the cross whereupon Jesus was crucified. Even if that isn’t something you believe in, the fact that this relic has been within this church for over 1400 years old is simply incredible.

I absolutely love to see the extreme amount of craftsmanship and work that went into these old cathedrals. The art in here is preciously valuable. There are objects in this cathedral that weigh hundreds of pounds, are made of solid gold and silver. The melt value is in the millions, and they are priceless works of art.

Moving on, there is also a large bullfighting ring in the city.

The streets here are simply beautiful. They paved these older cities with marble tile.

Then it was back to the ship for a lovely dinner. First was the butter poached lobster salad.

Then some filet mignon.

Finished by a delicious piece of strawberry cheesecake.

We went to a brief concert from the house band before winning a bit of money in the casino. Still down about $3000 at this point, but slowly winning some of it back.

After leaving Cadiz, our next stop was Gibraltar. It’s an outpost of Britain, the currency is the pound, the language English, and people born here of Gibraltar parents are considered to be British citizens. Note that, like every country except the USA, being born in Britain doesn’t automatically confer citizenship. There are 34,000 people living here, and another 100,000 or so come into the city from Spain to work in the city’s shipyards and shops. For this reason, most of the people here also speak Spanish. This isn’t uncommon in Europe, with many people speaking 2, 3, or as many as 5 different languages due to the close proximity of so many different peoples.

We paid a cab driver to drive us around and show us the sights. We went to St. Michael’s cave, and even interacted with the monkeys who live there.

There are a couple of legends about the cave: one being that the cave has no bottom, and the other that it is attached to a cave system that stretches across the straits to Africa and is how the monkeys got to the European side. Military officers attempted to see how far the caves went and were never seen again. The cave has since been extensively explored, and no remains or recent cave ins were found, so the men remain missing to this day.

During World War 2, the caves were used as a bomb shelter and hospital. Today, it’s used as a concert hall for musical performances and as a tourist attraction. There are some spots where you can look down and it appears as though the cave stretches down to the center of the planet. It DOES look quite deep.

As I was walking down a trail near the top of the mountain, one of them reached out and grabbed my shoulder. My wife was attempting to take a picture, and the little guy jumped on to my back and began grooming my hair. We continued to walk, and he stayed on my shoulders for a good bit. People walking by were taking my picture and also giving me advice on how to get rid of him. He wasn’t hurting me or anything, so I let him stay there until he decided we had walked far enough.

From the top of the Rock, I was above the clouds and got this picture of a mountain on the African side

After that, we went to a cliff overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, where we could get a good look at Africa.

Back to the ship for dinner, and as the rock sailed out of sight, we also saw a US destroyer. It was the USS Roosevelt, heading westward to the Atlantic, and I presume to her homeport in Rota, Spain.

We went to a concert. The singer was Nicola Ward, a well known British woman, and she sang an absolutely beautiful rendition of Con te partirò.

After that, we spent some time in the casino, and I walked out of there up $1000 for the night, thanks to some great shooters at the craps table.

After Lisbon, we had our last sea day. My luck in the casino turned, and I won over $400. Well, I actually was up about $800, but one of the things I need to learn is quitting when I am ahead. By the time I realized the table had gone cold, I was lucky to leave the table up by $400.

The next day, we docked in Cadiz, Spain. We actually got on a bus and went to Seville. This city is absolutely stunning, and I learned on this tour the reason why streets in so many towns in that era are narrow and winding. I had always assumed that it was because they were designed for foot traffic and didn’t want to bother with wide, straight streets. That isn’t the case- they did it because it was more difficult for raiders on horseback to ride down the street. The absence of 90 degree intersections was because winding streets also facilitated the ocean breeze blowing through the town. Another factoid was poor people didn’t live near the beach because pirates and other ships would raid the waterfront. Add to that the fact that no one really swam in the ocean until after 1800, and no one with money wanted to be near the ocean.

Seville, like many towns on the Iberian peninsula, was heavily influenced by the Moors, who weren’t kicked out of the area until the time of Columbus. The Moors brought a lot of advanced mathematics, archeology, science, and education to Europe, which along with the Renaissance begun in Italy, helped in ending the “dark ages” of Medieval Europe. Check out some of the sights of Seville.

The following pictures are from the Palace:

One thing that annoyed me was when some of our fellow American tourists saw the brotherhoods for Holy Week, the first comment was “OOOh, the Klan.” By the end of this trip, I gained an understanding of why so many in Europe think that Americans are uneducated swine.

Seville was an absolutely beautiful city, and there were many examples of both Moorish and Renaissance art and architecture. I really enjoyed this tour, even though I didn’t see a single barber.

After leaving the Azores, we had a day at sea. We rode some bumper cars then played some games in the sports bar over a few cocktails.

The day after that, we spent the day in Lisbon, Portugal. No, the people who live here aren’t called Lisbians, but they probably should be. We had a good day touring the city, the people who lived here were friendly and gracious. The city was beautiful:

The cathedrals in Europe are filled with superior art and craftsmanship. The amount of skilled labor it took to build them simply amazes me. This one is over 300 years old:

Before returning to the ship, we stopped at a large shopping mall, and while we were in there, we got some lunch. That’s where a bit of trouble kicked in. Google translate allows you to point your camera at something that’s printed in a different language, and the software alters the image so it appears in English.

While translating the menu, there was an item called lagartas, which Google dutifully translated to lizards. We weren’t feeling all that adventurous, so we ordered the pork and pineapples.

It turns out that Google is a bit literal. Lagartas is a dish made from thinly sliced Iberain ham, and has nothing to do with reptiles. The hazards of dealing with other languages.

On the way out of the mall, we stopped at a small bakery and got a traditional Portuguese egg custard tarts, Pastel de Nata. These things are incredible. I’m glad we only got a few of these, because I could easily gain some weight with these things.

With our stomachs full, it was time to leave Lisbon, but I would not mind returning at all. As we left port, I snapped this picture:

More ports, more travelling- tune in tomorrow as we enter Spain.