Mallorca is the principal island of the Balearic Islands, and home to Palma de Mallorca. Mallorca itself is a huge vacation spot, as are the other islands in the group. As you pull into Palma’s harbor, you see miles of seafront condominium buildings and an enourmous marina for private boats. Last time we were here with Laura and Rob, we hired a driver who took us into the northeastern mountainous coast, and Valldemossa in the mountains. This time, we took the ship’s shuttle bus into Palma and walked around for a few hours.
Narrow streets, April 2017
Palma is a pleasant if hilly town. Being Sunday, many of the shops were closed (no big deal) but the streets were crowded nonetheless. We found live music and a huge book fair in one large plaza, and families out for a walk around town on narrow streets.
Crowds, florists and a river, April 2017
The commercial district is bordered by a river with extensive landscaping along it’s banks. There is also a boulevard called La Rambla, which is a very scaled down version of the more famous and active street in Barcelona. The only shops on it are florists.
Cathedral, April 2017
Just before getting back on the shuttle, stopped for gelato. As one must.
We were back on the ship and finished with lunch by around 3:00pm. The ship left at 5:00, and we were escorted for quite a while by some gulls. They would approach the ship from the rear, and then fly along side for a while, matching our speed. It made it (relatively easy) to catch a good picture.
Bird in flight, April 2017
We will be at sea from our departure on Sunday at 5:00 until we arrive in Sicily around 8:00am on Tuesday.
Yesterday was Zelda and Matteo’s 40th anniversary. To celebrate, we took them to a very fancy restaurant, complete with an expensive bottle of French champagne. We finished the evening with a cabaret show (1).
Zelda and Matteo @ 40, April 23, 2017
It’s hard to believe that the 15 year old girl I first saw standing in her mother’s kitchen is all grown up.
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(1) Actually, all of this was included in the price of the cruise, and of course, they paid their own way. Except for the champagne, which was a gift to us from American Express for charging the cruise on their card. Still, I thought it sounded nice.
Saturday was Barcelona, so of course we did Gaudi things. We went for a trifecta: the Segrada Familia, Park Guell, and Casa Mila. His still-incomplete masterpiece, a failed high-end housing development, and a bankrupt luxury apartment building.
Still under construction, April 2017
Segrada Familia is a massive church whose construction first began in 1882, or 135 years ago. It is stunning in scale and design, and looks unlike any other church or religious edifice in the world. Gaudi was hired a year after it was begun, and he threw out the original design for a new concept.
Listening and learning, April 2017
We met out guide, Marta, outside and she started our 4-hour Gaudi tour by taking us through the museum beneath the structure and explaining the design and construction concepts. This may sound boring, and I was initially skeptical, but I found it pretty interesting. His insightful use of geometry and mathematics to create insanely complex and pragmatic design elements that were also straightforward to construct was amazing.
Interior colors, April 2017
There’s way too much to say about the Segrada Familia, so I’ll leave most of it for you to find elsewhere (see Wikipedia, for instance). But I’ll leave you with this thought: construction was creeping along until the Barcelona Olympics, which had the effect of increasing tourist interest in Barcelona generally and the Segrada. The number of visitors had grown such that the funding has dramatically increased from entrance fees. The church is so crowded that mass is only celebrated in the main sanctuary once a month. A cynic might say that this allows for more paid admissions … .
Park Guell, April 2017
Our next stop was Park Guell. While now a city park, it was originally planned as a high-end gated community in the outskirts of Barcelona. Guell hired Gaudi to design the landscape and public elements of the project. There’s a grand entrance, a house for the concierge to greet visitors, etc. An outdoor market area was built where food and other vendors could set up on market days. Ultimately no one was interested in living that far from the city in the days before motorized transportation.
Gaudi House (not by Gaudi), April 2017
Only two residences were built in the Park, neither designed by Gaudi. After the project failed, Gaudi bought one of the houses and lived there for the last 20 years of his life.
Casa Mila was commissioned in 1906 by a wealthy Barcelona businessman, Pere Mila, to be his residence and have a number of luxury apartments to provide income for the building. Unfortunately for the later owner, a local bank, the original leases allowed rent-fixed renewals through the grandchildren of the original renters, which ultimately forced the building into bankruptcy. It is currently owned by a foundation, which has turned several of the apartments into a museum.
We had seen the other famous Gaudi-designed private residence, Casa Batllo, when we were in Barcelona two years ago. It was great to see another example of his work this time, but we felt that Batllo was more striking. That being said, this building was extremely controversial when built as it has a number of wonderful and typically Gaudi-esque features.
Mila facade and details, April 2017
The fanciful chimneys and air vents are a Gaudi trademark. And he spared no effort in this building.
Chimneys, April 2017
When Casa Mila was originally built, the attic was subdivided into rooms for the tenants’ household staff to live in, and for laundry and other workrooms. As it has been renovated into a showpiece and museum, the interior walls have been removed. This reveals a set of supporting arches following the same geometry used in Segrada Familia. While the picture doesn’t show it, the arches are quite beautiful.
Arch supports, April 2017
We finished our time in Barcelona with a stroll on La Rambla and lunch. Then, back to the Silver Muse.
In typical cruise fashion, we pulled into Marseille in the morning and left in the late afternoon. This gave us enough time to take a quick look at two cities in southern France: Marseille itself, a bustling port and tourist attraction, and Aix, a smaller city about 20 miles inland. Our plan here was to take a taxi from the dock to and from Aix, and then walk around some part of Marseille before boarding the ship. As the ship was departing at 5pm, we decided to target returning no later than 4pm. As it turned out, we needed to take a shuttle bus from the dock into Marseille to find a taxi. All in all, the transportation options worked out as planned.
Aix-en-Provence walking street, April 2017
Aix is a pleasant little city, with a large pedestrian avenue surrounded by quiet streets. The car traffic seems pretty light in this central district.
Quiet streets in Aix, April 2017
There’s a fair amount of real shopping in addition to tourist shops and restaurants. I took advantage of this and bought a tie. After the previous night’s excitement over the ship dress code, I decided I didn’t need any more drama.
Vieux-Port Marseille, April 2017
We found another taxi and headed back to Marseille, were we planned to visit the Old Port area and find some lunch. The Old Port, or Vieux-Port, is a major tourist area. It makes an enlongated U around the old port itself, with today is packed with small and not-so small pleasure crafts. There’s a giant Ferris Wheel.
We walked up and down the street for a while trying to find a restaurant that would meet our diverse needs, and then decided to give up and head back to the ship for lunch. We got to the appointed meeting place for the shuttle bus about 10 minutes early, and found a hefty line of other passengers. Fortunately, we got on the bus, but a few people didn’t fit. They had to either wait a half hour for the next bus or take a taxi.
Dinner this evening was stress-free as it was “informal”, which implies sport jackets and no ties. I wore my jacket, while Matteo and many other men in our restaurant didn’t. Go figure. I also should mention I had a nice talk with the Hotel Director Paulo in the afternoon, where we discussed the issues of lamps falling on people (1), the dress code and the dining reservation system. He took notes, but basically said he had no authority to change any of the company rules. He did say that if he got lots of complaints – and I was not the first to complain – it certainly would be reviewed at corporate.
Very cool, April 2017
After dinner, Sally and I spent a little bit listening to the jazz duo in one of the restaurants. They were very good.
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(1) For the second time, this morning we noticed some water on the floor in our bathroom that was not caused by anything we did. When we showed it to our butler (aka cabin attendant), he said it was happening in other cabins as well. Go beta testing!
Thursday was our third day in Monaco, and our first full day on the Silver Muse. One of the concerns we had when we booked this cruise was that this is the maiden voyage. Many people are excited about something like that, being first and all. And let’s not even start with the other meaning of being first with a maiden. But as a long time IT guy, I translate “maiden voltage” as “beta testing”. As in ” we haven’t quite finished debugging yet, but let’s get some customers already”.
Making us safe from the beta test, April 2017
I may have already described the seating chart issue from the first night, but to recap: the ship didn’t allow anyone to make any dining reservations for the first night, which are actually required every other night for every restaurant. When we inquired upon arrival with the head of the restaurants, we found that they simply assigned people across the ship by cabin number. So we were sitting with the couple from room 746 (we are 747), while Zelda and Matteo were with two couples from 654 and 655, as they are room 653. While a good way to meet people, not what any of the guests traveling with friends or family had in mind.
Not just loose, but missing, April 2017
Matteo came down this morning to breakfast with a cut on his hand. When we inquired about it, we found out that the bedside reading lamp came off the wall in the middle of the night and cut him. And when the electrician came to repair the lamp, he said that the screws holding it to the wall were missing, and that was a common problem across the ship. Seems like the holes in the underlying baseplate don’t always align with the holes in the lamp unit, so they were simply left off during assembly. Zelda went over to check the lamp on her side of the bed, and it came off in her hand (no injury this time). When I checked our lamps, one had the required two screws and one had only one. This is clearly a design problem, but also reflects the lack of time to fix a (minor) safety problem before the beta test maiden voyage.
I wrote a couple of days ago about all of the work that the ladies put into organizing our diner reservations. The effort was compounded, in part, by confusion over which nights were “formal” (black tie suggested) at which restaurants. We wanted to avoid them, so Matteo and I didn’t need to bring suits or ties. Which I didn’t bring as a result of the careful planning. It took many emails and phone calls with the travel agent and the cruise line itself before Sally secured the information. Once we were on board and started reading the cabin information, it turned out that two of the restaurants are to be formal every night. And we have dining reservations at those for four nights. It also became apparent Wednesday evening that the passengers were taking this formal thing formally. Even though Wednesday was formally informal (jackets required for men, but no ties), a significant number of men were in tuxedos, and woman in gowns. I haven’t seen this type of dress widespread on a cruise in 30 years. It definitely wasn’t the case on our previous Silversea cruise two years ago.
Saving us from beta testing, April 2017
Anyway, Thursday night dinner was at one of the formal restaurants, and we had a lot of conversation during the day about how to deal with it. My response was, since I didn’t even have a tie with me, I’ll deal with it if and when it’s actually a problem when we show up there. And I didn’t expect a problem.
Well, I was wrong again.
We arrived at the host’s station, and he informed me that the restaurant was formal and I needed a tie to be seated. I informed him that, per the information the cruise line gave us, I didn’t bring a tie. He informed me that it was ship policy and needed to be adhered to. I informed him I came for dinner and wanted to be seated. He informed me that he would be happy to lend me one of the ties they kept in back for uncouth idiots(1) like me who came without one. I informed him that I paid a lot of money for the cruise, I didn’t want his stupid (2) tie, and I was going to have dinner in his stinking (2) restaurant.
At this point he mumbled something about just following company rules, and proceeded to seat us in a nice quiet table in the back of the restaurant, where the fewest possible other guests would need to be exposed to my depraved dress behavior. I, in turn, made sure I sat facing so that the maximum number of people could see my defiance to immoral and probably illegal authority.
Dessert was yummy: lemon meringue pie, April 2017
We then proceeded to have a lovely dinner, served by a friendly and attentive wait staff. Although I need to say that three of us had to send our main courses back to be redone, and one of them had to be changed altogether to another choice. But the desserts were excellent.
Monte Carlo at night, April 2017
After dinner, we went to the show, which featured the “Silversea Singers” (love the alliteration; very clever). They were very good as they went through a program of songs from the 30s and 40s, which may have matched the age demographic of the passengers (3). Sally then had to make a quick stop to chat with one of the restaurant managers about ensuring a garlic-free menu choice for Friday night, while I took a last picture of Monte Carlo. The Silver Muse left port around midnight, headed for Marseilles.
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(1) He didn’t actually call me an “uncouth idiot”. I’m using literary license to describe my inner feelings at this point.
(2) I didn’t say either “stupid” or “stinking”.
(3) I jest. If you were a teenager in the 1930s, you are in your 90s now. While the passengers appear older than we’ve seen on other cruises, they are not predominantly in their 80s and 90s.
Yesterday we boarded the cruise ship Silver Muse to begin our journey around the Mediterranean Sea. The first stop will be Monte Carlo, where we boarded. Yes, that’s right – we moved from our lovely hotel in the city to a lovely hotel floating at a dock in the city. We spent last night on the ship, but remained at dock in Monte Carlo. I’ll get to “why” in a bit.
The check-in process seemed well organized, if a bit over-complicated. We had to stop at three different desks to complete the process, and it’s not clear to me why the three stops were the plan. It seems to me that whatever it was they did at each stop could have been accomplished in one stop. As it was we waited on two short lines, and it moved along well.
After the third stop, when we were officially “checked in”, we made our own fourth stop to chat with the head of the restaurant, Mr. Gilbert Lanza, about food allergies and our reservation for this first night. See, the first night was “special” on this cruise. It was added to the schedule after we had booked the trip, and we understood that the ship planned a special celebration in honor of its maiden voyage – parties, music, dignitaries, etc. But they also seemed to have no way to allow you to make dinner plans for that night(1).
Chatting with Lanza, April 2017
So we stopped to chat with Mr. Lanza and found out a few things.
1. He was mystified by some of the decisions surrounding the festivities, like how they randomly assigned people to tables for this evening.
2. He and his assistant would move us to Zelda and Matteo’s table, and somehow notify the displaced people that they were sitting somewhere else (we if fact all did sit together, so this worked).
3. He would arrange for Sally to receive a menu each evening for the restaurants so she could select a meal which would be garlic-free and tasty (2).
The cabin is nice, which is not a surprise since it’s pretty much the same as the one we had two years ago. There are a few minor changes in the layout, none of which matter a bit.
Cabin with a view, April 2017
After checking in and unpacking, we toured the ship, checking out all a bars, restaurants, the spa, the bars, another restaurant, the game room, a bar, the fitness center, etc. Sally decided to do some more unpacking while I went to the gym. While I was working out, they made an announcement about the evening’s events. There was a talk about the cruise industry starting shortly, and a big-deal christening of the ship on the dock adjacent to the ship in an hour.
The christening ceremony was setup with folding chairs for 400 people, a small classical orchestra and speeches by Silversea executives and Prince Albert II of Monaco. Champagne, tv coverage, very posh. Unfortunately, only 150 passengers actually went down as we watched from our balcony, then then the weather turned.
Sparse, umbrellas and then inside, April 2017
First the blankets came out as the temperature dropped, then the umbrellas as it started to rain. Finally, they gave up and moved the whole thing into the theater in the ship. That’s Albert’s bald spot sitting in the chair in the middle of the aisle. Finally, we watched the christening on the video screen in the theater as they broke a bottle of booze on the hall of the ship.
But dinner was nice, and we had a good time catching up with Zelda & Matteo.
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(1) You’ll recall that, unlike our last cruise on a sister ship, is ship has no open seating restaurant – you need a reservation every evening.
(2) We never got a menu last evening, but found Lanza at breakfast and got it all arranged for tonight.
I wrote the other day about packing. If you missed it, I was discussing two alternate approaches to packing for a trip, mine and Sally’s. Mine is to bring only what’s necessary, while Sally tries to be ready for different circumstances and plan for contingencies.
Sometimes my plan leads to a problem.
Falling apart at the seams, April 2017
Sally brought a favorite pair of comfortable shoes, and another pair of comfortable shoes to switch off with. This afternoon – the second day of our two week trip – the one-piece heel and sole started to come unglued from the body of the shoe, making it unusable. Since she has the other shoes, this will merely be a mild inconvenience, rather than a crisis. We are planning a lot of touring on this trip, and not having some comfortable shoes would be a problem. She’ll try and get them repaired on the ship, but we don’t know about that yet.
I brought two pair of shoes: a pair of nice leather shoes for the evening, and a pair of sneakers. If one of them had failed, I’d be shopping in Monte Carlo tomorrow and undoubtedly paying thousands of dollars for a pair of shoes.
We landed in Nice yesterday a bit late as a result of hanging out on the runway at JFK for unknown reasons. We will spend two nights in Monte Carlo. Last night was in a hotel, and tonight will be on our ship, the Silver Muse. So when we got here yesterday morning and finally got into our room after lunch, we found the Silver Muse waiting for us across the street, so to speak. Sally, as only she can do, extended her run of free upgrades and we found ourselves in a large room with a view.
A view of our room from our room, April 2017
Monte Carlo and Monaco are a little funny. It’s a tiny country, only a couple of square miles. Yet the city feels like a big city. It’s very crowded and has lots of big buildings. It’s loaded with expensive stores, expensive cars, and expensive yachts. It’s also built into the side of the hills which surround it, so the streets are all inclined. There are stairways everywhere.
Vertical Monte Carlo, April 2017
Monte Carlo is famous for its casino, of course. They charge €10 just to get in, which we didn’t have to pay because of our hotel. We went over last night and Sally blew through €15 in an hour at the slot machines (fortunately, I’m good for it). I really don’t get slots. At least in the old days, you pulled a mechanical lever and could kid yourself that the way you pulled it had something to do with winning or not. Today’s electronic machines don’t even make you do that – you feed currency in, select the amount of your bet, then repeatedly press a button to make the bet. Occasionally it pays off. Of course, there is nothing random whatsoever about the spin; the machine is a computer carefully programmed to provide intermittent reinforcement to the customer so as the maximize how long they will stay and feed it money.
The main gaming rooms are nothing special. Ten tables for roulette, blackjack and baccarat. Several dozen slot machines. There are so-call “private rooms” in the back for high rollers and James Bond types that we didn’t enter. I can’t show you a picture of the gaming room. I can’t even show you a picture of the sign saying “no pictures”. So here’s a snippet of the outside. It’s a nicely ornate building.
A few years ago we went away for a month. As always, we made a reservation with a car service to take us to the airport. I always worried about these guys showing up; I had occasionally experienced no-shows or late arrivals. So I was grew nervous as the pickup time approached.
I grew very tense when the pickup time passed with no driver.
Tedd of Uber, April 2017
I grew extremely tense when my call to the dispatcher went to voice mail.
At 10 minutes past the pickup time, and with no answer at dispatch, we loaded our luggage into the car and drove to JFK long term parking. The parking fee for the month was $16/day, or $480.
Last year I started using Uber (like so many of you). Mostly, it’s been a good experience, with lower costs, clean cars and pleasant drivers. On our last trip I had trouble getting a ride; apparently none of the drivers in the area wanted to make the 1:30 trip to JFK.
So this time I decided to try Lyft. I had been told that many drivers were abandoning Uber for Lyft, so we gave a try. I even used the scheduling feature to set the pickup for 4:00pm. Sure enough, a few minutes before 4:00, I got an alert that a driver had picked up the call and would be there in 14 minutes. Cool!
Except that I watched as he drove in the wrong direction, the arrival time stretched to 23 minutes, and then the car icon stopped moving. After a text and voice call yielded nothing, I cancelled the call and switched over to Uber. Tedd (pictured above) immediately grabbed the call and was at our house in 7 minutes.
So now we’re on our way to the airport, with an ETA of 5:40 for our 8:07 departure. Plenty of time.
So we both spent some time yesterday packing, and I’m pretty much done. The conversations we had about choices were illuminating and exposed two different (and equally valid) perspectives on how to make choices.
Bags ready to go, April 2017
On the one hand, there’s a school of thought that attempts to bring the minumum one can get away with on a trip. Every item chosen must be versitile; clothing should mix-and-match across your selected wardrobe; items should be both durable and washable. I know people who travel and never check luggage – their selections always fit into the allowable carry-on sized bags. Indeed, I travelled for years for business and never checked a bag, although the carry-on restrictions were a bit looser then.
The advantages to this approach are
No chance of loosing checked luggage
No waiting for checked luggage at the carousel (obviously more important for trips with multiple flights or connecting flights)
Less stuff to deal with in your room, especially when packing and unpacking
The major disadvantage is that you might discover you need something you didn’t bring. At best, this will be an inconvenience, where you either do without or need to go buy the item. At worst, you have a serious problem. For me, not bringing enough of my meds (or ruining some of what I brought), or missing a piece of photo gear (which is not replaceable in most locations we’ll be) would be pretty bad. Not having the perfect shirt for some occassion would be much less of a problem to me; I’m happy to compromise here. I’d be somewhat more unhappy if the weather turned very cold and I didn’t have stuff to keep me comfortable while we’re doing whatever we do.
The other school says that a trip is a special occassion, and one should bring as much stuff as you can manage to maximize your enjoyment of the trip. “As much as you can manage” could be defined by what fits in your suitcase(s). The biggest advantage of this approach is that you will almost always have what you want to wear or otherwise use. You’ll always have warm clothing, and clothing for warm weather. You’ll have a selection of shoes, pants and tops to wear each day. If something gets ruined or too soiled to wear, simply select another.
The disadvangages of this are
You will never be able to avoid checking luggage
At the extreme, you’ll have multiple pieces of checked luggage to deal with – increasing the risk of loss or delay
Your luggage may be heavy and hard to manage
You need to pack and unpack stuff at each stop
You need to find a place to store all of your stuff at each stop (a surprising number of expensive hotels have minimal space to unpack into)
As you might guess, Sally and I approach the challange of packing from these two ends of the spectrum. What you might not guess is that we usually wind up with almost identical amounts of stuff as measured by the luggage we bring along. We use the same main suitcase as our checked bag. I usually have a backpack as a carryon, while she might have a small roll-aboard or bag.
Sally usually brings more items, but my items tend to be larger (think shoes or pants).
Sally might have an extra carry on bag, but my total luggage will usually be heavier (my clothes are denser, and my camera gear weighs a lot).
On any trip longer than a weekend, I assume I’ll need to do laundry. Sally’s threshhold for laundry is much longer – perhaps a week.
Sally likes to have a variety of looks to wear, while I don’t care so much about that. I’m happy to wear the same shirt or pants multiple times (subject to laundering, of course).
My rule is always: bring what you want, but it has to fit (whatever that means) and you need to be able to live with your decision. Other than that, I’m happy for us to make different choices.
Narrow streets, April 2017
Crowds, florists and a river, April 2017
Cathedral, April 2017
Bird in flight, April 2017
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