#109 2022 November 19-25. Nomad Diary. Genoa, Italy. Corsica (Ajaccio), France. Gibraltar (UK). Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain (Canary Islands) and Thanksgiving on the Ship. Sea Days.

 

From our ship looking at Genoa in the early morning.

One of several public murals through town. Genoa.

Darrell at the dolphin tank at the Genoa Aquarium.

Street vendors near the aquarium and looking at buildings going toward the old city. Genoa.

Old door detail. Genoa. 

Old door detail with Darrell in Genoa.

Beautiful fountain and architecture in Genoa.

Selfie with old gate. On the other side of this gate and a short block to the Christopher Columbus house. Genoa.

Nice structure reconstructed here next to the rebuilt Columbus boyhood house. Genoa.

Decorative tiled walkways next to old beautiful and ornate buildings.

This pattern is a quilting pattern that I (and an Amish woman) stitched around the borders of the first quilt I made. (a Dresden Plate quilt I began making in 1983).

Saturday. 19. We are in Genoa, Italy today. It is a half mile walk to the largest aquarium in Europe! We walk over to it and pay the entry, wait in line and then go inside and walk through all of the exhibits fairly quickly. We spent 90 minutes touring through the aquarium. There were a lot of families with children enjoying this place. After we left the aquarium, we walked to the old town via Girabaldi street. Wow! The architecture here is beautiful! This city is tourist friendly and has a lot to offer. We just really enjoyed looking at the buildings, the tiled sidewalks, the narrow streets, and all the period details. We had to go to the Christopher Columbus house that is not original, but made to look like they think it would be. Still a really amazing piece of this town’s history. The local food to eat here is focaccia. They sell it and there are people lined up to get a big warm square and carry away eating. We got some on our way back to the ship and it was so worth trying this treat in the town that made it famous.  We had lunch on the ship.

Mountains surrounding Ajaccio make me wonder how far Napoleon explored as a child here?

Display of spices at the outdoor market in Ajaccio.

To the right of this market building are tented vendors too at Ajaccio.

Clever door knocker in Ajaccio.

Walking uphill on a tree lined street. Looking left toward the sea. Ajaccio.

Arrived to the big Napoleon monument. Ajaccio.

Climbing up the Napoleon monument. Ajaccio.

Views to the sea and the mountains from the Napoleon monument. Ajaccio.

Darrell walking back down the hill toward the sea at Ajaccio.

Beside the sea looking toward old Ajaccio.

Back at the market we selected some olives from this display to eat. Ajaccio.

Sunday. 20. Ajaccio, Corsica today whose claim to fame is the the birthplace of Napoleon. We participated with worship online today before exploring the port. Close to the ship was a farmer’s market. We weren’t hungry yet and just walked through with thinking that we will come back through a bit later and look again. It was mostly fresh foods that were displayed by each vendor in attractive ways. When we did get back to this market, all of the fresh bread was sold out–boo– but we did enjoy our olives and cheese on a bench in the sunshine before returning to the ship. While in town we walked around and enjoyed the architecture and the surrounding mountains with the ocean are beautiful. The town was nice to us as tourists. We walked up a hill through town to the big Napoleon monument. Then we walked back down the hill a different direction toward the coast and walked along the coast back toward the port. We stopped at a grocery to by chestnut spread. Why? Because I learned that this is a french product that is used as a sweet spread or pastry filling or ice cream topping and I wanted to get some and taste it. It was a beautiful day in Corsica!

Looking at the sea from our cabin with a sliding door and balcony.

The fitness room with an extra mirrored room for small classes where we go each morning to do our DDP yoga routines. At least one day we went just outside this room onto the turf covered deck to exercise.

A show on the ship put on by some of the kitchen staff. Princess Cruise ship Regal.

Monday. 21. Sea Day!! We sleep in until 6:30! We go straight to the buffet and wait until later to do our DDP exercise routine. I find that I like pine nuts in my granola!! Also found that toasted pumpkin seeds are good in guacamole. We have a Bible study with others on sea days. 

This day approaching Gibraltar. Darrell went out on our balcony and gathered the salt that had dried on the railing. That’s a lot of sea spray dried up!

Walking from the ship through town. Gibraltar.

Seeing this old castle on our walk to the lift up the mountain. This castle was our last stop coming down the mountain in the afternoon. Gibraltar.

Walking through old town. Gibraltar.

Going up the mountain. Gibraltar.

View going up the mountain. Gibraltar.

Up on top in Gibraltar. Darrell and Sherry.

A tricksie monkey coming to bug her friend at a ticket booth.Gibraltar.

Walking towards the natural cave and watching the monkeys jump on the tourist taxis for little rides round and round. Gibraltar.

Inside St. Michael’s cave. Gibraltar.

Tuesday. 22. Gibraltar is our stop today. It’s a WOW! The ship coming into port is really cool as we could see the well known mountain that has been marketed on an insurance logo. Today we are walking through town about 2 miles to the sky ride up the mountain. There are a variety of trails, caves, museums and overlooks on the way down the mountain. We have been warned about the monkeys who live on this mountain and like to harass tourists by stealing bags or hats so they can be playful and show you that they are boss of you! We saw plenty of monkeys, but had now mishaps thankfully. The views were beautiful! On our hike down we went to a cave museum, had a snack bar sandwich, went into a historical manmade military cave. Darrell did two of these military caves. We also toured a castle before following hundreds of old steps down through a neighborhood back into old town and then walked the final 2 miles back to the ship!

Enjoying pictures of grandson Owen.

Beautiful skies from the ship.

Wednesday. 23. A sea day!! Yay! This cruise served more calamari than I’ve ever had on a cruise and today it’s grilled! Yum!

Arriving Canary Islands.

Having fun at the shipwreck playground. San Jose de Tenerife.

Nice park between city and waterway. View of mountains. Tourist center has a roof that grows plants. San Jose de Tenerife.

View looking from the sidewalk inland. San Jose de Tenerife

Old fort along coast. San Jose de Tenerife.

The seaside of the old fort and this modern building made to look like a wave. San Jose de Tenerife.

This tree’s roots look like big lizards! San Jose de Tenerife.

Decorative architecture and details. San Jose de Tenerife.

Frequent tree covered walkways make this town livable and enjoyable! San Jose de Tenerife.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner party! Our group sat and had dinner together most days for this 2 week cruise segment. 

Thursday. 24. Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. We are at our last stop before crossing the Atlantic ocean to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We are at the Canary Islands and the town of San Jose de Tenerife. The ship parking is incredible here as they are backing it into a narrow space with an ease of a very practiced captain and crew!  We walk around town and even go shopping at a 7 story department store. We went to their cafe and got a snack that was sort of challenging with language barriers, but it worked out fine. There was a really fun playground that looked like a shipwreck. Back on the ship we had a sort of traditional thanksgiving dinner served in the dining room. Everyone at our dinner table enjoyed our celebration together. Our dinner table on this cruise includes a couple from West Palm Beach and a couple from near Detroit, Michigan. They are all big cruisers and they have all been retired 10+years. We’ve enjoyed getting to know Jim and Susie, Alan and Debbie. 

Friday. 25. This is the beginning of a week of sea days. During this week we will change time zones frequently for 5 hours until getting to eastern time zone in Florida on December 2nd.

Nomad Notes.

Today as I write this entry it is December 12th. Thank-you for reading my diary! To anyone who is enjoying my travels! I get it! I love to see what other people are up to even looking at what they have in their grocery cart! lol! I am so happy for you to enjoy my life experiences along with me! If you have questions for me, I will try to answer them asap. I am trying to catch up on my Nomad Diary! LOL! I am reminding myself of a couple of things as I write. I am essentially writing this diary for myself. Writing for myself takes any pressure off of outside expectations. It also allows me to only filter through me. This is my memory book and I so enjoy hearing my friends thrill over what Darrell and I are doing. Most of the people I know will see me on facebook and know what I’m up to. I’d like to be caught up to real time on this diary, but this is the second or third time that I’ve fallen behind and lagged in writing for up to 4+ weeks! It is much more like a chore to get my diary entries complete when it piles up like loads of laundry! Lol.  That is until I remind myself that this is for me. It doesn’t always look perfect and there is a process that takes time to get through.

All of that said, there were two or more effects of travel that didn’t allow me to complete my diary as I was living it.  One biggie was that while crossing the Atlantic Ocean for 7 days, we didn’t have internet for 5 days. When we did have internet it was spotty and unreliable. I am typing my blog notes on google docs because I don’t have a Word subscription anymore. Once I started using google docs, I have really liked it for it’s real time saving and updating. So I kept my notes on all those sea days written in a notebook. On the weeks before that, we were touring a new place almost daily from the ship. This is really tiring. It’s so much fun to see a new place and be catered to as a visiting ship tourist. But each day can begin early, be filled with walking miles until we are very tired, and end with an enjoyable evening of dinner, a show on the ship, and into bed by 9-10pm fast asleep.

Darrell and I combined our computer for travel overseas into one small computer. So we have shared usage and I am less inclined to push myself to write when I’d rather sleep or lay out on the ship deck and watch the ocean.

This way of travel living has some very busy and very tiring days. I will get my diary/blog completed when I can and I will so enjoy all of my memories that I am documenting for my future self!

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