We booked an air-land-sea package from Gate1 Travel. Gate1 had a better airfare than anything we could find on our own. The first day and night in Europe was at a beach front hotel in Torremolinos. This would have been fine in summer if you wanted to spend time on the beach, but in November, it would have been better to have stayed in Malaga, where the ship was docked. Not that Malaga is one of Europe’s great cites to visit, but it’s got a lot more to offer than does Torremolinos once the weather takes out the beach. Still, we spent 3-4 pleasant hours exploring Torremolinos, but don’t go out of your way to visit unless you want some beach time. The Michelin Guide lists nothing in Torremolinos as worth visiting.
If you are arriving on your own, unless the weather is conducive and you want a day at the beach, there is much more to see in Malaga than in Torremolinos, and although far more interesting than Torremolinos, Malaga is no tourist hot spot. Still, there is an impressive Gothic Cathedral and an ancient Moorish fort and palace. A fairly new Picasso (a native son) museum is recomended by some guide books, but it did not exist on our two earlier trips to Malaga (why did we go to Malaga twice you might ask if there is so little to see? The answer is that Malaga has a big airport, and it is a good gateway to southern Spain)
On arriving at Adventure of the Seas at the dock in Malaga the next afternoon, we had our first experience with Royal Caribbean’s excellent crowd management– moving some 3,000 people around is no small feat, but Royal Caribbean had it well under control with no unduly long waits for anything. However, the size of the roped off maze in the arrival hall suggested that there were times where the crowd could overwhelm the staff, but not in our experience.
The Adventure of the Seas sailed about 5:00pm, just as it was getting dark and it was a nice view to sit on our balcony and watch the lights of land slowly disappear. The first day of the cruise was entirely at sea. We liked that, for a leisurely day on the ship gave us a chance to catch up on sleep missed on the airplane trip and to get adjusted to the eight hour time change (six hours from the East Coast).
This was not a cruise for first or even second time visitors to Europe, for with the exception of Barcelona where the cruise ended, none of the ports visited– Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Ajaccio, Toulon, and Barcelona– were top drawer tourist sights. But even after many visits to Europe, Las Palmas, Ajaccio, and Toulon were all places we had never been to, and Barcelona is always worth another visit, and the price was right, so off we went
Palma de Mallorca is the capital city of Mallorca, long a part of Spain. The Palma Cathedral is one of the few Gothic churches I’ve ever seen that I can recommend to the visitor. Just across the street from the Cathedral is the former Royal Palace, now a museum which we did not visit. The view of the sea and coast from the small plaza at the side of the Cathedral, atop the old city walls, is impressive. Built from 1230-1587A.D., the church is one of the best Gothic works and one of the major sights of Spain. Especially impressive were the vast interior space, the Rose window, the stain glass windows along the side of nave, and Gaudi’s wildly out of place canopy over the high alter.
From the Cathedral, we explored the streets of the old medieval city center, one of he better examples of old Mediterranean cities. The Placa Mayor was attractive. None of the several other Gothic churches we looked into were hardly worth the time it took to look inside. We caught the city bus back to the ship at the Placa Espanya.
Ajaccio, the capital of the French island of Corsica has a small mediaeval old City, an impressive looking old fort that’s still in business so it can’t be visited. Ajaccio is the home town of Napoleon Bonaparte. The house where Napoleon was born is just off the main square. We wandered the streets, did a little shopping, and sailed away.
Toulon, France, is the site of the greatest natural harbor on the Mediterranean Sea. The setting is impressive, except that rain limited our views of the coastal mountains. Toulon was extensively damaged in WWII, and most of the wreckage was replaced with cheap European early modern post war buildings. That ain’t pretty. However, there is a small, moderately attractive old town. The opera house facade was impressive. All the guide books recommend seeing the New Town Hall. Don’t bother. It looks like a Soviet era apartment block.
We ended the cruise portion of our trip in Barcelona where Royal Carribean kicked everybody off at 8:00 am so the crew could prepare the ship for the next load of cruisers. Gate1 had a car and driver waiting for us right in front of the terminal building, so we arrived a the pre-booked hotel about 9:30 am, too early for rooms to be ready. We left or luggage with the bell captain and went off to see Barcelona. We returned between noon and 1:00pm, and our room was ready.
This was our second trip to Barcelona, and we wanted to see some things we did not see on our first visit, and to revisit Parc Guell, Antonio Gaudi’s bizarre masterpiece. On our first visit, our tour took us to the Barcelona Cathedral, a good Gothic church from what we could see of it, being restricted to the rear of the church since it was Sunday and services were in process.
In ancient times, Barcelona was the capital of Aragon, one of the most famous kingdoms of the Middle Ages. Columbus landed in Barcelona when he returned to Spain from discovering America. Much of the old Gothic city is preserved for many blocks around the Cathedral. What survives of the 14th Century Palau Reil (Royal Palace), turned out to be a fairly interesting museum (the Museum of the City of Barcelona). A couple of the great rooms of the old palace, the chapel and throne room, remain, butt the most interesting part of the museum was the basement where part of the even older Roman city has been excavated within the walls of het medieval Royal Palace. Most of the tour of the Roman city is done on catwalks suspended above the Roman walls and streets. Look out for the dye vats at the milliners where traces of the blue dye used to color Roman togas still stains the rock.
On our first trip to Barcelona, we missed Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous street, so we set out for a ramble on Las Ramblas, quickly became bored with it, and went off to see Gaudi. Two of Gaudi’s four best efforts are on Passeig Gracia, a street far more worth a stroll than is Las Ramblas. We toured Casa Mila, Gaudi’s effort at an apartment house where the roof terrace is not to be missed. We came back afer dark to see the facade of Gaudi’s Casa Batllo at night. If anything, the remarkable facade of this single family dwelling is even more impressive at night than in the daylight. We spent several hours exploring some of the streets of the ‘Golden Square’, a roughly 100 square block area that is the center of Barcelona’s Modernista and Art Nouveau architecture where we survived intact two imaginative robbery attempts .
We spent a half a day revisiting Gaudi’s Parc Guell, which was both disappointing and worthwhile. Although it was fun to see Gaudi’s imagination run wild again, a second visit did not have the same impact as the mind blowing first time.
There are some sights that one never tires of seeing, like Sunset Point at Bryce Canyon, or Zion Canyon, or the interior of the Abby Church at Melk, or Prague, or the Austrian National Library. We expected Parc Guell to be one of those. It wasn’t, but still it was a good way to spend half a day because you are not going to find anything remotely like it anywhere else.
You will note that I had much more to say about Barcelona than about any of the other ports on the cruise. That’s not only because we had two days in Barcelona and only one or a half a day at the others. One day or half day at the other ports was too much time. Two days in Barcelona wasn’t enough time, for Barcelona is one of Europe’s great tourist spots.