Food Travels by CK: West Mediterranean cruise

Cruise ship and pilot tug boat in Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo in Monaco is one of the cities we heard so much about and one that we had wanted to visit. But unless we belong to the rich and famous jet set, and has a passion for casinos, we had no business to go there. That's why when we found out the this Mediterranean cruise started from Monte Carlo, we quickly signed up.

Monaco is only 2 sq-km and is a coastal strip of coast land backed by hills. French houses can be seen perched on the uphill slope overlooking Monte Carlo...

Iconic Monte Carlo scene - highways running above and below buildings!

Casino de Monte Carlo Square

Cafe overlooking Square de Monte Carlo

Coffee at the cafe

Up the hill near our dinner venue which is just two streets from the French borders.

The woody (park) walkway from Casino de Monto Carlo Square towards France!

On top of the hill where all the expensive shops are

Our dinner venue La Terrazano - very Italian home cooked food!

This cruise also stopped in Livorno in Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, Menorca and several port cities in Spain, with Barcelona one of our favourite cities, as the final destination.

The famous Monte Carlo Grand Prix (Hairpin) Bend in front of the Fairmount hotel

Lunch at hotel Fairmount

From the ship's top deck, we have a bird's eye view of Monte Carlo. We were told that as we go up the slope, where the skyscrappers stop and the small houses are...that's already French soil!

Our car route from Milan Malpensa Airport to Monte Carlo

Finally, we started on our cruise.......

Departing from Monte Carlo on our Mediterranean cruise ship

Our cruise route

We had a port call every day. The sailing is all done in the night. The ship is docked every morning in a port for us to make land visits with the exception of one morning. From Mahon to Cartagena, our ship did not dock till about 11am. In the evenings, the ship would set sail from as late as 8pm to as early as 4pm. Most importantly, there were no sea days.

Livorno, Italy

Our first port of call was Livorno in Italy. This stop had several short trips to several popular towns in Tuscany - Florence, Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano and Lucca. Since we been previously to Florence, Pisa and San Gimignano, we chose to visit Lucca.

Map showing Lucca and the winery we visited near Montecarlo

Entrance into the city walls

Lucca is an ancient town famous for its well preserved Renaissance walls still encircling its historic city center. The great opera composer Puccini who was born in the city. Lucca was founded by the Etruscans and became a Roman colony in 180 BC.

Puccini's statue in centre of Lucca, in front of his former home.

Giacomo Puccini is famous for the opera "Madame Butterfly" which premiered in 1904.

Street vendor in Lucca

Piazza San Michele, the town square.

After Lucca, we visited the winery Tenuta del Buonamico near the town of Montecarlo in Livorno. Buonamico was founded in 1964.

Sparkling wine - we like this best!

Tasting their wines with some finger foods.

View of the walking entrance of the winery

As we sail from Livorno, a storm approaches.....

Ajaccio, Corsica, France

Corsica is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean, and is part of France. We arrived in Ajaccio early in the morning apres a night of turbulent seas. Its claim to fame is that the French Emperor Napolean Bonaparte was born and lived till he was 10 years old. Many of his family are interred in the local church.

Arriving at the port of Ajaccio.

There are many mountains in Corsica, and several of them were higher than 2,500-metres high. We took a tour in the morning up one of these mountain roads Focce de Vizzavona, and after hitting an elevation of 1,200-metres, we alighted the bus to enjoy the woods and fresh air at the Cascades des Anglais.

We then headed down into the commune town of Bocognano, where we were treated to some cold cuts, meat and red wines at hotel restaurant run by a young couple, Auberge a Tanedda.

Bocognano village.

Strolling into the village of Bocognano

Monument to villagers who felled in the wars.

Our guide..

A snack of iberico ham and wine at Auberge a Tanedda

In the afternoon, we walked around Ajaccio and visited the art gallery founded by Cardinale Fesch. Fesch was the half brother of Letizia Bonaparte (Napolean's mother). We also walked around the old town, to visit Napolean's home;

Napolean's family home, but he was not in! Actually all the French national museums are closed on Mondays.

to the Ajaccio Cathedral where the remains of his family were interred;

Ajaccio Cathedral

to the Place du General de Gaulle, a square with a large monument of Napolean and his four brothers: Joseph (King of Naples & Sicily, and later King of Spain), Louis (King of Holland), Lucien (Prince of Canino & Musignano) and Jerome (King of Westphalia).

Monument to the Bonaparte brothers

Our walk led us to the Citadel by the sea. Known as the Ajaccio Citadel, it is still occupied by the French Army.

We saw two donkeys grazing where it used to be a moat.

The imposing Ajaccio Citadel

Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy

Unlike Corsica, which is French and only 12-miles away, Sardinia is a province of Italy. Sardinia is a much larger island than the former, and boasts of having more than 3,000 archealogical sites. The reason is that Sardinia for all his history from before the birth of Christ, had been settled by many invaders or occupiers. The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, etc were among these.

Although Corsica and Sardinia are just 12 miles apart tip to tip, the sailing time from Ajaccio to Cagliari took 12 hours! Due to a nearby storms, the seas were even more turbulent than the previous night's journey from Livorno to Corsica.

Sardinia was a separate kingdom from the 14th until the mid-19th century. Prior to that, Sardinia was ruled by the Roman, and later by the Byzantine Empire. As Byzantine power and influence over the western Mediterranean waned, the Sardinians had to fend more and more for themselves. After the Muslim conquest of Sicily in 827 AD, Sardinia became even more cut off from Byzantium. The island was subjected a many attacks on its coasts by the barbarian hordes including the Vandals, and later the Saracens. The massive sea attack by the Saracens in 1015-1016 was stopped with the help of the fleets from Pisa and Genoa, called on by Pope Benedict VIII.

The Sardinian dialect is a mixture of Spanish and Latin, until 20-30 years ago, may of the older islanders still could not speak Italian. It was Benito Mussolini who compelled the local schools to teach Italian, so now all the folks under 70s can speak the language.

There has been no rains in Sardinia since February. After 10 months without rains, every patch of ground was parched dry and brown. Some hardy deep-rooted plants are still clinging on to life but they will not last for long if no rains come soon. The matured trees fare better but there are not many around. The summers temperatures are in excess of 40s degree Centigrade.

With so many archealogical sites to its credit, we signed up for a tour of one of these. We visited the "Su Nuraxi" complex at Barumini. This was a 18-metre tall structure constructed of big pieces of stones mainly volcanic rocks. There were several of these in Barumini, with one main tower, and 4 others facing north, south, east and west surrounding it. We walked (climbed) inside a tower in order to get into the inside complex.

View of the inside walls from the top constructed walkway at top

The "pile of stones" is what we had to climb up and into later.

Surrounding country side is all brown due to the lack of rains.

The outside of the tower complex

Many parts are so narrow that have to walk sideways

The stones are cut so that they fit and support on each other.

The stones are stacked up without cement.

A internal working well at bottom of tower.

Looking up at the sky from the bottom of the open wall.

Walking into the narrow and low beam entrance with trepidation!

Besides the towers, some had what appeared to be houses of the local bigshots around the complex.

Guide speculating that this was where the folks sit round to enjoy the heat from the center sauna stove. The stone furnace is next to it, The dome or roof over it had collapsed many years ago.

The walk (climb) consists of walking and climbing up and down steep steps in the narrow passages inside the towers. It was quite a tedious exercise on the knees, and thanks to the cool temperatures, it was quite bearable. The guide told us that in the summer, the air inside the towers were humid and hot, and bad smells of sweaty bodies! As elaborate and impressive the stones towers are, the archeologists are still out there speculating what exactly what the towers are used for...! Our guide said that some local university students proposed that the towers were used for communications between the far flung Sardinian villages.

The downside of that theory (1) is that the towers are estimated to take up to 10 years to built which is a lot of resources for the villagers (2) there were no known major invasion threats (3) the only major continuous threat were from foreign raids on the coastal areas.

Sardinia was frequently attacked by opportunistic pirates along the coasts. They loot and take the local captives as slaves. This is the reason many of the villages are in remote and inaccessible surrounding mountains.

A rotting, half-submerged ship opposite us as we say goodbye to the port of Cagliari.

Mahon, Menorca, Spain

We arrived at the Port de Mao (in Catalan) or Mahon (in Spanish) on the southern tip of the Spanish island of Menorca or Minorca. Together with its sister islands of Mallorca (or Majorca) and Ibiza, these are known as the Balearic Islands.

The morning’s tour was to the northern city of Ciutadella de Menorca. This was the Citadel city built to defend the northern coast of Menorca, against the invaders from the north.

Castle fortifications as we sail into the port of Mahon.

Forts with guns facing the sea approaches into the harbour.

Menorca has hot and dry summers but is blessed with good rainfall in the rest of the year. As we drove along the main highway from Mahon to Ciutadella, we observed rolling hills marked with low but long walls of stones. Apparently there is no much stones on the grounds that farmers have to stack up the stones (into low walls) in order to cultivate the land. Heavy rains and the strong winds make it useful to have these stone walls, so as to minimize soil loss. The island’s highest point is El Toro (in Catalan) or Monte Toro (in Italian) at 358-metres.

Main source of revenue for the province is dairy produce from the many cows on the island.

We had originally planned to have a tour of both Mahon and Ciutadella, but due to a mixed up on our meeting times on the ship, we only managed to get on the shorter tour of latter.

Monument of past wars in Ciutadella Square

This is the square where the rich families set up their homes in the past.

More houses of the old rich, now converted into offices and residences.

The square overlooking the old harbour.

View of harbour from the square on top of the fortifications

The old harbour of Ciutadella (Citadel) of Menorca.

Beautiful white washed fishing boats.

Walls of the Ciutadella cleared seen on the old harbour.

The architecture of the Basilica has both Moorish and Spanish features.

The doors of the Basilica of Menorca which was converted from a mosque.

The Basilica tower as seen from a side street.

Recommended shop for buying best local cheeses.

The narrow streets of the old town.

Map of the old town of Cuidalera

We had tea at this delightful bakery on Ciutadella.

Inside the Basilica of Menorca

The altar of the Basilica which was built on site of a mosque.

Waiting for our bus back to ship

The walls of the port of Mahon.

We asked the question why Mahon (in the south) has deep water harbours but Ciutadella is much more fortifed. The reason was that Ciutadella was nearer to their enemies from the powers on the mainland, and so had to be defended from attacks more regularly.

The long ram allows Moor riders and horses to climb up to the fortress quickly in the old days.

Last minute shopping for souvenirs

Cartagena, Spain

Cartagena (pronounced karta'ena)) was founded in 228 BC by the Carthaginians after their defeat by the Romans in the First Punic War (264-241 BC). Cartagena is located in the present day Spanish province of Murcia, a major naval base. The Carthaginians hail from Carthage in North Africa, in present day Tunisia. At the height of their power, their military strength rivaled the Romans.

Cartagena had huge resources of silver, lead and other metals, and the Carthaginians, were able to pay off the war reparations faster than the Romans had expected. The Carthaginians fortified the 5 hills of New Carthage well, but despite that, it fell to the Romans in 209 BC. This was just one theatre of Second Punic War (218-201 BC).

The Carthaginian territories of North Africa and Iberia, and the route of Hannibal's advance into Roman Italy

The other major theatre was Hannibal's 15 years invasion & occupation of Italy via the Italian Alps in 218 BC. Hannibal secured his place in history as one of the greatest generals that ever lived when he defeated the Romans in several battles here - Battle of Cannae (216 BC), Battle of Trebia (218 BC) and Battle of Lake Trasimene (217 BC). Hannibal's perfect reputation as an unbeatable military strategist and commander was finally tarnished when he was defeated by the Roman general Scipio Africanus Major, in the Battle of Zama (202 BC) after he was recalled to Cathage in 203 BC.

Hannibal went into voluntary exile from Cathage in 195 BC, and eventually ended up in the service of anyone preparing to fight Rome. He committed suicide in 183 BC after he was surrendered to the Romans by his then host King Prusias of Bythynia (present day northwest Turkey).

Hannibal on his famous war elephants

Hasdrubal, commander of the Carthaginians in Cartagena, divided up his army to reinforce his elder brother Hannibal's prolonged invasion of Italy. The 3,000 soldiers left to defend Cartagena, were overwhelmed by the 35,000 strong Roman invaders. Hasdrubal was killed in the Battle of Metaurus (207 BC) on route to reinforcing Hannibal. Their father was a Carthaginian general & statesman Hamilcar Barca (c.275 - 228 BC), whom some believe the modern city of Barcelona takes its name from.

The Romans ruled Cartagena for 600 years, and later other invaders like the Vandals, Visigoths, Byzantine, and Visigoth again, overran the city. In 714 AD the city felled to the Umayyads.

So it seems strange that until 25 years ago there were no serious archaeological sites identified in Cartagena! Things changed when the Roman theatre ruins were accidentally discovered on the site next to a modern day theatre. This was the start of a new interest by the city’s leaders to uncover and develop the city’s archaeological assets, and since then there had many such sites. Subsequently they found a Roman amphitheatre underneath the site of the modern day bull fighting stadium! So the interest in uncovering more Roman, Moorish, etc discoveries continues.

The major revenue sources for the province were mining, naval base services, agriculture, etc but with the increasing modernization of the Spanish navy and the cessation of the mining activities, new sources of revenue were needed. Now tourism into Cartagena for its archeological assets is a new welcomed source of income for the city.

The old Roman theatre excavated next to the modern-day theatre. The discovery of the old Roman ruins was by accident and sparked the current interest in uncovering more note-worthy ruins.

The modern-day open air theatre

The ruins of the old Roman amphitheatre below the modern day bull-fighting stadium. When the city tried to tear down the stadium they found the old Roman ruins, built on the same spot.

Visitors must take the lift up to the highest of the 5 hills to look down at the old Roman ruins.

Getting "fresh" with a sailor

Walking around in downtown Cartagena

The Carthaginians build Cartagena on top of 5 hills on the peninsula.

One of the 5 hills on which Cartagena was built.

View of the underground crypt

Old inner and outer walls of the Roman fort building

The crypts at eye level. The bones were hidden behind brightly painted panels. These bones estimated to be from 1700-1800 were not found till recent past.

Bones uncovered after the covering front panels were broken.

Our guide pointing out the old Roman ruins looking from the top of the highest of the 5 hills.

Climbing up to the tower on the highest hill

The audio-video presentation inside the tower.

At the elevated landing overlooking the Roman theatre and the harbour.

View of the bay from the top

It seems odd to me that both Carthage and Rome, founded at about the same time in 800 BC, fought many battles against each other -- initially with Carthage being a real threat to Rome and finally ending with their total annihilation by the Romans.

I like to speculate that the difference is that Roman was a state built on a citizenry army. High officials elected to public office had to rise from the ranks of the army, but Carthage was a great commercial and business-first empire, using mercenaries for its wars. Wars were fought only if the cost-benefits were worth the fight, else the Carthaginians would sue for peace and make concessions, eg. 1st Punic War. Whereas the Romans would go to war for every and any good reason, eg. when they raze Carthage to the ground at the end of the 3rd Punic War not because it was a threat any longer but because it reminded the Romans of the humiliation they suffered in the 2nd Punic War (149 to 146 BC) when Hannibal invaded and occupied Italy for over 15 years, poised to attack the very gates of Rome! By then Hannibal had been dead for 40 years!

Valencia, Spain

Valencia is a port city on the southeastern coast of Spain, where the Turia River meets the Mediterranean Sea. It has a tumultuous history….

Valencia was settled by the Romans in 138 BC. Soon Valencia flourished and became an important Roman city, courting the attention of the rivalling Roman generals who were fighting wars with each other. In 75 BC, Pompey razed Valentia to the ground to punish the city for its loyalty to his fellow Roman rival. But it was soon rebuilt and experienced rapid urban growth once again.

By the 3^rd century AD it again began to decline together with the fortunes of the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire invaded the Iberian peninsula in 554 AD and Valencia continued to do well. The Visigoths military tribes expulsed the Byzantines in 625 AD, and they build the fortified walls with 12 towers were built to defend the city. We visited the Serranos Tower (built in 1392) which is one of the 2 remaining towers. The walls have all been torn down building the current city.

In 714 AD, Valencia together with almost all of southern Spain fell to the invading Moors and all their major churches were converted into mosques. A Castilian nobleman Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar a.k.a El Cid captured the City with the help of Christian and Moorish armies, and became King from 1094 and ruled for 7 years. In 1102, a Moroccan Muslim Almoravids recaptured the Valencia and restored the Muslim dominance over it. The Christian Kings of Leon and Castille with the Almoravids, took turns to occupy the city and in 1109 the Castilians burn the city to the ground before abandoning it to the Almoravids. As the Almoravids began to crumble, the other rivalling North African Muslim powers, took turns to occupy Valencia.

In 1238 AD, King James 1 of Aragon with a combined army of Aragonese, Catalans, Navarrese and crusaders from the Order of Calatrava, succeeded in capturing Valencia. A separate Kingdom of Valencia (remember El Cid’s) was formed and joined to the crown of Aragon.

The 15^th century saw Valencia continued to do well economically. The Silk Exchange building was erected at this time and indicative of the level of great prosperity experienced in the city. Over the few hundred years, Valencia suffered from the diversion of trade with the founding of the American colonies, revolt against the rulers, invasion by the British and later by the armies of Napolean Bonaparte, the Spanish Civil War, etc.

Serranos Tower

The elaborate roof designs

The inner side of the Serranos Gate

These orange trees were brought in by the Moors but these are bitter to the taste. The famous Valencia oranges we know of were brought over from China.

The great hall of the former Silk Exchange in Valencia

Silk is no longer traded here, but the hall continues to be used for special functions including the judging of the Les Falles competition. Apparently a disease killed the silk worms some years ago, and the silk trade ended.

The entrance on side of wall up to the tower for "punishing" traders caught cheating.

Stone warning for traders who "cheat" - using a pump to inflate the size of monkey (representing the fake goods) !

Appreciating the Valencia orange tree in the Silk Exchange.

We also visited the Fallas Museum. The museum showcases the "winning" pieces of street art and sculptures from the Fallas Festival held on 18 March each year. After the festival, which commemorates St. Joseph, all the art pieces must be burnt as part of their tradition. The origins of the festival is unclear but whatever that was, the festival has taken a twist for modern Valencia, with major businesses and rich patrons vying for supremacy of the art and sculpture pieces they sponsor. In any event the millions they pour into the festival really help with the local arts scene and community.

A steel scuplture at entrance of the Fallas Museum.

Ballroom dancing. This piece dates back to 1933.

The story of the Fallas festival

Most of the displays depict then contemporary political and social issues of the day. It's hard for foreigners to understand these issues especially since the themes stretch over many years. Because we can't understand Spanish, the captions are my own interpretations..

Red Indian and his squaw and baby?

Too many children?

The older man knows best?

Owners eventually look like their pets?

Home patriot?

Rise of Asia?

Indiana Jones and his 2 helpers?

Warrior with his housekeeper?

Dogs are man's best friend?

This piece commemorates Vincente Blasco Ibanez, the Spanish author of "The Four Housemen of The Apocalypse".

Cruise menu - there was so much food on board, we only attempt to give a flavor of what all guests enjoyed.....

There were so many meals on the ship over the 7 days, and we had our meals in 6 restaurants, 3 of which were specialist restaurants and require pre-booking - Pacific Rim (Asian), Chatreus (French) and Prime Seven (American) plus cafes and lounges spread out over the length and breadth of the ship.