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| Street Performer in Aix-on-Provence |
This was a
cruise on the MSC Fantasia. MSC is an
Italian line that has few Americans aboard.
The appeal of this cruise was the ports of call: Barcelona, Marseilles/Aix-on-Provence,
Genoa/Portofino, Naples/Pompeii, Messina/Sicily, Malta, and Palma de Majorca in
Spain.
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| Fountain in Aix-on-Provence |
Typically,
this blog is about the photography.
Before I get into that, I will say that the MSC cruises may be rough on
Americans used to a certain level of customer service. This is for Europeans, mostly southern
Europeans, on holiday with their entire families. That means screaming kids EVERYWHERE. Just go into it with your eyes wide
open. Go for the ports of call. And, oh by the way, they do NOT serve coffee
in the dining room. Do not ask me
why. Just little frustrations. Go for the ports!
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| Barcelona Fountain |
Barcelona. Getting there very early the best thing to do
was to jump on a hop on hop off double decker bus that are everywhere in
Europe. It’s a quick way to see the
sights.
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| Wow, I come to France to see an APPLE STORE! |
One
surprise to me was the town of Aix-on-Provence, near Marseilles, France. In the center of town was a water fountain,
of course… but look! There’s an Apple
Store! People hung around the front of
the building because, as our tour guide told us, they have free wi-fi. That was fun going in the store and looking
around; everything written in French.
Plus, there were break dancing kids outside.
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| Break Dancing Outside the Apple Store |
Next up was Genoa and the lovely resort town of Portofino. To get to it, you have to take a water taxi.
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| Portofino Home, Up the Hill |
From the
Port of Genoa, off to Naples and a skip over to Pompeii. I studied Pompeii in grade school, like most
of you did. It was HOT that day. I mean HOT.
95 degrees and about 95% humidity.
Please don’t tell me Phoenix is hot.
This was so hot sweat went into my eyes.
Plus walking on those cobblestones was difficult. But it was POMPEII! And there was Mount Vesuvius, ready to blow
at any minute.
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| Pompeii |
From the
Port of Naples we sailed to one of the reasons I wanted this trip: Sicily.
My dad spent considerable time in Sicily during World War II and always
spoke highly of it. I wondered while
there… did my dad walk these streets?
See these sights? I’m sure he
did. And now, so did I. Of course, much of Messina was bombed during
the war. The cathedral we saw had been
mostly rebuilt. It’s funny too that when
you tell locals where you are from they often answer “Oh I have a cousin in
Philadelphia!” or something similar. We
have such a strong tie to Italy and Sicily.
Did you know Sicily petitioned the USA to become the 51st
state during World War II? It’s
true.
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| Messina, Sicily |
From Sicily
we sailed to the little nation island of Malta.
Malta endured terrible hardships during the 2nd World War by
the Nazi’s. The people were truly heroic
and received the George Cross in April of 1942 by King George VI of the United
Kingdom. More churches to see, jewelry
stores, and of course British style telephone booths. They say Malta has more of those red
telephone booths than the U.K. now!
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| Malta Jewelry: They Love Knights! |
And from
Malta, we sailed to the Baleric Islands to the east of Spain. Our port of call was Palma de Majorca and we
visited at night. We saw night life
there and flamingo. Flamingo was great
but oh my the colored spot lights were difficult to handle in post
processing.
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| Time for Flamingo |
Then we
returned to Barcelona. I was able to
enjoy a cerveza at an outdoor café and made friends with a young baby girl and
some local workers (who bought me endless drinks, by the way).
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| Flamingo! |
Until My Next Adventure,
Now, I’m off to Photoshop World in
Las Vegas for a few days of pure photography.
See You On Down The Road!
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| Chicos y Chicka in Barcelona! |
…and my collection of photos from this trip!