Back on the Air

26^th, 27^th, 28^th, 29^th, 30^th and 31^st of July.

I am writing this to cover the above dates. We are on the Cruise around the Spanish Mediterranean, on board the Independence of the Seas. This ship is huge! It accommodates 4,300 passengers. This voyage there are 4,100, most of those passengers are families as this is the UK and the USA summer school holidays. There are lots of activities for the kids, wave riding, rock climbing, video arcades, basketball court, golf simulator and a couple of swimming pools with heaps of water games etc. There is also an Ice Rink where shows are held daily and we hear they are great. We’ve actually going to one this afternoon (31^st). The main deck, deck 5, is like a shopping street with cafes, eating places, bars and shops all the way along it. Unfortunately, the internet prices are VERY steep, $30 for 1 hour, $60 for 24 hours, so we are considering our best option for some access soon. Hence I’m writing this in a block.

We have been to the Port of Vigo, Spain, where we just did our own thing and walked all around the township. Had intended to catch a HOHO bus, but they weren’t running when we got off the ship, so we walked. We walked up the many narrow cobblestoned streets/lanes and eventually made it to the top of the town, The El Castro Castle/Fortress.  Views from up here were really good, all over the town and the Port. 

Next Port of call was Lisbon, Portugal.  Having been here before, we decided to take a trip out of the City to Sintra and Cascais this time. Sintra is a smallish village about a ½ hour drive out of Lisbon, and was at one time the Royal Village. The village is set about half way up a fairly steep hill and the Royal Palace stands out with its 2 tall white “Kitchen Chimneys” sitting majestically to the side of the building. After some time to explore this little village, we reboarded our coach and proceeded towards Cascais, via the Mountain Roads and a couple of small villages. We then came to the lovely seafront of Guincho. The beaches here weren’t unlike those in Oz and there were certainly a lot of people taking advantage of the lovely weather. One end of the beach was fairly windy so there were a few people enjoying the challenge of windsurfing and paragliding in that area. The coastline is fairly rugged and the waves put on a good show spraying up in the air off the rocky outcrops. We then entered the more populated area of Cascais itself. There are lots of holiday units here and a very pretty township. We had time here to explore the area called Kings Beach which had quite a crowd of people swimming and cooling off in the coldish waters. A lovely spot to spend a day or more here as there are many little beaches dotted along the coastline, all had lots of people on them. Travelling back into Lisbon we passed the Belem Tower, the War Memorial, The Monument to the Discoveries and the 25^th of April Bridge. We really enjoyed this outing today.

Yesterday we were in Gibraltar, United Kingdom. We took a tour up “The Rock” this time. We travelled by mini van to the Cable Car station where we caught the Cable Car up to the top of the Rock. Here we were met and entertained by the Famous Barbary Apes which live in these limestone rocky areas. These Apes either sat and posed, watched the tourists, groomed each other or frightened the tourists by climbing on their backpacks trying to get food. Some of these apes are quite aggressive and although well fed during the day, are always on the lookout for food. The views from up the top, some 420 metres high, were great. One could see all over the township, out to sea and over into Spain, which is just across the border from Gibraltar. On a clear day one should be able to see the landform of Africa from the top, but, today was a little hazy, so we couldn’t see that.  We then proceeded down a fairly steep narrow roadway, dodging taxi’s and Apes as we made our way to St Michaels Cave. This large cave was turned into a Hospital during the war years and a lot of the Stalactites and the Stalagmites had been sawn off to make room for the workings of the Hospital.  But, there were still lots of lovely formations of these limestone structures for us to observe and with the backlighting, they were quite spectacular. From here we boarded our minivan and drove down, and up, very narrow two way roads…that was interesting, until we came to The Great Siege Caves. These caves were a network of tunnels hollowed out, by hand, by the British Troops back in the 1700’s. This vantage point provided good views of the enemy approaching and proved to play an important part in ensuing battles. We were dropped off in the town centre and ended up walking back to the Ship for a well earned cold drink and an ice cream.

We suspect that we are the only Aussies on this cruise, most are English, all laying out in the sun for hours for every ray of sun they can get, or Americans, with a few other nationalities here and there as well. Everyone seems nice and friendly and we are enjoying ourselves, as usual. We have a Sea day today which is a welcome ‘rest’ day for us busy travellers. We have travelled 1520 nautical miles from Southampton at this stage as we head towards Valencia.