Cagliari, Sardinia Photo Stroll

So Cagliari, it turns out, wasn't overly interesting. Sardinia was conquered by everyone, and siginificantly bombed in WWII.  Consequently their history seemed a bit disjointed to me, and nothing interesting to really see.

That coupled with it being Easter Sunday....

We first stopped on a hill overlooking the salt flats and the city.

We took this opportunity to take some photos of ourselves with this view in the background. Up until this point photos of ourselves wasn't something we had too many of. So I guess we had to "prove" we were there.

Brother Mike and Sister in Law Bev

William Eugene (aka Billie) and I

Billie and Stupid-Brother-in-Law Dan

Jack, Suzi, Mom and I

And apparently Cagliari has famous flamingos. I didn't find that in any of my research but was happy to see them all the same. There were hundreds of them, and all of them just out of range for my zoom lens...so I took some shots and cropped later.

Cagliari - like many towns in Italy - was bombed in WWII. They do still have the wall that protected the city and their old town that still has much of the buildings and what not from the medieval times.

One of the many gates into the Old town.

This building was used, I believe, during WWII as a bunker for soldiers and a fortified prison. Or I could be making this up and confusing this building with other old buildings we saw throughout our trip. Wikipedia though came to my rescue, "The old town (called Castello in Italian, Casteddu de susu in Sardinian, the upper castle) lies on top of a hill, with a view of the Gulf of Cagliari (also known as Angels Gulf). Most of its city walls are intact, and feature the two early 14th-century white limestone towers, the Torre di San Pancrazio and the Torre dell'Elefante; they are both typical examples of Pisan military architecture."

"Mussolini was here".  At least that's what I thought about this left over propaganda that is still visible on an old building.

This cracked me up.  I imagined the home owners saying, "Oh I don't want a window with a balcony anymore, let's cover it."

The cathedral, Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Cecilia was busy - thanks to it being Easter Sunday.  I went inside to check it out and promptly left. There was a heavy turpentine type smell in there that just made my stomach roll. I opted to just hang outside while the others took a look. 

Walking down the hill to meet the bus, all the shops were closed. We were hoping to find at least one that would sell us gelato and maybe a cup of coffee. It had started to slightly rain on us and the wind picked up making it a little chilled.

We found this store on our walk down.  Interesting way to spell Jennifer.

 

Ah yes....there was a store open for gelato.  Which flavor to have?  My first scoop was Baci flavored and oh boy was it yummy.

My second scoop I wanted to try the Nutella "flavored". Only it wasn't gelato it was straight Nutella that had been frozen.  A little rich, but yummy all the same.

More photos on Cagliari can be found here.

Majorca, Spain Photo Stroll

Bienvenido a Palma Majorca Espana. 

Majorca was a last minute addition to the cruise. We were supposed to go to Tunisia in which I was going to see Carthage...but nooooo the Tunisian government wouldn't allow anyone with Israeli passports off the boat - so Norwegian did the only right thing they could and picked another port. 

Enter Majorca. 

It was good Friday the day we were in Palma, Majorca and because we started so early the cathedral wasn't opened to visitors. So instead we got to see it from afar.

Oh look, there's our ship.  It looked so small from where we were standing.

Right, moving on. Our excursion was to take a train to Soller and then to Villademossa.  I had no idea what to expect in Soller as there wasn't much on the Inter Web about this little village on Majorca. 

The train ride was fine. A small electric train scooted along through the mountains and through tunnels (which I didn't care for at all) finally stopping briefly for us to hop off and take a quick look at the village of Soller from the hills.

We had very little free time, 25 minutes I think, in Soller. Just enough time to grap a cappuccino and a potty break. Sadly because of how long women must be forced to stand in line for their restroom, I didn't get to finish my cappuccino. That is sacreligious!!!

 

The sun was shining bright and behind the cathedral so the shots of the cathedral were challenging, to say the least.

But I did love this little fountain and the way the sun was back lighting the water droplets.

Oh and Flash made an appearance on the bus ride to Villdemossa. He was getting restless just riding along in the bag and not getting to see very much. I tried to explain to him that there just wasn't any time, but he wasn't listening.

Villdemossa was a quaint little village too. It's one thing that proved to be most interesting was this converted monastery. It was founded as a royal residence and later converted into a monastery of the Carthusian order. The monastery existed from 1399 until its secularisation in 1835.  Today, obviously, it's a museum.  It has a church, an old apothecary, various cells and rooms where the monks lived and tended their gardens. 

Cells No 2. and No 4 were for their most famous resident who was the Polish composer Frederic Chopin.  There's a long sordid story about Chopin and his mistress living here - very scandalous for the time period considering she was a divorced woman. Divorcing her husband to be with Chopin that is.

Chopin's original player piano

His view from Cell No 2.

I could have spent more time in and around the monastery, but again, we were on a deadline.  I had to find a gelato store and had to wander the streets of Villdemossa some.

Leaving the monastery I saw this little beauty peeking out of the ivy.

Oh look gelato!  Mom didn't come into the monastery and instead opted to walk around the town, have lunch and just rest. She was bringing me a sandwich for lunch, but I figured why not have some gelato as an appetizer.

The rest of my photos can be found here.

Valencia, Spain Photo Stroll

Valencia wasn't an overly interesting stop originally for me. But once we were out and about I found that Valencia was a nice, warm, charming town. Our guide, Jorge, was knowledgeable and friendly. You can read up in more details on our adventures by checking out the blog I wrote then.

There wasn't much I did with regard to research on Valencia - mostly because I had no idea what to look for there. Instead, I looked at our excursion and what we were going to see there and did research on photos taken in those places. 

After that I went back and did research on the actual stops. 

Our first stop was to the City of Arts & Science. This futuristic place is one of their cultural gathering spots. They have an iMAX, an opera house, a sports facility, and a couple other things I can't recall. 

I was hoping for a non windy day - but by this time in the cruise I knew whatever I had planned for you could bet the absolute opposite would happen.  So, I didn't get my reflection photos like I wanted. Still I think I captured the area pretty well. 

I half expected George Jetson and Rosie to come out of one of these buildings. 

Following this stop, our next was to the Central Market. THIS was one place I wanted to spend significant time.  We go 30 minutes.  That, to a photographer, is not significant time. And because we had so little time, I was thankful I had done my research. It made it easier to try to set up any photo because I knew what I'd be seeing.

It's said to be the oldest market of it's kind in Europe. The building was built in the early 20th century so it wasn't that old (but European standards) and houses shops of all kinds in it's 8,000 square meters.

You could buy you're entire grocery list there. Meats, veggies, fruits, TP, spices, etc.  There was so much to see that I'm sure we missed a few things.

I was most fascinated with the meats they had hanging all over the place. No where in the US would you see hams hanging for sale like this. I wanted to taste them all.

And oh the olives.  The olives in the top right corner...yah some of them came home with us.  I wish I had bought the entire bowl.

Mom snapped this photo of the tomatoes.  If dad was with us we never would have gotten him out of this market. He would have been in hog heaven...almost literally with all the hams hanging around. 

But alas, our time ran out too quickly there and we had to move on to the next stop.

Which was the Silk Exchange Building, aka La Lonja. The building was all Gothic and built in 1548. This was their stock exchange for lack of a better description.  And the building is considered one of the best and beautiful examples of Gothic Civil Architecture. Who knew?

I couldn't get enough of the gargoyles on this trip.  They seemed to be either following me, or were used extensively to decorate Gothic buildings. I'm thinking the latter since I haven't seen a one since I've been back state's side.

Entering one of the rooms of the Silk Exchange I noticed the door was framed in this design.  I snapped a quick photo (cuz every photo I took was done so quickly) and was very happy to see it when I got back to the ship.  My friend Meg-A-Roonie suggested I use this in tile form as a computer desk top. I may just do that.

The inside of the Silk Exchange was vast room with no seats, no chairs, nothing. Very Gothic inside and I could almost imagine all these gentlemen discussing business and exchanging silk for money in what would appear to them as hushed tones, even though they would have echoed throughout this room.

The next room had nothing interesting in it but this ceiling.  Not the original ceiling in this room but instead it belonged to another building in Valencia that was scheduled to be torn down. Some citizens got together and petitioned the government to move this exquisite ceiling to this new location.  I am so glad they did.

Leaving the Silk Exchange we walked to a square that wasn't a square, but round.  On the way there we stopped to see this mildly interesting - something just for the tourist I'm sure - building.

If you look closely you'll see a very skinny building between the other two buildings. That is 1 meter by 1 meter.  Rent, back in the day, was based on square footage and many people couldn't afford much. So this building was built for travelers who came into town to sale their goods and stay the night. Whether it's true or not is anybody's guess. But it made for an interesting tale.

This guy named Hemmingway spent a good amount of time in Valencia it seems. Having recently read The Paris Wife I can attest to this being true. And after doing a little research on Valencia it was confirmed again.  Hemmingway loved Valencia and spent his time at the bull fights and two establishements.

This one where he drank with his  other Bohemian friends who were struggling to be writers.

And this one where he would get his Horchata.  Horchata is a traditional drink that originated in Valencia.  It's made from made of ground almonds, sesame seeds, rice, barley, or tigernuts. It's a milky colored drink and is often used in place of milk for those with a lactose intolerence.

We did not get a chance to taste this drink from Valencia. But we have it on good authority that Hemmingway did.

The rest of Valencia was mostly a blur to me. We were again exhausted and I found it very hard to focus on anything the tour guide was telling us. Still I managed to snap a few more photos of part of Valencia that I can't really tell you what they are.

More bridges connecting buildings.

I liked the symmetry of this archway - even though my photo isn't straight.

This church was our meeting place for the tour after we had some free time - in which mom and I found a place for a quick lunch and sangria. Well, mom had sangira, I had a Fanta.

Anyhow, this church is officially called "Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady of Valencia" - but often referred to as the Valencia Cathedral. Mom and I did not venture in mostly because they were starting some ceremony that had to do with moving water and mostly because we had seen so many cathedrals up to this point that hunger won out over viewing another.

The church was constructed in 1298 and features one of the only octagonal shaped spires in the world. The church was once a mosque and once a synagog - which is why it seems so oddly constructed.

But it's real claim to fame is one of the supposed Holy Chalices (Holy Grails) in the world is said to be in one of its chapels. This Holy Grail has been defended by Christian historians all over the world as most likely being a strong candidate of the authentic cup used during the Last Supper.


 

Oh, did I mention that mom and I opted for lunch over seeing the Holy Grail?

If you want to view ALL my photos of Valencia, you can check them out here.