4 am Start

Well it's Saturday the 4th of May and we sail into Venice the city that started this whole Italian Cooking Adventure as when we were here some 10 years ago we promise ourselves that we just had to revisit.

A very excited Sandy as this is her 4th visit to Venice was up at 4am (can anybody believe that! the girl that loves a sleep-in and especially on holidays).

 I drag on a robe and meet her on our balcony to the view in the distance of the lights of Venice. Its just amazing, something not to be missed and in the distance we can count some 40 towers and stepals silhouetted  in the mist of morning light ...  

From our 9th floor floating balcony we can see right in and over Venice. It's a cool morning of 16 deg so once we have seen all we can see from our side of the ship we get dressed and head up to the 12 level to get a 360 deg view.

3 other people are also up so we all but have the whole space to ourselves. We stay up till we dock at 5am. As we are not planing a early escape off the ship we will wait till the crowds leave the docks. There are 3 other big ships so some 10,000 people all wanting to get to the same place at the same time.

Venice has 22 million visitors a year so  60,270 a day. Thats bigger than the entire 2weeks of country music festival pushed into a single day but this is everyday. OMGGosh!

Well with all those people it's back to bed for a couple more hours shut eye, I pull over the blackout curtains and our room is turned back into night so

Bona notte for now

Friday Koper in Slovenia

Not a pretty a dock it was more of a working industrial area, a great day was had, we went to a palace in the town centre a 12th century one so not so old. The polished terrazzo floor was all hand poured and polished in the 15th century the centre was of rich browns, steel grey and orange 20mm chunks in a sandy cream compound it was boarded by a 200mm band in lines starting with 20mm chips of white then 20mm black squares with a rich brown boarder stone than a black and grey compound to finish the last 800mm back to the walls. How they could have achieved this back than is mind blowing.

Walked through the streets and chose to do our own thing rather than the organised trip options. They were all to the country to look at country stuff, but it is amazing what you can find when you start to explore the towns by yourself.

Today in a side street in a palace from the Middle Ages they were doing a Concerto Di Musica Classica and even I could work out what that was to be!

It was Vavaldi's 4 season and yes once I was in I was a rocking along, all the old tunes and I new most all of them! 

So in the words of our Greg Callan "culture I'll give you ..... culture" we certainly got a helping of today. The palace some one's home from several  hundred years ago was lost in a card game to another family, they must have a few palaces if you can win or loose them in a card game.

Today it is an amazing local museum, it was interesting to hear a harpsichord and 7 stings in such and idealic location for the music, it almost transported you back in time. Sitting in what was the old dining room under 2 bronze 5tier chandlers with 63 lights in each (yes I was listening to the music) that looked like upside down Christmas trees hanging the ceiling. the room was about the same width as our galley and twice as long with 15 meter ceiling the sound was fantastic.

Sheeting was for 90 but only 30 turned out mostly  locals and some lucky boat people like us found it in the back streets. Sitting there with stained glass windows at both ends of the rooms and the wall of off white stucco with painting from the 16th century every where 1 hour of bliss. Great that some locals were in the front rows to know when to clap, as Greg it wasn't after each piece it was when they put their bows in the air, so something for you to remember when you are over this way in August! Back to the docks to get ready to re board the ship and today it was a carnival on the docks with a local band playing it was a mix of Slovenia meets Germany. Meets some people that are the clones of Greg and Annie buy the wine tasting area so after many taste we all danced our way back on board to the amusement of the crew.

Oops a couple of Slovenian wine bottle were purchased and in my back pack made there way back on board.

Tonight after a "special restaurant" visit on board we had a great Italian dinner we went to a fab show all singing, dancing, theatre and magic it was great .....so Yvonne it was the perfect way to celebrate your birthday! Sad you were not here with us as it was all your talking about cruising that got us here on a cruise in the first place. Xx thanks and happy birthday. 

Thursday Split in Croatia

We arrive into the bay around 7am and today is a tender boat day which means that the mother ship mourns in the harbour and the life boats take you ashore for the day, it's good to know they work! Each tender fits 60ish people so the early people with organised tours get first picking, and that's just fine with us today. This morning it gave us a chance to sit out the back of the ship and have breakfast with a beautiful breeze and 23 deg with a view over the city of Split in the distance we lashed out and had a holiday breakfast today and I must say the turkey sausages were yum! 

We get off mid morning and after a 5min trip we have docked at the jetty. It was the only waves that we have experienced  in the last 5 days. The water's of the Mediterranean is so smooth and if you were to have a glass of wine sitting on a table you can't even see it move. We have had to test and retest this theory on many many occasion and nope not the slightest movement.

The ships report on our T V says 0 meters waves and 0 meters ripple, so off with the wrist ban and I can stop with the ginger tablets.

So back to Split a medieval town with a large palace called Diocletian's Palace which was the home to a royal back in the 293AD give or take a week.

This was his retirement home! Some 30,000 m/2 were within the walls that fronted the sea. A couple of 100 years ago the front was reclaimed from the sea and turned into a port and street scape. We entered through the middle of the front wall and wandered at ground level what was under the palace and was the food storage as well as the sewer system. A couple of girls in front of us and one was over the whole "old" thing tours and said to her girl friend 

"Great more petrified s....t".

I found the whole area fascinating as you were in the basements of a medieval palace and the internal town that it protected. The vaulted stone ceiling some 15 meters tall. The whole under palace basements were only rediscover in 1912 and to this day they are still digging out and finding more treasures. Over the centuries the people of the walled palace town used the basements as a rubbish tip, we could see about 80% and the rest is still being worked on. When you looked at the size of the brick and stone columns some 4m x 3m and in some of the store rooms there were 4 pairs it gives you an idea of the scale of the basements areas. The next floor up copied the layout of the basement level.

We spent a couple of hours in the basements and in the internal town, came back out to the "new city" 900 AD and wandered the streets. Everywhere you look is another 100 photo opportunities. 

Got to talking to some local fisherman down by the dock as they were preparing their lines to head out and try their luck again. The lines had some 200 hooks on each and they were threading on small headless fish. That would explain the massacre and discarded fish heads that we saw some distance down the docks. One of the guys could speak English and when he noticed my Crocodile Dundee hat he was excited, Australians are loved over here, or may be its just me! and everywhere we go, when they know your an Aussie they just want talk to you, and try out the english. One of the guys also wanted to try out his Aussie joke. Why did the aborigines invent the boomerang? ..... because they didn't have a dogs to fetch their sticks.  He ways beside himself with laughter and said the whole joke with what he thought us Aussie talked like. Whe had a fun time with these guys and when you stop and take the time it's surprising what you find out.

Well it is back to the tender boats, last people on again and we set sail at 6 pm.

Happy Birthday Gail

Well today tuesday we celebrate Gail's 60th birthday.... So as we are on a Norwegian ship, in the Mediterranean, owned by Americans, what would be more fitting then listening to a New Orleans Jazz band at a French restaurant having brunch, while drinking Italian bubbles (from Villa Sandi no less.) The trombone player paying Happy birthday to some one else we of course joined in and sang it to you Gail!  Hope you had a great day of celebrations.

In the coming weeks we need to celebrate for Yvonne, Doug, Cathy, Richard and Susan so we will have to find the appropriate spots! 

Washy Washy Happy Happy

Indonesian staff are a big part of the food and room service crew.

On the ship they are very strict about your health and it would have to be the cleanest place I've ever been. You don't want 2600 passengers and 1000 crew to come down with food poising or a bug, so at ever place that serves food the not so very good speaking service crew smile at you and spray your hands with a singing voice of "Washy Washy Happy Happy"  it's real cute.

When you have been at shore for the day and its time to get back on the ship the crew are there to greet you with music playing and some of the crew dancing and with cool hand towels and the Washy Washy crew, you are made feel so relaxed and welcome.

Some Tradition Die Hard

It was amazing the number of retail shops that you went into where the shopkeepers were smoking out the back and sometimes right in front of you as they served you and the smell was sometimes just to over bearing of cigars that they would have to loose a sale!!

Arogosta ???

Thanks to the aquarium in Dubrovnik I got to learn some more very important Italian words

Arogosta is lobster, as we know it

Astice is a bigger lobster with big nippers yum!

Cicala di Mare means creature from the deep? di Mare "of the sea" so like a Balmain Bug but much much bigger and we can't wait to eat one!

I'm sure this will come in very important for later.