Mahon, Spain

10/30/12 Mahon (a city), Menorca (an island), Spain

Calm seas, blue skies, and a beautiful port – all’s right with the world.

Today we spent hours wandering around the tiny city of Mahon.  It is a peaceful, picturesque village on the hillside of Menorca, Spain with clean streets and friendly people.

We wandered in and out of the little shops and through Mahoon’s version of an indoor mall with dozens of tiny little kiosks lining narrow walkways. We did come across a pretty good sized grocery store there where we bought rum and fruit juice. They also had a little tavern that offered free WI Fi. We went back after lunch and I finally posted my blogs that I have been writing in word but unable to post because of the iffy internet situation. This blogging is harder than it looks but by George I think I got it…

Buenos Noches

The Royal Clipper

10/29/12

Ahoy, Mates

The seas have calmed, the sun is shining. Life on board the Royal Clipper is much improved. So, let me take you on a short tour of our ship.

The ship is bigger than the Star Clipper and the Star flyer. It is, in fact, the largest full-rigged sailing ship in the world, and it is really beautiful.

Our cabin is much nicer this trip. Not huge by any means, but not the smallest on the ship like last time, and we have a regular bed rather than bunk beds, yea!!!!!

We spend much of our time in the Piano Bar Lounge. It is where we chat with new found friends, relax, read, blog….

The circular skylight you see on the ceiling is actually the see-through bottom of the swimming pool on the deck above.

x

Here is Tom in the dining room at lunch.

And Chef Randy demonstrating his fruit carving art on the sun deck.

And here we are on the upper deck.

So this is our home away from home for another 25 days.

Love and kisses,

Charli

All Aboard

All Aboard,

10/27-28/12

Here we are aboard the Royal Clipper. We are currently in the very rough seas due to a small hurricane off the coast of Rome. On board it doesn’t feel so small. The sea is very rough with waves up to twenty-one feet. Needless to say, many of the passengers are very green and there have been a lot of broken dishes. I rarely get seasick but the boat has been so rocky that even I have been pretty queasy. Not a great way to start this part of our journey, but it will get better. The good news is that it is supposed to calm down greatly by this evening – we’ve been in it for two days.  The bad news is that this weather really slows our progress, so we’ve had to skip the first 2 ports of call – Corsica and Ibiza– to stay on schedule. The other good news is that we can (although it is costly) get WI FI (they call it Wee Fee) access on the ship, so I’ll be able to blog away :o)

Not feeling so hot – rocking, rolling and blogging don’t go so well together, so I think I’ll go lie down (uggg),

Charli

San Giamignano

10/26/12

On our last day in Tuscany we went to the mountain top town of San Giamignano. This was one of the best finds yet! It is a lovely, peaceful little city – again walled and dating back to the 12th century.   Tom and I spent the day strolling the streets, admiring the beautiful architecture and exploring the tiny shops and galleries. One of the first little shops that we went in was a ceramic shop with this replica of the original city It was a day spent really getting the feel of the blending of the old and new –seeing children playing in the streets and the laundry hanging out of the windows to dry, listening to an artist playing beautifully moving music on a harp he’d crafted, sitting on the steps to the well in the city square and watching the people go about their daily lives. This seemed to me to be the soul of the region. We also had a glass of wine in a tiny litte ristaruante down one of the narrow allies. A beautiful little town.

Arrivederci, Tuscany