At the top of the mountain we climbed into basket tobagens which are made out of cooked brown Willow, taking 3 hours to cook the wood which is white in its natural state.  The tobagen is guided by two men standing on the back end of  the skiis behind the basket who control both the speed and direction of the basket.  They are dressed in traditional dark blue and white horizontal striped shirt and Portugese straw hats with ribbons that say, “Madeira”.  The ride was great though a little tense when the tobagen goes into a sideways slide in the road curves and comes close at times to colliding with the tobagen in front of ours.  At the bottem of the run, still about half way up the mountain are souvenir vendors.  At a lower view point are vendors who primarily show embroidered linens but unfortunately for them and fortunately for me, they didn’t take credit cards and we didn’t have enough Euros on us to consummate a deal, so we said, “Abrogado (thanks but no thanks) and got back on the tour bus back to the downtown area.  Being Sunday, most of the shops were closed although I did find a souvenir shop so we could buy a shirt, hat and postcards.  We also went to a beautiful wine bar to taste the Madeira wine and we found a wonderful restaurant where we could sit on the patio under an umbrella and have a very tasty lunch which included Black Scabbard (the favorite fish of the area and a delicious white meat) together with a fried banana and vegetables.  One of the vegetables which was particularly tasty is called Pearclipper that grows on a vine and has spikes on it which are removed before cooking (steaming).  The fish was in a Passion fruit sauce. . . um, um good!!  The pearclipper is not a cactus fruit and only grows in tropical climates.

The cruise has been great fun and very smooth except for one and a half days where there was some rocking action but we didn’t have to take anything for sea sickness.  The food has been great.  We have met a number of very nice and interesting people including two couples from L.A. who know some of my high school friends including Dick Fass, Stan and Fran Schill’s brother in law.

The big news is that after 6 days of bridge lessons in the mornings and 6 days of playing duplicate bridge in the afternoons without great success, when the chips were on the line with prizes being offered today (the last day of duplicate bridge on the ship) we took first place for East – West out of eleven tables and won Holland American “Dam Ship” sweatshirts.

Tomorrow we will be at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas, an island owned by Holland America where we are going to ride jet skiis.  We arrive in Fort Lauderdale on Monday morning.  We will be in Florida for four days and then Chicago for five days before returning home on the 10th.

Unfortunately our Holland America land tour disrupted our Hop On Hop Off tour of Lisbon.  Our tour guide was Christina who was so adorable that I wanted to bring her home.  The tour started at 12:45 pm with a visit to the city’s Royal Palaces in Queluz and then we drove on to Sintra, a magical village like town in the mountains about 45 minutes out of Lisbon.  Sintra is very quaint with wonderful shops and restaurants.  We walked and did some shopping but didn’t have time to visit the Cathedral there.  Of Sintra, Lord Byron called it the most earthly paradise that he longed to live in.  It dates back to the 7th Century which was dominated by the Moors.  The Royal Palace was the summer home for the Royal Family and was built in the French style.

We then drove to the coast to two resort towns, one being Estoril which houses the Palace Hotel and Casino which gave Ian Fleming the inspiration for the creation of James Bond, Agent 007 and for the book, Casino Royale.  During WW II, Estoril’s location made it a perfect place for the gathering of spies from all the countries in Europe and the U.S. 

The coastline between Estoril and Lisbon is absolutely beautiful and engaging.  We saw students taking surf boarding lessons after school and people fishing the surf from perches along the shore line as well as more fortresses.

We also learned that unemployment in Portugal is at 9%, half of what Spain is going through, but their pay scale is much lower than the average in Spain.

The final bit of history that we learned was that Vasco de Gama set sail from Lisbon in 1497 for the Indies claiming lands for Portugal.  The Pope had previously drawn a line giving Portugal the right to claim all lands discovered on one side of it and Spain the same right with regard to the other side.  de Gama was accused of claiming lands on the Spanish side and of course he actually made it to the Indies while Colombus while believing he was going to find the East Indies ended up in Central America and the Carribean.

Our final stop before crossing the Atlantic is Funchal, Portugal on Madeira Island and I will report on it tomorrow.

Tony

We visited the Church of Santa Cruz which is the third largest Catholic church in the world after the Vatican and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.  It is absolutely spectacular and houses the bones of Christopher Columbus (birth name of Colon) and one of his sons.  There is a long story about the bones and two different cities claim to be the original burial site of Columbus.  Interestingly, I am in the midst of reading The Jewish Pirates of the Carribean which traces back to the Jews who sailed with Columbus and his family’s protection of the Portugese Jews (Conversos) in Jamaica which he discovered and obtained ownership of and rights of inheritance from the King of Spain. 

We then visited the Alcazar Castle which is of both Moorish and Christian heritage and design.  Our guide, Elena, then walked us through the Jewish Quarter which is now devoid of any Jewish identification.  There are presently about 20 Jewish families in the city.

We ate lunch at a lovely hotel buffet style with salads, soup, Gezpacho, meats and cheese . . . light and perfect for being able to continue our walking tour without feeling bloated.

The city is very clean and many of the buildings are painted white and ocre.  In the old town you see trash containers where you open the door and dump in your trash and then close the door and turn a wheel that down loads the garbage into a vaccum system that carries everything through the city to a dumping and processing site . . . very interesting.

We stopped at a Catholic church which was a modern structure so Lynn and I chose to stand on the street and take pictures of men and women in traditional attire and to talk to a plain clothes police officer.

After driving through the city we stopped at a beach side resort for a potty break, coffee, water, etc.  The view of the Atlantic was quite nice.  We then drove to the King Hassan II Mosque which is an amazing structure overlooking the ocean.  I hope to get some of the pictures attached to this blog posting within the next couple of days as the ship has an Internet Workshop where you can learn how to post pictures, create your own website, etc.  We then went shopping.  What an experience!! We saw a snake oil salesman in action selling us herbs, spices and oils to relieve aches, pains, stuffy noses and of course since I was suffering from a sore shoulder, I had to buy the oil for muscle pain.  Guess what?  It worked.  We found out that Saffron is not naturally yellow but rather is mixed with another substance that turns it yellow when boiled in water.  On the way to the herb and spice shop, the tour guide “Hopalong Cassidy (short for Abdul), told us that we were in an area where Jews and Moslims live together in peace and then pointed to a non-descript woman and announced, “She is a Jewish woman”.  Finally, we were taken to a gift shop that carried rugs, glassware, shoes, handbags. . . you name it, they had it.  The salesman announced that the prices are not fixed, that “you should negotiate with me”.  Lynn saw a leather handbag she liked and he told her it was 60 Euros and then he reduced it to 40 Euros before she even had a chance to counter offer.  She bought it and another woman bought the same purse in a different color.  The salesman whispered to Lynn not to tell the other customer what we had paid because she paid 50 Euros. 

The store also had pots with the mogen david and sterling silver left hands of g-d.  So much for Casablanca.

I spotted a hand written sign beside the road that read, “Aborto – Adopcion”.  Some things don’t change no matter where in the world you may be.

The original Jews in this area of Spain can be traced back to 395 when they established Granata, the reference to the Pomegranate which is abundant here.  When the Arabs arrived in 711, it became Granada.  Granada sits on a mountain and is the gateway to The Alhambra, the Sultan’s summer residence and mosque which are walled off from the outer town and Granada.  When the Catholics, led by Ferdinand and Isabella forced the Moors out, Isabella lived in the residence while in the area.  She left The Alhambra intact, unlike the Jewish institutions which were totally destroyed during the Inquisiton.  The only way you know that Jewish people inhabited a town is because the tour guide said, “This was the Jewish Quarter”.

The Alhambra is absolutely beautiful, with gardens, fruit trees and vegetables, tiled walkways, etc.  (I took lots of pictures).  The ovens where the Moors made the red bricks for their structures are still visible.  The is a monument dedicated to Washington Irving who served there as the U.S. Ambassador and authored a book about The Alhambra.

We had lunch at a hotel in The Alhambra.  We were served, guess what?  Paella, which was the best yet.

Malaga, The Alhambra and Casablanca to follow in our next posting.

Tony

After checking onto the ship and settling into our incredible De Luxe Verandah Suite (As roomy and nice as almost any hotel room we have been in), we caught a bus back to La Rambla, did some more sightseeing, caught a Metro and went to the Sagrada Familia, the unfinished Cathedral designed by Gaudi with the construction incomplete when he died.  It is a fascinating structure with multiple spires with different fruit and other figures at the top of each one.  The interior is still unfinished and you can look right through the still open spaces between the pillars and unfinished walls to the outdoors.  While in the chapel we sat and listened to an Asian choir group sing beautiful hymns.  We then caught the Metro back to La Rambla after sampling some wonderful gelati and walked a short distance into the Gothic (Gotic) area to Los Caracoles, a wonderful authentic Catalan restaurant that was recommended by my cousins Bill and Margie Frankenstein from the Los Angeles area who were here last year.  Unfortunately, even though I found the Paella to be outstanding, it was made with a black squid ink and either you couldn’t taste the saffron or it didn’t have any in it which left Lynn less than totally satisfied.  We both thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the meal and the ambiance.  We sat upstairs in the back of the restaurant overlooking a private party that was having a great time directly below us.  This is one of those wonderful old restaurants with lots of history.  We sat under an autographed picture of Dana Andrews.

After dinner we walked down to the waterfront where a huge monument was situated with a statue on top of Christoper Columbus allegedly pointing the wrong way down the Mediterrenean.  We then took the bus to the ship and called it a night.

On Sunday we had breakfast in our suite and then headed by cab to the Miro Museum on Montjuic.  Like the Picasso exhibit, the Miro exhibit which also included dislays of the publisher Dupin and of works by Caulder was outstanding and a wonderful way to end our cultural exploration of Barcelona.

Upon leaving the museum, there weren’t any cabs to be found going in either direction.  No one seemed to speak enough English for us to figure how to get back down the hill and to the boat.  Finally, we went to the Finicular Station (The Finicular is a one-way special train ride down to the bottom of the hill and to a connection of the Metro that took us back to La Rambla at the waterfront where we caught a boat back to the ship and re-boarded the Oosterdam with less than 15 minutes to go before they pulled the gangplank.

Tomorrow, I will report on our visit to Alicante and its surrounds together with Malaga, Granada and the Al Hambra.

Buenos Noches

Tony

We then walked about 1500 meters to the Metro and caught a train back to Placa Catalunya and walked down Las Ramblas to the La Boqueria Market where we had an amazing lunch that was so filling that we are still full 7 hours later, supplemented only by wine and Cappacino (Lynn´s was a regular and mine was flavored with Bailey´s Irish Creme syrup.  At lunch we met a younger couple who were sitting next to us, Ilka and Roberto.  They are from Heidelberg, Germany.  They eat at this same restaurant practically every day, vacationing one week a year in this fantastic city.  We had fried artichoke hearts, fried peppers with sea salt, squid with sunny side up eggs, and  an amazing seafood platter.  We then walked down the narrow winding streets of the Gothic area, full of churches and other structures, saw wonderful designer shops and galleries, traditional dancing similar to what we have seen in Poulsbo and finished off a bottle of wine between the four of us.  We then said goodnight to Ilka and Roberto whose fathers each just turned 70, so that gives you an idea of how young they are.  We walked back to Las Ramblas, stopping for our cappacinos along the way and then caught the Metro back to the hotel.  We are both ready to collapse into our very comfortable bed.

Goodnight to all.

Tony and Lynn

We then took the underground back to our hotel area and had Barbacoa (BBQ) which is the Thursday night special.  The BBQ of fish and meat together with a glass of red wine (tasted like Pinot Noir) and iced yogurt really hit the spot.  Tomorrow night we plan on an authentic Catalunya dinner at Los Caracoles following a walking tour of Gaudi architecture and a museum or two.  Today was overcast in the morning, sunny but cool in the afternoon with some rain in the late afternoon.  Tomorrow we will check the weather report before venturing out as it was a little nippy for a T-shirt.

More tomorrow.

Tony and Lynn

Well, we arrived in Barcelona yesterday morning after flying from Seattle to New York and then onto Barcelona without any sleep.  The flight was uneventful but tiring.

At the airport in Barcelona, we tried to use our ATM card to get Euros . . . No luck.  When we called B of A we were told that they blocked the account because of suspicious activity.  The suspicious activity turned out to be the fact that the bank employee who I had called before leaving Seattle to advise that we would be using the card in Europe failed to put it into the computer.  All is well now although we have yet to try and get Euros but were told that it will work now.

At the airport we were told to take the bus to Placa(Plaza) de Espana and the the subway to the exit for our hotel.  We lugged our two big suitcases plus our four carry ons to the bus without much difficulty.  The subway was a different story.  We had to haul our luggage down four flights of stairs and then onto the train, off of the train and up two flights of stairs to the street which put us one block from the Villa Emilia, a very nice hotel (Thank you Jeff and Mimi).

After freshening up, we went walking about four miles, had Tapas at the hotel and were in bed by 8;00 PM

Thursday, October, 15.

After sleeping about 10 hours and dragging ourselves out of bed at about 6:30 AM (It is still dark out until about 8:00 AM), we showered and went downstairs for a wonderful breakfast, complete with fresh fruit, lox, assorted meats, brie, rustic breads, chocolate croissants, juice and coffee.

Now were are ready to tackle the tourist areas of Barcelona and to savor its treats, food and otherwise.  Thanks to Nuria, Mimi and others for all your suggestions.  We are going to do them all between now and Sunday when we set sail for Alicante and points west.

Tony and Lynn

P.S  Barcelona is a fabulous urbane and fashionable city with so much to see and eat.  Las Ramblas couldn have been more fun with all the statuary mimes, animals for sale, floral displays and artists.  And you can walk everywhere.  Tomorrow we plan to see the Gaudi buildings and, if lucky, see a few museums.