Cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona 2019

 Cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona 2019      10/11/19

We flew out of Ben Gurion airport on Thur. 24/10/19 on El Al and the airport was packed even though it is supposed to be the quiet season. The plane was filled almost totally with Hebrew speakers. One group was going on an organized tour of Oporto another was flying on to the Azores.  Israeli tourists seem to  like Portugal. We walked out of the airport  stayed at the airport hotel.

Next day took a direct bus from our airport  to Amaroriers  a big shopping centre near our hotel.  Astrid sprained her ankle after we had shopped for toys for the grandchildren, I took her back to the hotel and I went to Baxo Chado by Metro which is the centre of Lisbon. Most of the roads here have been turned into malls crowded with restaurants. In the market you see a lot of fruit from Brazil.

There are a number of open squares with statues on pedestals so high you need binoculars to see what they are. I then took the small old trams that go up and down the hills of the old part of the city, the tracks are a very narrow gage so that they can curve easily. I got lost but found someone who pointed out a direct bus to the Amaroriers. Nearby only 2 stops away is Marquis de Pombel this is a park and  major bus and metro junction named after the guy who rebuilt Lisbon after the earthquake. One neighborhood is called Restaurante (not for places to eat) this is Portuguese for restoration when Portugal regained it own monarchy after being under Spanish rule.

The shower in our room is designed so that you have a clear view of the TV while you shower and we though this strange till the next day Astrid discovered a button you press and a blind comes down.

Saturday - Near the hotel I found an open air market full of tables of jewelry, the pavement is interesting and I later found out it is called "passado Portuguese" made of black and white square cobbles with dozens of different designs along the tree lined boulevards.

 Astrid wanted me to go to Decathlon to get her walking poles and an ankle guard she said you take this bus and it is only 3 stops but the bus took me miles out of town on a highway into the suburbia to Decathlon which is an enormous sports warehouse store, luckily a young girl assistant spoke good English. Getting back was not easy as their was not direct bus but managed with a connection. 2 different young people I spoke to had a good English and told me their learned it from English movies as the movies are subtitled, first he put on DVD with Portuguese subtitles and then later movies he was able to follow in English with English subtitles.

To avoid walking we took a direct bus to  Belem which is a holiday port. Astrid read in the park while I went to see the Cathedral. It has the tomb of Louis de Cameos the most famous Portuguese poet whose works the Portuguese spoken  language is based on. His book the Lusitania 1580 is about a travel odyssey.  His death day is Portugal's national day. We bought Pastes de Belem the famous custard tarts that originate here.

Sunday, Astrid decided to stay at the hotel so that her ankle could recover  and spent it at the swimming pool and also watched rugby Worlds Cup while I booked a free walking tour.that started at the Luis de Camious square. The guide spoke an excellent English with hardly an accent and took us through the oldest part of the city and  told us about the most important aspects of Portuguese history. Athens is the oldest city in Europe then Lisbon. We  were taken around some buildings that still stand from before the earthquake.

War of the 2 Johns in 1383. John of Castile wanted to take over Portugal as John of Portugal was the illegitimated son of the king. The English sent help of 300 long bowmen who beat the large Castilian army and since then Britain and Portugal have been allies.

In 1755 on All Saints Day a great earthquake struck , people fleeing the falling buildings ran to the open spaces along the Tagus rivers and then a tsunami followed  and wiped out 3 quarters of Lisbon's  population, but the oldest part of the town inhabited by the poor, brothels and thieves and what was the old Jewish quarter was built on bedrock and survived. This led to a period of enlightenment influenced by Voltaire's writing, as the church lost control and only 30 years later we see 1776 the American  and1789  French Revolutions. The Marquis de Pombel the Prime Minister was able to set up and enlightened administration and stop the Jesuits running Portugal.

We were shown the place where the last king Carlos and eldest son Luis Filip were assassinated in 1908 and this was  followed by very unstable governments till in 1931 Salazar the dictator ruled till 1968 followed by Caetano till 1974.In the Carnation Revolution junior officers of the army overthrew him as he tried to keep Portuguese colonies by force and Caetano went into exile in Brazil.

Today  Portugal is one of the most open societies in Europe nobody takes politics seriously and is a very big tourist attraction.

After this tour I went to the Aljube Museum of resistance. It shows pictures of the cruelty of the dictator and Estate Nove periods and thousands were sent to prison exile in Madeira and Timor. The colonial wars lasted 13 years.

Portuguese speakers learn Spanish easily but Romance language speakers battle to learn Portuguese as it has a lot of different sounds.  The Portuguese identity is that they are not Spanish. The ceramic tile art originated from the Almohades  Moslem invasion in 1147.

Monday we took a taxi to the port and from the top of ship Celebrity Reflection you get a beautiful view of the city. We had sit down dinners every night and that night the entertainment was the band with the Ukrainian violinist Katrina Rosso.

The next day was a sea day, there were some lectures promoting tours on Spain and Gibraltar and we were invited to the Captains club as we have had 4 cruises with Celebrity. Most people who come to this take the opportunity to get free booze. Astrid also went to a lecture about wines and the foods they go with. I usually go to the trivia quizzes and meet interesting people there. That evening the entertainment was Vox Clever a 4 men choir mostly from Wales who sang with beautiful harmony different genre's of songs.

We noticed that there were a lot of Chinese from Canada, they origenated from Hong Kong. They only drink tea so every evening they took flasks to fill with boiling water.

Gibraltar 30 Nov. We were taken for a bus ride to circumnavigate the territory a ride of 10km. You cross the airport runway which was build for WW2. They get 4 flights landing from the UK daily and 2 from Morocco on Fridays. When planes land and take off cars and pedestrian are stopped. The airport has a foreshore out into the sea. Just beyond this is the border with Spain and 12 thousand Spaniards come every day to work in Gibraltar.

From the most southern point you can see Africa and there is a monument there to Sakorski the Polish General who led the Polish army in exile and his plane crashed there on take off. Kim Philby was in Gibraltar at that time and we know that Stalin wanted Sarkosi killed. The road on the one side is a tunnel through the rock and there are some beautiful beaches. We were taken for tea and scones at the Rock Hotel and  Astrid went with the bus back to the ship while I walked around the old city which is mostly 3 story building and has 4 synagogues all in  walking distance but are difficult to identify the Flemish synagogue is over 200 years old and a plaque  says that Sir Joshua Hassan PM was a member here.. Gibraltar acted as a refuge for Jews from Spain and north Africa over a long period  Most of Gibraltar today is reclaimed land with high rise building and I heard more Spanish than English. During Franco's time and many other periods it was isolated from Spain so today has it own desalination for water and own electricity and the people here hate Spain even those who speak Spanish.

There is a beautiful mosque which Saudi Arabia paid 5000 pounds to build for the 1000 Moslems there. Most products in the market came from Spain. 

That evening at the sit down dinner we were put a at table in the dining room with  Joyce , Hershel and Dotty and Barbara and after that we arranged to have dinner together for the rest of the cruise.

31/11/19  Malaga, Andalucía. We were taken on a tour through the city to the top of the hill, from where you can see the sea, port and bull ring in the city centre. This is a place with houses or flats of wealthy people who fly in from northern Europe for warm holidays. During the Civil War the wealthy from here went abroad. On the hill there is a castle from Moslem time and under the city are ruins of a city from Roman times including a theater. In the city are narrow lanes from Moslem architecture and the façade of a mosque that became a church. The newer part of the city has wider roads one of which has been closed to make a pedestrian mall.  Here we were taken to different places to try paella and wine.

Malaga was the city where Picasso was born and his flat was pointed out to us. I saw a sign with the refences to Ibn Gvirol, the Jewish poet of 11Century who wrote in Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish. There are a lot of Picasso type statues in the mall and there is a Picasso Museum.

Friday, All Saints Day, Cartage. Murcia State. You could see people carry flowers to visit the graveyards. Cartage is named from the invasion from Carthage, Libya but that occupation only lasted 20 years while the Romans governed for 300 years.

We were taken on  a trip to see a Spanish Horse breeding farm and learned all about these horses that are sold for about $25000 each.  They are intelligent light grey animals, but not used for racing. We were shown how they are let out  on a stampede to get exercise. Then 5 were joined together in a "Cobra" and move in unison. Then how they are taught to dance or move with a different gait. We were given different Spanish snacks wine and beer. We were also shown drinking of sweet from a porron this is a pitcher that is passed around the table and you drink from it without it touching your lips. We had a display of Flamenco dancing and a horse doing  coordinated movements to her and giving a bow at the end. On the way back I got off the bus in the city and walked to the top of a steep hill with a Roman fortress from where you could see the port as well as a derelict bull ring in the middle of which a Roman theatre was being excavated.

That evening I went to the Sabbath service that had about 18 men and 10 women they used the Reform siddur. The guy who led the service was from Manchester. Everyone was asked to say where they were from and I said Johannesburg to Tel Aviv so except for the man from London there were 2 couples who said Cuba to Miami or NY to California. In seems that most Jews don't live where they were born. There was Manishevitz wine and  8 challot for people to take and a box of kippot to use. 

Saturday Valencia City in the state of Valencia is the third largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona.  The city is in a flat area that is the flood plain of the Turia River. In 1957 they had such heavy floods  that old building had their foundations collapsing and you can see empty plots in the old areas as a result. After that the river was diverted to 2 storm drains around the city and the dry river bed  has been turned into a variety of different parks of various styles and a foreshore was build so that the port is far from the city. In this vacant area a variety of very modern edifices  were erected including a science museum as well as an opera threatre build by Calastrava and took 14 years to build, it is similar but different from that Sydney, Australia. This city has many churches as in a period of wealth rich people though they could get to heaven by building churches, these are protected buildings but few are open or in use. One of the large houses with beautiful façade belonged to a wealthy family that fled during the civil war. Besides the port the economy here was based on oranges and rice. Valencia was against Franco and the city was bombed.  

We were taken to the Falla museum. This is a festival on 20th March to celebrate the start of spring. People build different monuments or floats that are carried around the city and in the end they are burned in a bonfire. Over the last 50 years the best and prize winning ones of these were kept and you see a display of them with changes in material from mostly paper mashe to polystyrene.

Entertainment  in the evening on the ship was 4 English singers named the Barricade Boys. 

Sunday, Ibiza. This is an island part of the autonomous Balearic Island which includes Mallorca, Minorca and others small islands in the Mediterranean. We were taken to the top of the old city which is a fortress and then it has a second wall around the bottom when the city expanded. The Cathedral at the top was first a pagan temple, then mosque before.  You can look down on the Ibiza harbour which was extended recently by building a wall across 2 small adjoining islands and also here the newer part of the city is foreshore. This island of 50 000 inhabitants receives 3 million visitors during the year mostly in summer, and is known for the dozens of discotheques that operate for young people. It has a power station that provides electricity for itself and smaller islands nearby including Formentera as well as a desalination plant for water.  These islands were bases for corsairs - private pirates who the king encouraged to attack the enemy especially the Turks and they could get the loot. These island always had a pirate problem who would invade to take the people as slaves.

Both Spanish and Catalan is spoken here and in the past the economy was based on fishing and farming but today it is 90% tourism, they also sell fashion of different white dresses.

The evenings entertainment was Euphoria a group that sings dances and does acrobatics.

Monday was a sea day and I went to a stretching class,  Astrid went to the gym every do to bicycle.  Astrid also went to a class on posture and how it affects your walking. There was a matinee show in the theater of Broadway cabaret including Dan the entertainment manager singing an aria from an opera. At 7pm was a show by a comedy pianist Kev Orkian who originated from Armenia

Tuesday 5th Nov we left the cruise with our suitcases and were taken for a bus ride through Barcelona city. We didn't see the famous cathedral but passed well planned roads with beautiful Catalan architecture including a building by Gaudi. We saw that building don't come right up to the corner but leave space on the side walk of main junctions. A tram system as well as bicycle lanes and lots of electric scooters. The bus took us to Montserrat which is a place of pilgrimage over 1200 meters up where there is a Dominican Monastery and you can see a black Madonna. You can also get up here by cable car and then get the funicular to the very top were hermit monks used to live. It also has a boys school there and the whole thing is supported by visitors and pilgrims. You can see the Pyrenees Mountains on your east from there the bottom of this mountain is red iron sandstone but the top is conglomerate rock.

Catalonia is made up of 4 provinces Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona. The guide was the first one who was prepared to discuss recent Spanish history and Catalonia stood up against Franco and suffered badly in the civil war. The Catalan language was not taught at school under the dictatorship but kept up privately. Catalan is a Romance language with words from before the Roman period but was not occupied by the Moslems. One is aware of the extensive  industrial zone outside Barcelona and the airport is enormous build on drained swampland. Catalonia is the industrial base of Spain and the Catalonians want independence as they feel their work bankrolls the rest of the country.

The bus dropped us off at the airport and we got the shuttle to the Tryp hotel to be ready to fly home the next  day

I took a long walk around the area of the hotel and saw warehouses of amongst others VW but the biggest was Amazon. I also noticed that of the cars almost all are European. We  arrived in Tel Aviv in a heat wave of 32C for 6th November.

The service we got on the cruise was excellent, from quality food, available day and night and the staff who were very obliging. One tea time they served English scones with clotted cream and they had them just right. The passengers were all intelligent types and all busy reading books outside in the warm weather. The only thing I found lacking was that they should have had some lectures about Spain on board. I never realized that Spain still suffers from a complex about its civil war and for the guides the history of their country ended in 1930 anything after that they considered politics.