Le Grand Tour | Norwegian Spirit March 22 - April 1

[xenagurl]

Hi Cruisers!

 

I'll be providing my write up in installments as I post to my blog. For tips and all of the (many) photos, which are too large to include here according to CruiseCritic.

 

 

I'll include the link to each post but I wanted to add this here for anyone interested. Hopefully it'll help in your decision of "where to do next". I'm not on CC a lot anymore but I will pop back before next post to answer any questions.

 

 

Happy Cruising!

 

~ Xenagurl

 

Full post: http://travelxena.com/leaving-barcelona-norwegian-spirit-stateroom-10072/

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to take myself on vacation. There were things that I wanted to buy from Europe that are some of the few things that can’t be ordered online overseas. So what the heck I said to myself, let me go to Europe. Initially I thought I’d fly over to Barcelona or Paris spend a few days and come home, but with exactly one week to go I booked the Norwegian Spirit which these days does ‘Le Grand Tour’ to several cities that I haven’t been to.

So I found an inexpensive albeit connecting flight to Barcelona and I hopped on.

I flew into Barcelona the night before, went out to dinner at a Tapas place on Carrer de Blai called Taberna Blai the food was good and I ate about 7 Tapas as 2 or 3 glass of wine for about €14 (Tip: This street is full of Tapas bars and has a lot of locals, you’ll probably spend less then you would on a Tapas bar on Las Ramblas)

Afterward I made my way back over to Hotel Sehrs del Port where I had a chat with my family and then went to bed.

The itinerary for the cruise was:

Valletta, Malta (Island)

Palermo, Sicily

Civitavecchia, Italy (Rome suburb)

Livorno, Italy (gateway to Florence and Pisa)

Monte Carlo, Monaco

Marseille, France

La Palma, Majorca Spain (Island)

Valencia, Spain

I’ll go into each area separately but here are some photos of the Norwegian Spirit, photos my balcony in stateroom 10072 of Barcelona port and of the stateroom itself. The Spirit is an older but elegant ship and I wouldn’t hesitate to cruise on her again with a few 10+ itinerary like this one.

With the instatement of Platinum Plus it made boarding the ship that much easier as I was in the first group to board and one of the first people to get on the ship. It gave me time to do some exploring as this was the first time I’ve been on the Spirit and meet Oumah who works in the watch store. We had a great chat and realized we had a lot in common personality wise, and became buddies. I look forward to seeing her again.

I flew in the day before and stayed a Hotel Sehrs which is close to the port.

Tip: If staying at hotel Sehrs near the port. Go outside and grab your taxi on the other side of the street. This will save you about 4 or 5 euro. This was told to be by my cab driver to the hotel. The cost from this hotel to the port will be about €12-15 depending on traffic, amount of luggage etc. This includes the fees incurred from traveling to or from the cruise port. Rounding up the change is an acceptable tip but none is fine as well.

[xenagurl]

Post 2: Valletta and the Mdina

 

http://travelxena.com/the-mdina-and-valletta-malta/

 

Leaving the ship and making your way around on your on you encounter a host of travel industry professionals offering to drive you around by taxi and HoHo bus (Hop-on , Hop Off) I often opt for a HoHo bus and was faced with either taking the red City Sightseeing brand that’s seen all over the world (€10) or a more local yellow bus version (€7.50).

In riding hood fashion I opted for the red, and my goal after checking out the map and doing a quick google search was to go to the Mdina. It’s an old fortified city within the country founded by Phoenicians in the 8th century. It still houses residents, government buildings, churches, schools and a couple of restaurants as well as many shops.

After walking the few steps from the bus stop to the Mdina gates I wasn’t sorry that I’d chosen to go there. The area was beautiful. It was like stepping into time and rewinding hundreds of years. It reminded me of a Limestone Mykonos.

Streets that wound around into each other and back in the main squares it was impossible to get lost. And walking to the edge led to beautiful views of the countryside below. If you few places in Malta and you have limited time this is definitely a place you’ll want to see.

I slowly meandered taking photos of just about everything that I saw from multiple angles. I whirled and swirled through the streets until I reached a small restaurant with countryside views. I ordered Carrot cake and red house wine, an odd combination but there you have it. I didn’t find either very tasty but it was nice to sit and enjoy the view. However you could have the same vista peering over the stony fortification of the city toward the back.

After leaving the Mdina, and alighting the bus (after a 45 minute wait) I didn’t have a plan. I decided to sit up top and take photos of what I saw passing by until something made me want to jump off or until I reached the pier. I took a bus doing a Northern route, since the bus I was waiting for still hadn’t arrived, but I figured it wouldn’t take long and I could head back to where I came from and start again. Little did I know that I’d signed on for a 2 hour ride, on which the bus stopped at very few points of interest but did stop at a few hotels along the coast to pick up passengers.

I did take photos but the day was a bit chilly and in all honestly after hour one had passed without seeing anything of interest that I wanted to exit the bus for, I pulled my wrap tight around me and settled in for the ride.

I don’t know if I can fairly judge my time there as the only thing I really saw was the Mdina and didn’t walk around Valletta. From the bus there wasn’t anything that really drew my eye until I was about 30 minutes from to the port, and considering how long it took for the buses to come, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving and assuming there’d be a bus available when it was time to head back.

So while I wouldn’t book a vacation there, I’d be interested in going on another cruise that stopped there and having the chance to explore it more as I know there must be other fascinating areas to delve into, even if a visitor doesn’t have a yacht moored in a port. ;)

[jenf22]

I was hoping someone from this cruise would do a trip report! We were on it as well and had a great time. I'm looking forward to the rest of your review.

[Samstress]

Me too! Following along...

[xenagurl]

I was hoping someone from this cruise would do a trip report! We were on it as well and had a great time. I'm looking forward to the rest of your review.

 

I'm glad that you enjoyed it as well! I found it an exciting as well as relaxing cruise. Thanks for checking out the posts. I hope to have another up by tomorrow. :)

[xenagurl]

Me too! Following along...

 

Thanks! I hope that you had a great time on the cruise too. :D

[xenagurl]

Palermo

http://travelxena.com/palermo-sicily-le-grand-tour/ More photos at the link.

Stepping off of the ship in Palermo I felt like I should perhaps go back inside, from what I could gather it seemed I was smack in the middle of an industrial town and I should have booked an excursion. This turned out not to be necessary. There were taxi drivers with signs as well as HopOn-Hop Off bus options. After not having a great experience with the red buses in Malta I decided to go for the Yellow bus this time. (Note: The Red buses were not City Sightseeing brand)

I had one goal to start with...buying Bottega Verde skin creams. I love them. Absolutely love them. They are the best face creams that I've ever used. (And they can't be ordered from the U.S.) The minute I made my way to the bus I checked out Google to find if there was a store nearby and there was. The attendant on the bus told me that it would be close to stop 12 or 14, and so I took a tour around town first. Check out some of the sights below. While there is an element of buildings that have seen better days it is a beautiful city.

Along the way I found myself at the cathedral of Palermo. The architecture was simply beautiful but as I was still on a beauty supplies mission I decided to take off and make my way to stop 12 or 13 as recommended. Once I found my way to the stop I walked the few blocks over to Bottega Verde on via Roma, one of the main shopping areas in the region. I told the ladies in my broken Italian about how whenever I take a trip I look to see if there's a shop in the area. We had a nice little chat and 6 items later I was walking out of the store and decided to walk back to the pier, the long way. Don't do that. Palermo can be a bit sketch and crossing the streets there is challenging.

I have a Roman friend that looked at me hard when I said I was in Palermo, and I met someone from Sicily that wondered why I'd visit Palermo so that gives you a bit of an idea of what it could be like. I however liked it. I'm from Brooklyn so few things phase me. I liked it. :)

After dropping my items off back at the the ship, I went back out to grab the bus, and went through the tour again, jumping off at the Cattedrale di Palermo walked down Vittorio Emanuele to have a lunch in a square at a restaurant called something like Cafe New York.

I was drawn in my the accordion players and the surrounding ambiance. I had fish, vegetables and of course French Fries. The garnish on the side was lemon and Orange, and this orange was one of the most orange I've ever seen and was juicy and delicious. I'd consider moving to Sicily to just eat those oranges on a daily basis, and frankly that stuck with me more than any other part of the meal.

After a lot of wandering I made my way back to the ship and prepped for dinner. I look forward to actually having the chance to explore Sicily one of these days and see the country side.