Venus Bay, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

We made our annual piscatorial pilgrimage to the West Coast and fished Venus Bay and nearby Mt Camel ocean beach.  The weather was a bit wild this year and restricted our activities somewhat although we still caught a fridge full of salmon, tommy ruff, mullet, King George whiting and flathead.  The undoubted highlight of the fortnight was the salmon Geoff caught at Mt Camel Beach.  Not usually known for big fish, this beach is always reliable for the better-eating smaller specimens.  But the salmon Geoff hooked on Sunday afternoon and beached after a long battle on light line and a small size 4 hook was truly a monster of its species.  I’ve never seen a bigger one.  Geoff was stoked. And the fish was no doubt relieved to be released back into the ocean after starring in a short photographic session on the sand.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Ravenna was a high point on which to end our long journey.  On Wednesday morning we took a train to Bologna, and from there a fast train south to Rome’s central terminal, and from there an express train to Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. We flew out at 10pm and arrived at Dubai before sunrise the following morning.  We spent two nights in Dubai looking around and catching up with daughter Jane who works as an Emirates flight attendant.  I don’t know where she got the travel bug from. Then we came home.  There’s always something deeply satisfying about arriving back home after a long time way away. It’s an integral part of the pleasure of travel.

Ravenna, Italy

From Venice we took a train south to Ravenna.  Not one of the most well known Italian cities, Ravenna is nevertheless an outstanding showcase of art, history and culture.  From the 5th to 8th century AD, Ravenna was in turn the capital of the Western Roman Empire, of King Theoodoric of the Goths, and of the Byzantine empire in Europe. It’s now a world heritage listed location, primarily because of the astonishing 5th and 6th century mosaics that adorn the interiors of several of its ancient buildings.  We’ve seen mosaics before, but never mosaics like this.  Fine, big, bright, and seemingly as dazzling as the days they were painstakingly designed and assembled by prodigious talents 1,500 years ago!

In Ravenna you can also visit Dante’s tomb.  We did.  Dante found himself on the wrong side of some nasty politics and was exiled from his hometown of Florence, facing burning at the stake if he returned without paying a large fine imposed upon him.  This he refused to do on principle, and he ended his days in 1321, in Ravenna.  The penitent Florentines continue to this day to provide the oil for the small lamp that burns above his tomb.

Venice, Italy

Legend disgorged its 2,500 passengers, including us, in Venice on Saturday morning.  Time once again to fend for ourselves. We checked into a hotel at Mestre and spent the following day wandering around Piazza San Marco, the canal-side alleyways, and a couple of nearby islands, Murano and Burano.  At the former we admired the extremely beautiful but oh-so-expensive glass pieces displayed in the canal-front outlets.  The artisans were on hand to explain how they’d made each piece; this helped to rationalize the asking prices but even so, the thought of dropping a 300 Euro plate was too much to contemplate.

Many cities are a variation on a theme, but there’s only one Venice.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik perched on the Adriatic Sea has been on our visit ‘wish list’ for a long time. And yesterday we finally got there. The old city is everything claimed about it. Its setting is truly sublime; its buildings beautiful with the sum much greater than the parts. The ancient encircling city wall is perfectly preserved, making for an excellent hike to admire the city from all perspectives. We did just that, then found a waterfront cafe to order fresh sardines, salad and bread for lunch. What a place!

Messina, Sicily, Italy

Legend docked for a day in Messina on the Italian island of Sicily.  Many passengers boarded buses to visit Sicilian villages featured in the classic 1970s movie The Godfather.  But having been on the go for many weeks we were content just to stroll around Messina itself, a pleasant enough town in its own right.  Around noon a crowd gathered in front of the town hall clock next to the cathedral, and as soon as the clock struck 12 the tower followed on with quite an impressive performance.  The large gold lion at the top kicked things off with a few credible roars, then the rooster below crowed for a bit, and finally a full-length rendition of Ava Maria burst forth from the audio system while a procession of religious sculptures circled past an opening in the tower and was revealed to the crowd below.  The crowd liked it all, and we did too.  A pleasant, if slightly offbeat, interlude.

The air was warm, the shade was welcome and the coffee was good.  We lingered with other visitors at the sidewalk cafes, watching the comings and goings in downtown Messina. It was a friendly, laid-back place, and the few hours had no trouble passing.        

Naples & Pompeii, Italy

Legend docked Monday morning in Naples in southern Italy.  We were soon off the ship and headed on foot for the railway station where we caught a train to Pompeii at the base of Mt Vesuvius.  A big crowd was already lined up at the ticket box to the Pompeii ruin when we got there.  Our expectations were high but we were left decidedly underwhelmed.  In our opinion the reality didn’t match the fame and hype of Pompeii.  It was a mildly interesting site at best and  a couple of hours were enough for us.

More interesting was the Naples city centre that we explored after the return train journey.  In places Naples is edgy and grungy, but it also has several fine piazzas with grand buildings.

We wandered from piazza to piazza, eventually stopping for a slab of pizza each on the sidewalk, then strolling back down to the docks and reboarding Legend in plenty of time for our 7pm departure.

Olbia, Sardinia, Italy

A week out from Barcelona and we’d become very comfortable with ship-board life.  No daily checking in or out of hotels, no struggling with luggage on buses, no timetables or schedules to work out, no meals to think about.  Legend docked in the small port city of Olbia in Sardinia, but with both of us battling heavy colds we did no more than walk up and down the quaint main street and buy a couple more packs of Fisherman’s Friends before returning to the ship.   

Day in Marseille, France

Marseille on France’s Mediterranean coast is the country’s second-largest city and biggest port.  Over past decades it’s been through tough economic times and become run down with high unemployment, particularly amongst the many immigrants who enter France here.  But some giant infrastructure projects are underway to brighten up both the city’s streetscapes and its economy.  We took a bus from the port into the city centre and ambled along the waterfront, inspecting the small fish market and shops along the way. It was now a case of Bon Jour rather than Hola, and Merci rather than Gracias.        

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

The Spanish island of Mallorca (aka Majorca) lies in the Mediterranean Sea about 200 km out from Barcelona.  It’s the largest island in the Balearic archipelago, and a playground for affluent boaties and tour groups that stream in from all over Europe to enjoy the beaches and soak up the sunshine.  We had just a day here and spent our time wandering around the centre of the main town, Palma. There was a large market underway in Plaza Mayor pulling in the crowds.  As did the Palma Cathedral on the waterfront, featuring some characteristic interior work by Barcelona’s famous son Antoni Gaudi.

Barcelona, Spain

Just when you think you’ve seen everything there’s Gaudi - Antoni Gaudi.

Barcelona seems a less formal, more laid-back city than Madrid.  It’s certainly a pleasant place to walk around and we did plenty of that, checking out the popular tourist sights in the old town centre and down at the international ferry and cruise ship port.

The highlight for us was undoubtedly the work of the Spanish “modernist” architect Antoni Gaudi. We travelled the metro to check out some of his residential buildings still standing on city boulevards, and in Park Guell to the north of the city where Gaudi lived in his later years.  But without a doubt his crowning achievement is the soaring cathedral La Sagrada Familia. Still unfinished after more than 100 years of construction, it’s supposed to be completed within the next 10 years.  All that remains to be done are several external towers.  Unfortunately Gaudi won’t be there for the final cutting of the ribbon.  He died nearly a century ago in the 1920s, an elderly man, though his life still sadly cut short when he was run down by a city tram.          

Outside, La Sagrada Familia is rather drab; organic and forest-like in appearance, tree bark-like in colour.  But step inside and prepare to be astonished.  We’ve never seen a building like this one.  The interior seemed a case of ‘Jesus meets Star Wars’.  Was Gaudi on drugs when he designed this place, we wondered.  The answer was in the basement in a small museum explaining Gaudi’s inspirations and designs.  No, he wasn’t on hallucinogenics. Rather, Gaudi was a devoutly religious man, and as an architect, deeply inspired by the geometry in plants, of which he had a deep mathematical understanding.

With that information, the interior took on a whole new perspective.  Speaking of perspective, every step or tilt of the head introduced a new one.  And the interplay of structure and light streaming through the stained glass was magic, in one place resembling a large volume of suspended crumpled linen. This really is a rivetingly beautiful building.

La Sagrada Familia is ample reason alone to come to Barcelona. Everything else, and there is plenty more, could be considered a mere bonus.