Day109
Friday 28 April. At Limassol, Cyprus. 28ºC, Wind Force 2 from S. Bizarrely, we put the clocks forward last night, bucking the westward trend and throwing into question why we had put them back, just for the transit of the canal, where we did not go ashore.
Cyprus hove into view on a hazy dawn at about 0600: a land of brown, low, undulating hills with Limassol a sprawling mass of modern buildings visible on the shoreline. My first impression was of a typical Mediterranean port that could just as easily have been the Côte d’Azur as Cyprus: quite pretty, with the characteristic low stone breakwaters topped by small lighthouses. Our destination was the container port, but it was not an unpleasant berth, though it was a very awkward one. Imagine, if you will, an almost perfect square, of bottom side only just longer than QM2 and that is to be our berth. Now imagine a corvette moored on the lower left hand side of the square and a container ship moored on the upper right side of the square Our approach was from the upper left corner of the square, passing left to right, and we had to enter, turn through 180 degrees, and come alongside at the bottom facing to the left. It was very tight indeed, and our bows towered over the corvette when we had finished. Very nifty.
We had an early breakfast and dashed off ashore shortly after 0900. We had high hopes for Limassol and wanted to get back into the café culture that we had not quite managed in the mysterious East. We could possibly have walked, but the centre of the town was about two miles away, no pavements were visible, and time was short, so we decided to take the shuttle. Well, I must say, the traffic was pretty fierce and it took us a while to get through the narrow streets – almost as bad as La Réunion – but we made it in the end and disembarked at the old fishing harbour. Off we set at the usual Shacklepin Bracing Walk into the inner city.
First impressions were not entirely encouraging. We knew from our map where the centre of town and the shopping district were, and our route took us through what we thought were some doubtful backstreets, but which later turned out to be main streets. Graffiti was everywhere, and we were both reminded of Tenerife. I wonder if the Greeks invented graffiti? Certainly the Romans suffered from it and it is one of those things that, sadly, has endured over the centuries. The shopping street, when we found it, was somewhat unprepossessing and we kept wondering if we had the right place. The usual U-boat box search was implemented and we confirmed that, yes, those were the only shops; not that we wanted to buy anything: we just wanted the centre of town. The shops weren’t bad: the usual European brands like Topshop, Mango, but no big stores. Never mind, we decided to just wander around from there and to make our way slowly to the promenade, which was reportedly splendid. Traffic was pretty awful and getting across roads was difficult because there were few pedestrian crossings. But we finally found some quiet streets and meandered through them to the coast road.
The coast road was much nicer, hosting a range of modern buildings that housed cafés, bars, contemporary flats and hotels. We set our course east, and started to walk. It was very pleasant if you disregarded the traffic roaring by, and we finally found a large Debenhams (did not enter). There was speculation that Jane could also sense Marks & Spencer nearby – some kind of disturbance in The Force – and there was talk of following the scent, but I managed to discourage her. After about an hour of heading in the general direction of Israel our tongues were starting to hang out, so we decided to seek a suitable hostelry on the promenade, across the road, as we made our way back. Now our reputation for searching for an alcoholic drink in a busy port, without quite finding the right bar, is becoming notorious, and comparisons have been made with people who could not organise a drinking party in an establishment designed specifically to brew beer. We rejected several places because their clientele clearly included people from QM2, and others because they seemed to contain rough men in singlets sitting on plastic chairs. Eventually, however, we did find a very nice little bistro and we sat at a table under a sunshade, watching the ships at anchor in the offing and drinking half a bottle of the local rosé as we ate a light lunch. Jane would have had an ice cream too but, unfortunately, by that time we had become invisible – shades of Port Campbell all over again (see Blog 16) – so we moved on. The meal, by the way, was very reasonable: €19.50. We enjoyed a very pleasant long walk along the promenade in the sunshine and decided that Limassol wasn’t so bad after all, and that the climate was just right. We were not sure if we would want to come to Cyprus for a holiday; we really had not seen enough of the island to form an opinion. We did note that the beach was a dirty grey colour – the colour of cement mortar – and that was a bit off-putting, but the sea did look nice and clear. Jane tried the temperature and declared it ‘not as warm as Bondi Beach’.
Eventually, we made it back to the shuttle stop and repaired back onboard. We had been walking for five hours or so, so I make that eight miles when you omit the lunch. We were not inclined to take further exercise. We put Limassol down as one of our best runs ashore, despite the graffiti and the shabby streets.
We spent the late afternoon on our balcony watching the activity in the port. A stern-loading vehicle ferry came in and executed a Mediterranean moor on the right hand side of the basin, that is, she dropped both anchors and backed into the jetty, so that she was moored sticking out of the jetty at ninety degrees. The corvette (which turned out to be Russian) sailed and was towed out into the centre of the basin by tugs, which even Jane thought was very poor: you would never see a Royal Navy frigate do that; she would manoeuvre out under her own steam. Notwithstanding that, the corvette looked very smart, modern and impressive, with a medium calibre gun (possibly 80mm), a missile silo for vertically launched missiles (type unknown), and a flight deck. I must look her up when I get back to UK. A Russian hospital ship called IRTYSH came in to the berth that the corvette had vacated, identifiable by being white, with an orange stripe and orange crosses on the hull. Heaven knows what she was doing in Cyprus, unless it was something to do with the fighting in Syria.
We were prevented from sailing on time, because of a delay in being granted clearance by the port authorities. Apparently some paperwork handed over 30 minutes before the planned sailing time had been lost, which does not paint too good a picture of Cyprus as an efficient country. However, we did sail eventually and the manoeuvres for exit were, if anything, even more difficult: the Captain now had a large hospital ship under the bow where the corvette had been, and a large ferry sticking out of the jetty on the right with submerged anchor cable projecting beyond his bows. But he did it beautifully as ever and we gave the customary blasts of the siren as we left Limassol.
Run-down on Limassol? Skateboarders, NIL; Dog Muck, NIL; Dogs, NIL; Litter Factor, 5%; Graffiti Factor, 90%; Cleanliness, 40%; Irritating Motorcyclists Speeding at Full Volume, 3; Traffic Factor, 60%. Would we come again? Maybe.
Day 110
Saturday 29 April. 20ºC, wind Force 3 from W, sea Slight. Course W. On passage to Messina. Position at 1200C: 34deg 32N 28deg 3E, roughly 66nm south of the Greek island of Pathos.
We woke late. I had originally woken at 0500 but was under threat of death if I woke Jane again before her due time, so I forced myself back to sleep again. Result: a dash to breakfast before it closed. Never mind, it is Saturday, and we are on holiday.
Our first serial of the day was a talk by our civil engineer lecturer (he of the canals), who was giving a talk about the strategic importance of Gibraltar where he had served as the MOD Civil Engineer. I thought I knew Gibraltar reasonably well, but our lecturer produced some additional gems that I was not aware of. In 1951 an ammunition ship, RFA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) BEDENHAM in the harbour, blew up after a fire, and parts of the ship were blown right over the top of the rock. The town suffered significant damage, seven people were killed, and resulted in the MOD decreeing that ammunition ships were no longer to be allowed in the harbour; instead, a new jetty would be built on the sheer east side of The Rock, with access to it gained by tunnel. The downside of this decision was that the new jetty was badly exposed to the seas and it suffered repeated damage, but a solution was eventually found. A further anecdote was about the airport runway, which runs east-west between the Rock and the border with Spain, the only runway in the world that is crossed by a road, and something of a challenge to aviators because of its narrow approach caused by closed Spanish airspace to the north and the very solid Rock to the south. In the early 1980s, one of our lecturer’s staff reported to him that he had had to fill in a depression in the runway, perhaps a yard in diameter, almost on a daily basis. It was decided that they would have to excavate below the depression to investigate the cause of the subsidence. The cause, when it was found, was related to the Rock’s history. Before WW2 when the airfield was built, a popular pastime was horse racing, and the racecourse was located where the airfield now is. It was customary, when a racehorse died, to bury it on the racecourse and what the team found by excavation was the skeleton of such a horse, whose rib cage had been supporting that part of the runway for more than forty years. A final revelation was of hidden cells in the top of the rock, only discovered in 1997. They were created secretly in WW2 with enough food and water supply to last a year, and it was intended that they be manned, in the event of Gibraltar falling to the enemy, to act as a monitoring post.
Serial two was our Islam lecturer, this time talking about the Crusades – an anachronistic term, as it was not used until many centuries later. As ever, he was good at putting things into context and he started by railing against those in the present day who are apologists for the Crusades. He made a point of explaining that the Crusades were not so much an attempt to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land from a peaceful people entrenched in Islam, as a response to the dangerous expansion of Islam and invasion of Christian lands throughout the whole Mediterranean, including Spain and the Balkans. Although – ultimately – the Crusades failed, the Arabs, even today, regard the attempt as a humiliation and are very sensitive about it. For this reason, it is a term best avoided, even in the generic non-capitalised, sense when dealing with Muslims.
We loafed all afternoon, trying to recover from the succession of early starts and the long hot day yesterday. It was noticeable that the steamer chairs on the promenade deck were not quite so occupied as before, though there were still some diehards on the top-most deck trying to get that last tan. It was reasonably warm if you stayed in the shelter of the superstructure, but if you stood in the wind it was freezing: 19 degrees C.
Before dinner we enjoyed cocktails with two of our fellow guests from the dining room which was, inevitably, a lively precursor to dinner. We were offered a special deal for some sort of cocktail event tomorrow, five different cocktails and as may of them as you can manage in 45 minutes, all for $25 each. We declined. Who on earth can sink back five cocktails and remain standing? Quite a few people, one assumes.
Day 111
Sunday 30 April. 18ºC. Overcast. Wind Force 6 from W. Sea, Slight/Moderate. Position at noon: 35 49N 20 46E.
We awoke to a grey sea, a grey sky, and distinctly cool temperatures. There would be no difficulty getting a sun bed today if we wanted one. As we crossed the open deck aft of our cabin on our way to breakfast we did not so much walk as skitter, and I wore a long sleeved shirt, a sweater and trousers. I don’t think the shorts will be coming out again.
Sunday at sea, with not much to do. We went to church, of course, and watched the last of the talks on the Crusades (head is still buzzing), but after that nothing was scheduled. With parts of the upper deck out of bounds in an increasing wind, we certainly wouldn’t be taking a bracing walk. In the end we decided to just read our books.
Chatting to seasoned cruisers who have been onboard the other Cunard ships, we have discovered that the arrangements for Grill passengers are different in QUEEN ELIZABETH and QUEEN VICTORIA (they are sister ships with virtually identical layout). In those ships the Queens Grill and Princess Grill restaurants are side by side on the top deck amidships, linked with the exclusive Grills Lounge, an enclosed outdoor Grills eating area, and a small pool to form an enclosed Grills complex like a sort of a fort on the top deck. This complex is only accessible if you have the appropriate cabin key, which you fit into a slot in the lift. Now that is more like it! If we signed up for that we could avoid having to mix with the hewers of wood and drawers of water from Burnley to the maximum degree. I suppose we might have to see them if we went to the theatre, on a trip or ashore, but we could count that as part of the sightseeing: observing new cultures and quaint plebeian ways, taking photographs and so on, before retreating back into our ivory tower. I wonder if we can afford to do a trip in one of those ships?
The sea picked up again in the afternoon and evening, until it was blowing a Force 7 and the ship was pitching a little. To my surprise, two fellow passengers from an adjacent table came down with seasickness; I didn’t think there was much motion at all.
Day 112
Monday 1 May. Sunny, 20ºC. Wind Force 3 from NE. Sea, Slight. At Messina.
Continuing our dance of the Hokey Cokey with the timezones, we put our clocks back one hour overnight. So we are now only one hour ahead of UK. A week to go before the end of The Grand Adventure. Oh dear, I feel quite maudlin.
We picked up our pilot at 0630 as we steamed up the northbound channel of the Straits of Messina and, shortly afterwards, we swung sharply to port in a tight curve that took us into the southbound channel and the entrance to Messina harbour. The island of Sicily – the largest island in the Mediterranean – was just beginning to be lit up by the rising sun, revealing the majestic green hills that surround Messina and (I am fairly sure) Mount Etna smouldering quietly in the background. A typical Mediterranean port not unlike Limassol, Messina presented a picture from seaward of some fine architecture and prominent and impressive churches, supported by modest low-rise urban sprawl. It has a long history, having variously been occupied by the Greeks, the Romans, the Saracens, the Normans, the Teutons, the Spaniards and the Neapolitans. It was also the city where Richard the Lionheart is said to have married Berengaria on his way to the Third Crusade. The town suffered from a severe earthquake in 1908 when 80,000 people – two thirds of the population – were killed and most of the present buildings, grand though they are, were rebuilt after that time. The Strait of Messina, 22 miles long, is only 1½ miles wide at its narrowest point, and ferry traffic between Sicily and mainland Italy, via Messina and Villa San Giovanni or Reggio Calabria, is copious and busy. It is perfectly feasible to build a road bridge across the Strait, and that has been mooted several times, but it is understood that the Mafia has a profitable interest in the ferry trade and that may explain the lack of progress on a bridge.
Our berth was a straightforward one in the sense that it was right on the harbour front in the centre of town, so getting ashore would be easy. I wondered how the Captain would play it with regard to coming alongside, but soon found out: we entered the harbour, turned left initially, then hard right, pivoting through 180 degrees to come alongside port side to, effectively executing a Williamson Turn in the harbour (see Blog 8) . That would make our departure much more straightforward, as all we would have to do would be to drive straight out.
I forgot to mention, by the way, that our arrival was at 15ºC with a brisk north westerly wind blowing offshore. Jane and I wore fleeces, sweaters and long trousers and still came in half frozen. Meanwhile, our fellow passengers had sunk to new depths of sartorial style and behaviour: one woman was on deck wearing her pyjamas and a bathrobe, while her husband – for some bizarre reason – wore an anorak and sandals, but with a bath towel wrapped around his waist. As Jane said, it would have been just as easy to have pulled on a pair of shorts. Another old boy was up there wearing just a bathrobe and flip flops; sorry to have woken you. I wondered, for a moment, if we were joining a Shipwreck Party, with everyone wearing what they had on when Abandon Ship was announced. If I had known, I would have shown up wearing my silk dressing gown, monogrammed slippers and clutching a half-dhobied sock.
After breakfast, we dived ashore with our customary zeal and headed for the cathedral, the Doumo. It was an easy walk that took us up a steep hill and steps to give fine views of the city and the ship. First impressions of Messina were of a nice Italian city with lovely architecture, all of it totally ruined by filthy streets, litter and yes, you’ve guessed it, graffiti everywhere. Beautiful old buildings were covered in the stuff; even the trees had it carved into their bark. It was such a shame. Litter and dog mess also lay everywhere, even in the decent areas of town. There seemed to be no escape. Jane wished a local street cleaner a ‘Bon Journo’ and he growled at her, snarling something in Italian that contained the word ‘privacy’; we can only assume that he thought she was taking a picture of him (when, in fact, she was trying to take a picture of a building without him getting in the way). This was not a welcoming start to a new port.
We found some lovely squares or piazzas, one of which contained an amazing old astrological clock called the Campanile that performed all manner of operations at noon (irreverently, I was reminded of the Guinness Clock that used to be driven round different towns in Britain in the 1960s). Eventually, we tracked down the main shopping district, which was quite pleasant, with wide tree-lined avenues, reasonable shops, and what appeared to be a regular and modern tram service. Unfortunately, everywhere was shut, for it was a Public Holiday. Shades of Tenerife all over again (Blog 1). We explored for some time, eventually looking for a little café or bar where we could order a coffee and watch the world go by but, of the few places open, most contained fellow guests from QM2 and were full, and the remainder were right next to noisy busy roads and in the shade. Jane wanted an Italian ice cream (it features high up there in her ambitions, along with penguins, wombats and dolphins), but nowhere seemed to be open. So we just drifted aimlessly, taking in the local culture and lots of pictures. Finally, more by chance than by any fixed plan, we found ourselves on the harbour front some way astern of QM2. By unspoken agreement we just drifted back onboard, I took Jane up to the Godiva Chocolate Emporium, and bought her a chocolate sundae. It proved to be enormous: enough for four people and, of course, she couldn’t finish it. I had to step in to uphold the family honour. Never mind, she enjoyed it, though my shirt buttons didn’t.
It had warmed up quite a bit by the time we returned onboard provided you were in the sunshine; in the shade, it remained cool and you sensibly would wear a sweater. Nevertheless, the sun worshippers were out in force again on the upper deck, trying desperately to make their brown skin black before we reached UK. We sat out briefly too, but the wind became irritating and we moved off to the Commodore Club, there to read in peace and watch the ever-changing harbour-scape. I noticed that the wind had veered from the west to the north east, blowing us on to the shore and setting up a dainty little chop on the blue waves of the harbour; perhaps the passage north to Naples will be a lively one.
Sailing from Messina was quite an event and not quite as straightforward as I had envisaged earlier in the day. Shallow water lay immediately ahead, so we had to move sideways off the berth a fair distance, almost to the outer mole, before moving forward out of the harbour. Then we had to contend with a three knot current funnelling down the Strait while cutting across to the far side of the channel to be in the correct lane for vessels travelling north. After that, progress up the remaining stretch of the Strait of Messina was spectacular as we were only about a mile off the coast of Italy, so close that you could hear children’s voices and music and see people on the shore clearly. The towns looked lovely, some in lovely little bays with fishing boats drawn up on the beach. They were all joined by a majestic railway and road system that swept along the shore, in and out of mountain tunnels, and across wide viaducts and bridges over the valleys. It made the Dart Valley Railway look rather tame in comparison. Finally, off a town called Scilla (I think) we dropped the pilot and entered the Tyrrhenian Sea, setting course for Naples.
Stromboli. Somehow, even the very name conjures up an image of a vast, powerful beast that slumbers quietly with hidden menace and is best not awakened. We passed only a mile off the volcanic island on our port side at 1930 and thought it ominous, smouldering and quite threatening in its solitary majesty. The most active volcano in the world, Stromboli nevertheless has 500 inhabitants on the island. Heaven knows why they stay or what they do: fishing I imagine.
Day 113
Tuesday 2 May. Mostly sunny, 22ºC. Light airs.
We arrived in Naples quietly, and without fuss, at 0630 and moored port side to against the cruise ship terminal. For once, we didn’t witness it, unless you count watching ‘the view from the bridge’ on the TV. I have never liked Naples – a dislike dating from my first visit when I was a Midshipman, for reasons long forgotten.
We had booked an excursion to Herculaneum while in Naples, but that was not scheduled until the afternoon so we had the forenoon to see a bit of Naples. Divesting ourselves of watches, jewellery, iPhones, wallets and purses we duly set off into the city after breakfast. The port was extremely busy and I counted two other cruise ships and about ten ferries, the latter all Mediterranean moored in the traditional fashion. Say what you like about the Italians, but they do design some fine looking ships.
Naples proved to be not as bad as I remembered it from 47 years ago, which is progress I suppose. Three large forts dominated the port and the rest of the city was sprinkled with many churches and domes. The city was busy, bustling, noisy and faintly chaotic on the roads, but it revealed some beautiful ancient architecture and delightful narrow lanes paved with cobbles. The inner city had few cars, but instead had hundreds of scooters that weaved their way among the pedestrians in a series of mad homicide missions. So far so good (if you disregard the near death by scooter). The downside was that the streets were filthy with litter and dog mess, and every building – even the beautiful medieval ones and the churches – was covered in scrawl. I realise that I am beginning to sound like a damaged record on the subject, but I promised myself when I started these writings to be as objective as possible and besides, it is only fair to those places that received a slating earlier in the voyage. What an absolute shame to see this city, the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Cities for 700 years, defaced in such a cavalier fashion. We never found the main shopping area as we ran out of time, but we did get to appreciate the older parts of town, ‘warts and all’.
The trip to Herculaneum only took about 20 minutes, probably the ideal time for transit to an excursion, and the tour of the ruins proved very worthwhile. When Vesuvius erupted in AD79 the fallout had a different effect on the two towns, Pompeii and Herculaneum.
In Pompeii, the town and its people were buried in ash, which later proved to be permeable. As a result, the town was destroyed and the bodies decomposed inside and left their imprint in the rock, thus forming moulds. Centuries later, archaeologists were able to fill these moulds with plaster of Paris and so create the 3-D images of the people who died.
In Herculaneum, 15 miles away, the situation was different. There, the fallout was scalding mud and steam that was so hot that the inhabitants were cooked alive, their brains exploding in their skulls (hope you aren’t having a boiled egg for breakfast). The cooled rock was not permeable, and so there were no imprints of bodies like there were at Pompeii, but the buildings were almost perfectly preserved, even including the tiled roofs. The woodwork and beams etc were charred, but otherwise intact. Also unique to Herculaneum is that it is still inhabited, that is to say, the modern town stands right next to the ruins, and there are buried ruins still under it. Naturally, the old Herculaneum is at a lower level than the modern town and you descend into it, but also the old town is built on a slope that leads down to where the beach once was. The site was excavated in the mid 1700s, which must have been no mean feat in those days as it was buried under 16 metres of volcanic rock. Many of the buildings were amazingly preserved, complete with murals and mosaics and – yes – ancient graffiti. The irony of the situation has not escaped me. I mentioned that no bodies survived to the present day, but some skeletons have. Trying to escape the advancing cloud of ash and steam, some people rushed to the beach to try to escape by sea. Unfortunately, the wind was onshore and Roman craft did not have the ability to tack against the wind, so they were all driven back and people took shelter in the arches on the docks used to house goods. There they were boiled to death, and their skeletons remain, the skulls broken open like burst eggs in evidence of how they died. We actually found it a bit upsetting.
The temperature was ‘just right’ during our visit, with pleasant sunshine and a feeling like an English summer. We were amazed, yet again, by the number of lame and unfit people who had come on the tour despite the warnings. The going was very steep and uneven and several of them found it very difficult, with some baling out half way through. It would be nice to say that they were plucky and determined to make the most of the trip despite their disability; however, judging by their comments I think it was rather the case that they hadn’t bothered to read the brief. In the same vein, many people hadn’t bothered to read the brief about not bringing rucksacks and several came equipped to do the Pennine Way (see Blog 9); of course, it being Italy, no-one stopped them at the gate and they got away with it.
All in all, we enjoyed Herculaneum and got a lot out of it. We think it was probably better than Pompeii (which is much bigger) and our guide was very good. A busy, but worthwhile day.
The ship sailed at 1900, making gentle sternway into the harbour before doing the usual 180 degree turn, blasting the siren, and heading for the open sea. The departure drew no interest at all from the shore: cruise ships? They are ten a penny.
Jane and I have now started a series of evening aperitif trials, purely in the interest of furthering our knowledge. Last night Jane had a Margarita and I had a Kir Royale; tonight, Jane had a Honeysuckle Daiquiri and I had a Mai Tai. The latter would have done credit to Del Boy and I was faintly embarrassed to be seen drinking it. Fortunately, it did not include a parasol and a sparkler, but it came close. We will try to be a little more conservative tomorrow night.
So that was Naples. Onward to Lisbon.
Day 114
Wednesday 3 May. Clear skies. 18ºC. Wind Force 3 from S. Sea, Slight. Sardinia 20nm on the starboard beam 0730.
A sea day to recover from all that exhausting touring and those cocktails. There was a good range of lectures and concerts so, once again, we had to map out the day in order to be in the right place at the right time. The first lecture was about Pompeii and Herculaneum so very topical. Unfortunately the lecturer, a female archeologist, adopted a mumsy school-teacher style of delivery which irritated after a while; it was rather as if she was teaching a bunch of ten year olds. As it was, we had to leave early in order to get a place at Serial 2, a talk by a Tornado pilot who was shot down in the first Iraq War.
He gave an excellent talk, entirely without script or lectern, and had a dramatic smooth delivery. I wondered just how much he would be able to say on the subject of ‘flew on mission, got shot down, was beaten up during interrogation’, but he managed to inject a great deal of action, passion and endurance into the whole story. Interestingly, he said that he suffered no trauma or PTSD as a result of the ordeal, but the one thing he continues to regret is that he failed in his mission (he had to jettison his bombs). Actually, I can quite understand that as it is a matter of professional pride. The other thing that he said he learnt from the experience was never to be afraid of anything again: after that, what else could anyone do to him?
A light lunch was followed by an excellent classical concert by a new guitarist, who played some beautiful pieces – mostly of Spanish authorship. What better a way to spend a Wednesday afternoon. Life in Melbury will be difficult after this.
The final lecture of the day was a talk on cruising in the 1950s and 1960s: an age when those who could afford a cruise had turn ups on their trousers, could hold their knives and forks properly, and got out of the bath to use the lavatory. It was a pleasant light look at the history of cruising, concentrating on Cunard’s liner CARONIA in the 1950s: the first liner built specifically for the cruise market and capable of circumnavigating the world with minimum shore support. She was also designed with air conditioning from the start – a rare treat at that time. In those days there was very little in the way of entertainment other than the cinema once a week and the odd game of bingo. The restaurants on CARONIA seemed quite small and narrow and the cabins seemed rather dated by today’s standards. But then, she was built in the post war austerity period and only carried 600 passengers.
I think I will send this off now, and leave the last blog for Lisbon and the final leg home.
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 