As we told you when we suggested that a 5 star cruise is probably the best way to cross the Atlantic Ocean, our port stops were all too brief. We had only eight hours or so in each port. During that time, we’d get off the boat, walk into town, walk back to the boat for free lunch (it’s free, how could you not), then head back into town to see what we could see before the all aboard time.
Not only did we not spend enough time in any of the port cities to “get a feel” for the places or the people, but something strange happened. Our time was so brief that the memories of each place blurred across the partitions of our memory that separate one experience from the next. The end effect being that we can hardly remember which photos belong to which city. It all seems like one big port stop.
Over the 14 day cruise we stopped in Nassau, Bahamas; Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands (Spain); and the Spanish mainland cities of Cadiz, Malaga, and Valencia before finally arriving in Barcelona. I actually quite liked all of the port stops, excluding Nassau, or at least what parts of them we saw.
Nassau:
Meh… Sorry, but that sums up how we felt about it.
Santa Cruz De Tenerife:
One of the capital cities of Spain’s Canary Islands. The city is a major stop over for transatlantic traffic, and has been known as such since the early days of Christopher Columbus.
Cadiz:
Cadiz was a cool town with plenty of beautiful gardens and buildings. It’s quite small, easy to walk around in a day, and has some neat Muslim architecture, a large cathedral, old forts, and Roman ruins.
Málaga:
We paid to do one thing in Malaga, which was more than we did in any of the other port stops. And it just so happened that that one thing we did was completely awesome. We toured Alcazaba of Málaga. A fortress dating from the 11th century. The photos, I hope, speak for themselves.
Valencia:
We switched things up a bit in Valencia. The old town is a fair jaunt from the port. There’s a shuttle you can book, but it costs 15€ per person. So, we decided to walk through a park that runs the length of an old river bed, and in theory would have gotten us to downtown if we had enough time to walk it.
We made it about half way, but in the process, we saw heaps of modern architecture that we’d never seen the like of before. It was a nice change from all the other ports.
I was lucky enough to spend some time in Malaga last year – I miss it! The fortress is very cool, but I hope you had some time to explore the streets a bit as well. We were staying with my sister-in-law (who lived there at the time), and it was awesome to climb the fortress and pick out from above some of our favorite haunts in the winding maze of streets down below — the city looked entirely different from up there!
Here’s some of my pics from Malaga and the Balearic islands of Ibiza and Formentera if you’d care to check them out… you know… in all of your free time. 😉 http://www.domestiphobia.net/2011/06/08/the-thing-about-spain/
Oops, here are the ones from just Malaga: http://www.domestiphobia.net/2011/07/15/oh-the-irony/
(Okay, sorry — I realize this isn’t family vacation picture sharing time — your post just got me excited and nostalgic.)
Thanks Katie, great photos.