August 18-21 Propriano Corsica France, Monte Carlo Monaco, Livorno Italy

I don't think we've ever been to Corsica before, so this is a new town and a new island. We chose to walk through the small town. This is still very French, however. You can't get much more French than a Citreon 2CV.

Reminds me of Rhodes, which has three dolphins at the harbor. Nautica in the background.

Upside down powered surfboard. This surfer was paddling out of the beach area and you can see the motor and hydrofoils that would normally be in the water.

Beach

Propriano is a small beach community. These are some apartments along the shopping street.

Center of town

Memorial to the citizens who died in WW2

 

  Next up, we're back to Monte Carlo. Seven weeks ago we boarded Nautica from this port, but didn't walk around the city at all. Today we'll visit some of it. Here from our berth is the Casino.

The harbor is full of expensive yachts, and they were coming and going all the time. They all have professional crews and I have no idea where they were going.

That's the royal palace on top of the hill. I didn't see on the map until later that there were public elevators that could be taken to avoid a climb. Next time we'll visit the castle. It turns out that Monaco has tens of elevators for the public.

Juan Manuel Fangio

Monaco would have been a sleepy little French fishing village if it wasn't for the royal family, the casino and the Formula 1 race.

Part of the race track (and daily urban street) around the harbor and heading for the swimming pool chicane.

 

 It was a rainy day in Portofino. And it was a tender port, so we skipped it. We had some packing to do. 

Our final port was Livorno Italy, gateway to Florence, Pisa and Luca. all of which we had visited in previous trips. So we chose to walk around Livorno before finishing our packing.

 

The shuttle bus took us into town, very near the cathedral (and also H&M). 

Largo Cisternino, which translates to large cistern. I'm guessing this dates back to Roman times and this where they stored the water.

Monumento a Leopoldo II, Granduca di Toscana

There's a canal running from the harbor into the town center. It seems to be a parking place for small motorboats now.

Mercato Centrale

And just outside the indoor market was an outdoor market

And it started to rain. After 2 months of unrelenting sun and heat the weather finally changed. We took this as an omen and shuttled back to the ship.

 Our trip home from Rome was uneventful, with American Airlines actually arriving early on both flights. This was a great trip and our time aboard Nautica was outstanding. We're looking forward to sailing on the brand new Allura in a couple of months.

 

 

August 14-15 Valletta Malta, Tunis Tunisia

 Valletta is an old favorite of ours. We've been here multiple times but it's always fun to walk the streets of the old town.

There's an elevator to take you from sea level up to the town located at the Upper Barrack Gardens. Very convenient, and a bargain at 1euro round trip. 

Our Lady of Victories Church, I think.

Day Date clock tower

Saint George's Square

St. Paul's Street

St. Paul's Shipwreck church, being restored

St. Paul himself

The Saluting Battery ready to terrorize passing cruise ships

The crew does safety drills every week. Here they are at their lifeboat stations.

The sail-out from Valletta is glorious

For our return visit to Tunis we took the shuttle bus into Tunis proper. Parking is at the Government Building and we walked to the souks from there.  This is Kasbah Square.

Several stores and cafes in the souks have rooftops where you can look out over the Medina. This is the one we found, not the best, but certainly adequate.

Tiles everywhere

The carpet store that showed us up to the roof profited from our time there. We didn't buy carpet but did get some decorative tiles. We continued walking back on ground level, but it was HOT so we didn't stay long.

Appearing as a fierce defender, this cat is really just yawning. We disturbed its nap.

Kasbah Mosque, I think

The Tunis City Hall, behind which our shuttle bus was waiting

 

 

 

August 8 - 12 Piraeus Greece, Dubrovnik Croatia, Kotor Montenegro, Bari Italy

 Catching up with a number of ports, but we've visited the first three already in this cruise. A slight period of repeats.

Since the summer is still HOT on changeover day we didn't go into Athens but rather stayed in the port city of Piraeus. Exiting the port there was a large sign showing a one hour walking loop through downtown, so we gave it a try. Very near the port was the Church of St Nicholas.

Holy Trinity Church

After a sea day -- the first of this trip -- we again visited Dubrovnik.  This is Fort Bokar.

An ominous looking entry into the city through the Pile Gate.

Onofrio's Fountain

Placa Pedestrian street

The clock tower with digital display

We exited through the Fishmarket gate and re-entered through the Ponde Gate.

There's a cable car to the top of the mountain overlooking Dubrovnik.

Back again to Kotor, this time with a  scenic excursion to the top of the hill overlooking Kotor. First, there's the beautiful sail-in.

At our anchorage there's a church(?) located inconveniently for the town below. It appears to have fallen into disrepair.

We take the bus to the top of the hill, where we get a great view of the bay on which Kotor is located.

This is indicative of the road that we traversed to get to the viewpoint. Twenty-five hairpin turns, plus many others not quite as severe, were part of the journey. The road's architect was quite enamored with the queen, whose name began with an 'M'.

On the other side of the mountain is the airport.

A panorama from the viewpoint

At the very top of the mountain was a restaurant where we had a snack, and photographed this art placement along the road.

The trip back was miserable. We did not return on the single lane hairpin laden road but instead went down the eastern side on a two lane road with many fewer turns. But the road was under construction, delays were everywhere, and a trip intended to take 1.5 hours took 3. And it wasn't scenic, just SLOW.

Leaving Kotor that evening, here's the turn by the church and monastery. Aquaculture in the background.

And just above it a couple hundred feet up is this watchtower to protect the entry into Kotor.

A new port for us was Bari, near the heel of the boot of Italy. The shuttle bus dropped us off at Piazza del Ferrarese.

The old town is a warren of narrow, winding streets.

Bari Cathedral, St. Sabinus

Castello Normanno-Svevo was originally built in 1132, rebuilt in 1233.

Entry into the "little ears pasta" street.

Little ears pasta offered for sale all along this street.

Basilica of St Nicholas

Captain Ressa of Nautica grew up in this area. He asked us if we had visited Santa Claus in town. He explained that the bones of St Nicholas are in a crypt below the altar, and of course St Nicholas, originally from Turkey, was the prototype for Santa Claus.

Just think how that would affect your six year old on seeing the bones of Santa Claus. 

Beautiful ceiling