My Summer Holiday! Im back

Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 14:27 | by Alistair Baillie

Well, that’s me just back from a wonderful fortnight onboard the Island Escape in the Mediterranean, you can view some of my pictures in the myGallery section.

After flying out to Palma, our flight was delayed, we joined the ship just before it sailed, and right in the middle of there life boat drill.

Rather than posting individual entries ill just do one long one covering each day 🙂 since I don’t have a lot to write about some days.

Palma, 14th of June

I arrived on the ship, and then had dinner, as it sailed out of Palma on its way to Messina.

At Sea, 15th of June

Had a very long lie, missed breakfast, had lunch then went and sun bathed for the afternoon, and went to the show in the evening.

Messina, 16th of June

Went a walk around Sicily before heading back to the ship, and sat on the deck for a couple of hours before it sailed for Naples.

At 2200 went onto the deck to see Stromboli, an island that is a volcano, they turned out all the lights and circled the island a ½ mile from the shore, you could see lava spitting out of the top of the volcano, and shockingly people actually live on the island. None of the pictures turned out though.

Naples, 17th of June

We arrived in Naples, where we walked into the City, wondered around then went on an open top bus tour of the city for a couple of hours, then went back to the ship, slightly sun burnt.

Livorno, 18th of June

We set off to find a taxi, and went to Pisa, took some photos wondered around the market then returned to the ship, it was far to hot to stay outside for long.

Toulon, 19th of June

Went ashore and wondered around a market and some shops, then went on ‘Le Peti Tran’ (Excuse my terrible spelling), for a short tour around the town, The biggest naval base in the Mediterranean.

Barcelona, 20th of June

Arrived nice and early, got a taxi into town, went wonder around some of the shops then did an open top bus tour, and went back to the ship for dinner.

Palma, 21st of June

Although we were doing a 14 night cruise, the ship operates two 7 week cruises back to back, so we got a day to wonder around Palma, I choose to stay on the boat, and slept most of the morning.

Then we went to the sail away party on the deck at 10.

At Sea, 22nd of June

Yep, we had another day at sea as the ship went extremely slowly towards Ajaccio.

Ajaccio, 23rd of June

Went ashore in Corsica, went on another small train, then went around some shops and then to the beach, stayed for around an hour then went back to the ship as it was far to hot.

Civitavecchia, 24th of June

The port of Rome, most of the 1700 passengers went to Rome, we didn’t, and we went a short walk around the town then went back to an almost deserted ship.

Quite glad we didn’t all the people that went to Rome came back complaining it was far too hot and crowded and they would never do it again!

La Spezia, 25th of June

This port was fun, the ship was to big for the dock, so had to use its Tenders / Life boats to take passengers ashore across the bay. It was great; they rocked about quite a bit!

I can’t remember what we actually did here; I think we just went a walk to the shops.

Nice, 26th of June

We went ashore in Nice, and went on a tour to Monacco and Monte Carlo, after getting bored in Monacco, we walked around the Grand Prix circuit in Monte Carlo, and then it was straight back to the ship.

The ship was 2 hours late leaving Nice because they accidently dropped one of the boarding platforms into the sea, and could get it retrieved.

Watching them manoeuvre out of Nice was strange, the port was to shallow and small for them to use the engines, so they took huge ropes and attached them to the other side of the harbour and used the winches to pull the ship out into the channel, then sailed out.

Mahon, 27th of June

Parents went ashore themselves, then me and Jo followed on our own, before returning to the ship for lunch.

I then went with my parents to a Gin factory, where you basically can drink as much free samples of the various flavoured Gin as you want.

Palma, 28th of June

The end of our cruise, despite being the last flight to arrive coming, the Glasgow flight was one of the first returning. So I was home by 1 in the afternoon, to brilliant sunshine.

All in all it was a great holiday, I enjoyed myself, although the average age for some reason seemed to be 70, I counted just 30 people of possibly my age, I would assume that’s just because of the time of year, since all the other cruises I have been on tended to be more younger people.

Anyway, until next time…

C ya.

Ohh and you can check out my photo gallery pages for some of my pictures, or at least the ones I want to show you.

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