4 to 6 July

Wednesday 4 July 0700  Alboran Sea.  It is a constant surprise to walk out on the deck when I wake up and leave my cave and see either waves and ocean or another harbour which looks like something out of a story book.

Lisbon – Portugal  Currency – Euro

Lisbon is the Capital and cultural centre of Portugal and is a modern city which lives quite comfortably with its historic old buildings and its history of sailors and trade.  As we entered the port we passed under the ‘25 de Abril Bridge’ (25^th April) whose main span is an impressive 1012 metres in length.  The bridge is similar in design to the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and was finished in 1966.

My tour today is once again a city drive through and we set off again leaving the port behind and drove through the financial section of the town, then passing a number of beautiful churches, Portugal is a Roman Catholic country.  

We stopped at a park at the top of the hill overlooking the city at a place called Alto do Parque Belvedere which was absolutely stunning, back in the bus and on to a freeway to drive down to a coastal beach resort called Estoril. 

This is a charming town and is the home to the Estoril Casino which during World War II was reputed to be a clandestine meeting place for spies, and is said to be the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel Casino Royale.  We had an hour to wander around the town and the beautiful beaches, Yvonne, Pat and I took the opportunity to try the local coffee and cakes.  I ordered lemon sorbet and believe it or not the sorbet came out in a lemon cut in half and hollowed out with the sorbet inside, fantastic.  Unfortunately, after eating, we only had time to buy some postcards and were unable to see inside the Casino, never mind I am planning a tour to visit the world’s famous Casinos

We left the town of Estoril and took the longer route back to the ship by following the coastal road and passed many beautiful beaches and the water was full of children swimming, the long summer school holidays had started that day and the children were making the most of the hot weather.

One final stop was to the Monument to the Discoveries, Portugal was a seafaring country and home of some of the famous sea explorers in the 15^th and 16 Centuries like Vasco de Gama and Ferdinand Magellan.  In from of the monument is a large area with a depiction of the world as it was known in the 16^th Century and the routes taken by the various explorers, they must have been very brave or absolutely mad, or perhaps a bit of both.

Back on board ship about 1500 hours and enjoying a swim and an icecream.

Later that night we had another horse auction and our syndicate bid for a horse again, there were not as many people trying this time and we bought our horse for only $60 which is good but as the total purchase price of all the horses is the winning stake for the winning team it only came to a pool of $330 for all six horses.  We ended up with the same horse as last time and this time it is the Royal Ascot and our horse is a British horse.  We now have to decorate it and make up its name and breeding line.   

Thursday 5 July – Bay of Biscay.

I think the whole ship slept in this morning and except for the fitness people everyone took things slowly.  Talking about fitness, Yvonne who is one of the ladies I have spent a lot of time with on this cruise, she is like me and does not sleep a lot and when she wakes up as 0530 hours she gets up and walks around Deck 7 which is about 1.5 kms around and she walks over 10 km a day, regardless of the weather or the roll of the ship. 

I was reminded of Scouts today, why you ask?  Well there was an egg drop competition this afternoon, teams had been planning this for a number of days.  They had two raw eggs and limited by materials available on ship, had to protect them for a drop from deck 8 to deck 5 which is quite a drop.  There were 10 teams and 18 eggs survived, reminded me of a couple PL camps and a hike in Nitmiluk Gorge.

The choir had its one and only performance this afternoon in the Princess Theatre.  We had a practice earlier in the day and we had the experience of trying to fit 140 people onto the stage and it was a bit scary as the men had to stand on raised platforms with a long drop down the back and the ship was quite rocky as we were passing through rough waters.  Believe me it is quite a challenge, standing up on stage with your legs braced against the rocking motion of the ship, reading the words, watching the pianist who is also conducting us and trying to stay in turn (difficult for me at the best of time).

Of course when it was time for our performance we were like seasoned performers and according to us we sounded fantastic and all our friends and family agreed.  There was not a dry eye in the house!!

Tonight is a formal night and most of the old passengers who have travelled from Sydney are getting a bit fed up with dressing up but tonight I have decided to wear my Spanish outfit that I wore to Chris’s 40^th birthday.  

Well, I have been to the formal dinner and boy was I a knockout, the dress looked great, the hair was held back by a red rose and I wore my new Cameo necklace on a silver chain, not bad for an old girl.  Did I get a photo taken, no of course not; I will wear it again before I leave the ship.  I still have not worn my green gown yet, I am still saving it for the right time, I have bought myself a new necklace to go with the dress, hope it still fits, the dress I mean and not the necklace.

The meals in the dining room are still enjoyable but sometimes I would just like to have a big bowl of Heinz tomato soup with crumpets.  Our waiters are delightful and they know our habits by now, I always get extra pork crackle, my steak is always bloody and they know I don’t like vegetables.

Friday 6 July 0700  Bay of Biscay.

Today we have an even busier sea day to look forward to, as it is the last sea day before passengers get off in Dover although a number are getting off in Paris.

During each section a progressive Trivia is run and teams of 6 meet every sea afternoon and try their luck, Pat, Yvonne and Garry have been a team since Sydney and we average 10 out of 20 most times.  The last sea day is when the progressive winner is announced and of course we know that it will never be us but we enjoy playing and have fun while the other teams are deadly serious, well guess what?  No silly, we didn’t win but we go a prize for attending every session and coming last, they gave us a game of scrabble and pickup sticks and suggested we try another game.  Funny!!!   We tried to get new members to join us for the next section and no one wanted to join us, their loss.

Royal Ascot was held later on in the evening and our horse Future King out of Lilabeth and the Greek Prince ran the race of its life and came 5^th but once again we had a great time sitting in the Owner’s Circle drinking free champagne.  Two more sectors left to try to buy a winner and find a great jockey.