22 October to 31 October

The Star Flyer was docked almost directly below us on the wharf, but the cliff between us required a bus trip to get down with our luggage.

It felt quite nostalgic to reboard the old girl and a little odd that we didn’t know any of the crew this round, and also didn’t really click with people as we had the three previous trips. Maybe we were just in a different mood.

The trip started with nearly 4 days of very rough sea in between calm ports. A lot of people got seasick and we both had a dose as well.

However the rest of the cruise was calm and the sailing, especially the evening routine of sails up to the tune of Vangelis’ “Conquest of Paradise” which was pretty thrilling.

The ports were:

Cagliari, Sardinia

As with all the ports, we elected to do our own thing rather than join a (ridiculously expensive) group tour. By now you’ll know that we consider group tours to be a pestilence for a number of reasons. We wandered the old town, and saw the main cathedral, and were happy with that.

Palma, Mallorca

The first thing we enjoyed on Palma was seeing the live semi-final of the Springboks vs Wales at a local pub. It was an exceptionally pro-Springbok crowd which went down well with John. Christine spent the time catching up with Facebook, naturally.

Palma’s cathedral took almost 400 years to build, from 1230 to 1601. Amazingly, Gaudi designed the enormous canopy over the nave. We enjoyed the architecture very much.

We enjoyed the age of the place and took in the palace, as well as an ancient Roman bathhouse.

Mahon, Menorca

Simply walked around and got some great views.

Ibiza

Gorgeous little old town. We walked up to the old town once we got help from a local because the signage is pretty non-existent. We’d hoped to find a beach to sample the famous clear water of the region but there was nothing close by and we didn’t see the point of taking a taxi ride off to a beach that would take up most of the tour time.

Interesting thing about Ibiza (apart from the name, which is pronounced ee-bee’-thah) is that tourists are secretly hated (“descend on us like rats”) but that over 70% of the island’s income is from tourism and that most locals couldn’t afford to live there if it weren’t for tourism. It’s just such a pity that so many tourists don’t behave well on foreign soil.

Cartagena, Spain

We couldn’t find the ancient submarine (built in 1888) because the “acqua” museum was closed. The “Roman Theatre” was incredible, as was the museum experience that included it.

Motril, Spain

We worked hard at Motril, climbing to the top of the big hill and enjoying some spectacular views. However the best we can say about Motril is that the day we were there it was shut. Literally nothing was open except for some cafes.

Malaga, Spain

This was the final port from which we raced from the airport for a trip to Portugal.