We arrived back on Bonaire, safe and sound, yesterday morning around 3am. The trip home was uneventful, although we had concerns about being able to leave Paris due to a strike which was to have affected Air France as well as lots of other things, but that proved to be a non-issue for us.

My postings to the blog have been, well, missing, since the one below about The Fat Duck, and that’s because once we had control of our own schedule in London and Paris, we abused the schedule, pretty much getting up, going about, getting back to the hotel and going to sleep.

So a very quick summary of what we did (with only a couple of photos because we’ve not had time to process more)

May 14, Wednesday - London
We visited the British Museum, and there visited exhibits about Celts, Romans, Mesopotamia, Assyrian culture, Greek Parthenon, and the Rosetta Stone.

The great courtyard of the British Museum in London

Bas holds some ancient Chinese money, over 3000 years old, at the British Museum

Bas poses, reluctantly, next to a replica of the famed Rosetta Stone at the British Museum

This was followed by excellent dinner at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s. Excellent service, great wine pairings, and a tour of the kitchen included.

May 15, Thursday - London to Paris
We had a late start, enjoyed conveyor belt sushi at Yo! Sushi at St. Pancras station, and took the Eurostar train to Paris’ Gard Nord. Dinner was at an excellent small Auberge recommended by the hotel concierge at the Marriott Rive Gauche.

May 16, Friday - Paris
We took a privately guided tour - just the four of us in a mini-van with our driver/guide Rupert - to Versailles to see the palace there and then Giverny to visit Monet’s home and lily pond. Lunch was at a very scenic restaurant located in a water-wheel driven mill along the way, but sadly we ended up in the “tour” dining room with a fixed menu, so we didn’t get to enjoy the breadth of the restaurant’s real culinary offerings. Dinner was at a nice bistro near our hotel.

May 17, Saturday - Paris
Our Dutch friends Martin & Angela drove down to Paris from Rotterdam in The Netherlands, and we went back to Versailles with them, this time by Metro and train, to see the amazing gardens at Versailles as well as some outbuildings, including Marie Antoinette’s “modest” home.

After a mediocre lunch at a cafe at Versailles’ grand canal, we walked around to visit the musical fountain “performances” near the palace. We discovered this was nothing like the fountain show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Instead, they had merely turned on the fountains for the show (they are normally off except for a few fixed times on the weekends) and piped in music into the area around the fountain. Kind of a let down - an example of where expectations and reality did not intersect.

We then returned back to Paris, visited Notre Dame, and walked around the nearby parts of Paris for a bit before taking shelter from the rain at a Chinese/Japanese restaurant. Not bad, but not great.

May 18, Sunday - Paris
We met up with Martin and Angela again that morning, and headed out to visit the Arc de Triomphe. Krystyana and I were the only ones of our group who braved a tour of the innards of the Arc, which included a large number of stairs to a small museum section upstairs, as well as more stairs to access the open top of the Arc. There we found a great view of Paris, but it started to drizzle, so we headed back down.

We then walked in the drizzle to the Eiffel Tower, where we had a very nice (and very expensive) lunch at Alain Ducasse’s Jules Verne restaurant, half-way up the Eiffel Tower. We learned later that this was the place that Tom Cruise rented out to propose to Katie Holmes (although the restaurant was not under the management of Alain Ducasse at the time).

Great view, and perhaps the best asparagus and best sea bass we have ever had (two separate courses). There was a mashed pea course which could have used a bit more of a salty counter-point (more caviar perhpas) as far as we were all concerned, but the food, and especially the desserts, were great.

Linda also enjoyed (I think) a belated Mother’s Day, as the kids gave her small froggy presents. The only real negative at our meal was that we had to frequently and repeatedly request to get our water glasses refilled, something that should never happen at as fine a restaurant as Jules Verne (it should be done automatically without us needing to ask). And I couldn’t quite tell if the sommelier was being condescending to me or just trying to be funny and not really pulling it off well, although the wines we ended up with were quite nice. We did miss having pairings by the glass for our meal, however - again something different from other high end restaurants we’ve enjoyed. An 8.0 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale.

Martin and Angela then made their way north to Schipol airport in Amsterdam, to eventually arrive back at our house here on Bonaire (where they still are, with us, at this moment).

We proceeded from the Eiffel Tower to Les Invalides, which houses the Musée de l’Armée, a military museum which Bas greatly enjoyed as it contained a panoply of armor, swords, guns, and other battle gear. This was followed by a visit to Napoleon’s Tomb under the great golden dome one can see from any high spot in Paris (also at Les Invalides).

We headed back to the hotel to freshen up, and then took a taxi back to the area of the Eiffel Tower, where we boarded a dinner cruise on the river Seine, which took us through sunset and into the night. Very nice views, but very poor food (Linda and I had never had mealy, mushy duck breast before).

May 19, Monday - Paris
We had another late start, but then finally ended up at the Louvre, where we viewed exhibits about various artists and schools of art, include the Dutch Masters. Part of the exhibit in the Dutch Masters section also included modern works by Dutch artist Jan Fabre - some very odd stuff, such as people made out of thumb tacks, sculptures made out of scarab beetle wings, others made out of slices of bone (crosswise), and yet more made out of other bugs, beetles, and even feathers. We also got to see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo first hand.

We walked around a bit and ended up at Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysées, where we saw a large police presence, apparently in response to a possible strike.

Dinner was at Les Foundus de la Raclette, a restaurant serving, of course, fondues and raclette cooking (where you get small pans and cook your own meal, with liberal contributions of Raclette cheese). Very enjoyable meal, although our cheese fondue could have used a bit more flavor. A 7.0 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale.

May 20, Tuesday - Paris
We met up with Diane, the friend we had made aboard the National Geographic Endeavour. Diane was also in Paris for the week. Together we went to Montmatre and visited Sacré Coeur, a large cathedral atop the hill that is Montmatre. We planned to go on a tour of the crypts there, and paid admission to something similar to an ATM machine (except it takes money instead of giving it) to get to the “dome & crypt”, not realizing that “dome” meant the top of Sacré Coeur. The stairs up (the only way to go) nearly killed Diane, but the view, once we got there, was phenomenal. I believe it was the highest point in Paris mere mortals could visit, taller than the top of the Eiffel Tower. Going back down, we found the crypts closed for renovation. Sigh.

We wandered about Montmatre for a bit, had a reasonable lunch in the open square where all the artists paint under the open sky, then wandered downhill to the Pigalle area, where we saw the famed Moulin Rouge. From there it was another cafe stop, and then a walkabout which led us to covered shopping galleries featuring unique and interesting shops - antiques, collectible toys, philatelists, galleries, etc.

We had an excellent dinner at a small restaurant we stumbled across, part of which had a retail specialty foods section, although the name eludes me at the moment.

Diane then parted ways with us to go back to her hotel while we made our way to the Eiffel Tower for the last elevator up to the second level (the top level - the third level - was already closed, alas) for a nice night-time view of Paris. Got back to the hotel around midnight.

May 21, Wednesday - Paris
We attempted to visit the Musée Rodin, home to Rodin’s famed Thinker sculpture as well as dozens of his other works, but found instead a massive police barricade around the museum. People were walking past the barricade, so we joined the small flow to discover the museum had been closed for the day. The police presence was there to corral a hundred or so protesting and striking fishermen who were protesting that the combination of high fuel prices and EU restrictions on the types of fish they could catch were hurting their livelihoods.

When we asked one of the policemen in riot gear about this strike, thinking it was the civil servants getting an early start for their announced strike on Thursday, he explained that that strike was scheduled for the following day, and that the fishermen were “today’s strike”. When we asked if there was another strike on Friday, he responded “probably”. Pretty funny and sad at the same time that strikes and protests are so much a part of the Parisian (and perhaps French) culture.

We ended up going to the Picasso Museum instead, where we saw hundreds of his works as well as a film showing him exercising his creative processes.

Dinner was at the Michelin three star restaurant Le Pre Catalan, which had a mind-boggling wine list. We all tried the chef’s menu, which provided a decent sampling of many of the dishes on the menu, but while the food was quite good, nothing really stood out to us. Again, the lack of pre-researched wine pairings was something of a disappointment, and we again had to ask to have our water refilled regularly, although at least here, in contrast to Jules Verne, the refilling was done as soon as we asked instead of having to repeat the request several times. Service otherwise was quite good, but for what the restaurant cost, it could have been better. An 8.0 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale.

May 22, Thursday - Paris
We spent the morning packing, checked out, and then ended up going to the catacombs at Place Denfert-Rochereau. The catacombs are the resting place for the bones of countless people (records indicate it might have been as many as seven million bodies) who ended up there from cemeteries on the Right Bank which had begun to seep into people’s homes in the 1760s. The bones we saw were mostly neatly stacked and organized, a macabre tribute to mostly unknown people, however plaques on the walls in the catacombs indicated that a fair number of those executed by guillotine in the late 1700s during the French Revolution and its bloody aftermath also found their way there. The catacomb tour was self-guided, and one way. After going in at Place Denfert-Rochereau, we came out about a mile south in a small neighborhood.

Lunch was at a very good and busy bistro on a side street, and we then made our way back to the Rodin Museum, which was now once again open (the day’s strikers and protesters were in a different part of town), but the top floor of the main museum building was closed due to a lack of personnel (due to the strike du jour). A number of Rodin’s sculptures were in a large garden, and more inside the ground level of the main building. We finally got to see The Thinker first hand as well. There was also an exhibit of the works of Camille Claudel, one of Rodin’s protégés. Amazing what these artists could do with marble and bronze.

We made our way back to the hotel to hang out in the executive lounge for a while, and then were off to the airport for a smooth check-in and flight to Amsterdam, and then from there back to Bonaire.

And that’s it for The Traveling Richters’ Moroccan and European adventure.

Our next trip is to Texas in about a month to see one of the showings of the True Colors tour (and we’re scheduled to briefly meet Cyndi Lauper as part of our ticket package too). And, as we’ll already be in Texas, we will be visiting The Alamo as part of the children’s American history school work. Best to see history first hand than merely read about it in a book - or at least so we think.

On Monday, May 12th, the Endeavour arrived at the final port of our trip, Portsmouth, England.

We had an early final breakfast aboard the Endeavour, and then were off with 22 of our fellow passengers on yet another tour bus, this time with all of our luggage stowed below. After a brief partial tour of Portsmouth we arrived at the Naval Yard, where we got an in-depth, private tour of the HMS Victory. The tour was conducted by Peter Goodwin, the curator of the HMS Victory. Peter and his wife Katy had been on-board with us on the Endeavour since Lisbon, and had been both very informative as well as fun folks to hang out with.

The Traveling Richters pose in front of the HMS Victory

This part of our trip was in fact the only one which exceeded our expectations, as we had not expected to find the HMS Victory or its curator to be so interesting, and getting a private tour by someone as passionate about the Victory as Peter obviously was.

The curator of the HMS Victory, Peter Goodwin, holds up glassware which belonged to Admiral Nelson

The two key things we took away about the HMS Victory are that it is the oldest British Naval vessel still in active service, even though it has been in dry dock for over six decades. And, the HMS Victory is the vessel upon which the much admired Lord Admiral Nelson died during the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805.

The Victory is a fabulous vessel, and now in excellent shape, thanks in great part to the efforts Peter has been making. But I also learned that back in the early 1800s, people were a lot shorter than I am (as the sore bumps on my head will attest).

After our tour of the HMS Victory, we visited an exhibition which describes how the top sail (which is the size of a soccer field) was being cared for, and what had been learned about its history. This was followed by more touring of Portsmouth.

Peter and Katy also joined us for lunch at a restaurant called the Lemon Sole, where we found the food and service to be mediocre, and the staff reluctant to adapt to eaters who could not or would not eat fish for lunch.

We then bid Peter and Katy adieu, and were off to London on our bus, arriving at the Hilton Hyde Park in the late afternoon. Due to my Gold-level HHonors status we got upgraded to a very nice corner room with the kids next door. The only bad thing was that an ear problem Linda had been suffering from since the prior night had become so painful that we had to have a doctor come pay a visit. He prescribed her some medicine, which we went out to get before having an excellent dinner at Royal China, a small chain of high end Chinese restaurants in London. We opted for Chinese because we had tired a bit of food without a lot of spice and zest during our travels, and were not disappointed.

We went to bed with full tummies, but Linda’s ear problem prevented her from sleeping well, unfortunately.

On Saturday night (May 10th), after two days at see, we approached the walled city of Saint Malo, France. It was after sunset as Lindblad’s National Geographic Endeavour neared the lock that would let us into the protection (and higher water level) of the harbor of Saint Malo. We cleared the lock a bit after 10pm, and moored alongside the city close to 11pm.

A lighthouse island as we approach Saint Malo at night

There was quite a crowd of locals watching our arrival, apparently because vessels the size of the Endeavour were not particularly common in the harbor.

The National Geographic Endeavour moves out of the lock into the harbor at Saint Malo at night

As we needed to sort through our photos for a composite slide show for the following night, and because we were pretty tired, we opted to stay ashore instead of pursue the nightlife, but heard from others that went that the town was hopping. It was a long weekend in France, and many visitors were in Saint Malo taking advantage of their time off and the nice weather at the time.

Saint Malo at Night

In the morning, after having to cope with a problematic and chilly lack of hot water for our showers, we were ushered back onto large motor coaches, and driven to Mont St. Michel, about an hour or so away. For those not familiar with Mont Saint-Michel, it is the place where the abbey on top of a rocky island which was made famous by previously only being accessible at low tide. However, at some point in the past, the government built a causeway from the mainland to the island, and now it is accessible pretty much all the time. And there are plans to replace the causeway with a bridge to resolve a major siltation issue.

However, that change does not preempt the fact that the abbey is a stunning piece of architecture, and only in part because of its altitude and precipitous position high atop the mount. Due to various “owners”, fires, wars, etc., the abbey blends gothic and baroque styles, for example. One other thing that we found interesting was that as a result of revolution in France in the late 1700s against the nobility, and as an perceived collaborator the Catholic Church, all of the friezes and statues which feature Jesus were defaced as revolutionaries expressed their resentment against the Church in physical ways.

Mont St. Michel looms overhead

Mont Saint-Michel, at low tide, is surrounded by miles of wet sand, some of which can act as quicksand. When the tide rushes in, all 14 meters of it (about 45 feet – one of the highest tides in the world) at its extreme, it can sweep away most anything in its way, as it rises very rapidly, and has been the cause of many deaths of livestock and humans alike. Tides are worst during the full moon and the new moon.

It’s about a 20 minute walk up to the abbey from the bottom where all the tour buses park, and further yet from the areas where cars need to park (an area which incidentally is under water during the highest tides). Little shops, cafes, and museums line the medieval walls along the path on the way up to the abbey summit. Our tour guide, Virginie, gave us the history of Mont Saint-Michel, little of which I could hear because I was always playing catch-up with the group because I was taking photos, but let me just point you to the Wikipedia entry on the subject here.

Krystyana, Linda, and Bas on the terrace near the top of Mont Saint-Michel, France

One thing I do remember was that there were three levels in the abbey in terms of common rooms, with the clerics being on the top level, visiting nobility on the middle level, and commoner petitioners in the bottom level. This was allegedly done to remind the nobility of their place before the Church, and commoners of their position relative to both the nobility and clergy.

After we finished our tour, our guide told us we had ten minutes to get to the buses, even though it was at least a 15 minute hike down (more when one considered the crowds clogging the narrow road down). We ignored the deadline a little bit by stopping at a creperie for an assortment of crepes (chestnut cream, apricot jam, banana and chocolate, and hazelnut and chocolate), which we ate on the bus while waiting for everyone else to show up.

As we ended up leaving Mont St. Michel almost an hour late, we had to also forgo the scenic coastal ride back to Saint Malo, and instead took the highway back. During the bus ride I call our concierge service and secured a late lunch reservation at L’Ankerage, a small seafood restaurant situated along the busy rampart wall on the south side of the town. The meal we had was quite good, and the shellfish platter I ordered was chock full of assorted shellfish, including a large crab, whelks, shrimp, langoustines, cockle shells, and more.

Linda and Krystyana examine Jake’s lunch of shellfish in St. Malo

We waddled away from lunch for a walk around the rest of the ramparts, and then caught a Zodiac back to the Endeavour, which had left the dock a few hours earlier due to the tidal situation.

A man in St. Malo befriends a seagull

There was a presentation that evening by Massimo Bassamo, the National Geographic photographer we had on board, followed by the Captain’s Farewell Cocktail party (best quote “CPA means Captiain Pays All”, referring to drinks from the bar). We also had our farewell dinner, which was pretty reasonable. I didn’t enjoy much of the evening though because I was stewing about how little time we had had in Mont Saint-Michel, something that was a repeat of most of the other land-based excursions during our Lindblad trip – basically large buses, large groups, and being rushed, just like on a large cattle boat cruise ship (which also costs maybe half of what a Lindblad trip does based on our experience last Fall).

I therefore found myself working for several hours on a letter to Lindblad management about how we felt the trip had not met our expectations, which in turn were based on their marketing materials and discussions with repeat Lindblad clients. I sent the letter in the following morning, and apparently was not the only one, as Sven Lindblad, the current owner of Lindblad Expeditions sent out a mass e-mail apologizing to everyone about the shortcomings of the trip, and a few days later offered either a cash refund for what worked out to about 25% of the fees paid for us, or a certificate in the value of about 50% of the trip fees to be applied towards a future trip with Lindblad. This refund was offered to every passenger on the trip, and I must say that we are very impressed with how quickly Lindblad admitted they had fallen short, and how quickly they came up with what appears to be a pretty reasonable financial apology for those shortcomings.

We’ll be reviewing other Lindblad trip options to see whether or not we go for the cash refund or the credit certificate. Certainly we have heard nothing but good about Lindblad with respect to natural history expeditions they make to places like the Galapagos or Antarctica.

On Wednesday, the day after we visited Lisbon we docked near Porto, Portugal. Porto is also known as Oporto as a result of linguistic mis-interpretation, as apparently when the Portuguese referred the city of Porto, they would precede it with an article “O”, and foreign traders therefore assumed the actually name of the city was Oporto.

A sure sign that we are in Porto, Portugal

The fame of Oporto, or at least the surrounding area, is that this is where the fortified wine known as Port is distributed from. According to our tour guide, there are 35 primary distributors of Port wine (all of whom are also producers of Port), and 35,000 total producers of Port. The large number of producers can be attributed to small mom and pop Port houses, many of whom sell their production to the larger Port distributors for blending into their larger productions. Until relatively recently, Port wine was shipping to London in casks and bottled there, but now Port is bottled primarily in Porto.

Before we docked in Porto, however, we spent the morning in the lounge of the Endeavour for a presentation by National Geographic photographer Massimo Bassano, a short and energetic Italian who has been a blast to travel with these last 10 days or so. Massimo shared some of his background and his storytelling approach to photography, as well as a video presentation on a long term stay with Curthusian monks in Italy. That was followed by photo critique by Massimo of both Krystyana’s and my photography. We both received kudos for our works and our sense of visual balance (i.e. “having an eye for composition”), as well as some suggestions for how to further improve our images. I hope to get some of our images up on this site when we have a faster (and cheaper) Internet connection.

After lunch we boarded a bus which took us around Porto and its environs, with the first stop being the Porto Cathedral, followed by a visit to the so-called Golden Church of St. Francis. The Church of St. Francis was built by the Franciscan monks after permission was granted in the 1300s from King John the First. We were told that John’s marriage to Phillipa of Lancaster resulted in the first official European agreement of cooperation between nations.

The inside of the St. Francis church is covered in gold, estimated to weigh be between 300 and 400 kilograms, which is a contradiction when considering that the Franciscans are an order of monks with a vow of poverty. However, it turns out that the funds for the ornate interior of the church came from wealthy patrons in the area around Porto in the form of donations in exchange for a promise that when such patrons and their families died, they would be buried in hallowed ground inside the church so that they would be “closer to heaven”.

The front of the St. Francis church in Porto, Portugal

During renovations in the 19th century, when laws in Portugal changed and started to forbid burials inside churches, the bones of those previously laid to rest within the floor of St. Francis were excavated and moved to the nearby consecrated grounds of the catacombs at St. Francis, where we were able to see the bones in person after we left the church.

Another thing that was interesting in the church was the rather graphic portrayal in the form of a three dimensional diorama of the beheading of Christian missionaries by Moors in Morocco and the crucifixion of others in Nagasaki, Japan. These missionaries were thus deemed martyred.
Once we had finished view the church and catacombs (sadly, we could not take photos without getting kicked out), we re-boarded the bus for our final destination, the House of Sandeman in Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro river from Porto (although arguably still considered part of Porto).

Sandeman’s extremely rare and old vintages are under lock and key

At Sandeman, we were given a tour of the facilities of Porto’s oldest Port house, started in 1790, and now one of the best known names in Port wine. Port wine is wine whose fermentation is stopped before all the sugars have been converted to alcohol, and then fortified with neutral wine spirits to maintain sweetness as well as boost the alcohol content of Port to about 20%. There are three basic types of Port: White, which is crisper and recommended as an aperitif; tawny, which is brownish red in color and aged in barrels before being bottled; and ruby, which has a dark red and burgundy color, and is used for bottle aged vintage Port. After our tour we were treated to a tasting of white and tawny ports. The kids tried them too but weren’t much enthralled. We ended up buying a vintage port “sampler” of three 375ml bottles, the oldest of which was from 1994 at the company store in the tasting area.

Linda and Krystyana are among those at the Port wine tasting at Sandeman in Porto

After a small bit of something sweet at the neighboring café, we hooked up with Massimo as well as new trip friends Gretchen (from Bermuda), and Natalie and Bruce (from Oahu, Hawaii) and went on a walking tour of Gaia to see the back streets and take pictures, finally ending up at Adega & Presuntaria Transmontana 2, a local restaurant recommended to us by several people.

As soon as we sat down we started being served a wide range of local Tapas, including a cold cut plate, local cheeses, olives, marinated pig’s ears, pickled white anchovies, and pork livers. We topped this off with the house red wine, a “vino tinto” of the Douro river area. While we were not particularly wild about the pig’s ears (too chewy), everything else was pretty good. We ended with a large dessert buffet and some more twilight photography before returning back to the Endeavour, sated in many ways.

We had an early wake-up at 6:30am Portugal time, which was 5:30am Morocco time, had breakfast, and then attended a presentation by the on-board historian, David Barnes (who sadly had to leave today, Tuesday, for another Lindblad trip), about the Iberian peninsula and the clashes between Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism, or more accurately the followers of each of those three mono-deistic religions.

While much of the Iberian peninsula (which is where Spain and Portugal are now located) was Muslim for hundreds of years, a crusade formed in the Christian northwest of the peninsula under the flag of St. James – who was referred to as Santiago Matamores (“death to the Moors”), even though he had lived and died some 1400 years before the crusade was even initiated. The cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, which we will be visiting in a few days, are said to contain the remains of St. James, and it is the third most popular Christian pilgrimage site in the world, after Jerusalem and the Vatican in Rome.

Another fascinating point David brought up was the history of why one can see the famous Iberian ham shanks at the entrance to most bars and restaurants in Spain, as well as displays of wine. Apparently, after 1492, when the last Moorish stronghold, Granada, fell to the crusade led by Ferdinand and Isabella, Muslims and Jews were told they either had to convert to Christianity or leave the peninsula (or face near certain death for being infidels). The Spanish Inquisition then would assert that converts had falsely converted, and they would be tested by being forced to eat pork (which neither devout Jews nor Muslims would eat) and drink wine (which devout Muslims would not do). Hence the start of the tradition that evolved into tapas – namely that of offering a small plate of ham along with a cup of wine to those entering a bar or similar establishment to weed out false converts to Christianity.

Amazingly, while the effort to weed out “false believers” has faded, the practice of hanging smoked hams and showing wines has lived on and become a part of Spain’s culinary culture.

David’s presentation was fascinating, but short, due in part to a video promoting the partnership of Lindblad and the National Geographic as well as a scheduled presentation on photograph techniques with digital cameras following his presentation. We’ll miss David’s interesting insights and witty commentaries.

While we had been sleeping and watching lectures the ship had made its way to Portugal, and was nearing Portimao, our destination for the day.

We had an early lunch before boarding buses to visit the historical city of Silves (pronounced “Sihl-vihsh”), the site of a Moorish fortress and old cathedral. We were apparently supposed to visit the village of Alte too, but I suspect the whole upset in our cruise schedule contributed to that stop being skipped.

Silves was a village surrounding a rather steep hill upon which a fortress known as Xelb sat, overlooking the town and river below. Xelb, which is now referred to as Castelo Silves, started as Roman fortification that was then later absorbed into a Moorish structure. Directly beneath the fortress was a Catholic cathedral, locally referred to as See of Silves, built sometime in the latter half of the thirteenth century. Parts of the cathedral collapsed during the massive Lisbon earthquake of 1755. This earthquake, incidentally, had a huge range, destroying whole towns and buildings as far south as mid-Morocco, and was felt as far away as Jamaica (presumably as a result of a tsunami generated by the earthquake).

We walked up the hill to the fortress, which is going through renovation/restoration in the courtyard and garden area, so our visit was limited to walking the top of the rather extensive walls. Great views of the surrounding area, but we felt a bit saddened to see how much modern building sprawl there was everywhere, destroying, at least in our minds, the quaintness and atmosphere of antiquity that some parts of the village still showed as we walked uphill through it. Sadly though, many of those older homes appear to be in a state of disrepair, so we have fallen antiquity battling well kept modernity, and the former will likely lose out as people continue to disregard community history in exchange for great personal comfort.

Bas tries to move the sword of a statue in Silves, Portugal

After our circuit of the fortress walls we visited the cathedral and marveled at all the relics and burial markers – a number of people are buried under large marble slabs in the floor of the cathedral, as has been the tradition with older cathedrals for centuries. The newer part of the cathedral, rebuilt after 1755, was noticeably different in structure and tone from the older part that had withstood the great earthquake.

We made our way down to a café where we were treated to ice cream, and then returned to Portimao, stopping at the Mirador of St. Catherine, a small chapel dedicated to St. Catherine surrounded by fortifications. This structure had a great view of the nearby beaches and ocean, but again was surrounded by modern construction.

Lindblad's National Geographic Endeavour in port at Portimao, Portugal

Back on board the ship we dressed up for the Captain’s cocktail party, had a nice dinner, and collapsed to bed, still somewhat tired and sleep deprived, but did finally sleep pretty well.

Sunday went as planned. After an early breakfast we were loaded onto the buses we had been using for the past couple of days, along with our luggage, and taken to the Moroccan city of Meknez (also spelled Meknes), which was about a two and a half hour bus ride.

Meknes was originally built by Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismael in the 18th century in an effort to create a place that would be analogous to Versailles. Meknes’ building consumed huge resources, with stones and materials taken from other Moroccan cities for its buildings.

Nowadays, Meknes is just another Moroccan city, albeit one with a rich history. Much of the original Meknes no longer exists, as it had been built with wood, but we visited the granaries and stables, as well as several gates and the mausoleum of Moulay Ismael. The granaries were rather impressive in terms of their size, but only the corner stone columns of the stables remain, so other than the sheer size of the stables (which could hold over a thousand horses), there was not much left to see. The mausoleum also serves as a place of prayer, and we were privileged to be allowed in to see it (after taking off our shoes).

As time was limited, because we needed to get to the ship Sunday evening, we didn’t see much else of Meknes other than a couple of gates into the old medina before heading to the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis, about 30 minutes away. I am not sure if Meknes was just not meeting expectations based on the comparison made to Versailles or rather because our whole visit felt abbreviated and rushed due to time constraints. Not sure we’ll ever find out.

Along the way to Volubilis, we passed the city of Moulay Idriss, which contains the mosque of Moulay Idriss, an Islamic holy place. The city was originally listed as part of the tour, but again due to time limitations we merely drove by after a short stop some distance away to take pictures of the city.

Volubilis was far more extensive than we had expected, and apparently archeologists have been slowly reconstructing parts of the city, including some walls and columns. We had a tour provided by a local guide who was a bit difficult to understand, but we did spend about 90 minutes walking around with him and our fellow bus travelers. Again, we could have easily spent more time exploring other parts of the ruins, but we needed to get to our prearranged lunch at the Hotel Volubilis, up on a hill overlooking the ruins.

Bas stands in the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis in Morocco

The view at lunch was great, but service was slow, and again, due to time pressures, we had to rush out as the servers were trying to serve us traditional mint tea at the end of our meal (with no dessert apparently).

It was a long three and a half hour bus ride back to Casablanca where we finally saw our ship, Lindblad’s National Geographic Endeavour – our home for the next eight days. It was a real relief, as we had visions of spending the rest of our tour on tour buses, as we had the last several days – I think we had more bus time than time out of the bus, which was not exactly our idea of the sort of expedition we thought we had signed up for.

Once we entered the ship, we were whisked off to our cabins – understandably smaller than a typical hotel room, but comfortable. We then headed up to the lounge for a glass of champagne, some snacks, and our ship safety drill, followed by an orientation and buffet dinner. Along the way we unpacked our bags completely for the first time in two weeks.

Jake, Krystyana, and Linda during the safety drill on Lindblad's National Geographic Endeavour

Our first night’s sleep on board was not as restful as we would have liked, as we needed to acclimate to being on a moving ship, including the rocking motion, the rumbling of the engines, and the resulting creaking in our cabin. But again, it was good to know we were sitting put with our clothes in one place for a while (for the record, our second night was much more restful).