We arrived in Ibiza with stupid high expectations (thanks Simon ;-), the city was beautiful and prices seemed a lot more reasonable than we had been lead to expect. Our day consisted of walking through the markets and enjoying the Spanish cuisine. We headed back to the Serena for a wee sleep and to print our tickets for Space nightclub. A bottle of wine and Spanish Fusion for dinner with some lovely bacon before we headed off to the club. Pretty empty at 11pm but we had to be ready to leave by 4am as the last bus to the ship left at 4:45.
Over all Space was a little disappointing, It just seemed like a regular club with expensive drinks (8 euro for 330ml of water for example) and the music was just good but nothing amazing. Still feeling pretty good we ran into a cool English couple around 1:30 and they gave us free entry to another club, Privilege. We hopped a bus towards Privilege but through excellent happenstance ended up by 2am in another club Amnesia listening to an old favorite Eddie Halliwell. It went off in the best possible way.
Amnesia was absolutely amazing, the sound lights and atmosphere where incredible. We danced our arses off till 4:30 and tore ourselves away with much regret to make the last bus. Back on the ship and still very high from the whole experience we pulled deckchairs out on the deserted deck and shared a beautiful sunrise over the Ibiza harbor as the ship pulled out of port. An unforgettable night and definite highlight of the trip so far.
Although terribly short and terrible videography hopefully this captures a tiny ounce of Amnesia :-(
Wednesday was a sea day, we relaxed on the deck and found a bar hidden away at the front of the boat. It had any two cocktails for 10 euro and the Barman Eddie made them with 5 shots instead of the required 3, we drank a lot that day. Thursday we pulled into Ibiza and Friday spent the day recovering, we didn't even leave the boat to check out the Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca. Saturday was spent in the lovely French city of Marseille, supposedly the culture capital of Europe and Sunday in the Italian city of Savona doing our laundry as it was hard to justify the 60 euro it would cost us on the boat. The food and entertainment was hit and miss on the boat although we did have a lovely waitress for dinner each night that served us free wine. She spoke fluent English but little Italian so was so excited to serve some English speaking cruisers. We shared a diner table with a lovely couple from Slovenia and spent the nights comparing cultures and countries.
The "Beautiful" Italian God themed ship's main atrium.
Although blurry hopefully you can make out the casino theme.
The Luna Lounge, sickening green glass and blue lighting.
Reuben enjoys a glass of champagne under the green tentacle ceiling,
Reuben Hair of the Dog's his way through Palma De Mallorca. Much sunburn was experience today.
As close as we got to Palma De Mallorca.
Marseilles tourist shot.
Italians dancing in the "gorgeous" decor.
The best night on board, helped along fabulously by Richie Abucay the best bar person on the cruise.
Our first stop was the city of Olbia on the Italian island of Sardinia. We had organised to hire a car and as Anne-Marie had left her licence at home Reuben was forced to drive. A fiat panda, left hand drive, manual and of course driving on the other side of the road, he only tried to enter the freeway up the exit ramp once. Thankfully Italians don't know what an indicator is so his was not missed. We had organised a tour at a winery only 10 mins from the city, "Tenute Olbios". We were surprised to be the only ones for a two hour personalised tour with the wine maker herself. She walked us through her organic vineyard, the cellar, bottling and processing as we tasted four wines and ate local cheeses and olives. It was an incredible experience, by far the most intimate wine tasting we have ever experienced. On the winemakers advice we then enjoyed local fish for lunch at a quite restaurant on the wharf and visited some old castle ruins.
Our ship the Costa Serena from the laundromat across the bay.
Yummy fresh shellfish for starters.
In another arch in another castle ruin.
Back aboard in clean clothes, look at those smiles. Nothing to do with the 120ml (12cl (centilitre) according to these crazy Italians) of spirits in the drinks promise.
We said goodbye to Pisa and caught a train to the port of Rome in Civitaveccia to board the "Costa Serena". We partly dismantled the bikes and put them in the bike bags, adamant we were going to carry them on ourselves. We were loath to hand them over to the porters and let them take them on board, no protection in our flimsy bags. Obviously no one had ever done this before and it created much excitement for the Italian security, unable to fit our bikes through scanners etc. anyway, we made it through and boarded the ship, ghastly decor welcomed us. Our rule of no lifts, only stairs, was going to test us, our room on level 2 and the highest floor on level 12.
Being the Costa Concordia sister ship we took the Safety drills REALLY seriously.
Getting better at ripping down and rebuilding our bikes. Our 500 gram Tardis bike bags finally proving their worth having dragged them all across Britain, stuffed hem with 15m of bubble-wrap for good measure. We landed in Pisa it's hot and confusing. Our hotel obviously in the dodgiest little section of the city, bidet, tower, tourists and pizza. By complete fluke our one night in Pisa falls on the Night of the Luminara of San Ranieri festival, thousands of candles line the buildings along the river and the streets are full of families and street sellers. It all culminated in a one hour+ story set to fireworks and music all along the river. I swear if you plan for this stuff it is never quite so amazing.
Anne-Marie foregoes the normal holding up the tower tourist shot.
Our first Italian Pizza! In Pisa even.
The candles of the Lumiara of San Ranieri festival outline the buildings, you can just make out the crowds lining the river.
Reuben was disgustingly pleased with himself after taking this shot of the tower.
We first headed off to a French restaurant for lunch and enjoyed a bottle of bubbly. The festival was dramatically different to Rockness, we went from lush green grass, blue skies, colour and dancing, to rocks, mud, rain, lots of black and standing around nodding. We still had a ball, Anne-Marie's highlight was Enter Shikari, we enjoyed seeing Queens of the Stone Age, Motorhead, Iron Maiden, and lots we had never heard of. We can understand the English folk much more than the Scottish. *New Camera*
Reuben transporting our bike packing bubble wrap for tomorrows trip to Pisa.
Obligatory Download sign photo
Anne-Marie gets down with a more interesing couple of ?Downloaders?
British rail is crazy, disorganised and stressful. One trip 22 tickets, three train companies, 3 bicycle policies, 34 timetables, and one helpful Scotsman with 3/4 of an hour to get us sorted out. Made it to Derby. Scottish food is better than English. No Pictures today.
