The first stop on the cruise was Palma de Mallorca. Mallorca is an island off the east coast of Spain and is a Spanish territory. There are two other islands in the same area, Minorca and Ibiza.
We started the day headed for a hop on hop off bus. We see these in every city we go to and I am always saying, "This time, we are definitely doing the bus." However, 10 cities later, we've never taken one. So this day, we were doing it!
As we were walking to the bus we passed a church. One thing Europe has plenty of is big beautiful churches.
We saw a beautiful sunrise, but pretty quickly the clouds rolled in. When we were in Edinburgh a couple of years ago, everyone told us it was never sunny there, but we had 5 glorious sunny days. On the flip side of the coin everyone told us it was never rainy in Mallorca, but it rained most of the day. Just as we got to the top of a mountain with a beautiful view, down came the rain. We taxied back to the ship and spent the day in the hot tub. It was a perfect day!
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| Hiding from the rain waiting for the bus before we decided to just take a cab |
The week before vacay I had washed these shoes in the washer. Apparently I used to much soap. The more I walked in the pouring rain, the sudsier they got.
It cleared up by 7:00 and as we pulled out of port we enjoyed the deck and the view of the islands.
The next morning we woke up in France. It was a sunny but cool day. A colleague had suggested we eat at Chez Fonfon so we taxied over. It was in a super cozy harbor. Everything about this area was French to the core.
We were told to eat bouillabaisse while in town. Marsielle is known for bouillabaisse, a brothy fish stew. It originated there in 600 B.C. from the Greeks who founded Marsielle. Bouillabaisse is big chunks of fish covered in broth and served with crusty bread and saffron chile mayonnaise. Chris got that and I got grilled fish with panisse, another recommendation. Panisse are French fry shaped chickpeas; they were super tasty. They brought the fish out for us to see before we ate it. The restaurant was nice and the service was great. My favorite part was the lemon squeezer.
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| First course was gazpacho |
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| Panisse |
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| The fish and the broth come separate |
We didn't love the bouillabaisse, and didn't really love Marsielle either. It is a port town with a lot of trash and run down buildings. We spent about 2 hours walking around, managed to take a few good pics and decided it was time to head back for some deck time on the boat!
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| A view of the old port |
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