For our Spring Break this year, we decided another cruise would be easy and the most relaxing for all of us. Fortunately, there is a cruise ship port very close to us in Marseille. So, we hopped on the same ship we took back in 2007. The only difference was we had a third in our family. So, a slightly larger room was needed.
The itinerary wasn’t exotic (France, Italy and Spain), but it turned out to be a great vacation.
So, our first stopping point was in the underwhelming city of Savona. It’s rightly not known as a tourist town. Nonetheless, with a little pre-planning, we were able to find enough fun things to do for the day. We began with a walk over to this old castle. The city is in the background and if you look close, you can see our ship… Alexander is checking out the water and rest of the castle to our right.
OK, it’s a little easier to see here. It’s the biggest building in the area … just on it’s side and floating in the water.
This cannon hasn’t seen use in a while.
Anna and X checking out the city.
Although I don’t normally like taking pictures of pigeons, this one whose home was in the wall seemed an acceptable exception.
This statue was in the art museum of the castle and I loved the presentation.
(Almost) another animal on the grounds. I’m not sure what the symbolic significance was, but we thought he was pretty cool.
The entrance of the castle.
A wider angle showing most of the castle.
As it was Palm Sunday, some church goers apparently take it very literally.
If the weather is nice, there are a huge number of private beach clubs with equipment for rent lining the beach. Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t very warm and not the best weather in general. So, we didn’t go to the beach, but we did find one named after Anna.
We also found some very pretty flowers on the ~10km walk we took.
Perhaps the best experience of the day was one where we have no photos. It was in typical Italian fashion a long, delicious meal highlighted by tasty wine. The restaurant is called Luna and the couple who owns it make some of the most delicious food we’ve had in a long time (and sharp contrast to the plentiful, but mediocre cruise food). We spent probably 3 hours on a traditional 6 course meal. Without question, the fresh, fried anchovies were the best I’ve ever eaten.
So, with the meal complete and the day drawing to a close, we got back on the ship.
Onboard Costa Serena Pt 1
The following images are just a few from our balcony terrace as the sun was setting. We were treated to a number of spectacular sunsets. Not a whole lot to say about them … so, I’ll let the images speak for themselves.
Ok, I’ll finish here. Up next we have a tour of Naples and Pompeii, plus more sunset images. 🙂
Until then…
–Jim