Mallorca, Spain

Today we visited the island of Mallorca, pronounced my-your-ka. It is a very popular tourist destination, known for beautiful beaches. Annually, they have about 13 million visitors. The largest percentage are German, British and Spanish. 

We docked at the capital city, Palma. Here's a view of Palma from the ship.

Originally, I had booked a Flamenco show for this stop. I was extremely disappointed when it ended up being canceled. So, last minute I booked us a tour called Easy Palma. Note to self: tours labeled easy are full of walkers, wheelchairs, and people who are barely mobile. I understand they want to see the sites, too; but we're not in that category yet. No more easy tours!

Our first stop was the Catedral Basilica de Santa Maria de Mallorca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I've noticed Spanish historic places have long names. Construction of the Catholic cathedral started in 1229. Work continued into the 17th century. We only saw the outside, but it was magnificent. 

View from the ship 

On the left side of the cathedral is the Royal Palace of La Almudaina for the royal family. Spain still has a king, but similar to England, he is a figurehead. The palace is only used for official functions. The royals don't stay there. 

There are beautiful gardens around the palace.

Many tourist photos of Mallorca feature windmills. At one time, there were 3,300 windmills on the island. There are still some to be seen in the middle of the city in various states of repair.

Mark Zuckerberg's mega yacht named Launchpad is currently parked in the marina. It cost $300 million, and is 387 feet long. To put that in perspective, longer than a football field. Doesn't everyone need one???

But, Mark is conservative compared to Jeff Bezos. His yacht, Koru, left here recently. It was $500 million, is 417 feet long, and is the world's largest sailing yacht. Must be rough. 

Our last stop was Castell de Bellver. It was built on a hill in early 1300s for King James II as one of only a few circular castles in Europe. Originally, it was the residence of the king, then it was a military prison, and is now a museum.

It has four towers. Three are attached to the castle. The fourth is freestanding, with a drawbridge connecting it. It was a last level of escape in case of attack, but the castle was never attacked. 

View of castle from ship

Aerial view from web

Views from up there were incredible!

Today is the last day of this cruise. Tomorrow, we dock in Barcelona. We are planning to take a ride on the hop on, hop off bus before the ship leaves again tomorrow afternoon. 

The next cruise is ten days visiting southern Italy and Greece. More adventures await!

We enjoyed our first visit to Spain. I was surprised how mountainous each city was. The people were friendly, and prices were reasonable even though the dollar is 11% below the Euro.

Cartagena, Spain

Our tour in Cartagena was much more enjoyable as we had a guide we could understand. We did a lot of walking and stair climbing!

Our first stop was the Castillo de la Concepcion. We climbed many steps to get up there. This castle was built by the Moors sometime between the 12th and 13th centuries. Here's an aerial view I found on the web. 

 

Model of castle 

It was hard to get any exterior pictures because of the trees.

Remains of lighthouse 

There were many peacocks on the castle grounds, and they were noisy!

 

There is currently a Leonardo de Vinci exhibit in the castle. I knew he was a painter and inventor, but I didn't realize the extent of his work! Here are a few examples. The paintings are reproductive prints.

Lived 1452 to 1519

There were many different flying inventions

This is a suspension bridge

Multi shooter canon, predecessor to machine gun

diving suit

The famous Mona Lisa was completed when he was 50, although he kept tweaking it until his death. The model was Lisa Gherardini. Mona means lady in ancient Italian. We saw the original in Paris in 2007. I really don't see why it is so famous! 😕 

The views from the top were vast. Here's our ship with some navy vessals in the back. Cartagena has the main Spanish base in the Mediterranean Sea.  It was established in the 18th century as the harbor here is considered to be the best natural harbor. 

We saw this submarine while we were having lunch back on board 

Views of the old city and surrounding areas. Cartagena is 2,200 years old with a population of over 220,000.

We saw this abandoned bull fighting ring. People lost interest, and it closed. It is currently being excavated because its was built on top of a Roman theater.

Our next stop was the Punic Wall built around the city in the 3rd century BC. Ruins were discovered during a building project and have been excavated. A museum has been built over the top. 

The outdoor entrance to the museum replicates the size of the two sections of the original wall. It was 33 feet tall with three levels. The first two levels were store rooms, stables and soldier's living quarters. The third level was a patrol walkway. The Romans were able to breach the wall.

Upon further excavation, a burial room with many bones was discovered. It was determined this had been under a church from the 16th century. 

Our final stop was Old Town. This area saw a surge of development in the late 1800s during an Art Nouveau period. Wealth was coming from the mining industry. 

The entrance from the port has a beautiful plaza overlooking the main road which is pedestrian only. The building on the left is city hall.

There is a beautiful building which used to be the Grand Hotel. In the late 1930s Spain experienced a civil war. At that time, all these luxury buildings were occupied by the elite. They lost their fortunes after the war, and banks took over most of them. Today they are shops, restaurants, bars and, of course, banks!

The main street also had an old catholic church called Iglesia Santo Domingo in existence since the 18th century. 

We stopped at a bar so Kevin could try a Spanish beer. He had this one which was a lager. He said it was okay.

Once again, there were beautiful flowers all over. I loved this purple bougainvillea!

When we returned to our room, we found certificates celebrating our Atlantic Ocean crossing. We got similar ones when we traversed the Panama Canal. 

Tomorrow we explore the Spanish island of Palma De Mallorca. 

Malaga, Spain

On our last sea day, we tried something different. There was an inflatable maze set up in one of the theaters and it was for lazer tag. 

We were given a vest with a gun, and placed on teams. It was fun and a new experience, but not something we loved, probably because we didn't do so well.  😃 

They really did a fantastic job of having unique opportunities on our sea days. Many of these activities are only available on cruises with many sea days. We also attended a talent show of the crew. So much talent!

Overnight, we sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar. Too bad, it was the middle of the night. I would have liked to see that. It separates Europe from Africa, only 9 miles wide at the narrowest point.

Today we are in Malaga, Spain. We went on a four hour bus and walking tour. Unfortunately, our guide was very difficult to understand. We probably got less than half of what she said. I researched what we saw online when we got back, so I can share a few facts.

Malago has a population of about 600,000. It is 2,800 years old, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe. It was founded in 760BC by the Phoenicians. 

Malaga has warm winters and hot summers with 300 sunny days a year, almost as many as Yuma. May is the busiest tourist month. We can attest it was very busy today.

We started at a lookout where we saw the harbor, our ship and a bull fighting ring. Bull fighting is still practiced, but losing popularity. 

Next we stopped at a square where there was a sculpture of Pablo Picasso. 

Picaso birthplace is on second floor of this building. 

He was born in Malaga in 1881, and lived here for 10 years. His father was an art professor, and moved the family to Barcelona. There is a musem dedicated to Picasso here with many of his earliest paintings. His better known work is on display around the world.

He was baptized in the Church of Santiago, which is the oldest church in Malaga started in 1509, built over a mosque.

Throughout the city are many beautiful flowers and Jacaranda trees. They have the most beautiful purple blooms. Amazingly, we've seen these trees in California; Sydney, Australia; and now Spain.

Because the city is so old, there is a lot of different architecture. In the picture above, you can see the old fortress walls and a new hotel being built on the left. The city is very clean, except for much graffiti. 

The Roman Theater is below the fortress walls.

Antonio Banderas is from Malaga, and has a home on the penthouse floor of this building in the city center.

We toured the Cathedral of Incarnation, also known as the One Armed Lady. The reason for the nickname is that only one tower was finished during its construction from 1528 to 1782. 

There are several theories as to why the second tower wasn't finished, including the money was given to the American colonies to fight the British and/or to make improvements to the city for all the benefit of all the population.

The inside is spectacular. There are two huge pipe organs from the 18th century. One of them still works!

This was called the choir area. It's where the choir and clergy sat. There are 42 individual relief carvings made of mahogany wood. Each one is unique with incredible detail.

Lots of side chapels with beautiful statues, paintings and carvings. 

This is a painting of St. Nicholas. He was a 4th century bishop known for his generosity to the needy. There is a story that there was a poor family with three little girls. St  Nicholas threw coins down the chimney to help them. Sound familiar?

There were quite a few people that were painted silver or gold who pretend to be statues in tourist areas. We've seen this before in other cities, but this genie was sure unique. I can't figure out how he appears to be standing on thin air.

I wasn't able to get a picture, but there are tons of wild green parrots flying around the city and making lots of noise. It seems they were brought here as pets. Some owners didn't like how noisy they were, so released them into the wild. They have thrived.

I laughed at this story as we know first hand how noisy parrots are. Our Yuma neighbors have one that screeches for hours daily. 

Tomorrow we arrive in Cartagena.