Days 3 & 4

All right, night 2 on the ship was way better than night one. Dinner was much better. I had an oysters Rockefeller appetizer and it was fabulous. The spinach in my salad was actually fresh (the first night’s dinner included a Cesar salad that was so wilted and brown neither of us ate it). There is no bar with decent music so we’ll just have to suck it up. The band is ok and watching the old folks dance is fun. Michael and I have our own little version of dancing with the stars going on. We judge the winner after every song. There is no chance of us getting up and dancing. These couples look like they have been dancing together for 30 years. They are flawless. Michael and I would be contaminating their dance floor.
The Marsailles port was fabulous. We took a tour of the countryside and visited a few little villages. The rain held out, thankfully, and we had cloudy and very windy conditions. It was a rough day for us though seeing that we had been up since 3:15 (see previous posting) so we were both practically falling asleep on the bus. We had lunch in a café in one of the villages and it was delicious indeed. I had a baguette with pate. That was it. No lettuce or tomato or anything just baguette with pate and it was ridiculously tasty. We also got a plate of cheese knocked our socks off. The food in the ports has been amazing so far. The food on board is really inconsistent. It is either unbelievably delicious, like last nights dinner, or entirely inedible like today’s lunch.
The Nice stop on the cruise actually was Villefranche and not Nice at all. We were frustratingly close to Cannes, Nice and Monaco and didn’t get to see them. We are actually tendered here so we boarded a smaller boat and headed into town. We purchased a train ticket to Monaco a 15 minute ride for 5 euro each round trip. The next train was 40 minutes from leaving so we had a coffee at a nearby café and then went back up to the platform where we were informed that the train would be delayed at least 30 minutes or it may be cancelled altogether. We got a refund and decided to take a taxi. I mean, it can’t be that expensive for a taxi if it’s only 15 minutes train ride away right? Wrong. 60 euro each way to get to Monaco. OK so we’ll skip Monaco (bummer) and go to Nice on the bus. When we finally found the bus stop we discovered that the entirety of the 3 tendered cruise ships had also discovered the bus stop and the already full bus that pulled up was only going to fit a few of the giant waiting crowd. If I wanted to stuff myself into a bus to head into town I’d have stayed in Boston. So we walked around Villefranche, which was really picturesque and pleasant, for a couple of hours had a sandwich that kinda tasted like feet and got back on the ship and sat in the Jacuzzi and napped. It actually turned out to be a great day even though we didn’t get to see the port fully.
Traveling from town to the tendered ship in this port was a bit of an adventure. We traveled back in one of the ships lifeboats (good to know they work) and the crew had a hard time getting us next to the ship. It was so windy that when the attendant tried to throw the rope off of the ship onto the lifeboat the crew member missed the rope entirely because the wind blew it out of his reach. We then had to circle back around and make the approach again. The seas are pretty rough and the lifeboat captain crashed into the ship a couple of times before getting it right. It was slightly unsettling.
I’m posting a few pics here but the internet is charged per minute and the pics are slow to upload. I’ll see what I can do about reducing the size of more if I have time but it’s turning out to be one full day after another. I think the days at sea will be more productive with blogging and photo maintenance.