My venture

Loved it....this place is beautiful, Kim and I managed to go outside quite a few times...buy I am going to tell you about this one time when Kim organised for him and me to go onto one of the Shorex tours. It was called "Best of Madeira".....first up was a ride from the center of Funchal with the cable car, about 500m above sea level to a place called Monte, we had breathtaking views over Funchal even seeing the ship from up there...stunning....and then we had a little bit of free time to discover the church, beautiful and of course Kim and I went up the tower to see the best view...hahaha... Church at Monte View from the Monte to Funchal And then it was to the part i was most excited about....the tobbogan ride (wicker basket sledge) from Monte down to a town called Livramento....now this type of sledge was first used to transport fire wood, rocks etc from the mountains to the towns below and later on they were used as a means of transport for the rich, to get from the...

Let me tell you about my trip to Marrakesh.....this i did while being night shift....it is a 12 hour tour (with the ship's shore excursion)....and the trip there is 3.5hrs.....in a bus.....oh well...good time to sleep.....Marrakesh is the fourth largest city in Morocco (after Casablanca, Fes and Rabat). Let me give you a little history about Marrakesh..... Marrakesh is the most important of Morocco's four former imperial cities. Marrakesh is inhabitated by Berber farmers from the Neolithic times, founded in 1062, many of the mosques have an Andalusian influence. It comprises of an old fortefied city packed with vendors and their stalls (Medina) bordered by modern neighbourhoods. The heart of the Medina is Jnaa el-Fna sqaure... Jnaa el-Fna square Stalls at the sqaure Near the sqaure is the kutubiyah mosque with its 77m minarets, this is the largest mosque in Marrakesh. It ispired the tower of the Giralda in Seville, Spain as well as the Hassan II tower in Rabat. Kutu...

This blog is about food....time going out is very restricted for us as we are short-manned and hence breaks are short and hence many times...kim and i end up going for a coffee.....lunch...or just a snack....so yes...that is also what we did in the few Barcelona's we have managed to go out.....so i have combined all our outings into one food blog...enjoy... Barcelona, of course Blanca had already educated me well with typical dishes...so now it was up to my own research to find some more typical things....so the first thing we spotted while walking on Las Ramblas was a sign that read typical cake from Barcelona...and yes...it looked delicious....1.5 Euros...wow.....and it was divine...a puff pastry type dough, but more gooey, filled with choc spread, like nutella and covered with some sugar....oooh....so good...making me crave it now...here we go...let me show you a pic... Sweet pastry stuffed with choc spread Of course when in Barcelona there are two food things you have to...

My first cruise on board has been good...although i was afternoon shift and could not go out.....it was good...at least i managed to get to know the ship a little bit...kim and i managed to have some dinners and lunches at all the various places and i managed to try out the gym....the gym is much smaller than on the Jade but it seems to be less busy...been trying the spinning...and believe it or not it has actually been fun...we also tried some of the speciality restaurants....the Spirit has the same speciality restaurant as the Jade BUT it doesnt have the Brazilian one, the one where they cut the meat at your table and has an amazing anti-pasti buffet....oh well.....so which speciality restaurants have we tried....La Trattoria (the Italian)....it is also located on deck 12....however the atmosphere in this one i prefer less...but what i like is...when it is warm in the evening they open up and part of the terrace belongs to the Italian restaurant...that is is a very nice plus in my o...

Day 2....start of the day...why not go to a quaint little coffee shop which serves fabulous cakes....man....so many to choose from...difficult choice....i ended up going witht the walnut cake (debate was between the carrot and the walnut), Blanca could not decide so she actually did half and half....half carrot cake and half choc cake....the cakes were all delicious and i was definitely happy with my choice.....and yes...i do have a pic.... Our breakfast They specialise in tea....so that is of course what we ordered.....after that time to go to Tibidado mini-amusement park....now...the main reason for going there was for the spectacular view over Barcelona and to see the beautiful neo-gothic temple called Sagrat Cor....the view was ok...unfortuntately a bit foggy and misty....but the temple Sagrat Cor was beautiful..... Me enjoying the view Sagrat Cor Temple Encore Sagrat Cor Temple After that...time for apperitifo...to put this into a time perspective....it is now 1p...