Day 5 Tuesday 20th September 2022
We’re awake before the 7.30am alarm
and watch as we come into port – Marina Di Carrara –
Italy. We decide to try The Galley for breakfast and are
impressed by the selection of items available. We have a wander
round to each of the stations to look at all the options before
taking a seat at a spare table and await a waiter/waitress to
serve us. It doesn’t take long and we order two coffees,
whilst Kev has salmon and cream cheese on toast and I have
yoghurt, berries and granola and we both finish with a delicious
fresh raisin roll. Some of the stations have grab and go options,
like the yoghurt, berry combo and various pastries etc., but
others are cooked to order and these can be ordered from the
waiters.
We head back to the cabin to pick up everything we need for the
day and head to the gangway for 8.30am disembarkation. Today our
plan is to visit Cinque Terre (five lands), having seen a post on
Instagram for this beautiful location it’s long been on my
list of must see destinations. We’ve researched the best
options to make the most of the day and have made a decision as
to which of the five villages we should aim to visit. To visit
all five would mean we wouldn’t be able to do any at a
relaxing pace or make the most of them, so we picked the three
that appealed the most. Rather than doing the ships tour with
hundreds of others, we decided to use public transport and
hopefully get ahead of the crowds and do things at our own pace.
To that end we arrive at the station after a longish walk to find
we have just missed the 9.15am train that we were hoping to catch
so instead we wait for the 9.45am one. We have to change at Massa
Central where there’s about a 20 minute wait for the train
to the main station for Cinque Terre which is La Spezia. Once
here there’s a big queue for tickets to get to all the
Cinque Terre villages – you can get a card that allows you
to travel to each one but we decide against this as we’re
not seeing them all today and opt instead to pay €5 for each
leg.
Our first stop is Vernazza – it’s such a stunning
place, colourful houses surrounding a small marina with The Santa
Margherita di Antiochia Church dominating the coast with the bell
tower and elegant cupola, there’s also a castle – Doria
Castle standing above The Belforte Bastion. Plenty of photo and
video opportunities here and we are so happy that we made the
decision to venture out to this village today.
We get back on the train to our next stop Manarola which is the second smallest of the towns. Again the many colourful houses clinging to the rocks above the tiny harbour are very picturesque. We take some steps up the street heading out to a restaurant we’d read about – Nessun Dorma – which has spectacular views back to the village, but unfortunately it's shut for the winter. Still we enjoy the view and watch people diving off the large rock in the middle of the harbour into the water.
Onwards and upwards we head to our last
stop of the day – the village of Riomaggiore. This is
actually the first village when travelling from La Spezia. So to
clarify the two villages we didn’t visit were Monterosso
– the furthest from La Spezia and Corniglia the middle
village. Our decision was purely based on having looked at photos
and blogs from other visitors and deciding which would be the
most impressive. As we exit the train station at Riomaggiore we
go through a pedestrian tunnel which is beautifully decorated in
mosaics, all sorts of amazing bright patterns including
underwater scenes make the walk into the village a real treat.
The harbour again is picturesque with beautiful restaurants
lining the waterside and the streets up from the harbour have
boats parked up the sides of the street, like other towns would
have cars parked. It’s certainly quirky. We find a small
table at one of the harbourside restaurants – Dau Cila and
enjoy the sunshine with a lovely bottle of white wine, limonata,
fillet of fish with sauces, cucumber and vegetables and prawns,
langoustines and sweetheart tomatoes. What a perfect setting for
a delicious meal.
[Kev - We both agreed that the villages were probably the highlight of the entire cruise. So beautiful and even surpassed the Amalfi coast.]
[Kev - This was one of those meals that you will remember forever. After a long day walking around it was lovely to sit down and relax in the most beautiful location with an ice cold bottle of wine and some fresh seafood.]
[Kev - It wasn't the cheapest - I think the meal and wine came to just over 100 Euro - but I'd pay that again in a heartbeat for the same experience.]
We now decide we’d better to head
back to Le Spezia station so we can ensure we get a bus back for
the final leg of our journey as the long walk doesn’t seem
so appealing after a day in the sunshine and a bottle of wine!
This time we return via Sarzana station and the journey is much
prettier than our outbound trip. Get out at Marina Di Carrara
station and luckily as there are a number of returning tourists
from our ship we are able to share a taxi back to port for
€10 a couple.
We head back to the cabin to enjoy a relax on the balcony before
getting ready for our evening meal. Tonight we are off to Gunbae
This is a Korean barbecue restaurant and is advertised as being a
social, interactive dining experience. This is the only
restaurant where you are seated with other passengers. We are
seated on a round table with 4 other people (a couple from the UK
and one from Australia), in the middle of the table is a
flameless grill where the meal is cooked in front of you.
It’s fun to sit with other couples for this meal but I find
that because we are talking so much that actually it was
difficult to enjoy the actual food as much as I’d hoped. The
server starts the meal with a drinking game which I can’t
remember but involves numbers and shouting Gunbae and drinking if
you lose – the shots are a fruity spirit which is actually
ok to drink. Kev manages to win – and his prize
……. Another shot of the drink.
We’re asked what we want to eat and there’s a selection of small bites – like seaweed salad, cucumber and shitake mushrooms/kimchi and mung bean pancake/ mixed seafood corn dog/ mixed seafood and scallion pancake and crispy chicken, pickled daikon and chili sauce. We have the crispy chicken and the seafood pancake. The next section on the menu is Rice/Noodles/Stews – Bimibap – short grain rice, egg and mixed vegetables, Japchae – stir fried vegetables, egg and noodles, Kimchi-Jjige – kimchi stew, pork belly, gochujang – we go for Bimibap. Lastly there’s the BBQ Grill selection, assorted mushrooms and vegetables/ squid, octopus, shrimp/ marinated beef short ribs/ Chefs combo of ribs, pork belly and shrimp – we decide on the marinated short ribs. All these get cooked in the middle of the table, but again because we were so busy talking it was difficult to savour the flavours and eat them when they were fresh off the grill. The small side salad that was served with the meat was really tasty.
[Kev - Tam appears to have forgotten about the dessert. She tells me it was Sikhye/Black Sesame Twist soft serve with black sesame granola, mimi mochi and miso caramel. I can tell that she enjoyed it as she is drooling as she recalls it all.]
The meal is over just after 9pm so we
decide to go to The Red Room for Duel Reality show. It’s a
fast paced contemporary re-telling of the classic story of Romeo
and Juliet/Westside Story. The performers are very talented doing
a number of acrobatics and acts which would be difficult under
normal circumstances, but to perform them whilst on a ship in the
middle of the sea must be exceptionally hard. The performance is
accompanied by music and dancers and we thoroughly enjoyed this
show. The crowd is divided into two sides – reds and blues.
The only problem with this performance is there is no bar near
the venue and therefore the only drinks available outside are
limited. We decide on a tin of Smoky Margarita and a Pineapple
Daquiri – both of which were disgusting. Due to the
dangerous nature of the show you’re not permitted to leave
whilst the acts are on so we were stuck with the drinks for the
length of time we were in the theatre.
[Kev -
She's right about the drinks. You could only get tinned drinks at
the entrance to the theatre and they were not good.]
After the show we go to Pink Agave –
after dark – there’s loud salsa/latin music being
played by a DJ but we get a couple of margaritas and a small bowl
of guacamole. The margs were ok but the guac was entirely
tasteless. It seemed like it was just mashed avocado, no lime,
chillis or seasoning – very disappointing. This was topped
with pomegranate seeds which did nothing to make it taste any
good but made it marginally more aesthetically pleasing.
On that note we head to bed.
[Kev
- It really was a wonderful day and sums up what the beauty of
cruising is. After visiting amazing sights you return to your
floating hotel to enjoy food, drink and entertainment. What's not
to like?]