2012 MSC Melody Cruise & Italy & France

2012 MSC Melody Cruise & Italy & France

Part 7

We departed Cadiz early evening and were on our way to Palamos Spain – due to dock on the 8^th March 2012.

As I had never been to Palamos, I was looking forward to a new port of call.

Pat, Elaine & I decided to our own little excursion through town. As we docked the wind came up and oh boy did it blow.

Having lived all my life in Cape Town South Africa, I am accustomed to our South Easter that blows during the summer months and be quite fierce, 70km per hour at its worst, has been known for the Port Authority to close the harbour, this was just as bad.

But you have to make the best of it so off we went.

Lost Pat & Elaine as usual so did some exploring of my own.

Bumped into Ann & Reg and was invited for Coffee and met someone in the  Café that now lives in Palamos but has lived in Cape Town for a while. He reckoned that the wind in Palamos was just as fierce as in Cape Town if not worse. 

Spent the rest of the day with Ann & Reg, landed up at a local restaurant had lunch and sampled a local beer and some local red wine.

Decided to make our way back to the MSC Melody as the wind had a rather nasty chill to it and it was becoming uncomfortable as most of the passengers were dressed for summer.

Once we were on board and ready for departure we were informed by the cruise director that due the wind we would be delayed from departing.

This did cause a bit of a problem for most of the passengers as they had taken a package deal and now were concerned about flights out of Genoa.

MSC were great in sorting out all passengers and ensuring that new connecting flights were organized.

Often wondered what happens when cruise ships are stuck in port because of adverse weather conditions – well I can tell you most of us got together and entertained ourselves in all manner of ways as the vido below shows.

I managed to get an email to my hotel in Genoa to let them know that I would be delayed by 24 hours and would now only be arriving on the morning of the 10^th March 2012.

We left Palamos at around 5am all we could do was enjoy another full day at sea and another great dinner in the evening as we were only due in Genoa around 6am on the 10^th March 2012

My days of lazing around on a cruise ship were coming to an end.

The plan was to have 2 full days in Genoa but because of our delayed departure I only had one full day to explore.

From now on it was going to be one train one city one night

Piza 11^th March

Florence 12^th March

Turin 13^th March

Train to Paris from Turin on the 14^th March