Christmas Cruise to Canary Islands

Itinerary: Southampton - Lanzarote - Tenerife - La Palma - Funchal - Lisbon - Southampton

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17 December. Southampton. I arrived exactly at my scheduled boarding time and after dumping my hand luggage in my cabin (my case had beaten me to it!), I went to lunch and the first person I met was Eduard from my South American Pacific cruise.

21 December. Lanzarote, Canary Islands. Gwyn asked me if I wanted to go go karting and I said yes. We took a taxi to San Bartolomé Go Kart Track and we had three races each. It was great fun and I managed to overtake some people. Gwynn passed me every time! There was a kid there, who was about 14. On the last race it was a fight to the death between him and me. The little toad won!!

22 December. Tenerife, Canary Islands. A ship's tour today. A small group of us went to El Sauzal, a little village on the north coast of Tenerife. We stopped at a view point, where we saw Mount Teide and spectacular coastal views. Our next visit was to a golfio mill. Golfio is a grain that is turned into a flour like substance and used in various dishes. It's a speciality of the island. Then we visited the church of San Pedro in El Sauzal. This is a small church, but there is a solid silver altar, made from stolen Mexican silver. Then it was on to the home of the Marquis of El Sauzal for coffee on the terrace. After that was the point of the trip, lunch in a small family run restaurant for salad, white Canarian cheese (a mixture of sheep and goats milk), salted cod in a tomatoey sauce with papas arugadas and what looked like a creme caramel, but was chocolatey with nuts. Finally a visit to a lookout with a 300 metre drop to the sea, before returning to the ship.

23 December. La Palma, Canary Islands. 20 degrees on arrival, so I changed out of longs and jacket into shorts and t shirt. Today was a 4x4 wilderness adventure. The 4x4 was actually a small bus, and one of only four on the island. We drove through Santa Cruz to the other side of the island, over the mountains. It got colder and colder and started raining. This set the theme for the day. It was so cloudy at the lookout (and cold!) that the guide devised a new tour. The lookout was over the largest town on the island, El Paso, population around 14,000. We did still drive off road, which is interesting in a bus! We managed to see St. Martin, a volcano and a little later the St Anthony volcano. We drove along some very windy, very narrow tracks through lava runs, to a bodega for lunch. By the time I got back to the ship, I was frozen and hadn't really seen too much of La Palma.

24 December. Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. Better weather today! I got off the ship late and wandered along to the market to catch a bus to the botanical gardens. Strolled around the extremely hilly gardens, where I saw the formal gardens that appear in all the brochures. Back in Funchal, I strolled along the shopping street where there was a Christmas fair and some people in a small parade. Very pleasant, even if I did have aching legs afterwards! After the sailaway party there was another party by one of the pools. This was to wait for Santa. He arrived just after 18:30 on top of the funnel, to the great excitement of the kids on board!

26 December. Lisbon, Portugal. Di, Margo and I got off the ship and then took a tram at random. We ended by a small park 'for children, old people and dogs'! This trip cost €2.80. We took another tram back into Lisbon. We then strolled down to Commercial Square and took the tourist tram. It wound through the streets to the same place where the park was. After it arrived back in Commercial Square we had a coffee and a pastel (custard tart), before taking the shuttle back to the ship. The tourist tram cost €19 and wasn't worth it.

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Eduard and me	Artwork	Atrium	Christmas tree	Pool	Funnel

Pool	Pool	Sea	Wake	Ventura	Go karts

Mill	Flour	Christmas tree	Mount Teide	View	Tree

Altar	View	Cliffs	Ventura	Gingerbread	Ships

View	Lava	Bus	Tree	Ventura	Cakes

Gardens	Gardens	Gardens	Gardens	View	View

Building	Santa	Parade	Building	Trees	AIDABlu

Party	Party	Father Christmas	Eduard	Fountain	Church

Sign	Statue	Building	Tree

Page created 1^st January 2017