Intro Part II (Liguria & Lake Como) Part III (Villages & Friends) "From Napoleon to the Riviera II" Tuesday, 21 September. Soon after breakfast we learned that the ship was going to stop at Porto Rotundo instead of Porto Cervo. Both are on the northeast coast of Sardinia (Costa Smeralda) and only a few miles apart. Porto Cervo is larger and has some hotels, unlike Porto Rotundo, which is mostly residential with a few shops. This was the southernmost stop on our tour, at about the same latitude as Rome. The sun had come out and the temperature was quite warm.
The ship anchored in the harbor at 11:15 a.m. and we caught the first tender shortly after. Porto Rotundo is a modern resort village, very pretty, very upscale, and also very small. We leisurely strolled its charming terraces, bridges, canals, and stairs in 75 minutes. We checked out some of the boutiques, described in the tourist guides as "elegant," and found that the most impressive things about them were the prices they charged. There was also a wonderful beach, but we had decided to pass on that.
We were back on the Star Clipper at 1:00 for the oriental buffet lunch. Then we rested and read until Claude's one hour lecture at 4 p.m. on "Napoleon and Science." We were surprised to learn that Napoleon was an accomplished mathematician. He did much to promote science when he was in power, including establishing (though not inventing) the metric system in Europe. There was a "tea" at 5:00, and we nibbled lightly. We were at dinner from 7:30 until 9:20 p.m. when we hurried on deck to watch the ship's entry into the "hidden harbor" of Bonifacio, Corsica. The harbor is behind the huge stone cliffs that form Corsica's southern coast, so it is not visible from the sea. Our ship tied up at the dock almost directly in front of the massive 13thCentury Genoese fortress that protected the harbor. Odysseus's ship stopped here during his wanderings. His men discovered the hard way that the residents were cannibals.
A trio of Corsican musicians came on board and entertained us with some of their melancholy folk music until 11:20. At that time we disembarked for a midnight tour of Bonifacio led by Claude. He had been born and raised here. We climbed the stairs to the fortress wall and entered through a small gate. We passed the house of Claude's parents, a house where Napoleon had stayed, and the cathedral, as we wound through the narrow streets. We could easily see the lights on Sardinia, only six miles to the south.
It was about 12:30 a.m. when we returned to the ship. This was the first time we had been up long enough to see the "midnight snack." It consisted of one warming pan containing a dozen pigs-in-a-blanket, quite a contrast to the lavish "midnight buffet" on the big cruise ships. Of course, we never stayed up for those either. We got to bed after 1:00. Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 |
