Funchal, Madeira, Portugal is our last remaining port of call before Ft. Lauderdale.  It was raining a lot in the morning, so we stayed on the ship until shortly after noon.  The ship docked about a mile from the town, so we took a pleasant (although slightly drizzly) stroll to the center of town. One of the famed highlights of Funchal is the cable car to Monte followed by a terrifying toboggan ride down the hill. Since it was raining heavily at this point and visibility was low, we neglected to do either of these things and instead headed back to the ship.  However, many of our fellow cruisers did remark that taking the toboggan ride was one of the most exhilarating and stupid things they did in their lives and highly recommended it.

Cruise ships are full of food, lots and lots of delicious food.  And all this food is making me fat.  When the low calorie option for dinner is an all-you-can-eat buffet, it’s hard to keep off the pounds.  However, Valerie and I have some grand belly-reducing plans.  As I mentioned earlier, we usually take the stairs instead of the elevator.  We also plan to go to the gym during our remaining 7 days at sea.  And I try (albeit unsuccessfully) to keep all my meals to a maximum of three courses.

Our final stop in Spain was the port city of Cadiz. The highlight of our day was visiting the Camera Obscura in Torre Tavira. I have no doubt that Wikipedia would do a better job explaining what it is and how it works that I would, so I will omit such details from the blog. Suffice it to say, it was pretty neat to see it in action.

Later in the day, we ate some fried seafood tapas, took a bus along the beach (only 1 Euro per person), and finally took a long, long walk back to the ship.

(For ease of typing, I’m omitting all diacritics from my blog posts. Sorry if that causes any confusion.)

Our second stop in Spain is Malaga. Malaga also has a castle, but once again, it is more like a fortress than a medieval royal residence. As we walked through the castle, we heard loud booms from just outside the castle walls. Valerie thought it might be gunshots and I thought it was cannon fire. We were both wrong. Rather, a large group of protesters had gathered outside nearby city hall with signs, horns, and something that made a very large boom. I’m not sure what they were protesting, but they certainly made a lot of noise doing it.

For lunch, we found another Spanish tapas place while walking toward the Glass and Crystal Museum. The tapas were good, but not as good as Sento. Alas, by the time we reached the museum, there wasn’t enough time to take the tour, so we headed back to the ship in the pouring rain.

Our first of three stops in Spain is Alicante, Valencia. As we boarded the shuttle bus from the ship to the city, I was excited to enter a country where I thought I could (at least somewhat) understand the language. And then I discovered that none of the signs in Alicante are in Spanish, but rather in Catalan. Luckily, most of the signs had English translations.

We walked along the beach toward Santa Barbara Castle. The castle is situated on a tall hill just off the shoreline. Hiking up the hill probably would have been a lot of effort. Fortunately for tourists, authorities have installed a public elevator from the beach level to the castle. Since we had skipped Rothenberg and the Romantic Road, Valerie has been disappointed by the lack of castles so far on this trip, so I was hoping that this would fill the castle gap. While the castle provided a great view of the city, I think Valerie was disappointed by the lack of a great hall and other castle-like amenities.

We headed down the lift, walked to the main street, and walked around town for a while. On our way back to the ship, we ate at an amazing tapas bar that was recommended on TripAdvisor called Cerveceria Sento. It was probably the best meal of the trip.

Today was the Cruise Critic meet and greet.  And when a lot of cruise critics get together, there are invariably comparisons between this cruise and others.  In terms of food, fun, and entertainment, Holland America seems to fall between Royal Caribbean and Carnival.  It’s not as fun as Carnival and the food and entertainment aren’t as good as Royal Caribbean.  In terms of the age range of passengers, Holland America passengers appear to skew old.  There are at least three children and two teenagers on board, and (as far as I’ve seen) they comprise the entire minor population of the ship.

Our cruise is technically a 7-day cruise immediately followed by a 14-day cruise, both departing out of Civitavecchia.  Today was the turnaround day between cruises.  With nothing else to do, we headed into Civitavecchia to do some shopping for wrapping paper the upcoming Cruise Critic meet and greet.  We found a grocery store, but couldn’t find any wrapping paper or gift wrap tape.  Luckily for us, Valerie came up with a brilliant plan to wrap the meet-and-greet gift in a tourist map of Civitavecchia and bind it using some staples.

Today’s stop is in Palermo, the capital of Sicily.  As soon as we disembarked from the ship, we were approached by several men offering tours and taxi rides for 40 Euro, then 30 Euro, then 20 Euro, and probably even cheaper rates that we couldn’t hear as we walked away.  As we walked to the Cathedral, our first stop, we were almost continuously approached by rickshaws and taxis that all really wanted to give us a ride.  Valerie started looking at the ground rather than at the sights to avoid accidentally making eye contact with a taxi driver who might then stop in traffic to ask if we needed a ride.  After the cathedral, we walked to the nearby palace, which had unfortunately closed half an hour earlier at 12:15.  We headed back to the ship and picked up some really terrible Sicilian pizza on the walk back.  We’re probably never going to come back to Palermo.

Due to recent threats against Americans in Tunisia, our stop in Tunis was replaced by a stop in Cagliari, Sardinia. We didn’t really know what to do in Cagliari, so we asked TripAdvisor. The #1 rated attraction is the Elephant Tower, which is a very old castle-like gate that used to be part of the city wall back when Cagliari was under the protection of Pisa. Presumably, the tower was given its name because of the statues of elephants that protrude from its facade. We walked up the hill to the tower, took some pictures, neglected to pay 4 Euro each to climb steps to the top, and then walked back down the hill. On the way back to the ship, we took a detour along a busy shopping street where we bought a cone topped with plentiful (but not particularly delicious) sorbetto. I don’t think either of us are planning a return trip to Sardinia.

Holland America is working hard to prevent its passengers from spreading communicable stomach viruses.  In every common area and when embarking the ship, there is a Purell hand sanitizer dispenser or a crew member to dispense hand sanitizer.  In addition, for the first 48 hours of the cruise, self-service at the buffet is suspended.  There is still food (thank goodness), but a member of the crew has to serve it to you.