Photo review of Equinox Cannes Film Cruise May 2016

[cruise kitty]

 

 

A glimspe of the market:

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

 

 

 

Dome of the Baptistry of the Cathedral, it's believed that the Cathedral is built on the ruins of a Roman Temple

 

 

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More of the market:

 

 

Steve, enjoying a little snack (he's wearing his Scott-Vest, greatest travel aid ever!)

 

 

Next, our tour took us to Cassis, a little french fishing village, complete with & Fort... very charming, plenty of sidewalk cafes

 

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

More Cassis:

 

 

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

We were driven to the top most cliff, for this amazing view, hopefully it won't stretch the screen too much:

 

 

Next up, two days at the Cannes Film Festival!

[cruise kitty]

Wow, sorry about the long hiatus! Real life has managed to nudge its way past my cyber life lol. Going to try & finish this up, probably with much less detail than I'd like.

 

We arrived bright & early for our 2 days in Cannes, at the height of the Film Festival... we had some stormy weather the first day which made for exciting tender rides! Our plans were pretty strait forward: Take the train to St Paul De Vence on Day one morning, followed by Antibes in the afternoon with a visit to the Picasso Museum there... to be followed by the movies on the beach that evening. This proved to be a bit overly ambitious!

 

Day 2 had much better weather, albeit crazy windy! We explored Cannes, checked out the "To Catch a Thief" filming locales, & explored the old town... on these two days we averaged 16 miles walked each day!

 

We did have a bit of excitement when returning to Cannes from Antibes... We were excited to have a train ready to leave right as we arrived at the platform... it was already dark & we were so done, tired a bit wet & hungry so we just hopped & board & away we went... After eating our breath, I began to notice... " Hmmm, boy! This train sure is moving fast... gosh a lot of people seem to have suitcases... ummm, we just blew by one of the smaller stations on the way... We were on the Paris express! Holy cannoli! Or Holy Mille-feuille (we are in France, after all) After about 10 minutes of panic, hysterical laughter & serious wondering if travel insurance covered pure stupidity, we learned that Cannes was one of the few stops this train would make... we ended up eating a very late dinner on the ship, oddly grateful that we were not in Paris.

 

photos, in no particular order:

 

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

Cannes, day 2 photos

 

 

 

 

 

Interior of Carelton:

 

 

[cruise kitty]

a few more of Cannes & the old town, because the old town had traditionally

been a fishing village, the church had a very fisherman based theme

 

 

 

 

Oh, BTW there was a film festival going on:

 

 

[cruise kitty]

No rest for the wicked, we arrived in Livorno bright (well, actually a bit rough with storms on the horizon) & early the next day... I had arranged a private driver to take us to Florence & we were joined by 4 other lovely Cruise Critic members, it was a transport only, no tour, but the driver shared information on our way there...

 

Late in the morning it started raining & it was a deluge! Luckily it tapered off to showers the rest of the day, but I was happy to have a decent rain jacket & hat... Because of the intense rain, I honestly don't have that many great photos of Florence, sorry.

 

 

 

 

This Church was a former granary, you can see in the photo where some of former chutes for the grain were:

 

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

I'm determined to finish this trip report today! It might not be that detailed, but it'll be done. Otherwise I'll be starting my New Zealand report before this one is finished lol.

Ajaccio, Corsica

 

Birthplace of Napoleon

 

We pulled into port with another gloomy day, enjoyed our breakfast in Tuscan Grill, & headed out for the day. Unfortunately, we headed to the right after we exited, which we thought led to the nice market, instead it led to a pretty gritty area & a sort of flea market, we were not impressed & decided to head back to ship, luckily we caught a glimpse of the charming farmer's market which is to the left of the dock area... & the sun began to break thru! Coming from L.A. , I've never gone so ling without good weather, so this was welcome! We bought some olives & oils at the market, & then returned to the ship for shorts & tee shirts, walked for miles along the shore, ended up back in town where we shared a delicious meal, some wine & beer, & watched the world walk by. DH then headed back to ship to do some work(!!!) & I explored the town & did a little window shopping. Decided to skip the Napoleon sites, after two weeks of non stop siteseeing, & rain, it was lovely to just relax.

 

A bit of a gloomy morning:

 

 

Farmer's Market, & here comes the sun!

 

Steve enjoying the sand between his toes:

 

The Beach ( sorry, on my Instagram I posted this photo when we were in Messina, so according to my feed there, this is Messina (Not)

 

[cruise kitty]

Cagliari, Sardinia

 

Did I mention this was a port intensive cruise? The nice thing was that almost all the ports were easy DIY where you basically walk into town, & Cagliari was no exception (there was a free mandatory port bus) The town was celebrating some sort of cultural landmark day, & all the open sites were free, with explanations & free guides by local school children, it was really quite lovely to see the support for these kids by the community. Sardinia is quite hilly, & provided some good walks up & down the hills, it's a bit more of a gritty island, you're definitley not in France, but I really enjoyed it. We attempted to visit the Roman Theatre, but it was closed for renovations ;) we toured the botanical gardens, & climbed one of the big defensive towers. One thing I really enjoyed about the Island is the incorporation of the ancient into the more modern structures, it just had a very authentic flavour to it.

 

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

One of the towers:

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

We finally had our one & only sea day! We both got massages, relaxed in the persian gardens, & one of us drank quite a bit (that would be me)

 

Next day, Mesinna Sicily, it lies between the toe of Italy & Tunisia, we've been to Sicily before, but docked in Catania last time. We decided to tour the town on foot (lots of big hills again, luckily, where we live some of our streets are so steep there are staircases to get up them, so we're used to walking hills) & we decided to climb the clock tower & watch the show from the square below. I was completely charmed by the tower, & by the noon show, highly recommend it

 

 

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

Salerno (listed as Naples on itinerary by Celebrity)

 

There's quite a bit of controversy over on the ports boards about using Salerno as a port rather than Naples... Naples is great, you walk off the ship to either the ferries or the train stations, easy peasy. In Salerno you have to take the port bus out of the Industrial port, you cannot walk out, & if there's traffic, it can take a long time, took us about 45 minutes to just exit the port. From there, we walked a bit to the bus station, but then decided to share a cab with another couple to get to the ferries, Destination: Positano. One of my favaorite things about having Naples (or Salerno) as port at the end of a cruise is that there's no pressure whatsoever about getting back to the ship on time. If you miss it, you take a train back & pick your stuff up from the ship the next morning.

Pictures are enough, no words necessary here.

 

 

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

Positano (on Salerno day) continued

 

We hiked to this quiet beach:

 

 

Steve did a little swimming

 

 

Me & a sweet Positano cat:

[cruise kitty]

Post cruise, Rome

 

We slept in a bit on our last day, & took the shuttle & bus to the train station in Civ. took the train to Rome, then dropped off our luggage at our hotel. We stayed for 5 days post cruise in Rome, & even though this was probably our 5th or 6th time here, I don't think we'll ever get enough or experience everything there is to see & do.

 

A few new things we did this time: We biked the Appian Way, (easy to reach by bus) We toured a few of the early Christian Catacombs near the Appian Way, we took a night tour of the Vatican Museums, we visited the St. Peter in Chains Church, we visited the Holy Stairs, & we walked through the Holy doors at St. Peter's & at San Giovanni (both open as the Pope had declared 2016 a special Holy year) & we just wandered & walked evey day, clocking about 45,000 steps a day on our iphone apps!! Here's a few shots:

 

 

 

[cruise kitty]

A few last parting shots & comments. Our Europe cruises have always taken place off season, late October to late December (December is my favorite) We wanted to see if longer daylight hours & better weather (we did not have better weather) would be worth bigger crowds, for us, it wasn't I would consider March & April, but probably not May again, if I was going to big cities like Florence, Rome, Barcelona... for the smaller villages, the crowds were fine.

 

Another thought, we've never done such a short cruise (except a 7 day Caribbean on X which really is comparing apples to oranges ) & I wouldn't do such a short cruise again, esp. with only one sea day, there simply wasn't enough time to decompress.

 

A few more photos:

 

On the way to get the "keyhole" photo

 

It took me a few tries to get it right:

 

 

Holy Stairs:

 

 

Inside the Vatican at night:

[cruise kitty]

Last of the photos...

The Chains at St. Peter in Chains:

 

 

 

The Holy Door at San Giovani

 

Hope this was enjoyable! It was a fantastic trip, & we're back on Celebrity again in November to New Zealand & Australia, I'll try to get that trip report completed in a more timely manner :D

 

Debbie

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Loved your trip report and your pictures. You have a good eye. Your interior shots of La Sagrada Familia are incredible! I'll be back there for the second time next year--wonder if it will be completed in my lifetime?

[cruise kitty]

Loved your trip report and your pictures. You have a good eye. Your interior shots of La Sagrada Familia are incredible! I'll be back there for the second time next year--wonder if it will be completed in my lifetime?

 

Thank you :D I actually was amazed at the progress, I think target date for completion is 2026... but hey construction is always on time, right? I hope to see it completed some day. ;) Enjoy your trip!