It was a memorable Mediterranean voyage seeing the world with its awesome beauty in the historical perspective. It was a trip of tourists on a budget scenario.
We flew. We cruised. We indulged in temporary luxury: the unforgettable 7-port, 12-day European vacation on the bluish, placid Mediterranean Sea.
After working all your life, you need a respite; days of wallowing in fun and thinking of only good days, excellent food, and wonderful company in a meditative scenario under the smiling skies, lovely ocean caresses by the amiable breeze, and beautiful people of the Holy, Mighty, Immortal One.
My wife - Evangeline "Eve/Vangie" Rueles Caermare Trabanca, a cousin (Belen) Babylane Rueles) the Buens , Dr. Wilfredo "Willy" and Zenaida, "Zeny" Buen, and I were tourists-passengers who belonged to the FEU-Nursing Alumni Association Group under the auspices of Tess Manuel's Mundo Travel agency.
This was the maiden voyage of the Carnival Liberty and our first ocean travel across one of the Seven Seas. The cruise ship took us to the ports of (1.) Naples, Italy (2) Dubrovnik, Croatia (3) Venice, Italy (4) Messina, Sicily (5) Barcelona, Spain (6) Cannes, France and (7) Livorno, Italy.
Before we boarded the queenly look and European-inspired interior Carnival Liberty, we stayed in Rome for 2 nights. We visited the Sistine Chapel; marveled at Michelangelo's work of arts displayed on the ceiling. We walked the Spanish Steps; petrified at St. Peter's Square (Piazza San Pietro) where the greatest church in Christendom, St Peter Basilica stands. We viewed the Vatican - "the smallest state in the world at the center of the largest spiritual kingdom." However, we missed the Pope's audience but we threw 3 coins in Trevi Fountain and witnessed the glory of Rome in the Pantheon, which is the city's only architecturally intact monument from classical times
While at the Vatican, we experienced that peace in our soul; that there was a Force more powerful than this man-made world. " In the midst of the urban tumult, the Vatican is an island of peace and tranquility- a regal miniature," wrote G.K. Chesterton, an English Catholic writer.
1st Port: Naples, Italy. A writer once said, " if you see Naples, you are ready to die." Naples, the third most populated city in Italy with a population of over one million sets on the northern edge of one of the most beautiful bays. It is a bustling city alive with colorful street life, numerous narrow and winding alleyways, quaint shops, and restaurants. Neapolitan cuisine is known worldwide for its savory pasta and pizza, its tasty fish and seafood dishes, its superb cheeses including the famous mozzarella cheese. Looming on a distance shaped like a lady basking in the August sun is the Isle of Capri, the playground of the rich and famous.
2nd Port: Dubrovnik, Croatia. It is naturally framed by a mountainous backdrop prides on its wealth of cultural and historical monuments. It is the homeland of the cravats or neckties.
3rd Port: Venice, Italy. Floating in the Adriatic Sea, Venice consists of panoramic islands connected by many canals. Truman Capote (1924-1984) said, "Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one go." Like venom, Venice poisoned us breathless with its charming sting. Its waterways dotted by gondolas brought homeland reminiscence of outrigger boats and sailboats. Coming from Mindanao, the southern island of the Philippines, we are reminded of Tawi-Tawi ( of the Sulu Archipelago) where the stilt villages of Sitangkai are known as Venice of the Far East.
1st Port: Naples, Italy. A writer once said, " if you see Naples, you are ready to die." Naples, the third most populated city in Italy with a population of over one million sets on the northern edge of one of the most beautiful bays. It is a bustling city alive with colorful street life, numerous narrow and winding alleyways, quaint shops, and restaurants. Neapolitan cuisine is known worldwide for its savory pasta and pizza, its tasty fish and seafood dishes, its superb cheeses including the famous mozzarella cheese. Looming on a distance shaped like a lady basking in the August sun is the Isle of Capri, the playground of the rich and famous.
2nd Port: Dubrovnik, Croatia. It is naturally framed by a mountainous backdrop prides on its wealth of cultural and historical monuments. It is the homeland of the cravats or neckties.
3rd Port: Venice, Italy. Floating in the Adriatic Sea, Venice consists of panoramic islands connected by many canals. Truman Capote (1924-1984) said, "Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one go." Like venom, Venice poisoned us breathless with its charming sting. Its waterways dotted by gondolas brought homeland reminiscence of outrigger boats and sailboats. Coming from Mindanao, the southern island of the Philippines, we are reminded of Tawi-Tawi ( of the Sulu Archipelago) where the stilt villages of Sitangkai are known as Venice of the Far East.
4th Port: Messina, Sicily. It is a city of great interest for its arts is surrounded by a region of immense beauty. It is known as the "Gateway to Sicily". It lies under the foothills of the Peloritani Mountains, facing the straight of Messina, which takes its name from the city and is the umbilical cord joining Sicily to the continent.
Messina, as we see today, is a fine modern city, restored to its former splendor by a grid of wide, well-lit avenues, lined by buildings which are strictly earthquake-resistance, in the context of an extremely symmetrical and linear city layout.
5th Port: Barcelona, Spain is a dynamic and innovative Spanish city that unites the traditions of 2,000 years of history and its characteristic propensity for expansion, commerce, and creativity. It prides on its architectural richness, culture, transfor- mations, organization, and modernity. Cathedral de la Sagrada Familia (Holy Family), its most distinctive landmark vividly depicted the modernist Antonio Gaudi's style. His designs combined stone, iron, and ceramics in a rather commanding and certainly irreverent fashion.
We saw: the Baptistry Chapel with its marble fonts, the chapel of St. Oleguer with its wrought-iron gate darkened by praying hands, and the smoke of devotional candles placed by the people in honor of the Christ of Lepanto which accompanied John of Austria at the Battle of Lepanto. We were guided: to the Ramblas, the soul of the city, "the most beautiful street in the world" according to the famous writer Somerset Maugham.
6th Port: Cannes, France is the venue of the Annual Film Festival and was our 6th port. Then we went to the principality of Monaco of which Monte Carlo is one of its districts and is made famous by the marriage of the pretty Hollywood actress Grace Kelley to Prince Ranier III of the Grimaldi Family that ruled the island. It was in a Monaco Club, that the hotel heiress Paris Hilton met her Greek billionaire shipping heir boyfriend, Paris Latsis ten years ago as a teenager.
In Monaco, we gambled. We lost. But we won that status symbol of being there in the pleasant place of the rich and famous. The guide said that "there is always a time and place for everything, for the principality of Monaco is a land where flowers of peace grow. It is a tiny land, described by French film director - playwright Marcel Pagnol, " where the arts can still live in the shade of the olive tree, close to the Latin Sea, where the authority of one only safeguards the liberty of all."
7th port: Livorno, a major Italian port city is an entry point to the beautiful city of Florence, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, and Pisa - home of the renowned leaning Tower, one of the wonders of the ancient world.
After the last glimpse and pose for posterity, the fun ship Carnival Liberty docked at the port of Civitavecchia, Italy. Then off we went to Leonardo da Vinci's Airport. Arrivederci, Roma!
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