After the big birthday night, we slept in. This meant that once again we would miss the "must see" view of entering an ancient port city. Sleep seems too important -- after all, when you're travelling for 59 days you cannot afford to get run down. (A lesson learned last year in Africa.) We awoke to find our ship in a port that resembles a gorge, with tall limestone walls on each side. Bonifacio is, in a word, remarkable. Why? It's impossible that it exists in the first place. From Wikipedia:
The city in evidence today was founded as a fortress by and subsequently named after Boniface II of Tuscany in 828 AD. He had led a naval expedition to suppress the Saracens of North Africa and returned to build an unassailable fortress and naval base from which the domains of Tuscany could be defended at the outermost frontier. Most of the citadel postdates the 9th century or is of uncertain date but Il Torrione, a round tower, was certainly part of the original citadel.
History. Simple enough to say, "There were so many wars people basically did their best to live in inaccessible places, because if it was a pain in the ass to get to a city, odds are it would be an even bigger pain to conquer it."
We got our day started and went topside to eat.
We had lunch with this view. Not bad. But then we looked off the other side of the boat and saw this...
Another day, another citadel. Honestly, this was a city where a fancier camera might have come in handy. Panoramas galore. But let us not go there. Instead, let us look at that round structure and the wall after it. Stairs. All stairs. And we are unafraid. After all, that asphalt road is no way to enter a 1,200 year old city.
I would guess that we went up five staircases that looked just so. We didn't count the steps, but the leg muscles were starting to burn near the top.
Halfway up, we paused and took pics of our ride from that round, turret-like structure you saw earlier.
At the top, you find a pretty modern tourist trap. Lovers of knick-knacks would explode with delight.
Narrow streets. If you think that cars don't use these streets, you'd be wrong. Nothing funnier than a few hundred tourists getting out of the way of a determined local.
A French Foreign Legion memorial. War is manly. Bonifacio is the administrative center for the French Foreign Legion. Far as I know the island is lion-free. The lion is just there to showcase manliness.
Another picture semi-ruined by a street lamp. But I'll still include it because it shows the channel/harbor and fortress above; approximately 200 feet above. As in if you were to try to take this city by force, you had to climb a fortified hill with 200 feet of locals uphill from yo8u and trying to kill you.
Not only am I pointing at our ride, but at the time I took this pic I had no idea that instead of walking back to the ship we would get some extra gusto and climb up those stairs just above my finger.
Those stairs.
Our ride from the base of the stairs we are about to climb. Belongs on the SeaDream website.
She goes first on the way up, I go first on the way down. This system is designed on the assumption that if she slips she will then crash into me. I'm a gentleman that way.
Halfway up we get a pretty cool view of the other side. Those buildings border the street view you saw earlier. I don't think the parking lot was there when the Genoans or Moors attacked the city. Well, maybe it was there and they used it for wooden carts and such.
The harbor below the city. We shall soon walk along the harbor, legs shakier than ever.
Harbor time. We got gelato with two of our favorite shipmates. They're British and we continually test which couple has the more perverse sense of humor. It's an exhibition, not a competition. The gelato was not picturesque, yet I now regret not taking a picture of it. Lack of symmetry.
Before boarding the ship for some pool time, I felt the need to explain to everyone that I walked up THERE. Walked. On foot. Wearing sandals. Comparable to a six story building, I think. When was the last time you walked up to the sixth floor via the stairs?
Back at the pool. Rumor has it that I am not the only one who enjoys the feet. For those who don't like them, sorry. Deal with it. Oh! But how exciting is this? Between the excursion up and down and up and down those stairs and laying by the pool, I used skype to call AT&T Wireless and they cut last month's bill in half! Just to be nice. Seriously. They didn't have to. I just called to find out why I didn't get the amount of free international roaming that I expected. Now that felt good. Almost as good as the pool did.
Time to head out to sea. Now, we were docked in this gorge-like channel. This makes exiting rather amazing, and explains why it would have been a good idea to get out of bed this morning to watch our entrance. But I took a hundred or so pics of the exit, which is fair compensation.
Limestone cliffs with city walls on top.
The way out. I made a point of rushing to the very front of the top deck of the ship. Only three other people did this. We silently took pictures for 10 minutes. What we saw would make anyone speechless.
A pretty good picture. Hard to get the sea and cliff wall and city in one pic.
I imagine cannons up there would do some pretty serious damage to ships with bad intentions.
Near the opening to sea. Those walls were clearly there to protect the men flinging rocks, shooting arrows, firing guns, whatever, from behind. A never ending series of slits in that wall. It's not as if the wall is keeping anyone out. The cliff face takes care of that.
How "Lord Of The Rings" is this place?
We are actually in the open sea now, and on the right side you see the citadel.
Those tiny structures, they are the 3 to 5 story buildings you saw earlier. We honestly didn't know that the citadel went right up to a cliff on the opposite side. Unbelievably displeased that we didn't find our way there. See the round structure? That's, "Il Torrione." One of the oldest structures in the city.
Magnificent in person. The picture does no justice at all. Perhaps when we get home and look at it on the 52" TV it will be more satisfying. Normally people dread going to someone's place to look at their travel pics. I suspect we'll have a few friends want to come see them all on the big screen.
I used pixlr to crop the previous pic for those who do not click on the pics to zoom in.
Using the ship in the foreground for perspective.
I took maybe twenty of these pics, just in case one might be better than those who came before it.
Sailboat now serving the perspective role.
We close with the Mediterranean sunset. No dinner pics tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment