Jan 13 –Malaga, Spain. Earlier start this morning, about 8am. Diana is still resting up. She feels better than yesterday by tomorrow she should be good to get on the ship.
I read the day away until late afternoon when I went to visit the cathedral and get some dinner for us.
The Malaga Cathedral a Renaissance structure and is rectangular instead of the usual cross shape with transepts and a crossing. It has a nave and two aisles and all three are of the same height although the nave is wider. There's an ambo around the high altar that is lined with small chapels. It was built between 1528 and 1782 but since it is still not complete maybe I should have said it was worked on during that time.
The most attractive part of the cathedral is the choir stalls carved by Pedro de Mena. They are ornate and gorgeous. Each of the second tier golden chairs has the statue of a saint carved above it. Above the saint's statues are a row of busts in relief, also gilded. The first tier chairs are dark wood and have low backs with simple symbols carved in their backs.
The most valuable altarpiece is in the Chapel of Santa Barbara. It's Gothic in style and was carved in 1524 by a Flemish sculptor, Nicolas Tiller. The Chapel of the Incarnation is a neoclassical delight from 1785. Mostly make of stone, red porphyry structure and white marble statues it is easily the most beautiful structure in the cathedral.
The exterior of the building is in Baroque style. A large medallion over the central door depicts the Annunciation. The north tower is 276 feet high making it the second tallest in Andalusia. The south tower is unfinished and there's an interesting bronze plaque at the base. Essentially it says that the funds raised by the people to complete it were sent to the British colonies (read USA) to help them win their independence from Great Britain. It that's true I guess the French weren't the only ones rooting for us.
Because the cathedral is unfinished her nickname is La Manquita (The One Armed Lady).
I made some calls to various parties to see what the logistics are for joining the ship tomorrow. Thanks to Gayle, my travel rep with Cruise Specialists, and HAL personnel I'm pretty sure I have a handle on the proceedings.
Jan 14 –Boarding the MS Amsterdam in Malaga, Spain. Didn't have to start early this morning we don't board the ship until 11am. First thing I did was check with the SeaScanner web site to check on the Rotterdam's current position. Thankfully it is pier side in Malaga. For the first time since we got here Diana joined me in going to the 2nd floor for breakfast. She seems to be doing much better.
We finished breakfast at about 10am (that's when breakfast closes), went up to the room, made our final preparations to eave and at 10:45am called for the bellman to come and get our luggage. We rejoined it on the first floor and he had a taxi waiting. The drive to the new pier was not long in distance but traffic in Malaga along the seafront is very busy with lots of odd intersections (3 to 5 roads meeting at one place) so the traffic signals are long so it took a while to get there. In fact the taxi's meter showed a higher charge for waiting time than for mileage. Still, the price was not expensive in terms of NYC cabs.
At the pier we were met by a smiling stevedore who took charge of our larger luggage and we headed into the terminal to check in. I should have mentioned that the cruise started in Rotterdam, Netherlands but because the QM2 didn't get to Europe before the ship had departed we had to make special arrangements with HAL to board in Malaga. The won't approve boarding just anywhere, but Malaga is a large port and has the facilities needed so they sent me a letter of authorization. The letter contains all sorts of dire warnings about things for which they could not be held responsible just in case something goes wrong. Happily nothing did and we were well on our way to getting aboard.
The only slight snag was caused by an over excitable Spanish security lady. After running our luggage through the x-ray she made Diana open her largest suitcase to track down a pair of scissors. They were a tiny set of cuticle scissors, total length of about 3.5 inches of which less than 1 inch is blade. When she saw them she said that the x-ray made them look bigger. What? Oh well, she was happy so we were happy.
We boarded, went to the front desk to pick up our room keys, headed down to our cabin, 2629 and found that our luggage had already arrived there. We spent a few minutes unpacking and were ready to head to the Lido Restaurant for lunch.
The MS Rotterdam and the MS Amsterdam are sister ships. They have a slightly different hull shape than the Statendam class ships. They are a bit more tapered at the bow and are capable of faster speed and a little better ride in rough weather. They are more suitable for long cruises. The Amsterdam has done the world cruise almost every year since it was launched, except when smaller bookings (due to fears of terrorism) led to using the much smaller Prinsendam for 2 years in the middle of the '00s. The Rotterdam and Amsterdam have very similar deck plans, but there are some differences. The major difference between the two is the propulsion. The Rotterdam was built first and has the older drive shaft connected to the screw technique. The Amsterdam uses the Isopod system where the screw and drive motor are suspended below the hull in pods that can we swiveled. The Isopod system transmits less vibration to the hull and therefore to the passengers so on the Amsterdam you feel it less. The level of vibration on the Rotterdam is very small indeed. In fact, if you had people sail on both of them I don't think most would notice the difference.
Our room is exactly like the one we get on the Amsterdam. It's roomy and actually, since I'm only in it to sleep, shower and change clothes, it's bigger than absolutely necessary.
We prefer to have assigned seating for dinner. You get to know some people pretty well and most of our tablemates over the years have been great. The ship is not very full because we asked for a table for 6 and got a table for 2. The table is actually usually set for 4 but there are empty tables around so they took 2 chairs away. There are several other tables near us that are set the same way. When there's a segment turnover (The cruise was available for booking in 3 separate segments of about 30 days each so twice before we get back some people will get off and others will join us.) we may ask to move to a table for 6 if two spaces open up at one.
The evening's show was Andy Bünger a German Marimbaphone artist. Apparently a Marimbaphone is an electronic marimba that, like most other electronic instrument has many voices. In addition to marimba it can be set to play like bells, chimes, steel drum, dulcimer and other percussion instruments. He played a variety of music from Bach and Bacharach to the Beatles.
We're glad to be aboard and are settled in for the next 83 days.
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