Welcome To Gibraltar, UK
Friday, April 23, 2010
Last evening was another magical evening for as we sailed to Gibraltar.
Before dinner, we attended a 5:15 PM show featuring Jon Courtenay who plays the piano, does comedy and pulls it all together in a delightful show. The show was quite good.
After a few days away from the Main Dining Room, last evening we were back. The menu featured the Neptune Dinner. We each enjoyed a nice salad, and for our entrée Keith enjoyed the Broiled Ahi Tuna Steak which was delicious and wonderfully prepared by the superb Crystal Cruises Chefs. Anne Marie enjoyed surf and turf. We also had a side order of steamed vegetables and brussel sprouts. We had sent a very special wine to the dining room and it was decanted for us ahead of time and it was quite good.
After dinner we attended a special event, which was called a “paramnesia party. The party featured dancing and entertainment and cocktails, wine and canapés were served. It was a wonderful event and we greatly appreciate all of the thought and attention that goes into making each of these events so very special. We truly appreciate all of the hard work that goes into the preparation and execution of each show.
The show included performances by many from the Crystal Entertainment Departments along with a few other members of the Crystal Crew and it included several skits/dances/songs from previous events performed during the World Cruise on top of the new script that was written for this show. It included some best of the best and we have to tell you that many in the audience such as ourselves were very sentimental as all of this was performed. By the end of the performance we had tears in our eyes as we think back to the start of this wonderful journey. We have said from day one that this was not a cruise but rather a journey.
We slept very well last evening as we cruised to Gibraltar of the United Kingdom. Keith awoke early for another nice morning workout. He worked out on the Elliptical Machine. He was the first one to the Center and eventually was joined by three other passengers including friend John. Anne Marie didn’t work out in the morning since we had an early arrival to Gibraltar. We had a nice breakfast in our room as we got ready to go ashore.
This was our second visit to Gibraltar having first visited this port of call only two years go.
Gibraltar sits at the entrance of the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean. It borders with Spain to its north and with Morocco to its south across the Straits. It is dominated by “The Rock” which towers 1,396 feet.
In ancient times, the rock of Gibraltar along with its counterpart located on the African side, Mt. Abyla, were known as the Pillars of Hercules. In 711 AD the Moors landed in this area under their General Tarik. The General first named the rock Jebel al-Tarik and in time the rock was renamed to its current name of Gibraltar. In 1462 Spain recovered Gibraltar from the Arabs. During the Spanish Succession in 1704 Gibraltar was taken under control by British troops and in 1713 it was formally assigned to Britain.
Today, the population of Gibraltar is around 35,000 residents.
We walked from the ship over to the town, which is only about a fifteen-minute walk. We then proceeded to walk up and down many of the streets. This is a popular port of call for cruise ships and tourists from the United Kingdom and those from other nearby countries. The downtown area is quite quaint and has lots of nice little shops and cafes and also some famous tourist spots.
We arrived in the town quite early before it became busy with tourists. We found the largest of the four Jewish Synagogues. We knocked on the door and we were able to enter the Synagogue and we went to the area where the women normally sit to observe the second service of the morning. We spoke with one of the members who answered a variety of questions for us. Afterwards, we walked to another area where we found the Jewish School, and a few other Jewish stores and restaurants and a Kosher Grocery Store. We walked to other areas of the town and had a very nice morning walking all around the town.
We were fortunate to have very nice weather as we walked around this lovely town and had a great time just strolling around the town.
A few minutes after we arrived back to the ship we ran into the person who takes video for Crystal Cruises that is used in a variety of video programs and we were asked if they could film us as part of one of these videos. We gladly said we would and we participated in a shoot in the afternoon. Over the past couple of weeks we have also been filmed a few other times.
We enjoyed a nice lunch in the Lido Café and we each made a nice Salad Entrée.
Afterwards, Anne Marie took a nice long walk on the Promenade Deck and we both read and wrote and spoke with some of our fellow passengers.
Before dinner this evening we will be going on a behind the scenes tour of the Crystal Serenity. We last did this in 2007.
We will be dining once again in the Crystal Main Dining Room and the theme for this evening’s dinner is a French Dinner.
We will post more about the behind the scenes tour and dinner and other evening activities tomorrow.
This evening we set the clocks back one hour as we cruise into a new time zone. We believe that we will also set the clocks forward tomorrow evening and we still have one more time for them to go backward again before we depart the ship. J
TODAY’S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY….
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”
Keith and Anne Marie
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