Rum Factory Tour & St Maarteen's

Sunday, 11/13 - Rum Factory Tour and Tasting

We went to the Savor for breakfast, which was good, but not great. I went back to our cabin and laid down for about 1/2 an hour, and got up feeling much more awake. Meanwhile, John went off to do some walking. Our excursion started at 9:30. I don't remember what island this was, but the roads were the pits.

First, we went to a famous woodcarver's workshop and store. It was beautiful work, but I'm not into abstract or primitive artwork, so we didn't buy anything.

On to see Marigot Bay, which is only accessible by water taxi. We got to 'see' it from a wide spot in the road at the top of a hill. Surprisingly, it looked amazingly like a beach.

Then we were on to a rum factory for a tour and some taste testing. The factory tour consisted of a 2-minute audio tape, an 8-minute video tape, and then a walk to an open room in the factory, where we got a 10-to-15-minute lecture on their process of making rum. Unfortunately, the tour guide did not have a microphone, and they had combined 2 busloads into one tour, so it was very hard to hear her. Then our busload was sent through a labyrinth of colorful carnival characters and into the tasting room. They had about a dozen different varieties out, and we could taste as many of them as we wanted. Those of us who wanted to buy some were shunted off to the factory store, where, unfortunately, the card reader wasn't working. Since we don't carry much cash, we couldn't buy anything. Back to the bus to return to the ship.

The driver and tour guide wanted to show off their new way into town, called the Millennium Hiway. It seemed in even worse shape than the regular roads, until we got into the tunnel, where it smoothed out a bit.

The bus dropped us off at the duty-free shops at the pier. John wanted a pair of water shoes, but he got distracted by a liquor store, where he bought the 2 bottles of flavored rum he'd wanted to get at the factory. I went on to other stores to look for water shoes in his size, and when he finally caught up to me, he approved of the pair I'd found, and we bought those. The only pair I'd found in his size.

We dropped things off at the cabin, then went to a bar on deck 8 to get cokes. John finished his walking for the day. Then we hung out for a while, him reading and me writing. We had dinner in the main dining room. It had very few customers when we got there. It filled up some as we ate, but was still not full when we left about 6:30.

Our excursion for the next day had been cancelled, due to technical difficulties with the boat we would have been using. We went to see if some other excursion appealed to us. Nothing did, so we decided to stay on the ship.

 

Monday, 11/14 - St Maarteen

We got up and had breakfast as usual, but we didn't have any excursion today, as we'd been informed the day before. Since we aren't big on buying souvenirs, we decided to stay aboard and see what we could find to do. After breakfast, we started with some exercise, John doing his walking, and I going to the gym for a bike ride. John was still walking, so I took my notebook and pen to the deck 6 atrium bar for a coke and to write.

Fairly late in the morning, Arts & Crafts set up a table on the dance floor and handed out journal kits for those who wanted to make them. The instructions came in the form of a 16-page booklet of pictures and text explaining how to 'sew' the journal together. They did warn us that it would take us longer than a half hour, which was all the time allotted for Arts and Crafts. I sat at the bar, sipping my coke, and got it done in about an hour. It was fun and not difficult. It reminded me of lacing leather pieces together, particularly in one of the more challenging designs, like Mexican Basketweave. But I didn't have to worry about the lacing getting twisted, because I was using embroidery thread.

John found me, and we went for a light lunch at O'Sheehans. It wasn't as noisy as usual, because we were in port, and the casino wasn't open. Then we went to deck 8 so John could finish his walking - it takes time to walk 10,000 steps! But the bar I sat at to write didn't open until 3:45 or 4:00, so I couldn't have a coke until then.

We went to the noodle station for supper. This is a complimentary restaurant, only open for lunch and dinner. They have a limited number of seats, and once those are all filled, they turn away everybody else, so you have to get in line for it well before it actually opens. The food was good, but it seemed like a madhouse. People closest to the kitchen were getting their desserts before the ones further from the kitchen were getting their appetizers.

After supper, we went to the comedy club, where we could not get a waiter's attention to get anything to drink. The show was good, although we'd heard pieces of it before, when we attended the comedy show in the theater. And then John was tired, so we called it a night. 

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 6

Thursday, 10/21 - Pompeii

Now these blogs will become a little hazy, because despite my best efforts, I didn't get a chance to write on them while we were still on the ship. Consequently, I'm working from old memories, and I probably don't remember a lot of detail.

On Day 6, we visited some city (I didn't catch the name, I was still worn out from Rome.) and Pompeii. I dozed during the bus ride to the city, and don't remember much until we stopped in the city limits, the bus stopping in a bus parking lot just long enough for everybody to get off, and then it scooted off somewhere else. Then we walked 4 or 5 blocks to our first stop. You guessed it, cobblestones, but at least we had sidewalks to walk on, and didn't have to share the roadway with the vehicles.

They took us inside a big furniture shop, where we were given a lecture about how difficult it was to do inlay. There were probably dozens of ways the worker could mess up during the process and have to start all over again. Their inlaid furniture was absolutely beautiful, but I was afraid to brush up against any of it, for fear I'd have to buy it.

Then they gave us half an hour to walk around and see a little bit of the city. (I was surprised by this, because didn't the government object to us tourists walking around on our own?) Anyway, there was an ice cream shop across the street, and I was still tired, so John bought me an ice cream cone and let me sit at one of their outside tables while he wandered a few blocks away. He came back having bought a small bottle of lemon liquor, which is a known commodity in this city. It still sits, unopened, on our kitchen counter, having made it home with us. Well, we don't drink much, and not very often, but it will be taste-tested one of these days.

Then we all gathered together and walked back to the parking lot, where our bus waited for us. We were off to see Pompeii!

There is a modern Pompeii built up around the excavations. I didn't expect that, but I'm not sure why. The excavations are a tourist attraction, after all.

After the bus parked, we had to walk about 3 blocks, and about half of that distance was through an open-air market, past booths that sold all sorts of trinkets and keepsakes. But before we got to see ancient Pompeii, we were taken into a small shop, where we got a 3-minute lecture on how cameos are created. I knew about as much about the art form coming out as I did going in.

There was a pizzeria attached to the cameo shop, and we were given about half an hour to get ourselves something to eat and drink, if we wanted any. At the end of that time, our 2nd tour guide showed up, the group split in two, and we were off.

We entered ancient Pompeii through the gladiator school. It was, I have to admit, the cleanest, well-kept and greenest spot in the town, having a grassy spot in the middle arena. Of course, if that's where the gladiators practiced their fighting, it probably didn't have much grass growing there back in Roman days.

After that, everything was cobblestone or gravel and dust. We saw one of Pompeii's auditoriums, and our guide discussed the ingenious way they constructed it so that all the audience could hear what was said on stage. Then we were taken through a narrow alleyway to a street.

It was obviously a street, complete with raised sidewalks. All cobblestone, and big stones, at that. The guide tried to impress upon us how much shorter people were 'back then', and I couldn't help but wonder how they ever managed to cross the streets, because the difference between street level and sidewalk was about a foot. I wasn't the only one who needed help getting up and down every time the guide decided to cross the street!

She paused to tell us that Pompeii was a dusty town, and every time it rained, the streets became muddy rivers as the water rushed down the hills and out of town. Then we walked to the corner, where this street crossed another, and 3 big blocks semi-blocked the street, stretching from corner to corner, while other blocks crossed the others corners of the intersection. So it wasn't necessary to cross the street in the middle of the block, you had the option of walking to the corner and walking across these stepping stones. But there wasn't a lot of room between them, and I wondered about horses threading their way between them. Also, it meant all the carriages and carts had to be a standard distance between wheels, or the vehicle would never get between those stepping stones!

So we walked all over ancient Pompeii for weeks (or so it seemed). Despite my efforts to 'get into shape' for this excursion, and no matter how close I was to the guide when she started walking again, I would always wind up at the end of the group, trying to keep my balance and keep track of where the group was headed.

Near the end of the tour, we visited the 'red-light' district of town. Back then, the method of attracting the attention of potential customers was to howl like a wolf. This is where some of the best kept murals in town were found, a series of 7 or 8 pictures showing various sex positions. That way, a visitor who didn't speak the language could merely point to a picture to indicate what he wanted.

One of the last places we visited was a series of semi-buildings that were being used to store what had been excavated. In those, we saw 3 plaster casts of people who had been covered in volcanic ash. The cast of the small child actually had a bar between the legs for support, and thus made me think of a body cast.

Then we were headed out of the ancient city. It didn't take long for the guide to leave me behind again. I found myself at the top of 2 sets of stairs going in opposite directions, and I had no idea where I was supposed to go. Thankfully, John had heard her say, "Just keep turning left.", so we did that until we got to the gate and got out.

So, I was sort of disappointed in my exploration of the ancient town. I wish I had been in even better shape, but I am not a fast walker, and my balance isn't the best, so I'm not sure I could have kept up with the guide anyway. And while we got to see the 'summer' master bedroom and the 'winter' master bedroom in one house, I'm not sure why they needed 2 bedrooms. As always when it comes to excavations, I am always interested in the daily life of the people who lived there. Much more interested in that than in holiday festivities and religious rites. Or who knows, maybe the guide went into that sort of thing when I was trying to keep my balance and not get lost.

And then we had to wait for the other group to join us outside in the marketplace. Then we retraced our steps to the bus and were taken back to our ship.

I think that was the night we ate at the Moderna, a Brazilian Steak House. If you've never been to one, they had a 'salad buffet', which had more than salads. Then when you returned to your seats and were ready for meat, there was a card you turned over, and various waiters came around with chunks of meat on skewers. If you wanted lamb, you told that waiter, and s/he would carve some off for you. Chicken drumsticks, pork, beef, just tell them you wanted some, and they'd deposit it on your plate.

John tried everything. I guess I wasn't paying much attention until I finally got a filet mignon deposited on my plate. I cut into it, and... I swear it mooed! Okay, maybe not, but it did bleed. I caught the attention of the main waiter, and explained that I liked my meat well done, so was there anything we could do about this bloody piece of meat? I expected them to take it back and let the cook show it to the flames a few more times. And maybe they did. I can't say, because what came back looked much different than what they took away.

But I liked their cocktail so much, I had 2 of those.

Our excursion the next day was not until the afternoon. But we were tired, so we were soon setting our alarms and going to bed.