Greetings once again from the Love Boat or the SS Startled Face.
We left Bilbao yesterday and on our way out of the harbour Captain Stubbing advised us that the swell was going to get increasingly stronger on our way to Lisbon. Consequently I woke up at about 3.00am this morning gripping the mattress and trying not to fall out of bed. This was not another “bench” episode as I’d been asleep for hours – promise. In fact yesterday was a pretty easy day. Couple of wines at lunch time, couple of beers in the afternoon, couple of gin and tonics with dinner and a couple of scotches before bed. Pretty much an alcohol – free day really.
Something we learnt when we were in St Jean De Luz is that they are famous as fisherman, having hunted whales in the 17th and 18th century as far away as Newfoundland. But they were also famous as pirates. Apparently the French king was happy to give them privateer status in return for 50% of the booty. And they attacked British ships. They never told us that in the history books. It was all Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake and how useless the Spanish and French were. But then again, they may have been lying.
Bilbao was a revelation. As some of you may not have heard of it, it’s in Spanish Basque Country, not far from the French border and was famous for producing steel. It is now a haven for architects. You’ll see some incredible buildings in amongst the obligatory history and 12th century cathedral. And it has a Guggenheim Museum which is magnificent. There are three Guggenheim Museums in New York, Venice and…….Bilbao (???).
So the city’s done a good job creating new industries as steel went backwards and their unemployment rate is significantly lower than the rest of the country. Notwithstanding we did see a number of now obligatory (in Europe) wind turbines at the end of the harbour – monstrosities that need subsidies of $500,000 per job in the renewable energy field and destroy another 5 jobs along the way. They put billions into this at the behest of the greenies so no wonder Spain is an economic basket case. Enough of the rants.
After we turned left and headed down the Portuguese coast to Lisbon the swell got to 15 ft. But it was going in our direction so we could to surf the last 300 miles.
This is our second and last full day at sea out of 12. The great thing about these cruises is that you stop almost every day but a day to chill after a lot of walking and happy snapping is welcome. Also, I’ve had a chance to scope out the clientele and have concluded there are no gangs of geriatric Man U or Millwall supporters on board so I am proudly wearing the Manchester City shirt I purchased at the City shop in Manchester. And I found out their official nickname is actually The Citizens and not The Blues. You wanted to know that didn’t you.
It’s now 2.30pm which is almost beer time.
Back soon.