CRUISING ON BOARD DISCOVERY - NORTH AFRICA

DISCOVERY – NORTH AFRICAN JOURNEY 2009

MONDAY 2 November

Our knee-clinging coffin-boxed five-hour flight leaves Gatwick this morning to join the MV Discovery docked in the Egyptian port of Alexandria. This time it’s a cruise around North Africa – mainly Libya. The chartered Monarch flight is full and everyone is squeezed like pips. The overhead lockers are already packed with walking sticks and panama hats when I try to get my bag in. A man leaps - well, shudders - up to tell me that his straw hats are in there, ‘but they should be alright.’ But who would care? It is over two hours into the flight before food is served and many people who’d been up since before Sawn yawned to get to the airport for the 0930 flight are grumbling with rumbling tums. The airline policy is to try and sell everything else before providing what is already included so they sell drinks and snacks and water and teas even though a hot meal is on its way.

Borg el Arab airport is a stretch of tarmac in a rain-spattered desert field about an hour south of the port of Alexandria where the ship awaits. The Egyptians are very cautious about catching swine flu – being a mainly swine free country – and have customs men wearing paper masks as they greet and complete our visa requirements. We are loaded on a bus as our bags are chucked into a truck and Dina, a local guide, accompanies us to the port. Tourist buses are always under police escort in Egypt and given the right to drive everyone else off the road. As Dina says, Egyptian drivers do not abide by traffic lights or road markings – they are there as a suggestion or guide rather than compulsory obligation. The journey from the airport to the ship takes us through date harvesting, shanty towns and salt lakes. Alexandria has sprawled out to meet the desert and seems based around the designs of India’s poorer slums. There are lots of billboard hoardings along the road in emblazoned with Alex West. I wondered if this were the name of some new TV series or an actor - Batman’s brother perhaps? – or, perhaps, some brand of fags. But it is the name of some huge, sprawling and unfinished housing development project south of the city (or quite possibly west of it). It is so exceedingly ugly that it should have been suffocated at birth. Bare and empty building shells sit homeless under these advertisements of women making coffee, children playing golf and men sitting around doing nothing – certainly not with a paintbrush in their hand. It has been raining a lot here and the lack of drainage means that the roads are more waterway than motorway.

The port of Alexandria is enormous, run down and hectically disorganised. For such a well-off country everything is a mess. It looks a dump but by daylight it may improve.

We get to the ship as dusk descends and check into our cabins. Already there are crew-members I recognise and vice versa. It’s lovely to see Monica at reception and Peter the Purser and Malcolm the hotel director. I’m not sure if it’s all mutually felt.

There is a free-seating arrangement for dinner tonight in the Seven Continents restaurant for those on the London flights. Quite rightly, those who flew in from Manchester are to be served their balti and chips on the Lido deck in, what we can only hope is to be, permanent cruise confinement. But some of them didn’t understand that they are to be kept in quarantine and away from the rest of us and took to the dining room so by the time Cathy and I sauntered down after a cocktail or two, there was nowhere left to sit so we had to scramble among hoi polloi of Preston and eat buffet style at plastic tables. You can imagine how that upsets the senses. We meet Connie who had indeed flown from Manchester but who lives near North Berwick and who’d been travelling nearly 24 hours as there is no civilised way to get to the airport from the Borders other than taking a bus from Edinburgh via Glasgow at chucking-out time.

As I have learned on cruises, everyone begins conversation not with weather chit-chat but with how many cruises they’ve been on and see how much oneshipmanship they can play. Connie had cruised the Kiel canal recently and was full of Baltic blarney.

The Discovery shows three themed films on the cabin screens each time it sails around Egypt so insomniacs can enjoy The Mummy, Jewel of the Nile and Cleopatra - again. I’m in bed and reading a book by 2230 – that’s only 2030 UK time – and have fallen asleep in half an hour only to wake again 3 hours later.

Tuesday 3 November - Alexandria

The morning is grey and raining over Alexandria. Cathy and I take a stroll through the rain, the pot-holes and the perpetual pestering. Taxi and horse-drawn carriage drivers tout for trade to take us to see the sights. They begin with 10 euro an hour and then drop the price to 5. Today, being wet and miserable, is not one to be bumped about in a cab. All we wanted to do was to have a shifty about town but the rain is relentless - and so are the men wanting to take us for a ride. There are rickety trams in Alexandria and vehicles that saw better days in Jacques Tati films. The roads are a mess of holes and puddles, the sidewalks similar. Single light bulbs or fluorescent strips illuminate dowdy, drab, dirty and dilapidated interiors. The place hasn’t improved in daylight but few places look good in the rain.

Ancient Alexandria was famed for three things: the world’s first lighthouse on the island of Pharos out in the harbour, its library which was once the world’s greatest and the man it is named after. There’s also a column known as Pompey’s Pillar but should be, more accurately known as Diocletian’s Dick – it is a sizeable shaft of granite erected in the Emperor’s lifetime.

We wander back to the ship. Vehicles entering the port are given the once-over by security guards using a sniffer-dog and an under-carriage mirror to see if there are explosives. I suppose it’s reassuring.

We have a game of Scrabble (according to the Rosemary Forgan Formula Rules though without access to a cheaty book) and the sun comes out. Sadly, the city still looks ghastly. The crew is being most helpful trying to sort out a double plug adaptor as there is only one socket in my room – not enough for my curling tongs, hair-dryer, battery chargers, travel iron and teas-maid all to work at once.

The go-go girls (actually, the girls from the dance troupe) are sunning themselves on deck and cause quite a stir amongst the dock-hands when they stand up to re-arrange their swimwear. So much so that the dock-hands are rearranging the stir in their underwear.

Hurrah there is a quiz at 1715. As Entertainment Social Hostess, Louise, hands out the pens, we are joined by Sharon and her husband. They are from York. Now, how did we know that? Because within minutes of sitting next to us (as with all people from Yorkshire) they tell us. He tells us again when a question about Guy Fawkes comes up (“‘e were a York man, you know”) and when telling about their endless travels through Canada (“ General Wolfe were a Yorkshire man ‘n all”). Of course, this is quite unnecessary as his accent would have cut a stale Eccles cake from behind an iron curtain. How they enjoy cruising. Eeh, by ‘eck! Where they’ve not been, you wouldn’t be able to find a postcard. He even organises the oldest pub quiz team in the world and is most forthcoming with the answers. We lose.

Our dining table is for the widowed, divorced or resolutely single; we’re all solo travellers here. I recognise Chris, another video taker and maker, from the last Discovery cruise round the Red, Med & Black Seas I did earlier in May. There are two sisters; a lady who could have lived a long time in a convent; a smart sounding lady with a colourful blouse and a crisp, cut accent, another woman with a cheery smile but unhappy teeth and a man who shakes like a salt cellar. He may have a palsy of sorts. We are also joined by the Egyptian pilot who is on board til we dock at Benghazi, in Libya, the day after tomorrow. He only drinks apple juice. Perhaps he is also here to control our drinking as we are forbidden alcohol within Libyan waters. So there’ll be nothing to do with a drunken sailor as we won’t be able to get our hands on one.

Somehow I get through a whole bottle of ship red wine. The pilot doesn’t look unduly offended. He’s a cheery sort wondering what to get his wife for her birthday tomorrow. Knowing what would appeal to a lot of female friends I suggest a bottle of champagne, some Ferrero Rocher and a DVD with Brad Pitt.

Wednesday 4 November – Day at Sea

We are well out of Egyptian waters by the time we wake this morning. Yippee, it is a whole day at sea. Activities have been organised to suit our skills and agility. The lectures and cookery classes, which involve sitting down and watching someone else work, are the most popular but even the tap-dance routines and killer golf have a few followers. You can imagine the disappointment when I discover that killer golf is not played to Sharia law so does not result in a public stoning by the ninth hole for the loser. It’s just a bit of pitch n putt.

There are also solo traveller get-togethers and spa secrets to a flatter stomach. I should really go them all, especially the last one but I’m trying to get my video sorted to give a DVD of the previous cruise to Malcolm, the hotel director. He said he enjoyed the video I made on the Minerva cruise to South America - which I did last year - but that he wouldn’t allow me, or my camera, access to his crew as he didn’t think it was positive enough PR. And there’s me thinking it did them proud. Still, unless it’s a continuous gush of anodyne praise the marketing people would wince. Even though everyone who watches British telly knows the difference between sycophantic and sympathetic.

I skip lunch - my own useless attempt to gain a flatter stomach though the only method that works is the Beverly Hills High School Technique – where you jam your fingers down your throat and throw up.

Cathy and I meet up for Afternoon Quiz. She tells me that I have a stalker. The Entertainment Social Hostess, Louise, has asked her for my cabin number. Despite being unnerved by this announcement we battle through the quiz and win more Discovery pens.

Tonight is our first formal night so I whip out the dicky and ease myself into an all-black (dinner jacket). Captain John Brocklehurst is hosting a welcome reception before dinner. We’re told it is to be the last time the bars are open for 3 days. We have been warned that being a most Muslim country, there is to be no alcohol in Libya. Perhaps Allah has ordained this opportunity to detox and not drink over the next few days so I stock up on a handful of margaritas before dinner and then down a bottle of Pinotage.

I learn more about my dining companions. The two sisters are Sheila and Anne and I can’t think there’s anything more interesting to say but they’re nicely pleasant- though I hope to be surprised as the dinners go by. Then there’s Jenny who is, or was, a schoolteacher and looks as severe as a Mother Superior. She would have solved a problem like Maria with a leather strap and would not only have refused Oliver another bowl of gruel but would have had him up chimneys for months. The shaker is John from Liverpool and resembles the Blue Peter tortoise. His chin joins his shoulders without the need of a neck. I’ll see if he has his name painted on his back should I catch him sunbathing. His only jacket is a knitted number that his mother may have bought at BHS. It has bird shit on the shoulder. Chris is another retired schoolteacher with a lot of regrets about what life might have been and Constance is an incredibly well-dressed, well-jewelled and well-spoken, well-retired doctor who was born in New Zealand, studied in Australia and travelled most of the world doing healing things with medicine but sounds like she never left the Littlehampton ladies luncheon club.

Our waiting team is Jerry and Robert. They are, as with all staff, except for senior crew, from the Philippines and these must be made up names to make it easier for us. Jerry is quite a comic and announces the menu with flourish and fanfare listing each evening’s dishes with Olivier-like delivery: “and not forgetting, ladies and gentlemen, our plate of international cheeses.” As far as I can see, the cheese is basically cheddar, though I suppose it has been around a bit and must be so well-travelled by now that its passport would be the envy of any Wensleydale.

(Alexandria – Benghazi 542 nm / 1004 km)

Thursday 5 November – Benghazi, Libya

We have a team of learned lecturers on board. There is the ever-present David who was once a geography teacher and who gives a secondary school talk on some of the places we visit emphasising the need for head wear and comfortable shoes. We also have a chap from BBC’s History Magazine with a fine pair of dead hedgehogs as eyebrows and an unnerving attitude to humanity that disdains most things living in preference to a supposed account of the past. Peter Jones is also an historian and never knowingly undersold. He gives good value and an historic knowledge of how things might have been when empires were great and all was right with the world; if you were Roman, and if you were an Emperor; until you were murdered by your father, brother, son, wife or any other soldier determined to get their face on a coin.

We’re up bright and early though it isn’t bright yet, only early, to meet in the Lounge to await disembarkation for our first big day in Libya. We dock at Benghazi (named, allegedly, after one Ben Ghazi) for a visit to Cyrene, the first of our many Greek and Roman ruins.

Andrea, the Cruise Director (usually found singing jazz tunes late at night and organising the entertainment) announces that we need to be patient whilst dealing with the Libyan authorities. We wait. Then we wait some more. Andrea then announces after another half an hour that the immigration officials have boarded and are insisting everyone go through a thermometer test for swine flu. I wonder where the thermometer will go and, indeed, has been. We are led to a man with a machine gun who points it at our heads. A worrying action in these, or any other, parts. It is an electronic device which supposedly reads our body temperatures. Some of us are pulled to one side. That includes me. The man gestures to his throat. I grin not knowing if he thinks I should be wearing a cravat or if he thinks I should be garrotted. He points his machine gun again and then smiles and says ‘OK’. Phew.

We are told how strict a Muslim country Libya is. No drink and conservative dress. Even Margaret Thatcher’s fifteen denier would be considered racy here and she would have been stoned as an ankle flasher. But, though the local girls have their heads covered and are in jeans rather than full-length jilabas their faces are uncovered and slap-happy especially around the eyes.

Some of the women on board have taken to wearing head scarves as they disembark. They’ve been hearing too many stories of single women of certain ages finding a husband in these parts.

I’m glad I bought a bottle of water as I find out that the journey to Cyrene is over three hours. That’s nearly two hundred minutes of non-too interesting countryside, a commentary about bridges and huge piles of rubbish at such regularity that I thought they were there as mileage markers. No worries of wheelie bin rage here or councils spying on litter louts. Our guide knows a lot of English words but hasn’t got the hang of stringing them together in an order that could be comprehensible. Most of us have already nodded off after fifteen minutes. Fortunately, the bus is equipped with a volume button above each seat so many of us have switched him off.

We’re finally wakened from our daylight reveries (what’s for supper? What’s for lunch? Will I make it to the loo in time tonight?) as the bus jerks into the car park at Cyrene – a vast site built by the Phoenicians, enlarged by the Greeks and taken over by the Romans.

There are some fantastic finds here. The detail of these ancient artists is staggering. The buildings would have been fantastic – even by today’s standards and certainly a lot sturdier and more elegantly designed and planned than anything we’ve seen on the way here. Earthquakes withstanding, it is boggling to think that the new wave of invaders from Arabia didn’t just take over the buildings and make them home.

Our lunch is in a cave near the site. We have spicy soup and some manky mutton with couscous. Though we expected only water and soft drinks, we are offered beers. Interestingly, all the drinks seem to come from the Evil Empire as Pepsi and Coke engage in the battle for fridge space everywhere we go.

We hear that Libyans are most inventive and many make their own home-made wine and hootch but if they’re caught drink-driving they could be banned for SIX MONTHS.

One of our Scottish travellers has bought himself a jilaba and changes into it. He is no Lawrence of Arabia and still looks like Jimmy of Clydebank in a dress.

Friday 6 November – Day at Sea

More of the usual doing little. The Spa is offering five minute makeovers which, quite frankly would be miraculous if it made any difference. There are quoits, quizzes and four ladies determined to conquer the steps to Singular Sensation from A Chorus Line. I see them more in Disney’s Hippo dance.

Tonight Cathy and I dine in the Yacht Club with Malcolm, the hotel director, Peter, the purser and Monica the very lovely receptionist. We also invite Chris, the retired school-teacher from our regular dinner table. The bars are back in business and we down an aperitif before making much merriment at dinner causing consternation and alarm amongst the hearing-aids nearby. The Yacht Club is an additional dining room, considered by many to be the highlight of their voyage on Discovery, which has to be booked and to which you’re only supposed to have one visit per cruise. Tonight the dinner theme is a Jazz supper. I’d been reluctant to go there as I thought Andrea, our Cruise Director, intercom announcer, entertainment arranger and accomplished singer would be there to sing jazz classics. However, it was only the menu which had daft names like Ella Fitzgerald’s Moist Meringues and Satchmo’s sizzling meat. I tucked into Duke Ellington’s rump.

(Benghazi – Al Khums 392 nm/ 726 km)

Saturday 7 November – Al Khums

Chris tells Cathy that he was most honoured to be at the dinner last night. I gather he doesn’t get out much. We’ve plowed the Gulf of Sidra through the night and dock this morning at the port of Al Khums which is busy with its container businesses. The rigmarole of immigration continues so we sit and wait to disembark again. I hear that there are a few Canadians on board who are having a very hard time getting ashore. It turns out that the Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs made some comments about the Great Leader Gaddafi and in response, the Libyan Dictator of Forty Years Rule has let it be known that Canadians are not welcome here. The Purser is probably having to fork out a bottle of whisky for each Canadian just to get them ashore. A few of the immigration officials are having a right old ding dong on the stairs with much gesticulating and loud voices between them as we are given clearance to land. I suppose the spoils and bribes have not been evenly distributed. We have a cheery guide called Nasser with us today and the journey from the dock to Leptis Magna is only half an hour. Nasser once studied and lived in Liverpool and Blackpool and speaks splendid English – even able to dip into Scouse. Leptis (though we now know it should properly be referred to as Lepkis as this means ‘Fringes of the Desert’) is magnificent. It is the biggest of all Roman ruins and rivals Ephesus for its completeness and magnitude. There are baths and forums, arena and hippodrome, circus and temples. This is what most of us came for and no one was disappointed. It benefited from Nasser’s knowledge and enthusiasm. He was born, brought up and now lives in Al Khums. He used to come here as a lad and play on the ruins which were excavated once by interested Italians but the work has long since been abandoned on a great scale. A few French and American archaeologists occasionally get permission to scratch around but there is still so much to uncover. History is not really a priority here.

(Al Khums to Tripoli 139 nm / 257 km)

Sunday 8 November – Tripoli

It’s not far to Tripoli so the Discovery takes a stately stroll along the coast through the night and we are ready and waiting, and waiting, for the authorities to clear us again this morning. Today the bars are firmly locked in case Muammar decides to make a personal visit. I’m on a tour to another Punic/Greco/Roman ruin on the outskirts of the capital but which takes, due to horrendous traffic, two hours to reach. Water costs more per litre in Libya than petrol so everyone is dying of thirst driving around town and all headed towards the same roundabout which causes the congestion. Our tour guide is appalling – Mr ‘Yes OK’. He talks endlessly in a language incommunicable with any other human being (dead or alive). He has a random only memory which accesses odd words in English interspersed with ‘Yes, OK’ and then thrown out like shit at a fan hoping something might stick. It may stick but it doesn’t make much sense. Everyone has reached and switched off volume buttons and a fellow tourist asks if he could speak lower. In the end he is talking to himself but as we are sitting near the front it is still torture.

The site is another splendid ruin by the sea. What the earthquake or tsunami didn’t wreck then time and disinterest has. Had the Italians not invaded and made this a colony these archaeological gems would have been hidden for ever.

On the way back, a lot of people have moved to the back of the bus but Mr Yes, OK seems to have finally given up and remains remarkably quiet for the return journey.

I decide it’s to be another night without dinner yet I can’t see me any thinner.

(Tripoli – Valetta 197 nm/ 365 km)

Monday 9 November – Valetta, Malta

The ship is trundling along excruciatingly slowly. I try and help by getting on the running machine for 30 minutes but we are sailing slower than a rubber duck. Though we are not due to dock in Valetta until midday we could have been enjoying much of Malta before 1000. I suppose they don’t want to pay extra port fees. Cathy has arranged to meet an old chum of hers here who is on Malta for some high powered meeting, He has a car and takes us to Mdina, a rather ornate and lovely city in the middle of the island. We then have an hour wandering around Valetta and I’m much impressed with its buildings. The island though is mightily over-populated with hardly a piece of land unused. There are a bunch of towns between Valetta and Mdina but they all seem to converge as one long housing sprawl. If Libya only has 3 people per square kilometre there must be three thousand, or even three hundred thousand here. So what makes many Maghrebis and sub-Saharans want to push on to over-crowded places like Malta when there is so much land in places like Libya?

I return to find a note slipped under my door. Louise, the Social Hostess has invited me to another dinner in the Yacht Club. Tonight’s theme is Italian and I join Fiona, the cabaret singer from South Shields and a couple from Essex. The Godfather Tournedos steak is excellent and the Napoli seafood salad is appropriately small but quite well dressed. Cathy sits, like a dowager chaperone, between me and Louise and, as I am next to Fiona, we chat a lot about Geordie things.

Alas, I’m not up to the sing-a-longa Abba after dinner so let the singers n swingers get on with it.

(Valetta – Palermo 243 nm / 450 km)

Tuesday 10 November – Palermo, Sicily

I’d always imagined the Sicilian capital Palermo to be a classically decorative and opulent Italian city. It’s run-down, scruffy and quite miserable. It was ruled by the Arabs for three hundred years. Today’s Palermo has cracked gutters and unlovely buildings. I walked around in the drizzle the highlight being a visit to the Opera house featuring a statue of homeboy Bellini and major maestro Verdi. The backstreets are a weave of washing dangling from every balcony with tenants dropping baskets over on ropes so they can haul up the daily deliveries from the dealer or the baker. Dobermanf dogs run wild in some patch of a park mired amongst the rumbling buildings and quite a few poor and homeless are wandering about. It’s not a place to take your grandfather. I’m told they have enough there already.

(Palermo – La Goulette 194 nm / 359 km)

Wednesday 11 November – La Goulette, Tunisia

The water is shimmering in the shining sun. Tunis has a huge lake between it and the sea. They have built a new port there at La Goulette connected to the capital by a 10 km causeway. The tour buses have left a while ago but I’m trying to use the internet to book flights. The ship has the crappiest of broadband connections and the Star Alliance booking form is still trying to upload after forty minutes (I’m trying to book flights for a Round the World trip). I give up and think it’s time for a wander about. There is a train that runs quite close to the ship from La Goulette into Tunis and takes about ten minutes. I get 10 dinars out a cash machine (about five pounds) and get my ticket. Just walking to the bank and I have a feeling that Tunisia is a good place. There are a lot of school children out chatting. They’re mixed and most girls have their heads uncovered. They are elegant and fashionable and the boys seem to have emptied buckets of brylcreem on their hair. There are a few people waiting for the train – again all easy and patient. No one gives undue stares to me as I whip out my video and film the platform; nor on the train. It’s a slight schlep from the train terminus into the heart of town but no more than a walk down Oxford Street. There are flower sellers along the road with colourful arrays of fine blooms and lots of roses. The main street is a flutter of Tunisian flags and posters of Big Al. They’ve just had elections – it is a very democratic country even though Ali Ben seems to have been president for ever. Avenue B is bustling. People walk, talk, chat, kiss, shop and scurry about just like in Paris. Not surprising. The Tunisians have benefited enormously from the French past. There are trains across the country (unlike Libya); there is an ease and lack of suspicion (unlike Libya); there is a sense of civic organisation and noble buildings (unlike Libya and Palermo); the cafes are as busy as any in Saint Germain and people even look modern and smart. I wander into the medina and get lost. But again, there is no sense of being stared at or about to be mugged or hassled. It’s all carts and clatter, shops and shoppers. I work out where the sun is heading and follow it and come out in view of the big church on the main avenue. There are few Christians left here but the Cathedral is treated respectably and is a major monument in the city.

There are bathing points along the coast and I can understand this being a choice destination for le top Paris at one time. A posh suburb has all the villas of the likes of Yves Saint Laurent. The train even trundles out to the airport and to the remains of Carthage beyond. Alas no time for that. I have a drink and take the train back to the ship where I sneak into the port through a gap in the wall and am whistled at by the customs guard. Instead of being all shitty and shirty he just wants my landing card and we have a chat instead. He wants to know if I’ve seen any pretty girls. Well, I have, actually. I still have over seven and half dinars left but the buggers at the port shop will only accept euro. Anyone going to Tunisia soon? I recommend it.

The rest of our dining table has disappeared to the Yacht Club so Cathy & I join a jolly couple. Roy is a retired mathematician who would look happy in any garden dressed as a gnome and holding a fishing rod.

We could have won the quiz if the girl presenting the quiz 9and the first time we’ve set eyes on her) didn’t ask the tie-break question ‘what is my name?’. We’d been sitting too far back to see her name badge and it turns out she’s been ill the past week so hasn’t been seen, or heard.

Thursday 12 November – Day at Sea

My neck is in rictus when I wake up and I shuffle painfully about the boat as we plough the sea to Barcelona. It is splendidly sunny and nicely warm. The deck chairs are all taken and the paperbacks devoured. There is a drinks do for those who’ve travelled before on Discovery. The on board lecturer delivers the same spiel that we’ve all heard before including the same piece about a politically correct Nelson. We all laughed again though it doesn’t improve with repetition. The internet is still completely buggery useless so I don’t know where I am with a possible Antarctic cruise which begins next week as I have to be in California before 16 December and the cruise finishes in Buenos Aires on 10 December – and most flights between the two are getting horribly booked up.

It is the Captain’s farewell dinner tonight so another chance to slip into my little black suit with a waistcoat of many colours. Sadly there are not many people properly dressed. Of our lot, Constance and Chris have put on the finery but even Cathy has decided she wouldn’t put on her posh frock like the last Captain’s dinner as she felt too peacock in a hen yard. Indeed, there is quite a dowdy shower and the only electricity in the air will be from the static caused by the over abundance of too much polyester colliding with crimplene. The serving staff has to go through two of these sittings but bring out the baked Alaska with cheery aplomb like it was the first time for everyone.

(La Goulette – Barcelona 491 nm / 909 km)

Friday 13 November – Barcelona

Today we dock in Barcelona - the pick-pocket playground where at least three passengers are subjected to a variety of scams including the Romanian gypsy women with babies who rummage through your bags as you try and look sympathetic; the gang who squirt muck on your head from an apartment above the street then rush down and offer to help clean you up before cleaning you out or the moped riders who drive past and pull off your handbag/watch/camera. I never understand why so many hens, staggers and visitors pile into the place to be over-charged and under served. I suppose it’s all that Gaudi and Guell, seafront and seafood. In the intimidating and windy streets in the old Gothic quarter there is a banner on a balcony saying ‘Stop dealing drugs here’ and ‘Tourists go home’. With the rising cost of eating and drinking in Barcelona and the increasing crime it may not be too long before they heed the message and not return.

(Total distance 2198 nm / 4071 kms)