Tuesday 4 November 2025 – On the way: Roger

It was late afternoon when we boarded the Singapore airlines flight from Auckland to Singapore. As usual on Singapore Airlines the service was great and the food not too bad either. A few hours into the flight I put the bed down to endeavour to get some sleep. Even though the journey was a little bit bumpy in places I’m sure I got a bit of sleep on the way. Over 10 hours later we relaxed in the first class lounge at Changi waiting for the next leg. About three hours later we were on the 12.5-hour flight to Munich. This journey also was a little bumpy on the way; nothing serious but just those little shakes that are enough to wake you up if you happen to be sleeping.

At Munich we headed to the lounge to pass another boring few hours. It’s not the flying so much on these trips but the time you spend going through security and immigration and waiting in lounges that can make it all a little tiring. Eventually we bused to the A320 that was waiting on the tarmac, along with dozens of other aircraft, and boarded, only to be told by the pilot. “Sorry to inform you that there is a cyclone going through Lisbon at the moment and they’ve cut down the number of aircraft that can land, so we’re going to have to wait here for a while before we commence our journey’. After a hour-plus sitting in the aircraft, we finally got underway. The flight to Lisbon was pretty uneventful until we came into land when the aircraft was getting tossed around quite a bit and I felt a bit sorry for the pilot as he must have been having a bit of trouble getting the thing to hit the runway. But soon we were on the ground and on a bus to the terminal, where we walked out and met our driver for the ~45-minute drive to The One Palacio da Anunciada Hotel in the middle of the city. It appears to be a couple of old buildings that have been joined together to make it into a hotel. It is still in the process of being renovated but once we worked out how to get to our room it was pretty nice with all the mod cons.

We grabbed a couple of umbrellas and took a stroll to Decathlon, just under two kms from the hotel, where I replaced my walking shoes for a mere €65. By 7 o’clock we were both falling asleep so that was the end of the day for us. Sylvia worked out that the journey had taken ~44 hours.

interestingly now Sylvia has retired I had thought we wouldn’t be flying very much. This year I have spent 186 hours on flights with the trip home and a trip to Malaysia to come before Xmas.

Thursday 6 November 2025 – Lisbon: Sylvia

We woke early this morning after having crashed early last night. Having been to Lisbon a few times in the past, we decided to explore some of the lesser-known places that we haven’t visited before. We enjoyed a lovely, leisurely breakfast in the very well-decorated restaurant. Roger even finished his breakfast with a warm pasteis de nata, fresh from the oven. A little later we headed out, waiting out a passing rain squall before leaving.

First we stopped to look at one of the impressive art installations by Bardalo II. He has several of these wall size pieces of art around the city, all made out of various pieces of junk that would otherwise have been discarded. Hopefully we’ll get to see a few more while we are here. This one is of two marabou storks.

A little further down the road we came to the church of Sao Domingos. Dating from the 13th century, and once the largest church in Lisbon, this building was severely damaged during the 1755 earthquake, and again in a severe fire in 1959. Today the pillars clearly show the scars of this damage.

We headed to a nearby metro station and caught the underground towards the northwest of Lisbon. We then wandered out towards a large aqueduct that had been built to supply water to the city in the 1700’s. The main section is 14kms but is part of a larger network of ~58 kms. The water was gravity fed from an area near Sintra. Most of the time the channels were at ground level but in order to cross the Alcantara valley this large above-ground aqueduct was built with a series of arches, including the world’s largest stone arch built in one single span. At 65m tall and 29 m wide it is quite impressive. We were able to walk about one km of the aqueduct, then crossed over to the other side to walk back again. As we crossed over we had quite a good view of the two channels that carried the water.

We then caught an Uber to the Lisbon 1755 Earthquake experience. I had seen signs for this exhibition during previous visits. This facility has some great interactive exhibits, including some earthquake simulators. We were assigned to a small group and we moved together through 10 different rooms, each with different exhibits. We had 10 minutes in each room to explore. One ‘room’ explores life in Lisbon in the 1750s. At one point we were ushered into a ‘church’ and a mass was started, probably the only time Roger will ever attend one. A few minutes in and the room began to shake violently. The images that had been projected onto the walls changed from a tranquil cathedral interior to show the destruction of the building and the fire. As we moved into the next room the strong smell of smoke was everywhere and the exhibits focused on the aftermath of the earthquake and the large tsunami. Roughly 20% of the population of ~200,000 were killed. The last room had stories from some of the survivors and showed the process of rebuilding. A decision was made to level what remained of the city and use the rubble to create a flatter area with grids of wide streets. This became an example that is still referred to by town planners today.

We jumped back onto public transport, catching the bus to Time Out, a large indoor market area featuring numerous food stands. We had visited this place last year. My sister, Debbie, and I had bought a couple of eclairs to share after our main lunch. I had offered a bite to Roger and he had taken a huge chunk, much to my horror. After indulging in a very tasty burger, I bought two more eclairs for Roger and I to share for supper this evening – one salted caramel and one raspberry and passion fruit. Delicious they were too.

We returned to the hotel, where we had booked 80-minute massages. A very pleasant way to end our first real day of vacation.

 

Friday 7 November 2025 – Lisbon: Roger

Breakfast was in a different part of the dining area today with an ornate pink ceiling and copper lights on the wall. There was another couple on one side of the restaurant and a single woman on the other and they persisted in engaging in a conversation right across the restaurant in their loud American twang.

Breakfast over we took another stroll back to Decathlon for Sylvia to buy a couple long sleeve tops and we also picked up some protein powder. Next was an Uber to the waterfront, where we joined a queue of well over 100 people and worked our way to a desk where they checked that we had a yellow fever certificate, a boarding pass and Passport. They also took our bags.  From there we went to another place, this time to check in. From there we went upstairs joining another queue, this time to really check in, but the queues were not over because,  next was the immigration queue that took at least an hour. Eventually we made it onto the Sirena at about 1:15 pm. After visiting the muster area, we headed to the buffet restaurant for lunch. We joined a lovely couple, Charles and Suzanne from Quebec, and enjoyed a nice lunch while we chatted away.

We had received notice late yesterday that we had been upgraded to a bigger cabin or should I say suite. This is right up the front of the boat with windows and a balcony overlooking the bow. As we were settling in the butler came and introduced himself and ran us through, most importantly, how to order the booze, along with a few other things.

Later in the afternoon Sylvia went out for a stroll to look at some street art while I relaxed in the cabin, or should I say the lounge part of the cabin. It’s actually quite big.

 

Saturday 8 November 2025 – Porto: Sylvia

Neither of us slept well last night. It was certainly not due to a lack of comfort. Our suite is fantastic and the bed very comfortable. I guess it was just the jet lag catching up with us.

A couple of days ago we received notification that due to strikes in Portugal we would not be leaving port in Lisbon yesterday evening as scheduled. Instead we would spend an extra 31 hours here and skip our first two ports, Funchal and Santa Cruz de la Palma. Luckily we had visited those ports last year so it was not too big of a deal for us. But we didn’t really want to spend another day in Lisbon either. So, after a tasty, early breakfast in our room, we headed out to the train station, about a km away. There we purchased return tickets to Porto and settled ourselves in for the ~3 hour trip. At exactly 9am the train rolled out. Very impressive timing.

We rocked along at up to 220kph passing villages and farmland. The land is pretty flat and seems to be well tended. The driver made liberal use of the horn as we sped through towns. We had caught the express train with only 5 stops along the way so time passed pretty quickly. Unfortunately the windows were too dirty for us to capture any photos. Eventually we arrived at the coast and followed it north for the last 25-minutes or so to Porto.

We arrived in Porto bang on time, just before noon and grabbed an Uber to take us to the cathedral. This Romanesque building was completed in 1737, some 600 years after ground was first broken. Things moved much slower back then… The cloister area features large areas covered with azulejos, one of the main reasons I wanted to visit. For some reason I am absolutely fascinated by these Portuguese tiles. There were good views over the rest of the city from the cathedral area. There are certainly a lot of large churches in the town.

We wandered down the hill and found a very nice restaurant for lunch. I can highly recommend Impar if you find yourself hungry in Porto. We each enjoyed a delicious sirloin steak with a port wine sauce. Roger finished his lunch with an apple crumble and I had a trio of mousse (chocolate, caramel and lime). While we were eating lunch, four break dancers put on quite a show outside the restaurant.

After lunch we wandered across a square and followed a circuitous route over ramps and narrow pathways into what, from the outside, looked to be a derelict building. It was, in fact, the Sao Bento train station, which featured a whole lot more azulejos. This was probably the most impressive display we saw all day and was even more enjoyable because of the crazy route.

After making our way back out we headed up a hill to Igreja do Carlo, a baroque church built between 1756 and 1768, you guessed it, covered in more azulejos. The outside was quite impressive. We paid the entry and went inside. To my eyes, this was one of the ugliest and weirdest churches I have ever visited.  It has several heavily gilded altars which dominate the overall space. This church, which was originally for the monks, stands next to another, Igreja dos Carmelita’s, which was originally for the nuns.  Between the two churches is a very narrow house, known as the hidden house. At the front it is only about a metre wide but opens up to about three metres at the back. It was occupied until the 1980’s and apparently hosted secret meetings during the French invasion by Napoleon in 1932/33. We meandered up and down stairs and in and out of various rooms show-casing all sorts of weird and wonderful items. There was even a small catacomb complete with a mummified nun and a few skulls. We were also able to climb up to the roof for views back over Porto.

We strolled back past the cathedral to the Luis I bridge and across the river to Gaia. This bridge has train tracks running across and pedestrian access. We were not there at peak time but there were certainly plenty of people around. I would hate to be a train driver here. Silly tourists step out in front of the trains to take photographs, seemingly oblivious. Luckily the drivers seem to be well used to this behaviour. The bridge provides great views down to the Ribeira area, which was absolutely pumping, full of people enjoying the great weather. We saw street performers all over the city but the Ribeira area seems to be the busiest.

Across the river in Gaia, we climbed up to the Monastery of Serra do Pilar, which was unfortunately closed but provided excellent views back over Porto.

We grabbed an Uber down to the Ribeira area and just had time to sit and enjoy a green tea (me) and a coffee (Roger) and do a spot of people watching, before it was time to grab another Uber back to the train station for the ~3 hour journey back to Lisbon. Once again the train departed bang on time.

 

Sunday 9 November 2025 – At Sea: Roger

It was about 0100 hrs when we set sail with very few bumps and bangs to only slightly wake us from our slumber. Today we were at sea all day so apart from an ocean with a slight swell on it there was not much to see.

We headed to the grand dining room for an a’la carte breakfast, after which we took a bit of a wander around the Sirena. The layout is much the same as the Marina that we were on across the Mediterranean last year except the Sirena is a little smaller. She has an overall length of 180m, nine passenger decks and a staff to passenger ratio of 1.71 to one with a full load of just under 700 passengers. She is powered by two diesel electric motors and four Wartsila engines. A couple of 750 kW bow thrusters help her move in port areas very precisely. She also has a couple of folding fins or stabilisers that extend out just over 4 m to stop her rolling around too much on rough seas. Interestingly, she was built in Saint Nazareth, France, which is where the British ran a ship full of explosives up onto a dry dock in World War II, putting it out of action until well after the end of the war.

We are definitely not going to go hungry with a choice of five restaurants, a couple of cafes and a few bars. Oops, I almost forgot the casino and the Horizon lounge, where afternoon tea is served while a couple of musicians stroke the strings of a violin and cello. And of course the canapés, which are served in our room late every afternoon. Ashu, our Butler, delivered us a bottle of gin and 6 bottles of wine. Apparently they come with the room. “Bugger,” thirst will not be a something we have to worry about for the next 25 days.

After lunch we headed to the lounge where an Australian travel writer gave a not very inspiring talk on her travels.

Interestingly with some 69,000 commercial ships on the oceans of the world we never saw one all day. Makes one appreciate just how big the Atlantic Ocean is.

Here is our itinerary for the next few weeks…

Date	Day	Port	Arrive	Depart
7-Nov	Fri	Lisbon, Portugal	Embark	Overnight
8-Nov	Sat	Lisbon, Portugal		Overnight
9-Nov	Sun	At Sea		1 am
10-Nov	Mon	At Sea
11-Nov	Tue	Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands	8 am	5 pm
12-Nov	Wed	At Sea
13-Nov	Thu	At Sea
14-Nov	Fri	Mindelo (São Vicente), Cape Verde	8 am	6 pm
15-Nov	Sat	At Sea
16-Nov	Sun	Dakar, Senegal	7 am	4 pm
17-Nov	Mon	Banjul, Gambia	7 am	4 pm
18-Nov	Tue	At Sea
19-Nov	Wed	At Sea
20-Nov	Thu	Abidjan, Ivory Coast	1:30 pm	9:30 pm
21-Nov	Fri	Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana	9 am	6 pm
22-Nov	Sat	Lomé, Togo	9 am	6 pm
23-Nov	Sun	At Sea
24-Nov	Mon	São Tomé, São Tomé & Principe	7 am	4 pm
25-Nov	Tue	At Sea
26-Nov	Wed	At Sea
27-Nov	Thu	At Sea
28-Nov	Fri	Walvis Bay, Namibia	11am	Overnight
29-Nov	Sat	Walvis Bay, Namibia		5 pm
30-Nov	Sun	At Sea
1-Dec	Mon	Cape Town, South Africa	3 pm	Overnight
2-Dec	Tue	Cape Town, South Africa	Disembark

 

Monday 10 November 2025 – At Sea: Sylvia

It was another peaceful day at sea today. We started early this morning in the gym. Roger did his usual workout and I participated in a stretching and meditation class… a very nice way to ease into the day. After a quick shower we headed to breakfast in the Grand Dining Room. There are so many options of places to eat on board, including the option to have breakfast in our room, but on a sea days, eating in the dining room is a lovely option. The service is fantastic and the food is very good. I am particularly fond of the sticky buns.

At 9:30am I headed up to the 10th floor and joined a beginner’s bridge class. Apparently they will hold these every sea day. By the end of the cruise I should have a reasonable grasp of the basics of the game. The hour certainly passed quickly.

In what seemed like no time at all we were back in the Grand Dining Room for lunch. Again, this is a very relaxing place to dine on a sea day. At 2pm we headed down to the Sirena Lounge to hear a guest speaker giving some photography tips. It was fairly straight-forward but some useful tips nonetheless.

Straight after the talk, I joined the line dancing class. I always enjoy this for a bit of a laugh. And the gentle motion of the boat makes it even more fun. It is a good way to get a bit of exercise when we can’t get off the boat. I was surprised by how many people joined in. This boat has about half the number of passengers that were on the Marina last year, and about twice as many people at the line dancing.

Since we hadn’t eaten for a while (haha) we headed up to the Horizon Lounge for afternoon tea. It feels very decadent to be sitting looking out at the horizon, listening to the gentle sounds of the string duet and sipping tea from bone china while enjoying a scone with jam and cream and a selection of sandwiches and cakes. Roger used the time to finish his blog from yesterday.

It was time for a bit more exercise so I walked about 3kms doing several circuits of the walking track. There were quite a few people out walking, but even more laying by the pool.

Back in the room, we were joined by Suzanne and Charles, who we had met at lunch the first day. Roger had invited them over to help drink the champagne we had. They are a delightful couple and we laughed and chatted for an hour or so before they headed off for dinner and we settled in for a quiet evening.