Europe 2011 - Day 7

Lunch

Instead of Naples and Capri we stopped at Marseilles, France and we know that it is not Carnival’s fault, but it was not a very good trade. Marseilles is the second largest city in France and also a very, very industrialized city. The port is not made for the tourist trade as we had to take a shuttle bus 25 minutes from the port to the center of the old city.

The city was pretty, but really not very much to see. They also do not have any real beaches.



The Prison

We did hop on one of the little trains like we did in Monaco and took a tour of the city and it did also take us to the top of the mountain to see Notre Dame De La Garde Cathedral, which was impressive and the view was wonderful of the entire port.

We then had lunch at a little sidewalk restaurant in the center of the town and took the shuttle back to the ship.

By then it was time to get some more sun, which we did for about an hour and a half.

The Salmon - 6th course

As we left Marseilles, the ship passed very close to the tiny island that was a prison in olden times and where the Count of Monte Crisco was held capture. It was also where they filmed The Man in the Iron Mask.

Then it was time to clean up and go look at pictures that had been taken last night. We picked out, as usual, one picture to keep.

We had signed up for the Chef’s Table Experience and we met the head chef at 6:30pm in the Piano Bar to meet the head chef. We found out from him that Carnival has 30 head chefs for 23 ships. They basically work 9 months and then have 3 off. He was very impressive and we enjoyed his presentations.

Desert

We started out with campaign and to different canapés. Then it was down to the kitchen for the actual meal. We had a long table for 12 actually set up in the kitchen. The dinner was an 8 course dinner and had been prepared by 20 chefs during the day and evening. It was a wonderful meal.

The 6th course was Salmon with herb pesto, cured tomatoes, carrots, fava, mushroom earth and condensed beets. The 7th course was “Wagyu” consisting of slow stewed short ribs, potato pebbles, pumpkin fudge and tomato dust. No I am not making this up and yes Ed ate it all!!

The Chef's Table

The dinner was truly spectacular, just like it was on our last Carnival cruise.

We also met a couple from South Africa and it looks like we will join them at their table starting tomorrow evening. We sat with them at dinner tonight (they are on the end) and they are really nice. Our current table has not been that much fun and this couple, Ian and Sam seem to be very enjoyable.

The show tonight was “Destination: Unknown!” and they called it a night of extraordinary illusions and the magician was really good.

On to the casino, where we did well and then to bed.

Tomorrow - Rome