Luxury cruise in the Mediterranean
Amalfi, Pompeii, Valletta and the French Riviera are among the treasures on this idyllic sailing.
There is something graceful about arrival by ship, far removed from the thud of wheels on a tarmac. The port starts as a speck from afar and then comes to life. Imagine such arrivals on consecutive mornings in Elba, the island off Tuscany where Napoleon was exiled; Amalfi via Capri on Italy’s glorious southern coast; Giardini Naxos in Sicily with Mt Etna looming large; Valletta and Mgarr in Malta; Costa Smeralda, a jetset playground in Sardinia’s north built by the Aga Khan in the 1960s; and two French Riviera ports – Saint-Raphael near Cannes and Sanary-sur-Mer, with its rich literary past.
I am on an 11-day cruise of the western Mediterranean from Monte Carlo to Barcelona on luxury vessel Seabourn Sojourn. We will sail the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas to places of mythical allure with narratives from prehistoric to modern times. All that high-mindedness aside, it’s a time of indulgence, of good food and wine, in a setting that is picture-perfect for travellers – hot days in which the blues of the Mediterranean offset those of the sky. Locals yearn for the sweet smell of summer rain in a time of drought, so I greet another “beautiful” day sheepishly.
Seabourn Sojourn, with about 400 passengers and 345 crew, is a cut above in the world of cruising. My Veranda Suite No 824 is a spacious 34sq m and features a full-length window and glass door on to the balcony with two sun lounges and table. It has a living area with sofa, dining table for two, and a queen-size bed with pillow menu and comfort that ensures a smooth trip to dreamland. The walk-in robe has abundant hanging and drawer space and (in the believe-it-or-not category) the bathroom is blessed with shower and separate tub, laden with Molton Brown products. I love the motion-triggered nightlights that guide the path to the bathroom, TV with an extensive video library and access to the ABC, and stocked minibar, but above all, the crew members who keep my space spick and span. Like all the staff on-board, they are efficient, good-humoured and keen for a chat, much appreciated by a solo traveller.
How handy that the pool is just a few steps from my stateroom, where lighter meals are served at The Patio. Caviar and champagne events pop up here too. Aft is The Colonnade, good for the three main meals with dishes offered buffet-style or from the kitchen. Start the day with breakfasts fashioned to North American, British, European, Australian or Asian tastes, which cover the diverse range of passengers. They are of varying ages, but I notice a trend toward intergenerational cruising with grandparents hosting children and grandchildren. Many passengers are seasoned Seabourn travellers with voyage numbers well into double digits.
Dinner is also served in The Restaurant with a fine-dining a la carte menu. Think dishes such as sautéed scallops and red wine braised beef short ribs with horseradish. Selected wines are often Californian, French or Tuscan but Australian varieties have a strong show on an extra-charge list. Dining at The Grill by Thomas Keller is a treat for meat-lovers, also at additional cost. Post-dinner entertainment in the Grand Salon features crew singers and dancers and guest performers including a piano wiz and dazzling illusionist.
I have flown to Nice on the French Riviera, with a night to recover before joining the cruise in adjacent Monaco. Early morning my nose guides me to La Boulangerie par Michel Fiori, an award-wining eatery with open-air tables, where a jet lag-conquering espresso and two heavenly croissants assure me I am in a new realm of the senses. An orange falls from a street tree missing me by not much, a sign of the seasonal ripeness to come. Much of the vegetation will be familiar: oleanders are in bloom as is vivid bougainvillea and hibiscus; there’s a fair sprinkling of imported eucalyptus, as well as Aleppo pines, palms, cypress and citrus and olive orchards. And then there’s the vineyards.
If Seabourn Sojourn is a cut above, so too are its short excursions. Guides are knowledgeable locals (two point out the hospitals in which they were born), proficient in English and with a fine grasp of irony.
In Elba we dock at Portoferraio, with its fortified harbour the perfect sanctuary for a cavalcade of historic figures. Jason and the Argonauts, by Greek myth, visited, but Greeks and Romans from ancient times used the harbour to load iron and precious stones they mined here. Cosimo de’Medici built the old town, but its most memorable guest – well, “king” – was Napoleon, exiled for 300 days in 1814-15. He’s credited with putting the island in order, building roads and an economy, but widely admired for the social life he and his sister Paolina fostered. We visit his “palace”, the Palazzina dei Mulini, with its sweeping sea views (good for enemy alert). On then to Porto Azzurro, a pretty port with reminders of Spanish dominion. It is here I establish lemon granita as my go-to refresher. Please, there is more art to this citrus shaved ice dessert-drink than a convenience-store slushie. And top prize will go to a cafe in Sicily, home of the delight.
Our arrival in Amalfi is a vision to fix in the mind. The steep hills above are wooded in parts, with sheer drops to the water, broken by crevices and caves. White and pastel buildings with orchards cling in terraces.
I am on a trip to Pompeii and pleased to be in the hands of a local driver. The road along the Amalfi coast is narrow and serpentine. Our guide remarks about driving here in summer, “You know when you leave, you never know when you’ll arrive.” Another laments, “[The locals] start at the beach at the same time and end at the same time to go home to Mama for pasta, making it interesting for everyone.”
There are tourists aplenty at Pompeii but it is a large site, so wandering quietly through the ordered streets is possible. It’s stunning to see the ruins of a city captured in time, 79AD, with Mt Vesuvius still menacing in sight. Stop at the forum where gladiators trained, stroll along the main thoroughfare and identify early “takeaway” shops, admire murals on the walls of grand houses, peek if you dare at Pompeii porn in a brothel. But the poignant image that best captures the tragedy is seeing the cast of a woman face down cradling her head at the moment of terrifying death.
On our voyage south to Sicily through the Strait of Messina, we pass Stromboli. The captain says fiery eruptions are often visible. Not tonight. But at dawn Mt Etna stands bold as Sojourn sails into Giardini Naxos, the port for Taormina, a mountainside town with a Greco-Roman amphitheatre still used (it’s hard to improve on a smoking volcano as dramatic backdrop), a Grand Tour destination and magnet for literary types. Oscar Wilde stayed here and dreamed of an Arcadian life (not to be); D.H. Lawrence arrived in the early 1920s in search of respite from lung disease, a quest that that took him on to Thirroul, south of Sydney; and Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were enamoured too. The town’s streets and alleys are good for Sicilian food, ceramics, and high fashion. At a higher elevation, Castelmola is quieter, with an even grander vista, and its central cafe wins the granita globe.
I am a first-time visitor to Malta, which instantly becomes a must-return destination. Valletta owes its splendour to the Order of the Knights of St John, noblemen from important European families who founded an armed brotherhood to protect Holy Land pilgrims. Malta became their base and they showered wealth on St John’s Co-Cathedral, a gem of Baroque art. Caravaggio worked here and his Beheading of St John the Baptist is an arresting masterpiece, to say the least. I’m in love with the painted wooden verandas on grand residences (a symbol of wealth), particularly prominent in nearby Mdina, a walled city and Game of Thrones location. The verandas of one street look spruce: director Ridley Scott and actor Joaquin Phoenix have just finished filming a movie about Napoleon.
There are two more artistic havens on the cruise. Saint-Paul-de-Vence, not far from Cannes, is a medieval walled mountain village with a who’s who of past residents, including painters Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall and writer James Baldwin. Its modern galleries sell first-rate art, but arrive with a healthy wallet. Sanary is a quaint fishing village, home in the ’30s to Aldous Huxley, who wrote Brave New World here, and Sybille Bedford, whose 2005 memoir Quicksands, written in her nineties, is a treasure. Sanary provided sanctuary for German intellectuals fleeing Nazism in the ’30s, among them Bertolt Brecht, Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig. The town has an enticing market (check out the day’s catch and the most succulent tomatoes) and is the birthplace of scuba diving, home to Philippe Tailliez, Frederic Dumas and Jacques-Yves Cousteau whose pioneering exploits are honoured in a small museum.
On to Barcelona where the 18 spires of Antoni Gaudi’s magnificent Gothic revival-art nouveau church, La Sagrada Familia, are still under construction after 140 years. Gaudi supposedly said, “My client (God) is in no hurry.” But I am in a hurry to return to the marvels of the Mediterranean.
In the know
Seabourn offers a wide range of cruises throughout the world. Seabourn Sojourn will sail a 10-day Tyrrhenian Treasures and Malta trip, similar to the one described, departing Monte Carlo on October 4, 2023; from $7699 a person, twin-share.
Graham Erbacher was a guest of Seabourn.