Dubrovnik

Old Port and town walls

Many red and white checked shirts could be seen around this beautiful city on the Adriatic, since it was the very day that Croatia dashed England’s hopes of winning the Soccer World Cup in 2018.  The town was also crowded with tourists, most of whom could not care less about the soccer.

Beach at Dubrovnik

In fact, as John said, what were so many Italian, English and American ankle biters and sullen teenagers following their parents around doing, spoiling our view?  We have certainly landed in Europe at a popular time, with schools and universities closed for two-three months for the summer holidays.

Within the walls

Dubrovnik was beautiful, nevertheless and easy for John to get around the old walled town.  Although there were many steps, there were also easily graded and smooth alternative routes.

The only downside is that Sea Princess avoids informing passengers about cheap and accessible public transport, preferring to direct passengers to their own inflated and non-accessible tours. In place of the non-accessible and $20 shuttle buses, the ship arranged an access mini-bus for us and one other passenger.  However, only one wheelchair user could be carried at a time.  We later found out from friends that the public buses which stop at the port were all wheelchair accessible.

Town square

A leisurely coffee

The obligatory icecream

Loophole

Garden within walls

Drawbridge

City gate

Part of our difficulties re this cruise is of our own making.  With John being in hospital twice this year and between times having so many medical tests and follow up appointments, he had no time for the travel research he normally does.  And it’s impossible as we are cruising due to the nature of the internet experience – expensive and much slower than at home.

Corfu, Greece

A lovely place, Corfu.  However, although I later found it to have plenty of wheelchair access - the Hop-on,Hop-off bus and the ordinary public buses - Princess Tours knew none of this.  There is only one accessible taxi and it was already booked.  Not that the taxi company answers its phone or its emails.

Not that John could disembark!  The ramps were too short and his wheels just skidded.  I got off.  And that's when I discovered the buses.  So very disappointing for John.  And depressing.

Here are some photos taken around the suburbs and old Corfu town.  The island is a gardener's paradise.  Very lush.

Singapore: Wheelchair accessibility

John Moxon aboard the SMRT

We’ve decided to plan a holiday in Singapore – fly and stay – since it is impressively accessible.  The trains are wonderful and the stations are plentiful.  The downside of course is the weather.  Being right on the equator, it is hot and oppressively humid.  Despite that, we walked approximately 14 km, according to John’s wheelchair distance monitor.

Driverless train

The SMRT – the driverless underground train system – is wonderfully accessible, as you can see in these photos.  We didn’t try out the buses.  Many of the stations have huge underground shopping arcades and there are adequate lifts to reach these and street level.

We occasionally had to take a longer route to find the barrier-free access, including at street crossings.  At Orchard Road, pedestrians are encouraged to use the underpass – only accessible by escalator or stairs – so we had to walk an extra block to find a street crossing.

Easy access and egress - no ramp required

The Gardens by the Bay – a must see attraction – are also fully wheelchair accessible.  We wandered vast distances in this park and there is much to see.  There are boardwalks and lifts to all features where needed.

Photos of these coming.

We are yet to check out – on another holiday – the access to the many museums, old and new but are confident the Singaporeans have done their best.

Maybe some of our wheelie friend readers can comment?

Margaret's perspective on cruising

On Saturday morning, Sea Princess arrived in Rotterdam, the third biggest port in the world after a Friday sail away from Zeebrugge, where we visted Brugge (Bruges).  

As you know, we arranged many excursions ourselves, but where there was a Princess Tours wheelchair accessible tour available in a port, we opted for that.  However, as we discovered in Civitavecchia (the port for Rome), we should not have been so confident.  Whilst catering very well for seniors who use manual wheelchairs or lightweight scooters and can climb stairs (there are many such people), it has no idea how to cater for people who can’t transfer to a “normal” seat. This is despite our tickets being described as “wheelchair-confined”.  Princess Tours had to learn the hard way (me stressing out big time/ John clinically and logically but very precisely stating his case), backed up by our new friends Mal and Lesley from Melbourne.

We had also booked Princess sponsored “wheelchair-confined” tours in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki and Tallin, so our confidence was at a low ebb after Rome.  However, we now have the ship’s full attention, and the Amsterdam coach trip was an example of great service and we told them so this morning.  They secured a coach with a side platform lift (like we had for our Computer Club tour to Hunter Valley), proper tie downs and seat belt.  Hopefully they will do the same where they can for our other ports of call.  Tomorrow’s tour of Copenhagen will be in a van like in Rome, we have been told.  We are getting “special” attention from Princess, but we’d rather that it was routine so that future travellers can benefit – all rather exhausting for everyone.

We emphasised this morning that we write a travel blog and that quite a few of our friends are looking to us for advice.  Lots of our friends with disabilities who have worked full time and/or successfully run businesses have disposable income and will be checking out cruising.  Sea Princess on-board wheelchair access is very good, and the crew are marvellous opening those difficult deck doors, reserving easy access tables for wheelchair users and helping any way they can.  We prefer eating in the bistro areas rather than in the dining room, simply because it’s more relaxed, but if you enjoy fine dining every night, you just need to make sure your allocated seating is easily accessible. On the first night, we had to ask to be reallocated (because the route to the table was not thought through by Princess) but this was very quickly arranged.

John has been far healthier on this cruise than he was two years ago on our trip through the Panama to the UK – no infections at all.  I’ve had a couple of days of back aches and being out of sorts (including being a painful travel companion) but nothing to worry about.  Our fuses are short but fizz very quickly.

As a partner, I think it’s a great way to travel – the best relaxation possible.  Unpack once, get into a routine with the changed personal care procedures (always different from home), meet and chat to interesting people, ocean gaze and read, read, read is my idea of a great time.  The library on this ship is nothing like as good as on the Cunard line, but mostly we read e-books anyway.  I also introduced a “family history” group on the ship, and we’ve had three meetings so far and made a few friends that way.  We would like to meet more often, but these “common interest groups” are scheduled by the ship’s entertainment team, and there is plenty of competition from other hobbyists – cricket fans, motor home travellers, residents of various Australian states, Kiwis, Maltese speakers.  And of course, shipboard life is full of activities anyway.

We’ve met many interesting crew members – many of the wait staff are university or college graduates from non-EU countries in Eastern Europe like Serbia/ Moldova with qualifications in economics, linguistics, accounting who cannot get into their professions in their own countries and who cannot get visas in Western Europe including the UK to work and save money.  Is this now the future for young British people outside the European Union?  I fear so, and so do they.  It was mostly their parents and grandparents who voted to leave.

The cabin stewards are Asian; our steward Rene is Filipino with three school aged boys he is sending to an English language fee paying school and a baby daughter.  He’s been on the ships for twenty years and his wife has to manage without him for about 10 months a year and relies on his wages and passenger tips.

I’ll leave Amsterdam till the next post. Keep the Facebook comments and the blog comments coming, we so much enjoy hearing from you.  Neither of us are homesick though.

Salerno, Naples and Pompeii

I had to add the photos of these places to a Facebook Album because I'm having technical difficulties with Blogger - it won't insert photos right now, so apologies readers.

The ship offered no suitable tours from Italy’s Salerno, our first port of call in the Mediterranean. So John researched the port and neighbouring Naples and Pompeii to find a wheelchair accessible tour and made a booking before we left home.  He found a company which could provide a wheelchair accessible Opel van with a ramp, and a driver as well as a guide. The tour company is called Tour Guides Naples, so just Google it, we thoroughly recommend it.

So right on time, Massimo the accredited guide and historian found us at the terminal and directed Antonio the driver to take us directly to Naples where we climbed to a wealthy suburb called Posillipo with views to Capri and to Mt Vesuvius.

From there we returned to Naples with brief photo stops along the way, including the three castles within the city – the Castle of Saint Elmo, the New Castle and the Castle of the Ovo (Egg) which is at sea level; then a longer stop at the Plebiscite Square and the Umberto Galleries.  As well as huge domed skylights, the Galleries had many restaurants, bakeries and beautiful tiled art.

The pizza Marguerita for which Naples is famous was named after a visiting royal.

Early afternoon we left Naples for the drive to Pompeii, the site of a great tragedy when Mt Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 and destroyed the whole area, killing most inhabitants. Pompeii had been founded by the Osci or original italic peoples in the 8^th century BC, then conquered by the Greeks, Samnites and Romans in turn, but after this major eruption, Pompeii lay dormant for nearly 2000 years.  Although it was a Roman colony, there are also many traces of the Samnite traditions.  Earlier eruptions had not defeated the citizens, but the eruption of 79 AD certainly did.

By the time the volcanic matter, ash and poisonous gases had stopped raining down, all life had been extinguished in Pompeii and a large area around it. There was no chance of escape. Everything was covered with about six metres of ash which solidified after the first rains.  This is how the people and animal life ended up being discovered as skeletons with a hollow body shaped space around each.  The site was left alone because people feared it and apart from some looting, excavations did not occur until the 19^th century.  An archaeologist Giuseppe Forelli was the first to pour plaster of Paris into the spaces and thus preserve the bodies.

After lunch at a small cafe, we entered the Pompeii site at a secondary gate which led directly to a section of the site which is now fully wheelchair accessible.  Entrance was free for wheelchair users and their carers (or hanger-on partners like me).  We walked along a path between the Grand Palestra where the gladiators trained and the Amphitheatre (built in 80 BC, the oldest known) where the great fights occurred.  Everyone, free or slave could visit the amphitheatre to watch events.

Close by, we visited the Villa of Julia Felix which included many restored rooms, orchards, a bathhouse and gardens, as well as a cobbled street of houses and shops, some of them restored.  

At the entrance gates there is a display of the plaster casts of the poor inhabitants – the photos show us better than words can describe their dreadful fate.

Many of the other villages around Pompeii had been rebuilt and the land is very fertile, with a rich agricultural industry.

Then it was back to the Sea Princess at Salerno, via the motorway which included many tunnels though the mountainous terrain. Massimo was an excellent guide and very knowledgeable about his city, Napoli where he was born and went to university.  We’d certainly recommend this company.

Of course we were extremely close to the Amalfi coast and would have loved to drive along it, as well as visit the isle of Capri, but with just a few hours on shore, that would have been impossible.