I woke early & had some breakfast in one of the breakfast buffets onboard the ship before disembarking & meeting the guide for my guided tour of Palma today.
Palma de Mallorca.
The guide checked me onto the coach & after everyone was on the coach we drove into Palma town centre. We were dropped off along the shore & the guide made sure we knew that this is where we would be picked up to go back to the ship. Some people would be staying after doing the tour but as my leg was sore already I planned to go straight back to the ship.
We soon set off on our tour where we went around the outside of the Royal Almadaina Castle, through its gardens & then on to see the outside of the Cathedral in Palma. Our guide kept telling us lots of information about the history of the places we visited & the areas we passed through.
After leaving the Cathedral we walked through some of Palma's more well-off areas, with beautiful courtyard buildings along both sides of the small roads & alleyways that we walked. After we had walked around for a while being shown lots of interesting places we walked through a pedestrian area to a more commercial area of Palma where we stopped for some tapas & sangria.
The couple of tapas we shared between us was very tasty but not very filling & for the price we had paid & the description of the tour I was expecting to visit more than one bar but after a half-hour stop we set off back through Palma towards our pick-up point.
We went past one strange-looking piece of artwork that reminded me of an upturned church, before walking along the river that lead down to the sea & onto the bastion which used to defend Palma. When we left the bastion we visited the old Merchants Guild which we could go inside. It must have been a fantastic building for the merchants to meet in & do business, it is still very impressive, but I was surprised when we were told no goods were ever taken inside. It was just a place for the merchants to finalise their deals.
After leaving the Merchants Guild we walked past some more Gothic-inspired buildings before our tour finished near our start point. After our guided tour, myself & the Swiss couple I had met onboard the ship & had sat with at the tapas bar today, were the only people who returned to the ship with our guide. When I left the coach at the end of the trip I went to give the guide a tip but she inexplicably darted away from the coach immediately without saying anything to the three of us still left with her. Oh well her loss was my gain, I will buy myself a beer with her tip next week.
After returning to the ship, I returned to my cabin to rest my legs. I immediately fell asleep & didn't wake up till about 5:30 pm. I showered & got dressed to go to dinner, where I met my cruise companions, Sue & Bryan, & Lynda & Michael. We ate dinner together & then we all went our separate ways. I went to the Colosseum bar to see a singer. She was very good & probably the best singer I had seen on board, it was just a shame the three women sitting next to me wouldn't stop talking all the way through the show, they didn't watch & couldn't have been listening to her. I particularly liked her version of Shallow by Lady Ga-Ga.
After listening to the singer I went to my cabin. We are due back in Valencia in the morning & I packed my case & left it outside my cabin to be picked up & taken off the ship tomorrow morning.