going places
CRUISING / LETTER FROM AMERICA
BON VOYAGES As we enter a golden age of cruising, seasoned travel writer Mark Palmer explains why – if you are yet to try one – it really is time to get on board…
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My father-in-law loved to travel – and he loved the sun. In the lead-up to Malawi’s Independence Day in 1964, Noel was in the Colonial Service stationed in the town of Blantyre (where my wife Joanna was born) and developed a deep love of Africa and its people.
Some years later, having joined the BBC in a non-journalism role, he was mainly office-bound, commuting into London from Tunbridge Wells, and by the time he’d retired, his main occupation was as a carer for his wife. His wings were clipped. So that was when I suggested he should accompany Joanna and me on a cruise – a first for all three of us. He was 82; I was apprehensive.
But it didn’t take long for my fears to be assuaged by a combination of great food, sublime service (by day two most of the crew referred to ‘Mr Noel’), top-notch entertainment, friendly people (Noel spent hours talking to a couple from East Anglia who had also lived in Africa) and erudite lectures (including some from a former American ambassador) about the places we were about to visit.
It was an easy-going voyage around the Med and what immediately struck me was the sheer joy of going to sleep in France and rising with the sun in Spain or bedding down in Italy and waking up in Greece.