His Royal Majesty King Felipe VI
of Spain
Our first port of call was Calvi, located at the north western corner of Corsica.
Residence of a most affluent Moroccan individual.
Life on Board
Our cabin, preferred dining facility, impressions from shipboard in general
The photograph below pictures tenders from MS "Artania" ferrying passengers to shore for their shopping, high-stakes gambling and walking pleasures.
Genoa, our port of embarkation, showed itself as a dark, cloudy, ominous, uninviting yet highly interesting harbor.
Barcelona welcomed us with all its splendor, history and Catalonian charm. Its harbor, identified by a prominent Columbus statue, is port of call for many passenger liners and freight ships.
Santa Maria waves us good bye as we proceed toward Porto Torres, Sardinia.
Duchess Heide, displaying her world famous "Cheshire Cat" smile,
enjoys being photographed in front of a maritime and tourist observation tour.
The Cathedral Santa Maria of Palma, in the central background of the photograph above, is definitely worthwhile visiting. Please note the picture below.
Crowns are much more than those who are entitled to wear them.
They are a symbol for the entirety of a cultural whole and the idea
of enlightened statesmanship.
Passing through the Straits of Gibraltar en route to the island of Palma de Mallorca.
Early arrival in the harbor of Palmos, Palma de Mallorca
The Kingdom of Morocco is principally a Suni nation. Modern mosques, as the one pictured above, are
prominent in prestigious locations of the city.
Although, the main Royal Palace of the Moroccan King is located in Rabat, His Royal Majesty retains other palatial villas in prominent cities of his realm. The above photograph depicts the entrance to his Tangier residence. The King of Saudi Arabia also keeps his Atlantic-bordering Royal home in the same neighborhood.
The "Batman" vessel, pictured below,
we encountered later on in a Spanish port.
Good bye Lisbon, hello Tangier!
Malaga awaited our next visit.
The following are three prominent, worldwide admired architectural achievements of Antoni Gaudi, known for his particular building style of Catalonian Modernism. His most imminent achievement is the design and construction of the Basilica Segrada Familia, still not entirely completed. The Basilica
Segrada Familia was consecrated in 2010 by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in the presence of the Royal Spanish Family, an event witnessed on television by the Chiefs of the Ducal/Princely House Gulgowski-Doliwa
Docking in the harbor of Tangier with MS "Artania" as the only cruise ship presently there.
The following pictures were photographed in sequence of our bus excursion into Tangier.
The photographs, by-and-large, speak volumes for themselves.
Based on our Tangier visitation experience, we feel emboldened to conclude that no one who resides in Morocco willing to work and/or study has any plausible reason to knock at the doors of Europe as an economic refugee.
The President Salazar Bridge over the Tagus River resembles in appearance the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Afterthought:
While we were so tremendously enjoying our Mediterranean cruise,
the follow-on generation of the Ducal/Princely House Gulgowski-Doliwa was doing some global site seeing on their own. The photograph below shows the Ducal Princely couple Gulgowski-Doliwa II together with their children Prince Matias and Princess Maia attractively posing in front of the
Panama Canal.
The walls pictured above represent past Islamic occupation of Malaga.
The entrance to the grotto in which Hercules is supposed to have rested after having through his gigantic strength created the Straits of Gibraltar. A particular note of the authors is that it borders on a divine miracle how a godlike super hero was able to fold himself into such a relatively small place ;-)
His Royal Majesty King Mohammed VI
of Morocco
The magnificent photograph above was taken from the National Museum of Spain (see below).
It depicts Barcelona precisely as one of the authors of this travelogue had experienced it in 1972.
The red round edifice in the central background once served as this municipality's bullring, one of the most prominent such institutions in all of Spain. Duke Paul was in attendance of one of the last bull fights performed there. Now, this building serves as a shopping center.
To the great surprise of our fellow travelers and us, there were abundantly many well kept green spaces in a city of a desert nation that is normally classified as hot and sandy.
Our Mediterranean Cruise 2018
by
Colonel Prof. Dr. Paul W. Gulgowski-Doliwa, The Duke of Lower Silesia (Glogau) and
Grand Dame Heide Anna Maria Gulgowski-Doliwa, The Duchess of Lower Silesia (Glogau)
also Principal Photographer and Editor
Ranging from apartments to villas, attractive housing is abundant in Tangier and that at most reasonable prices, when compared to European and American standards.
Type your paragraph here.
Religion and commercialism
go hand-in-hand in Malaga.
Africa looms large in the distance.
Although we enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of having visited Lisbon once before,
we were again delighted to visit this most magnificent pearl of the Iberian Peninsular during this fascinating Mediterranean cruise. We reached the Capital City of Portugal by traveling, at least for a little while, on the Atlantic Ocean, which behaved quiet and benevolent to us. We take the liberty of commencing this part of our travelogue by paying tribute to Marquis do Pombal, who is historically credited with having orchestrated the reconstruction of Lisbon after a most fatal earthquake and tsunami in the year 1755. However, we first visually acquired a vision of Portugal by seeing a colorful string of lights marking this particular country's coastline.
According to our tour guide Mohammed:
Left above: Moroccan camels Right above: Mercedes Benz vehicles are styled by the locals "German camels."
While MS "Artania" refueled, we walked the outer deck and, low and behold, there was our
ferry "Batman," that we had initially encountered in Genoa, now our final cruise stop.
The next tourist destination of MS "Artania" was Benidorm, Spain.
We did not disembark at this coastal-water stop; however, we enjoyed the golden-sunshine view from our vessel.
Palamos, Spain, came next. However, we did not disembark there, simply because of rainy
weather conditions. Still, a day on board always provides welcome rest and relaxation.
As our longstanding tradition mandates, we like to express our admiration and respect to the Kingdoms of Spain and Morocco by heralding the portraits of their currently reigning Monarchs in order of travel. Our reason for doing this is best explained by the late Most Eminent Neomartyr Vladimir Bogoyavlensky, Metropolitan of Moscow (1898-1912). His remarks may be accessed by consulting our
Home page above.
Extensive and strong fortification for the protection of the nation and municipality are in evidence everywhere one cares to look.
DUCAL AND PRINCELY HOUSE GULGOWSKI-DOLIWA
We thank our esteemed readership for their kind attention to this issue of our latest travelogue.
The number of our interested readership was largely increased by fellow passengers and certain crew members from MS "Artania," who had expressed a sincere desire to be included in our mailing list for this particular purpose.
Obviously, Palma de Mallorca is a marvelous island that manages to endear itself to countless tourists, who fall prey to its delightful ambiance. Enjoying a 360 degree look around our ship, we definitely can confirm this conviction.
Touring the most beautiful sides in Spain, by bus and on foot, is not without physical effort
and stamina. Therefore, we enjoyed another day on shipboard and were totally
content with admiring the shoreline ambiance of Huelva.
Grandfather Duke Paul took particular pleasure and satisfaction from his grandson Prince Matias' obviously manifested interest in maritime affairs. Please notice the two photographs below:
Prince Matias displaying his latest nautical drawing (somehow reminiscing the "Titanic" or
the four-stack destroyers of the U.S. Navy of World War I and World War II). The other picture shows Matias' Grandfather as then Coast Guard Captain in front of U.S.C.G. Cutter "Eagle."
Back in trist and depressing Genoa, we almost felt like when we initially arrived there.
This ambiance probably made it easier to depart. After all, we had just very abruptly returned from a wonderful and truly awe inspiring voyage in the Western Mediterranean, collecting impressions that
will last us a lifetime.
After disembarking and saying so long to MS "Artania" and many of its outstanding staff, whom we had truly gotten to know during the past two weeks, we were driven by bus through lower Alpine Italy to Milan from where we flew to Zurich, Switzerland, the world capital of delicious chocolates, from where we departed to Chicago, USA.