Category: Private tours

Chartering a Private Catamaran in St. Lucia: One perfect day in the Caribbean

Chartering a Private Catamaran in St. Lucia: One perfect day in the Caribbean

It’s not quite post-COVID yet, but life is short, and we just had to get away. After spending a week in Barbados and chartering a plane to get us from there to St. Lucia, we found ourselves at The BodyHoliday, chilling at a spa and wellness centre for a week. But what about all that water beckoning us? As far as we’re concerned, there is nothing better than a day spent on the water, exploring the coast of a Caribbean Island (or even the shore of the Mediterranean, for that matter!). So, we investigated our options.

The BodyHoliday offers a department they call “Special Experiences.” Their objective is to help you build special events and experiences that make for unforgettable vacation moments. And, of course, that means different things to different people. We visited the special experiences staff, and they booked us our private sail. (Of course, there is a price to be paid for such experiences, and at this point in our lives, we’re willing to pay it!)

Once we had the charter booked―a 42-foot catamaran and two crew members―the resort staff also booked taxis for us to get to Rodney Bay Marina and back and then asked if we’d like to have them pack a lunch. Who could refuse that?

Our route and lunch! Note The BodyHoliday mask…it was still a thing in St. Lucia.

We arrived at the Rodney Bay Marina, home to an impressive array of watercraft. When we approached the Southern Breeze, our transportation for the day, a crew member welcomed us and said, “Just the two of you?” When we said yes, he smiled broadly. An easy day, perhaps?

We set off from the marina and headed south along the west coast of St. Lucia past what is now Sandals LaToc where we spent our honeymoon thirty-five years ago (it was Cunard LaToc back then!) toward the pride of their natural environment. Les Deux Pitons are impressive volcanic peaks in the Soufriere area of the island―Petit Piton (small piton) and Gros Piton (large piton). They are at almost the southwest tip of the island, and it took us two hours under sail and with the engine running to get there.

Along the way back, we sailed into the lovely little Marigot Bay, famous for being the filming location for the tropical bits of the 1967 film Dr. Doolittle starring Rex Harrison. Now, there’s even a restaurant right on the water’s edge called Doolittle’s. It’s on our list to visit the next time we’re in St. Lucia―and there will be a next time!

A few minutes on the water…

Hong Kong in a Day (and a bit!)

IMG_7312Who said it couldn’t be done? Well, we did it – with the help of a Tours-by-Locals guide named Jacky – “A Local’s Tour of Hong Kong” is how he billed it – and he delivered.

We arrive right on time at 1:35 pm at Hong Kong International Airport after a pleasant 15 hours traversing the North Pole on Air Canada. It was too soon for jet lag to set in. Thankfully!

Just as planned, we are met at the arrivals area by a driver sent by Jacky who we’d meet up with at our hotel at 9 am the next morning to “do Hong Kong.” Despite the lengthy flight and the 12-hour time change, we can’t just settle in to the beautiful Harbourview Renaissance Hotel on Hong Kong Island without spending an hour or two exploring the area around our hotel. So, we take a 25-minute walk to IFC (International Finance Centre) to see Lane Crawford – Asia’s premiere high-end department store whose former boss was nabbed by Hudson’s Bay in Canada to reinvigorate our department store scene a few years ago. What we find so startling about this mall on the other side of the globe is how much it resembles high-end malls at home. If we just squint, we could think we were back in Toronto. As daylight begins to wane, the lights in Hong Kong begin to come on and we make our way back to the hotel for a bite to eat and a good sleep. We will need it.

Jacky meets us in the lobby of the Renaissance the next morning and we jump into a cab to get quickly up to the top of Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island before any other tourists make their way up. Peruse any tourist brochure on Hong Kong and Victoria Peak will probably be the number one place to see. The reason is the views. It’s a great place to begin because as you take in the breathtaking view itself, you begin to get your bearings: you’re on Hong Kong Island and as you stare toward the harbour, you see Kowloon (the mainland, older part of Hong Kong) spreading out in front of you toward the hills that lead onward to the border with The People’s Republic of China. Then you’re aware that behind you is the side of Hong Kong Island that borders the East China Sea – although you can’t see it.

The requisite photos well in hand, it’s time to make our way down to carry on with our jam-packed day. Jacky leads us to the Peak Tram. A funicular railway, this iconic Hong Kong landmark is the traditional way to get up to the top of the Peak and has a long and fascinating history. And it’s not just for tourists. Residents who live at various levels of the Peak make their way to work and play using this tram that travels at sometimes impossible angles. The trip takes about 5 minutes.

peak tram
Inside the Peak Tram

Jacky leads us through the streets among the skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island’s financial core stopping to consider the history of the area and stop for a coffee. These days the island itself has a population of about 1.3 million people – the entire Hong Kong area is 7.35 million and seemed every one of them was being disgorged from bus after bus and making their way into massive buildings that swallowed them up, wave after wave.

We hop aboard a city bus just as the skies open and are transported through a tunnel under Victoria Harbour to Kowloon where we find Sham Shui Po, a market area famous for its stall after stall packed with fabrics (among other things) – Patty is a bit of a fashion designer and couture sewer and wants to take a look. Jacky tells us he wants us to experience the markets like a local. The rain keeps us from spending too much time or money as we meander through the vegetable and dried fish markets as well as the fascinating street of fish – pet fish. Thousands for fish of every imaginable type in myriad aquariums as well as individual fish floating in plastic bags hanging on every stall. And hardly a tourist in site – the local experience, indeed.

After the markets, it’s time for lunch and Jacky thinks we need to discover the real home of dim sum. It’s hard to believe that neither of us has ever eaten dim sum before, but what better place to be introduced than to experience it in the place where it was first introduced to cuisine? Jacky selects a spot and we go inside what seems to be an office building then take the elevator up several floors. When we emerge, we are in an enormous room which looks exactly like a banquet room – because that’s what it is. It seems that these banquet facilities open at lunch time to serve dim sum to the locals. We are truly the only non-Hong Kong people in the place. But no one seems to mind.

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One other advantage of a personal, private guide is that he will usually take photos of us together – even when we don’t know he’s about to do it! Eating dim sum.

We leave it to Jacky to select the lunch menu and are only too happy to try out everything on offer. We find some of the textures unlike anything we have ever experienced in Canada and decide we probably should try North Americanized dim sum when we get home. After lunch it’s time to head to Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon’s busy shopping, restaurant and nightlife area. We opt to get there via the small public bus system which is fascinating and worth finding if you’re there – but we don’t think we could have found the stops without the help of our guide!

After the subway to a Buddhist temple garden (a fairly new addition to the Hong Kong experience we’re told), and a visit to a Daoist temple, we eventually make our way to the harbour front on the Kowloon side which provides a wonderful vantage point from where to see the skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island. A hop on the Star Ferry – not to be missed during a Hong Kong experience – and we’re back almost where we started, but we’re not finished our day yet.

Back on Hong Kong Island, Jacky takes us to Aberdeen on South Horizons Island, a fishing village area on the south side of the peak where we ride a small, local boat back to the main island. We hop on another city bus and we’re shortly back at the Renaissance.

hong kong island map

Although we say good-bye to our guide, we have at least a half a day ahead of us to tour a bit more on our own before we have to board the Silver Shadow, the small, luxury cruise ship that will be our transportation for the next couple of weeks. But before we leave Hong Kong, the magic of its night lights…

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IFC: http://ifc.com.hk/en/mall/

Visiting Lima, Peru: A private guided tour

We live in Toronto, the fourth-largest city in North America after Mexico City, New York and LA. But our population is just shy of 3 million (LA is just shy of 4 million). When Canadians think about Toronto, they have a perception that it is large…enormous…populous…crowded…massive. Well, that’s because they’ve never visited so many of the cities on other continents. Take Lima, Peru. Who knew that the population of Lima is in the vicinity of 10 million with a population density of over 3000 inhabitants per square kilometre! Until we visited the city a few weeks ago, we certainly didn’t.

Lima locator map

We arrived at the port city of Callao, 14 kilometres west of Lima. Since the city of Lima is largely built on oceanside cliffs overlooking a long stretch of beach, no cruise ships – or ships of any type for that matter – dock in the city itself. So, we boarded the cruise line shuttle, a modern, air-conditioned bus, that transported us from the pier to a part of Lima called Miraflores. Although we didn’t know it at the time, there is a very good reason for taking this shuttle and not meeting a tour guide at the entrance to the port, but we need to back-track for a moment.

We really are not fans of shore excursions organized by cruise lines. The reasons for this are many and we’ll spend a bit more time on those reasons in a future post. For now, let’s just say that we like to be in control. However, that doesn’t always mean that we want to be completely self-guided; we just want to be able to go at our own pace and see the things that interest us. Enter the world of the private guide.

When we planned the recent cruise to South America, we perused the cruise-line’s offerings for shore excursions then surfed on over to Tours-by-Locals, a Vancouver-based, internationally-focused tour company that offers private, licensed, vetted guides in some 158 countries. We had the pleasure of discovering them a couple of years ago when we were searching for a guide in Ephesus and Istanbul. [See our post here.] After that wonderful experience, it only made sense to see what they had to offer in a few of our port stops. In Lima we discovered a tour-guide whose offerings looked like just what we wanted.

We contacted Aaron through the Tours-by-Locals site, and conducted all our preparations directly through him, using the site as a way to document and pay for the experience. It was during these preparations that Aaron mentioned that he would meet us in the “safe” spot that the cruise shuttle would drop us. We wondered about the 45-minute drive into Lima (only 14 km. but lots of traffic!) to meet him, but as soon as the shuttle bus pulled outside the port gate, it was clear to us why he had wanted us to meet him in Lima.

marriott lima
The J.W. Marriott Hotel in Lima where the Silversea shuttle dropped off passengers

The port shuttle took passengers from the pier only to drop them in a seedy spot just outside the gate populated by unlicensed taxis, questionable characters, and lots of grime. We considered how we might have felt waiting for our guide at that spot, or later on waiting for the shuttle to be dropped off. All in all, it was much preferable to be dropped in front of the uber-modern J.W. Marriott Hotel in Miraflores, one of the chicest neighbourhoods in the city of Lima. Yes, it was a good call on Aaron’s part. We called him as we left the port on the bus and as promised, he was waiting for us on the sidewalk when we arrived in Lima.

Aaron had arranged for his brother to be our driver. We knew from previous experience touring other cities (Rome & Istanbul come immediately to mind) that having a driver in addition to a guide makes city touring even more enjoyable. That obviates the necessity for a guide doubling as a driver who is forced to spend time searching for parking spots. It also means that we can be dropped off at any corner, in any amount of traffic with plans to meet the driver at some other point. The we can walk which is, of course, the best way to see a city.

DSC00775Aaron started our tour in the historic area of Barranco. Considered to be the city’s most romantic and bohemian districts, Barranco was at one time a summer beach resort. Aaron took us to a lovely, small café for coffee before we carried on to Lima’s downtown financial district then on to The Larco Museum, which must hold the largest collection of pre-Columbian art in the world! It consists of over 50,000 pieces of ceramic art including a large selection of pre-Columbian erotica. It is not to be missed.

Of course, no visit to a Spanish colonial city is complete without spending some time in its Plaza des Armas, a central fixture of every city with Spanish roots. The plaza was originally building the sixteenth century and of course has as one of its most important features, the Cathedral of Lima. Completed in the seventeenth century, 1622 to be precise, it still stands in the square today.

 

A lively square populated with all manner of tourists, the square gives the that sense of history that holds the key to the city’s past. But after that visit, it was off to lunch. At Aaron’s apartment.

We arrived at Aaron’s apartment where his mother was already hard at work preparing for us a typical Peruvian lunch whose centrepiece was her ceviche which she taught us how to make.

The finished ceviche

But it was Aaron’s Pisco sour lesson that, for us, was  the highlight. We didn’t know it at the time, but for the rest of our remaining two weeks in Peru and Chile, we would have one every chance we had.

A brandy-type of liquor, Pisco is distilled from grapes and is a staple of bars in both Peru and Chile, although the actual process for making the liquor is slightly different in each country. It can be used as the basis for a number of cocktails, or taken over ice, but Pisco is best know for it use in the ubiquitous Pisco sour. The drink’s ingredients are Pisco, fresh lime juice (which Aaron squeezed from tiny Peruvian key limes), and egg white in a blender with ice. Then he topped it with a drop of orange bitters – Aaron’s own recipe. We swooned.

Soon, however, lunch was over and Aaron deposited us back in Miraflores where, true to his promise, he led us to a shop where Patty began her search for an alpaca sweater. It wasn’t successful that day, but we still had a week in Peru! She’d find one.

Bottom line: our top pointers for visiting Lima via a cruise ship:

  1. Meet your tour guide in Lima rather than in the port of Callao. You will be happier and safer. Take the cruise line’s shuttle, sit back and enjoy the mostly beach-side drive.
  2. Book a private guide on Tours-by-Locals. We have found them to be a terrific value and have given us experiences you just cannot get with a group.

Malta: An island steeped in history

malta - fishing villagePeople who live on Canada’s Atlantic coast have seen the name many times – Valletta. That name is emblazoned on ship after ship that enters the container terminal in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We have often wondered if most of the people who see this on a daily basis have any idea where Valletta is. As travelers interested in the wider world, we knew that it was in Malta, but Malta was a mystery to us – until recently. [The reason the ships bear this moniker is that ship registration is a major industry there.] 

As we often say, there is no better way to be introduced to new places that you might other wise never visit than on a well-selected cruise chosen with itinerary at the top of the priority list. That is how we found ourselves on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta.

Picture a tiny island (really an archipelago) located just 80 kilometres south of Italy and 284 kilometres east of Tunisia in Northern Africa directly in that passage between the Atlantic end of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Because of this strategic position, Malta has a rich history of a succession of ruling countries: the Romans, the Moors, the Sicilians, the Normans, the Spaniards, the British to name a some of them. It is this very richness that imbues the tiny island with its appeal for travelers who are interested in both natural beauty and the influences of historical evolution on a place and a people. We are those travelers.

 

malta - map

Hiring the services of a private driver and a guide as we like to do, we were able to make the most of our short visit. We began with a walking tour of Valletta, a world heritage site. It’s a bit like walking through an open-air museum with historical artifacts that tell of the city’s storied past at every turn. The most historic buildings date from the sixteenth century and at every turn there is a story to be told.

 

We then drove out of the city into the beautiful countryside to the fortified city of Mdina (not a misspelling), inland slightly southwest of Valletta. Founded in 700 BC, Mdina was the capital of Malta until the 16th century. A walking tour of this historical masterpiece is a must-do when visiting Malta.

A visit to Malta wouldn’t be complete, though, without visiting a fishing village or two. The colourful boats, markets and buildings combine to provide you with a bit of a snapshot of modern life in the Maltese countryside.

malta - color

Malta is a tiny spot in the world that should be on your bucket list, if it isn’t already there. If you get the chance to visit, even if just for a day, jump on that chance.

It’s really difficult to tell the story of a visit to Malta without numerous pictures, so we’ve put together a brief video of the sights we’d like to share with you.