This was the first time during our honeymoon that we had ventured ashore without being part of an organised excursion. We were brave!

Today’s port was Ajaccio in Corsica. It was another hot one, and we noticed the heat – well into the high 20’s – when we left the ship. We arrived at a large marina, full of big and expensive yachts. There were offers of rides out to sea advertised, alongside the dockside. While it was very tempting to be given a tour of the island on a bloke’s private boat, we were worried he wouldn’t return us in time, and Ventura would leave without us!

We therefore headed to the market, across a perilous road (I’m still not fully sure of the zebra crossing laws, over here). Once we reached the market stalls, we were treated to a senses overload. Beautiful coloured fruits and seeds, and all kinds of interesting smells from local produce. There was a meat which was a little too “interesting” and started to make me feel very sick. I had to step away, for fear of seeing my breakfast again, on the market floor.

As well as the market, Ajaccio has a lot of shops, selling lots of souvenirs. We browsed these for a while. There were some things which tempted me to part with our Euros, mainly a local football scarf, but in the end we decided to hold onto our cash.

We had to make a quick return to the market, as while walking up the high street, we saw a dangerous looking dog, off its lead trying to attack a group of people. Not wanting to end up as lunch for the local monster, we went back to the stalls. The smells didn’t get to me this time. I think it was one particular meat which turned my stomach, so I made sure to avoid it! There was a stall selling lots of locally produced liquors. We bought a couple of bottles to return to England. I don’t think you can buy those in Tesco!

It has been another very hot afternoon, so we spent the afternoon on our balcony, soaking up the rays and topping up my tan. A little duck kept us entertained, by swimming around the marina – our little feathered friend certainly looked to be enjoying himself!

[Photos from the day]

This honeymoon is getting tiring! Lots of early starts and long excursions in the heat is making us both tired. Claire event compared her fatigue to working a series of shifts on the ward. Therefore, we didn’t go out to a show last night and had another early night. It was a lovely, warm evening. We looked out from our balcony, as the ship sailed through the Mediterranean, past lots of small Italian islands. The sun had set and it was getting dark, but we were able to identify the islands by all the lighthouses shining in the night’s sky.

This morning, we woke up to find our ship had arrived in Civitavecchia. A coach took us on a long journey to Rome, which was a busy, but very beautiful city. We took in all the sights, including the Colosseum and gladiator arenas. I took a lot of photos, most of which were from the coach, as it wasn’t an on-foot tour.

As well at Rome, we were taken to another country – Vatican City. This was another stunning venue and we were able to see all the famous sights, including the square, where a new Pope is unveiled.

This was the last of our six excursions. Tomorrow, we are visiting Ajaccio, but will undertake that one independently. Finally, we will return to Spain, where we will have to opportunity to explore Cadiz, before returning to England – booo!

[Photos from the day]

We had an early start – shortly after 7am, I crawled from my bed, forsaking a holiday lie in. The reason for the early start was because the ship had already arrived in the port of Livarno. However, it would be Pisa where we would have our morning out.

The coach drove us through the Tuscany countryside and small towns, on the way to Pisa. I have been to Italy in the past – some time ago, mind – so have experienced their charming, old buildings, shops and restaurants. Pisa was no different. We walked the short distance to the famous Leaning Tower. I must admit, while it was very impressive, the tower wasn’t as big as I thought it would be- just 90 meters tall – pfft!

Pisa was rammed with tourists, most of who were taking photos of the tower and surrounding churches. Lots were posing for photos in front of the tower, moving their arms into a position so it looked as if they were holding the structure. Whenever I see those photos on the likes of Twitter and Facebook, I cringe. We later met a P&O representative, who told us to pose for a photo doing the whole lifting the tower thing. We obliged and will probably end up buying the photograph when it goes on sale. How hypocritical!

The only downside of Pisa was the street sellers. They were everywhere, trying to get you to buy all sorts of crap, from necklaces to sunglasses and dodgy watches. They wouldn’t leave you alone, no matter how many times you turned them down. Our response turned from “No, thank you”, at the start of the tour, to muttering many a four letter word, at the end of the morning. Stupidly on our part, we managed to get caught out by a seller – something we promised ourselves we wouldn’t. A man handed Claire and I a bracelet and small elephant each. He claimed these were free and would bring us good luck. The gifts don’t appear to be very lucky, as he then started to ask for more money. First of all a coin, followed by ten Euros. He claimed this was for Africa. I refused to allow Claire to give him ten Euros – we were basically getting mugged, but legally. We handed over a five Euro coin, before escaping and not making any further contact with him or his dodgy mates.

We then took a land train back to the coach. This was similar to the one we rode in Monaco, yesterday. The train went very fast, and we were all bumped around a lot. This was a much better excursion than yesterday, despite the incident with the street seller. We are now back in our cabin, have enjoyed some room service (which really was free) and will now enjoy an afternoon on our balcony, soaking up the sun.

[Photos from the day]

We were wined and dined last night. Instead of making our daily visit to the chaos of the buffet, we visited an on-board restaurant. The service was first class, and we were made to feel very special. We did have to pay a small fee and buy a couple of glasses of wine, but I certainly don’t mind that for what we received.

Today was hot. Very hot. Unlike a typical Brit, and many of my fellow cruisers, I’m not going to complain about it. It is very rare we get high temperatures back home, so I’m going to enjoy it – especially as I’m on honeymoon.

Monaco looks very impressive – the home of the rich and famous… and tax dodgers. Former Leeds United owner, Ken Bates, resides here. I prewarned Claire that if she sees me kicking an elderly, white-bearded man into the sea, she will know why.

Due to Monaco’s small size, the ship couldn’t dock portside, so instead tender boats were used to move thousands of passengers from the ship to dry land. It was a rather choppy affair, which luckily only lasted 10 minutes. Some sick bags were available to those that needed them. Luckily, nobody in our boat had the urge to bring up their breakfast, but I can see why others may have!

We survived the short tender journey, without vomiting everywhere. As soon as we got ashore, the heat hit us. We waited for our lovely, air conditioned coach, while Claire rubbed lashings and lashings of factor fifty suncream into my back.

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long for our transport and were soon on our way through the winding roads and tunnels from Monte Carlo to Nice.

The excursion was supposed to be a tour on the bus, besides some short free time in Nice, followed by a land train. When we got off the coach, we walked for what seemed like miles, in 36C heat! I thought I was going to die. They say that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun… change that to mad dogs, Englishmen and cruisers, dragged along by their sadistic tour guide.

I got to the beach, alive (just) but drenched in sweat – seriously, I must have lost a stone today. We were then given some time to spend on the beach. I went straight to the kiosk, where water and ice lollies were purchased in abundance.

We then faced another trek through Nice, back to the coach. I tried to remember what Bear Grylls had taught me – stay hydrated, even if it means drinking your own piss. We briskly walked through all the side streets, with no time to shop or take photos… without wanting to sound like a moaning old git, the excursion wasn’t very well organised, as we didn’t know what was going on.

I was grateful to get on that coach and really enjoyed the half hour drive back to Monaco – mainly because it allowed me to sit on my bum, rest my feet and enjoy the air conditioning.

Finally, we got to what I had been waiting for all day – the land train! It was excellent – even better than I thought. The train took us all around Monte Carlo, including the famous Formula One track. Many a photo was taken.

It was then time to ride the now dreaded tender boats, back to the ship. We were on the last tender – if we missed this, we would be stuck in Monaco and forced to kip on Ken Bates’ floor. The return tender went well, until we got to the ship, when the boat started to rock everywhere – even the staff looked worried. They eventually got us reattached to our ship, Ventura, unscathed.

This left us time to have a much needed shower, evening meal (which involved battling for a table), before settling down in the theatre, to watch some live entertainment from Boogie Nights – live music from the 1970s – it was amazing and a great end to a day mixed with excitement, stress, laughs, peril and super heat.

[Photos from the day]

Last night was rather eventful. We started the evening, by throwing £10 into the sea. OK, I didn’t literally chuck ten pounds overboard, but I may as well have. I visited the casino. They had one of those machines you find at seaside resorts, where you chuck a two pence piece in, hoping that more coins will fall down, after they’re pushed down. Except in this case, it wasn’t coppers I was feeding into the machine, it was silver coins, worth 10p each. I spent £10 on tokens and won nothing. Well, a few tokens were pushed down for us, but these were soon returned, until we were left with nothing. I had the last laugh, though. I didn’t put all the tokens in – a few left the casino with me, as a rather expensive souvenir.

We decided to call it a night and go back to our cabin, where we ordered some drinks – we really went to town – Claire drank a can of orange and I had half a glass of Magners. We rented a film through the telly. Some Disney movie about a couple of bear cubs. It was rubbish, although did help make me feel more tired, letting me get to sleep quickly.

Not really eventful or traumatic so far, is it. The drama started when we went to bed. We mustn’t have been asleep longer than 20 minutes, when the entire ship was awoken by an alarm in all cabins. The captains voice boomed out, into our room. Due to being Dazed, confused and getting increasingly scared, I don’t fully recall the message, but it was something about an emergency and a fire, with instructions for staff to investigate in one of the lower decks.

This was it. I was all prepared to get out of bed, put on a life jacket and some warm clothing; and prepare to abandon ship. I’ve seen Titanic, and don’t want to be left aboard while P&O staff are playing Nearer My God To Thee on the violins! I basically shat the bed. I needn’t have. A few minutes later, a second announcement told us that everything was OK and one of the washing machines had just smell a bit smokey. Needless to say, it took us both a while to calm down and get back to sleep.

We awoke, having had no more alarms of ice bergs or pirates, and headed down to breakfast. Due to it being a sea day and the fact we had a disturbed night, we got up a little later than normal. It looked like every other passenger had the same idea – we really struggled to find anywhere to sit. When we did find a table and ate our breakfast, we couldn’t properly return to our cabin, as it was yet to receive its daily clean. For what seemed like hours, we wandered the ship, looking in every single shop, before coming back to our room, only to find it still hadn’t been touched! Claire said it was because we left so late for breakfast. I do feel for the cabin staff, it can’t be a pleasant job, cleaning up after thousands of dirty people, which is why I don’t feel annoyed at them for the delay. In the end, we gave up and sat out on our balcony anyway, although I’m prepared to get up and move out, when our room is eventually done.

Hopefully our room will be done soon, so we can enjoy the rest of our day, without any more stress – or burning washing machines!