Treasures of the Western Mediterranean

Board Le Boreal in Livorno for a late evening departure. October in Tuscany means the summer heat has passed and the autumn light on the Ligurian coast has a particular warmth. The ship departs after dark with Florence and Portovenere ahead.

Portovenere is one of the finest small towns on the Ligurian coast and one of the least visited. The medieval walled village clings to a rocky promontory above the Gulf of La Spezia, the Church of San Pietro at its tip visible from Le Boreal as the ship anchors in the bay. Lord Byron swam from these rocks to visit Shelley in Lerici across the gulf, a fact commemorated by a grotto below the church bearing his name. The UNESCO-protected historic centre, with its coloured tower houses dating to the 12th century, gives a morning of genuine discovery. The Cinque Terre villages are accessible by local ferry from the Portovenere dock, giving the afternoon a completely different register.

A long day and evening in Monaco. Le Boreal anchors in the Port Hercule and the principality reveals itself on foot in a way no other transport allows. The Casino de Monte-Carlo, designed by Charles Garnier who also built the Paris Opera, is the most architecturally significant building on the Cote d’Azur and opens to visitors in the morning. The Oceanographic Museum, founded by Prince Albert I in 1910 and built into the cliff face above the sea, holds one of the finest marine natural history collections in Europe. The Jardin Exotique on the cliff above the principality gives the finest elevated view of Monaco and the Mediterranean beyond. The evening in port gives the harbour its full nocturnal character — the superyachts, the Casino lit from within and the hills above the principality in the October night.

Cassis is one of the most beautiful small ports in Provence and one of the most immediately rewarding on this entire itinerary. The village, built around a natural harbour below the Cap Canaille cliff, the highest coastal cliff in France at 362 metres, has the particular quality of a place that has resisted large-scale tourism and retained its fishing village character. The calanques, the limestone fjords that extend east from Cassis toward Marseille and give the Cote Bleue its defining landscape, are accessible by boat from the port. The three most accessible calanques from Cassis — En-Vau, Port-Pin and Port-Miou — give a morning of extraordinary coastal scenery. The Cassis white wine, produced from vines grown on the limestone terraces above the calanques, is the finest expression of the region’s terroir.

Marseille, France’s second city and oldest, with a full day and evening to engage with it properly. The MuCEM, the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations, opened in 2013 in a striking perforated concrete cube at the entrance to the Vieux Port and is the finest single cultural institution in southern France. The Vieux Port’s morning fish market, where the day’s catch from the local fleet arrives at the quayside in the early hours, is the most immediate expression of the city’s seafaring character. The Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica on the hill above the city, visible from the sea for miles, gives the finest elevated view of Marseille and the Frioul Archipelago offshore. Le Panier, the oldest neighbourhood in the city, climbs the hill above the Vieux Port in a maze of lanes and staircases.

Port-Vendres sits on the Cote Vermeille, the Vermilion Coast, where the Pyrenees descend directly into the Mediterranean in a series of rocky headlands and small bays. The town is a working fishing port rather than a tourist resort, its quayside auction house selling the day’s catch of anchovies and sea bream every morning. Collioure, three kilometres north, is the most celebrated village on the Cote Vermeille: the 17th-century Chateau Royal above the bay, the painted boats of the fishing fleet and the extraordinary quality of the Mediterranean light that drew Matisse and Derain to paint their first Fauvist canvases here in 1905. Roussillon wines, produced from Grenache and Carignan on the schist soils above the coast, are among the most characterful in France and available at the local vignerons.

Menorca is the most authentically Balearic of the three main islands, its relative inaccessibility and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status having preserved a landscape and culture that Mallorca and Ibiza largely sacrificed to mass tourism. The prehistoric talayotic sites, including the navetas and taulas that dot the countryside, give Menorca an archaeological density that no other Balearic island can match. The Cales Coves necropolis, a Bronze Age burial site carved into the cliff faces above a turquoise cove, is accessible by boat. Mahon, the island capital and one of the finest natural harbours in the Mediterranean, gives the morning its historic context. October on Menorca means the summer rental villas are empty and the island returns to the Menorquins.

Valencia arrives for an overnight stay. The City of Arts and Sciences complex on the former Turia riverbed, designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela and completed in stages between 1998 and 2005, is the most significant contemporary architectural project in Spain. The L’Oceanogràfic, the largest aquarium in Europe, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia opera house and the science museum share the dried riverbed in a sequence of futuristic white structures reflected in the surrounding pools. The old city’s Valencia Cathedral, with its claim to house the Holy Grail in a side chapel, the Central Market’s Art Nouveau iron and tile structure and the Barrio del Carmen neighbourhood’s street art and bars give the evening its character. The overnight stay means both the architectural Valencia and the historic Valencia are fully available.

A second full day in Valencia and the overnight advantage becomes apparent. The Horchata and Fartons breakfast at the Horchatería de Santa Catalina, operating since 1836 in the Plaza de Santa Catalina, is the most specific and local morning experience in the city. The Malvarrosa beach north of the port, where the paella was reportedly invented at the beach restaurants, gives the afternoon its Valencian character. The Albufera lagoon south of the city, a freshwater lake separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow sandbar and the origin of the rice cultivation that makes the Valencia region the centre of Spanish paella culture, is accessible by a short drive or organised tour.

Cartagena, 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. One of Spain’s most underrated cities, founded by the Carthaginians in 227 BC and subsequently occupied by the Romans, the Moors and the Spanish Navy without ever quite losing the archaeological evidence of any of them. The Roman Theatre, discovered beneath a car park in 1988 and now the finest Roman theatre site in Spain, seated 6,000 spectators and is accessible through the outstanding theatre museum built around the excavation. The Barrio del Foro Romano preserves the Roman street grid. The Naval Museum and the Modernista architecture of the early 20th-century town centre give the morning its full range.

Le Boreal arrives in Malaga and the Western Mediterranean voyage concludes. Malaga is Pablo Picasso’s birthplace and the Museo Picasso Malaga, housed in the 16th-century Buenavista Palace in the old town, holds the most comprehensive single collection of his work in Spain. The Alcazaba fortress above the city, dating from the 11th-century Moorish period, gives the finest elevated view of the harbour and the Costa del Sol coastline. The Atarazanas covered market and the pedestrian streets of the old town give the final morning its unhurried Andalucian character. Ten nights have traced the Western Mediterranean from the Ligurian fishing villages of Italy through Provence, the Cote Vermeille, the Balearic Islands and the Spanish Mediterranean coast to Andalucia.