The Classic Hotel Porto Roca

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I wake in a cold sweat. I remember what I wrote in the blog last night, and realise that it's probably offensive to a few entire countries. I hope no one's read it yet. I quickly press the "unpublish" button and make some radical edits. I decide that from now on blogging needs to come either before beer or a very long time after it.

Today's the last day before a busy patch, so Issy decides that we should take it easy. She says she won't be leaving our balcony. A few minutes later she says that we need to go down to breakfast. She notices my puzzled look, and remarks that the 99% of the population who are less literal than me would have understood that her previous two statements weren't actually contradictory. I feel suitably admonished.

Buoyed by my success with the language from last night, I say "bonjourno" to all the waiters. I'm trying to be friendly, but Issy tells me that I'm being just being embarrassing. One of the waiters brings me a cup of coffee by mistake, and I smell it to check that it really is coffee. He asks me if it's alright, and I respond that it's fine. It's ridiculously strong, and I tell Issy that if I drink the rest of it I'll be bouncing off the walls for a week. She tells me that I have to drink it - I told the waiter it was fine. I think the next few days might be a bit lively.

I notice that there's a small rubbish bin on our breakfast table. I worry that maybe this was put there just for us, but I feel a bit better when I see that they seem to be on all the other tables as well. We take the hint and quickly fill it up with butter and marmalade wrappers, egg shells, toast crusts and used cutlery.

Our hotel, the Hotel Porto Roca, looks like it's probably been here for about 60 years, and feels like one of the hotels you see in 1950s movies set on the French Riviera. All the waiters wear tuxedos with bow ties and cream coloured jackets, even at breakfast. This is in stark contrast to the guests who mostly wear shorts and tee shirts. It's full of old furniture, old photos, and knick-knacks such as model ships and old brass musical instruments. There's even a ship's steering wheel against one of the windows in the stairwell. Despite all this, it's four star rather than five, so it still feels very relaxed, and has character by the truckload. It's set into the side of the cliff so the rooms on the sea-side all have balconies with stunning views. The floor below us also has rooms which face into the cliff. I wonder what these must be like. If they have windows, they must look straight onto vertical rocks from about a foot away. I think this might detract from the experience just a tad. There's a long terrace right along the front of the hotel, with classic old style wrought iron tables and chairs scattered along it, and fancy old style lamps on poles that look like the ones you might expect to find in the streets of Paris. Issy tells me that she spoke to an American lady who's been coming here with her husband every year for the past 13 years, and they always book for the next year when they leave. Issy says that next time we come to Europe we should just come here.

Issy and I decide that we are very definitely coast people; our favourite places on the trip so far have been Malta, Santorini and here. We wonder why, in contrast to Australia, most major European cities such as Rome, Paris and London are not on the coast. We also wonder whether anything can be done about this. We suspect probably not. Issy says that our next holiday should be a slow crawl around a coast. I don't think she's too fussy about where, as long as it's warm.

We relax on our balcony and then wander down into the village for lunch. I think this constitutes leaving the balcony, even to someone as literal as me, but I decide it might be best if I didn't mention the fact. We start chatting to an American couple on the next table, who are on a bus tour. They tell us that one of the other couples on the tour is from Perth, and that last night over dinner they tried to explain cricket to them. They say that they find it a bit hard to come to terms with the fact that in cricket if you make one tiny mistake you're out of the game. They ask me how Australia's going in the World Series against England, and then add that eighteen players on each team sounds like quite a lot. Somehow I sense that the explanation didn't go all that well.

Issy relaxes back at the hotel while I head for the tower that I missed two days ago which would have given me a perfect five towers in five days. Disappointingly it seems that it's recently been sold into private ownership and is no longer open to the public. I head uphill to the monastery church instead. There are peaceful chants playing and I seem to be the only person here. There's a painting on the wall by the Flemish artist Van Dyck. It must be priceless, yet there doesn't seem to be any security protecting it. The temptation to touch it to see whether any hidden alarms go off is almost irresistible, but I'm not sure Issy would be all that happy if I got arrested when we've still got half the trip to go. I head further up the hill for yet more stunning views.

We've booked dinner at the hotel restaurant. The compendium in our room says that we must wear "appropriate dress", but we're not sure exactly what this means. We're pretty sure it isn't shorts, tee shirts and thongs, and hopefully it's also not tuxedoes and ball gowns. We put on the best clothes we've brought with us and hope that they'll let us in. The waiters are all in their tuxedoes as usual, but thankfully no one else is, and they seem happy to lead us to our table.

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