Arcos de Frontera

We were up fairly early and had breakfast in our suite before going out to meet our tour bus for an 8:30 departure. We had booked to visit Arcos De  La Frontera in the hills beyond Cadiz.

We had a one hour bus ride and then a fairly long uphill walk to reach the old town of Arcos De La Frontera. It is a very pretty, mostly white town based around a castle (now in private hands) and a huge basilica, the Santa Maria De La Asuncion. 

Santa Maria De La Asuncion basilica

It was quite windy and rain kept threatening, so the views were not brilliant. But we had a good walk around and learned a lot about the history of the town and it’s various occupiers over the centuries.

We had tapas and a drink in a hotel and then walked back down the hill to our bus for the ride back to Cadiz.

In the hotel where we had tapas.

We reached the ship just after 1:30 so had shared a pizza for lunch in the Marquee. We had a rest in our suite before going to bingo (no luck) and trivia (came second). We stayed with Merrylands, but new people turned up. I think the membership will settle down over time! 

We went back to our suite to get ready for dinner. We had a 7pm booking at a Kaiseki, the Japanese restaurant. This is our favourite restaurant on Muse, despite the $40 upcharge. On Nova it is supposedly an enhanced menu and offering, but the charge has gone up to $80 (USD). Because we booked the upcharge restaurants (Kaiseki x 2, La Dame x 1) before the changed costs, they are honouring the earlier costs.

Dinner was very good. We had the chef’s recommendation, which included chawanmushi with edamame, a prawn dumpling, a broth with mushrooms and vegetables, tempura vegetables and prawn, and a main course of wagyu beef with lobster tail. I attempted a matcha dessert (couldn’t finish it). Ian had wine to accompany the meal while I had a series of sakis. Overall it was a very enjoyable meal and the staff were amazing, especially Ernie who was very keen to take me through the different sakis. But we agreed that it wasn’t worth $80.  We are booked again in a week or so and will go.