TASTE OF THE SEA

Setting sail from Barcelona to Istanbul is a culinary adventure aboard Oceania Vista, discovers DANI VALENT.

- DANI VALENT.

“YOU BETTER GET UP HERE.” THIS WAS THE message from my travelling companion as our ship pushed up the Bosphorus to Istanbul. I was in our room laying clothes in a suitcase for the first time in 12 days. A tiny cloud of grief hung over me: packing a bag hadn't been necessary since we left Barcelona nine ports and many Champagnes ago, sailing under clear skies through calm waters as the last wisps of summer blessed our passage. How to cope with the mundanity of squeezing a suitcase closed after two weeks on the Mediterranean? I ate the chocolate that had been placed on my plumped pillow the night before and headed up to Deck 14.

Istanbul unspooled, the domes and minarets of mosques, fortress walls snaking over hills, ancient observation towers, boats and bridges, busy and urgent and epic. You can know that Istanbul lies at the crux of Europe and Asia, spanning a waterway that snakes between the Aegean and the Black Sea. You can read about empires and the grand shuffles of history. It’s something else to be gliding along an ancient watery path sailed by Romans and Ottomans, peacemakers and marauders, spice traders and refugees.

And now us, on Oceania Vista, a handsome 1200-berth ship coming to the end of a Culinary Luminaries cruise where food and wine is the focus, celebrated in themed dinners, cooking classes and at every stop along the way. Sure, there's a Chagall museum in Nice, Livorno is an easy tootle from Pisa's leaning tower, Rome has a Colosseum, and Athens is overlooked by an Acropolis with compelling history. But with just one day in every port, we chose lunch. I've long thought you can learn as much about a place from a menu or market as a museum, anyway.