MSC Virtuosa 2025 | France & Spain Cruise Port Highlights
[Music] Hi, it’s Wilson here and welcome back to my channel. In my previous video, which I’ll put in the link above and in the description below, we embarked from Southampton, UK onto the wonderful MSSE Virtuosa ship on a 7- night cruise to various Northern Europe port destinations. In this video, I’d like to share with you all the highlights of our experience during our visits to the four port destinations. Lashell, Bilbao, Laruna, and then to our final port, Shaborg. Enjoy the video. [Music] Good morning. Monday, first port, lower shell. Just getting off the ship now. Um, they have a complimentary shuttle bus over there to take us into town. So, that’s quite handy. Right, just arrived um in Lan. Dropped us off. They dropped us off in uh Verdon Square. Um got to start exploring. Behind me is the uh old harbor, Rexport of Lower Shell. Let’s head down there and have a look. I can see it’s very beautiful. Lower is a beautiful port city and seaside resort in western France located on the Atlantic coast on the Bay of Bisque. It’s known for its picturesque VO port, also known as Old Harbor. With its impressive medieval towers, white limestone architecture, and rich maritime history, visitors can enjoy the city’s aquariums, museums, boat tours, and beaches. At the port of Lower Shell stands these two enormous 14th century stone towers. So to protect the harbor at night at the times of war a massive chain was raised between these two towers to protect the entrance of the port. This is known as to de la chain hence the name chain tower. [Music] This is the direction to to de la Lantern. So basically the uh lantern tower. It’s a medieval um lighthouse basically. So here we have it, the uh medieval uh lighthouse. Used to be a prison as well apparently. So it’s got this beautiful Gothic spire to it. Lovely lovely architecture. [Music] We come across this uh beautiful town hall square here. So the building on the left here is one of the oldest town hall in France. Um, it was built in 1298, but unfortunately it suffered a serious fire in uh June 2013 and it was rebuilt shortly after that. Um, this houses the office of Jean Gritton, the famous mayor of the um, Lashell during the great siege. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Uh, this shows the devastation of the fire in 2013. It was gutted completely inside similar to the Notraam in Paris. And this is where it was rebuilt shortly after a few years later. [Music] Right. We’re going back to the MSC ship, but the uh queue for the uh shuttle bus is about 2 mi long. It’s the longest queue ever. Anyway, we’re walking on the road, but it should be quite quick because coaches come regularly. Finally, we made it to the front of the queue. 20-minute wait, but there’s loads of shuttle buses coming, so it’s actually moving quite quick. Right, let’s head back for lunch. Morning all. It’s uh Tuesday. Uh second stop, Field B, Spain. So, currently catching a free shuttle bus to the metro station and then the metro station takes us to the city center. Beautiful day today. 25°. Oh, there we go again. Quing for something. Buy a ticket. So, got a big queue here just to buy a metro ticket. So, it’s going to take a little while to get on the metro. Right. That was a stressful journey. 1 hour to get to the uh Bill Bao city center. It’s just packed. Cooing queuing queueing. But anyway, let’s go and enjoy the um the old town because we’ve come to the old town area first. We didn’t go to the city. So the old town’s called um V I don’t know how you pronounce it. Casco Vjo. Right. Let’s head out. Right. So, we are currently here, the old town area. We didn’t go to the central yet because we thought we’ll go come here and then walk back later. But it’s lovely here. Um quite really peaceful. Not not too touristy here at the moment, but lovely um buildings and architecture here. Got a lovely church in front of me. I’ll show you around. Yeah, we’re kind of in a park at the moment. Um, in a central square park. Uh, the park’s on the right actually here. And we’ll probably um take a walk that direction in a minute. Um, which takes us into the uh more localized area of the old town. So we have the uh beautiful river that runs across the Bilbao city called Nurvon River uh in front of us and to the right of us now. [Music] Old town Bao this way. Let’s go. [Music] [Music] [Music] So, we come across this lovely um 14th century Sant Diego cathedral. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Right, we’ve arrived at the north of the Bilbao city, the Guggenheim Museum. Interesting little uh dog statue in front of the museum. So, this museum apparently is famous for its uh titanium metal and glass. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh, we have a uh a sculpture there that looks like a spider statue made out of titanium possibly. [Music] right in the center of Moyua, which is the basically the city center of uh Bilbao. [Music] We’re going to call it a day now. Um get the um metro back to um I can’t remember the station name. anyway where the uh shuttle bus is which takes us back to the port and then tomorrow we’ll be uh visiting Lacaruna which is another Spanish port. See you tomorrow. Morning everyone. Wednesday today our third port, Lacaruna, another Spanish port. Weather is like 30° today. Hottest so far. Luckily, there’s no long cues for the shuttle bus, like unlike the other two previous sports. So, it’s just a 15-minute walk into town. Uh, lots of nice little narrow streets and old town to visit as well. So, we’re going to go and explore today. [Music] La Coruna is a Spanish port city in the Glatsia region known for its maritime heritage, historic architecture, and Galaxian culture. The key landmarks include the Tower of Hercules, one of the world’s oldest working lighouses, and the city’s unique glass fronted buildings. It’s a bustling hub with vibrant food scenes, beautiful beaches and significant port making it important if often overlooked destination. So I’ve arrived at this uh center of the old town which houses this uh main square. So this main square is dominated by two major architectural wonders. the town hall building in front of you here which was constructed in 1908 to 1917. And in the center of the square houses the statue of Maria Pitta. [Music] [Music] Uh so just come across this uh small church in the old town. This church, if I can pronounce it properly, it’s called Klexiata de Santa Maria Dampo. Hopefully my pronunciation is correct. Right, we’ve arrived this uh little square called Pratza Deuma. Basically, this square has um drawings on the floor of uh famous cartoon characters. [Music] Let’s have a take a look. [Music] Hey, [Music] Well, [Music] hey, [Music] too hot. To uh sit and have a drink to cool down, you’re okay. You’re calling with a diet coke. And I’m heating up with a hot cappuccino in 30° weather looking over our cruise ship over there behind the trees. Right, that’s it for today. Um, going to head back to the ship and take a buffet lunch. Leaving the port of Lacaruna. Bye-bye. Sea day tomorrow and then the next final stop on Friday will be Shaborg in France. Morning. It’s Friday. The last port uh Shaborg France before we head back to Southampton tomorrow. Uh not not sure what this port got to offer. It’s probably just a town center, wander around, cup of coffee and things like that. But let’s see. Right, we at the uh marina area near the city center. You can see our ship in the distance over there. Um so all these little private yachts and boats all docked here. We’re going to head to our left to the city center and have a look around there. Let’s go. Couple of massive fishes down there. Another one. That’s huge, isn’t it? Oh, disappeared. Three. There you go. My wife spotted it. Don’t know if the camera can spot it. Four. Five. Sea bass. There. No. What are they? I know. What fish are they? I don’t know. me. I’m not a fish expert, so I don’t know. Anyway, what have you spotted now? Any more fish? No. No. No. I was waiting for the sea to catch fish. First little seagull to catch a fish. No. Actually, is it a little fish he got? Yes, it is. Is a little one. Is it seagull there? got a little punching on a a fish that just see that fish is still moving. Yeah. A brief history of Shabborg. So Shabborg is a historic French port town on the Contentin Peninsula. It’s renowned for its large artificial harbor, significant maritime heritage, and cultural attractions like the Site De La Mer Museum and the famous umbrella factory. It’s also a gateway to exploring the Normandy coast and offers a charming blend of history, culture, and scenic beauty. It also serves as a key passenger and commercial ferry port for the UK. [Music] Looks like we ended up in the market, a Friday market because it spans the whole street of this uh town center. Built in 1882, this is known as the Italian theater of Shabborg. This is now a listed historic building and it’s the last of the Italian style theater built in France. [Music] Notradam this way. It says really it’s not a real one. Well, it’s not the real Nacho Dam. It’s probably the Shabborg one, not the Paris one. Right, that’s it. We’ve done a city center tour, done some shopping as well, souvenir shopping. Heading back to the ship now for some late afternoon lunch and then um enjoy the rest of the evening. Tomorrow we’re going to be docking back to Southampton. It’s a race to Southampton. Senine. We’ve been on them before. We’ve been on one of them from UK to France, didn’t we? Many years ago on a car ferry, I think. Well, it’s car and passenger. That’s our journey complete. I hope everyone enjoyed watching this video and following us through the four ports that we visited during the MSC Virtuosa 7 night cruise. Please remember to like, share, and subscribe. In this way, you’ll get notified of future content like this. Thanks for watching everyone. Bye-bye.
MSC Virtuosa 2025 | France & Spain Cruise Port Highlights
Itinerary: La Rochelle – Bilbao – La Coruna – Cherbourg
Date: 5th – 12th July 2025
Walking tour highlights of the cruise ports we visited during our France and Spain 7-night cruise
MSC Virtuosa Cruise Ship Review & Experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTuiD-zBwjc
Camera & mic equipment:
DJI Osmo Pocket 3 shot in 4k 30fps auto mode
DJI Mic 2
00:00 – Intro
00:52 – La Rochelle
05:52 – Bilbao
11:17 – La Coruna
16:10 – Cherboug
20:03 – Outro
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