Arrive in Lisbon and transfer to the Sea Cloud II. Settle in to your cabin and attend a welcome dinner as the ship sets sail.

Spend a day relaxing on board as the ship sails for Cadiz.

The old city of Cádiz, around 3,000 years old, has a picturesque location on a narrow headland, right by the Playa de la Caleta with its elegant beachside promenade. Visit the Andalusian capital of Seville and you will be transported back to the heyday of Moorish splendor and rule, but also the age of discovery. This town sits on the Guadalquivir River and was a center of Spanish maritime trade with the New World. Many buildings in the old town are registered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the splendid Moorish Alcazar fortress and the huge Gothic Cathedral of Santa Maria de la Sede. Seville is a fun-loving city that is still at the center of Andalusian culture and is considered the proud birthplace of Flamenco.

Málaga has spruced itself up. In 2003, the Museo Picasso opened in a 16th century Renaissance palace and is dedicated to the artist's extensive life's work. This historic old city invites you to take a stroll and its buildings gleam like new. And above everything towers the Alcazaba, a mighty walled fortress. The port was completely redesigned when the city was opened to the sea and you can now take a lovely stroll along the promenade. In Málaga's hinterland you can see the most beautiful aspects of traditional Andalusia. From a distance the typical Andalusian villages look like white dabs of paint shining out from the brown of the barren mountain landscape.

On one corner it's centuries old and around the next totally modern - Valencia is everything all at once. Today the beautiful old town and the old silk market "La Lonja de la Seda", which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, still bear witness to the city's wealth in the Middle Ages. A brand new part of the city is situated in a drained river bed and has avant-garde buildings including a futuristic opera house, the largest aquarium in Europe, a botanical garden, and a public park. Valencia is one of the few cities that has a heritage of over 2,000 years and is also so intriguingly combined with the future. And no other city in Europe can proudly make the claim that the America's Cup has already taken place twice right on its front door.

For a time, the small idyllic port of Sanary was a charming and peaceful refuge for many artists. The list of famous names is long: Bertolt Brecht strummed his guitar in one of the harbor cafés and sang satirical songs, Stefan Zweig, the Mann family of writers, and Jacques Cousteau all found what they were looking for here - to put some distance between themselves and the horror of the war. Aix-en-Provence, the birthplace of Paul Cézanne, seems to have been created with the aim of dedicating itself to the fine things in life. This lively university town, the historic capital of Provence, has always promoted the enjoyment of life through art.

Arrive in Nice in the morning and disembark after breakfast. Transfer to the airport or into the city for your continued independent journeys.