April 29 - Getxo, Spain

I went ashore this morning intending to take a taxi to the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao.  To my surprise when I asked the woman at the tourism desk in the cruise terminal to arrange it, she told me we aren’t really in Bilbao. Instead we’re in the little city about ten miles away called Getxo (pronounced Get-cho). So I asked if there were things to see here and when she said yes, I asked her to get me a taxi to take a tour around here.  I must have an angel looking out for me because I had another fantastic day!

First a little about Getxo. It’s a city of more than 80,000 people on the northern coast of Spain in the autonomous Basque country.  Like every place around here it has been settled for millennia by a variety of tribes and civilizations. It has seen a few incidents of conflict by Basque separatists who wanted to be independent of Spanish rule, but not in recent years.  Until Bilbao, the industrial city next door, began to expand, Getxo was a fishing village. As Bilbao grew this place became a residential community for wealthy people and the houses around reflect that. The streets are lined with what were once mansions in Tudor, Cantabrian, and Art Deco style, but most have now been converted to apartments.

Today my driver was Francisco, a native of this area and a grandfather.  He spoke no English so I spent several hours remembering and practicing my Spanish.  I think I’m getting pretty good, but today was our last port in Spain so I’ll forget it again. Anyway, this is a delightful little city.  Of course I sat in the front of the car and we were off to the downtown. Our first stop was the Vizcaya Bridge, a transporter bridge that crosses the Nervión River. I’ve never seen anything like it which makes sense since it’s the only working one in the world. It is a shuttle bridge which has a sort of platform at river level suspended from a high bridge structure which shuttles back and forth every ten minutes or so and can carry six cars and a few dozen passengers.  It's really very unique and interesting to watch.  It’s built of iron (of which there are many mines around this part of Spain) and steel.

There are cables hanging from the top of the bridge structure and in the photo below beyond the gates there's a platform for cars and people which is at the moment on the other side of the river.

The pretty plaza across the street from the bridge

We left downtown and traveled through beautiful residential streets with these large homes, which as I said have been divided into apartments. Francisco told me the same thing José did yesterday; Spaniards buy rather than rent their homes.  I didn’t try to delve into how they do that.  I think talking about mortgages would really challenge my language skills. We parked next at the waterfront and took an elevator up to the old town.  This place was a fishing village and at the top of the elevator we were at the midpoint of the old town.  It was charming there with stuccoed houses with red tile roofs and twisty cobblestone streets.  It’s Saturday and a holiday weekend to boot, so locals were out in full force. There were lots of little restaurants and pintxos (those are tapas in Basque country) bars.  I asked Francisco to pick one where we could have something to eat and drink. The place we settled on had a line waiting for a table outside, but inside the tiny kitchen there were a couple of empty bar stools which we took. Francisco ordered four different pintxos and some wonderful dry white wine. I’m not sure exactly what I ate but it was all delicious. I know I had some roasted octopus, anchovies which were not at all like the ones we get in jars, and some kind of salad which might have had tuna.  The best was a piece of bread with Iberico ham, a piece of goat cheese, topped with I think fig jam and candied walnuts.  It was to die for.

The elevator to go up to the old town

Little narrow and twisting cobblestone streets up there

Signs for different pintxos in the little bar. I was sitting at the counter

The open room I was standing in was where the fishermen would meet before going out to talk about who would fish where and afterwards to meet and talk about how their day was and compare notes.

We finished up and rode the elevator back down and took off.  There’s a path that goes along the waterfront for walkers and bikes but no cars are allowed. We drove along above the path through old and new neighborhoods to the headland.  Along the way we stopped to see the only windmill in this part of Spain.  It’s not a modern  windmill; it’s the kind that was used to grind wheat and corn.  Think Don Quixote and La Mancha. There are the remnants of a fort, of course.  There was another on the opposite side of the estuary to keep marauders from raiding.

This and the next picture are remnants of one of the old forts guarding the entrance to the harbor

I guess I'm Sancho Panza. Where's Don Quixote?

After a few hours it was time to get back to the ship. It was a pleasure meeting and spending a few hours with Francisco.  I think we both learned something, me perhaps more than him.

Now I’m almost embarrassed to say we played Trivia again.  They are doing it at 4:30 on these port days.  Our team, Abandon Ship, won for the 4th straight day. The stars must have all come into alignment because we didn’t miss a single question.

Tonight we were supposed to have a dance party out by the pool, but it was moved inside because it’s cold.  Who knew that there are actually dancers on board and for the first time I’ve gotten up and danced.  It felt wonderful and I shall keep it up.  During dinner the captain announced that our port call in Hendaye, France was canceled.  It seems it is a tender port and the French port authorities said the seas would be too rough to tender. (I’m a little suspicious of that because Monday is a holiday and I think they just didn’t want to work tomorrow.) No matter. We’re spending an extra night here in Getxo.

Alright, I think it’s time to say buenas noches.  So hasta mañana

April 28 - You don’t always need a plan, just go

That’s what I did today and I had a wonderful time.  Today we arrived in Gijón (pronounced  He-Hone), the largest city in the region of Asturias.  Today the sun god must have been busy elsewhere because it was dreary, foggy, occasionally misty and cold. No matter.  Instead of going on a group tour I decided to find a taxi and have him take me on a little tour.  We were docked in a very large industrial port and Seabourn provided a shuttle to the old city.  When I got off the ship the bus was leaving for the drivers’ lunch break.  There was a delightful young woman, Laura, from the Gijón Tourist Bureau on the pier and with her help a taxi came and picked me up and off we went. It took a while for the car to arrive and while I waited Laura and I had a lovely chat about her education and family.  

My driver was José Antonio and I sat in the front with him as I like to do. He spoke only Spanish, but I’ve found I’m remembering more and more as the days go by and I understand basically everything.  We headed first to the old city, the Cimavilla.  It’s a small enclave by the sea with winding cobblestone streets and old buildings, some made of stone and many in the process of renovation. Gijón doesn’t have a cathedral unlike many cities, but we passed the oldest church.  In one of the squares there was a statue of King Pelayo, the first king of the Kingdom of Asturias.  It was he who defeated the Moors at the battle of Covadonga, sometime around 718 AD.  That battle is considered the first  one of the Reconquista, or Reconquest of Spain by Christians.  It ended in 1492 when Isabella and Ferdinand finally defeated the Moors.

King Pelayo, sorry it's not a better photo

We passed the aquarium (which I later heard was worth visiting.  Next time I guess.), the old railroad station which is now a railway museum and a little church which houses a Black Madonna.  There are many Black Madonnas in churches in this country because I’ve seen several others on other trips. This one was in a tiny little chapel which was very pretty.

The Church of the Black Madonna

We left the downtown and passed a more affluent area.  As we drove I had an interesting conversation with José.  He told me that people in his city try to buy their residence and many do because they don’t like renting.  I asked him if they have a problem with migrants like many other parts of Spain have.  He told me that they really don’t because 1) Gijón is not really on the way to other parts of Europe and 2) in Asturias migrants get very little assistance so if they don’t have a skill and can’t get a job, they are out of luck. Hmm, I wonder if there might be a lesson in there someplace?

We drove next to the Universidad Laboral de Gijón, a branch of the University of Oviedo.  This was a very interesting place. First, the building is the largest one in Spain. It began as a school founded by Francisco Franco, the dictator who ruled Spain after his forces won the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s.  Franco was in charge when my family lived in Madrid. After his death he was really vilified because that civil war was very brutal, not unlike our own.  Back to the school. It was founded to care for and educate children orphaned by the deaths of their parents in the many mines in Asturias.  Over the years it was converted into a public university and now is home to the school of engineering. As we drove to the school José told me about the education system. (He has a 19-year-old daughter going to the university.)  Public ones are tuition free. If a student gets very good grades and wants to go to a university not close to home, she gets assistance to pay for living expenses including room and board. If his grades aren’t quite up to snuff, tuition is still free, but he must come up with the money to live on.

Can you tell I'm fascinated by this building?

The building is magnificent with a very tall belltower, a huge inner plaza and lots of decorative sculptures. There were students walking along and I thought they looked more professionally dressed than some of the students I see around William and Mary and they also looked a little older.  After we stopped so I could get out and take some pictures we drove on and passed the football (soccer) stadium and the bull ring. Needless to say, football is big. There are currently no bullfights because, according to José, the current mayor banned them.  He told me that he hopes if a new mayor is elected they will be able to be held again during fiesta days.  We may think they are brutal, but I think bullfights are a little part of the Spanish soul.

On our drive back to the ship, we talked a little about the politics in Spain and the world in general.  I was interested to hear that Franco’s legacy is not as negative as it once was. José seemed to think that the current king Felipe is a pretty good guy.  I think something in the king’s favor is that he’s married to Letizia, a commoner and former TV news journalist from Asturias. We discussed the war in Ukraine (they have some, not many, refugees in Gijón.) and we both agreed that finding a solution that will satisfy everyone will be very difficult.

Then we were back at the pier and we said our goodbyes.  Laura was there and I got a big hug and European kiss, kiss and went back onboard.  It may not sound like a typical tour day, but we did what I like best;  I got to talk to real people and learn something about how they live their lives.  Frankly at my age I find that much more interesting than seeing another cathedral or racing through a museum which by all rights should take hours or days to visit.  I hope that the people I encounter also learn from me that we Americans can be pretty nice people too because too often when I’ve been in tour groups there have been some people that are an embarrassment.  Okay, I’m off my soapbox now.

And last, but not least we played Trivia and we won again! That’s three in a row.  If this keeps up, our team members are going to have to stay well away from any railings. We’re getting all the faux leather, made in China, wonderful prizes and the natives will become restless.

Tomorrow is Bilbao and I don’t know what I’ll do there

April 27 - Ferrol, Spain

Today we are docked in Ferrol, Spain which is at the far northwestern corner of the Iberian peninsula on the Atlantic coast.  My father came here often for work when we lived in Spain and I remember coming here once.  Ferrol is in the autonomous region of Spain called Galicia.  Unlike the southern half of the peninsula, this area is lush and green.  The place has been inhabited for millennia.  In writings from ancient historians there are references of Phoenician and Greek settlements.  (Those Phoenicians were everywhere which I find amazing.) The Romans, Vandals, and Moors all occupied the area.  Because of its location it was important to the Spanish as a center for its navy, especially during the era when Spain had so many colonies in the New World.  Now it is primarily a port for exports of seafood, corn, wine and other products grown or manufactured in this part of Spain

I had nothing planned for today and as it turns out all tours were canceled because there was supposed to be a bus strike.  I went ashore with a friend and we decided to walk around a little and then perhaps take a taxi for a little tour. The shuttle dropped us off right in downtown and we headed first toward the market (I love markets!).  On the way we passed a shoe store with some nice-looking shoes.  We both wound up buying a pair.  The market was winding down when we went in but there were still some stands with produce (the biggest white asparagus we’d ever seen), plenty of seafood and meat and cheeses.  The market was in a very clean and modern pair of buildings.  

Aren't these gigantic asparagus?

Upon leaving the market we walked up a couple of blocks to what must be the main shopping street.  It’s pedestrian only and there were cafés with tables in the walkway.  It was too early for lunch; here in Spain lunchtime is more like 1:30 or 2 PM and this was noonish.  Along the way we passed a store that sold candies and chocolate palmieres.  They looked so good, and after all the ship barely feeds us 😀, that we went in.  We bought one of the chocolate  things and I bought a box of traditional Galician almond cookies.  The street brought us to the main plaza which has a very large and imposing city hall dominating one side and some nice trees and benches along the others.  My friend went into a pharmacy to look for something and I sat in the shade and people-watched, one of my favorite things to do.  One thing I observed was the Spaniards really like dogs.  There were many people walking along with their dogs.  As in other European countries, people can go into shops or sit at cafés with their dogs.  Think what would happen if we tried that at home in the US.

Not sure what this was but it was about 4 feet tall and in the middle of the street

The City Hall on one side of the Plaza de Armas

We decided to head down the hill toward the waterfront and we came to a lovely little park with a monument to people from Ferrol who were killed during the era of Franco.  Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War, was from Ferrol, but there is evidently no love lost for him now.  There was also a very pretty fountain.  I’m always impressed in cities like this how many parks and green spaces there are particularly along the waterfront.  We had walked several miles and decided to head back to the ship.

I forgot to mention that today turned out to be a glorious day weatherwise.  We have a beautiful blue sky and the temperature is close to 70°.  I hope it stays this way for the next few days.

I also need to tell you a little about yesterday’s sea day.  It was chilly and dreary, but the seas were smooth.  That was fortunate because the Bay of Biscay, which we were sailing through, has a nasty reputation.  We had our first trivia session.  I’m on a team with several friends from previous cruises and our name is Abandon Ship.  Wonder of wonders, we won yesterday!  In the evening I had dinner with the captain who is a delightful Yorkshireman.  He was very engaging, which is more than I can say for the gentleman sitting next to me on one side.  That man when I introduced myself to him didn’t tell me his name he just turned his place card in my direction and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the dinner.  He spoke to the lady across from him about his wine cellar.  The funny thing about that was I knew some of the wines he talked about and some of them are wines that are on the included wine list on the ship.  They are nice wines but they are hardly ones that I would brag about if I was a wine connoisseur.

And finally, we had an afternoon trivia game just a little while ago and TA-DA we won again!  If we keep this up, we may be the most disliked passengers on the ship.  Tomorrow we’re in another Spanish port, Gijon.  Until then…

Some Serrano and Iberico hams

Salted fish anyone?

April 25 - The world is your oyster. It’s up to you to find the pearls.

A man named Chris Gardner, a motivational speaker, said that and isn’t that very true. Why did I start with that?  Today I took a tour to an oyster farm here in Brittany or Bretagne as the French call it. Our port stop was actually Saint Malo on the peninsula that comprises Brittany.  The big attraction here could have been a visit to Mont Saint Michel, the famous island monastery.  Mont Saint Michel is sometimes landlocked because it’s on a bay where the tides can vary as much as 46 feet between high and low water marks.  Unfortunately my time to visit the place has passed me by.  To get there visitors have to make quite a long walk and then on the island they have to walk up a couple of hundred steps and then of course reverse their course to leave.

Instead I chose to take a tour which left in mid-afternoon and went to a fishing village called Cancale, which lies at the western end of the Bay of Mont Saint Michel.  Since it’s on the same body of water it too is subject to tremendous tides as was evident when we drove into the village.  There were lots of boats just sitting on a vast expanse of sand, some of them lying on their side, all waiting for the tide to come in.

The bus left us off on the waterfront to give us an opportunity to wander around a little.  It was a school holiday so there were lots of families, many with dogs, walking along the waterside street.  The street was lined with little cafés and crêperies.  Our guide had told us that crêpes are a specialty of this part of Brittany.  I had some time and hadn’t had lunch so I stopped in one and ordered a crêpe au chocolat.  Was it ever good! I looked in a few stores which had Breton tourist things and bought something.  

A little seafood stand and café.  Oysters were € 4.50 per dozen (that's about $5)

After reboarding the bus we proceeded just on the edge of town to La Ferme Marine, a family-owned oyster farm in Cancale.  We first saw a presentation and a film about the farming of oysters.  It was quite interesting.  I had no idea that the new oyster larvae  as they begin to develop are called spats.  They initially are grown on long sticks and when they have begun to form a shell they are scraped off the stick and put in large mesh pouches which can hold hundreds of the spats.  Here at this farm the oysters are not grown on the bottom; they are grown on racks or flats.  The pouches are placed on those in the bay and periodically turned and beaten with a stick to keep the young oysters from becoming stuck in the mesh or growing together. As the oysters get larger they are thinned out so they have more space to grow and this thinning out process happens every few months.  When the oysters have eventually reached maturity here in Brittany they use a sort of dredge that looks a little like a small barge which goes out into the water along the long lines of racks and scoops the bags up and onto the vehicle.  The oysters are then taken to the processing facility at the farm and cleaned, sorted, and packed for shipping.  France is the largest producer and consumer of oysters in Europe.

One of the pouches used for the spats

After learning about how to farm them we of course got to taste some.  There are two kinds of oysters here.  There is the cup shaped oyster which is the kind I’ve seen and that we have at home.  Rarer are the flat oysters. These have a flat shell on one side.  We had a plate with three of each.  They all tasted good, but I preferred the taste of the more traditional one.  What is amazing is that there can be such distinct differences in taste depending on where the oysters are grown.  The salinity of the water and the minerals present can make a tremendous difference in taste.  I’ve noticed that at home; oysters from the Rappahannock don’t taste the same as ones from Lynnhaven Inlet.

After sampling our oysters along with a glass of white wine, it was time to board our bus and head back to Saint Malo.  I didn’t get back on board until after 7 PM.  I had dinner reservations with a friend and barely had time to change into something more presentable.

After dinner we had a show with two Polish ladies who played the cello.  They were excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed their selection of music.  I went to the Club after that and it’s looking bleak in terms of dancing.  Most of the music wasn’t really dancing music and nobody was really getting up to dance.  I may have to take Mr. Gardner’s advice and take responsibility for finding the “pearl.” The question is can I be that uninhibited that I will 1) ask for some dance tunes to be played and 2) get up and dance even if there’s no hope of anyone else joining in.  I’ll have to summon my courage and remember that the vast majority of these people I’ll never see again.  What do you think?

A sea day tomorrow

April 24 - Cherbourg, Normandy

This morning we docked in Cherbourg on the coast of Normandy.  A couple I had been talking with online booked a van with driver and guide for the day and I and two other ladies decided to go with them.  My friend Claudia and I had been to Normandy before but the others had not.  Since it was a private tour we could set our itinerary and our first priority was to visit the D Day related sites, so off we went.  A word about the weather.  The forecast called for rain all day, but the weather gods must have been smiling on us because aside from a little sprinkle twice it was a nice day albeit a little cold.

The first two places we went I hadn’t been to before.  We  stopped first at Ste. Mère Église, the town that paratroopers landed in early on June 6, 1944.  They missed their drop spot and many came down in the middle of the town square.  One, John Steele who was portrayed by Red Buttons in the movie The Longest Day, got his parachute caught on the church spire.  In an attempt to get down he was shot in the foot by a German soldier and then he played dead until he could be taken down.  The priest in the church began ringing the bells and Private Steele hung next to the church and bells for hours before the Germans got him down to hold him prisoner.  He managed to escape and rejoined his unit.  The French have hung a replica of him hanging from his parachute on the steeple.  It had to have been a harrowing experience. Inside the church there are two stained glass windows commemorating the troops and units that landed at Normandy and liberated the town.  They were quite beautiful and moving.

That's a replica of Private Steele hanging on the left side of the tower

The two stained glass windows commemorating the invasion

Our next stop was Pointe du Hoc, another place featured in the movie I mentioned above.  This is a 35 meter high cliff which the Germans had fortified with a series of tunnels and big gun emplacements.  The Allies had been told that there were five 155mm artillery pieces there in positions which could fire on both Omaha and Utah beaches, the two US landing beaches.  Additionally, the guns could lob shells as far as 12 miles out to sea.  It was therefore imperative that the guns be taken out before the landing occurred. The US forces landed 225 Army Rangers on the beach below the cliffs just before the invasion and their job was to use ropes and ladders to scale the cliff and destroy the guns.  There was some kind of breakdown of intelligence and it turned out that the guns weren’t there, just the emplacements for them.  A team of Rangers found the guns hidden in a farmhouse a few miles away and destroyed them.  However, in the process out of 225 rangers landed only 90 survived.  The mission was a success, but had the intelligence been accurate perhaps it would have been at a much lower cost.

A gun emplacement

Some of the indentations in the ground of the cliff are bomb craters while others are remnants of the tunnel system the Germans had

This is an artillery piece like the ones that were supposed to be here

On we went to Omaha Beach.  If you’ve seen Saving Private Ryan you’ll know what the men landing there faced. The last time I was here the tide was at roughly the same place it was for the first wave landing.  The men who unloaded from their Higgins boats had to cross a large swath of sand covered with barbed wire and various steel obstacles to which mines and explosives were attached and all while under blistering fire. I cannot imagine the terror of the men running down the ramps of the landing craft.  Many of them were 18 or 19 years old and had probably never been more than 50 miles from home.  At the other beaches the resistance met was not as stiff, but at Omaha the battle remained in doubt for many hours.  Between 5,000 and 6,000 men were killed, wounded or missing at the end of the day.

Omaha Beach. The next photo shows the monument on the beach

 

From Omaha we drove up to the American Cemetery at Colleville sur Mère, a bluff overlooking the beach.  I wrote about this when we came here in 2018 so I’ll try not to be too repetitive.  There are 9388 US military personnel buried here, all but one casualties of the Normandy invasion. The one exception is Quentin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s son who was an aviator shot down in WW I.  His body was exhumed from its original grave elsewhere in France so he could be buried next to his brother Theodore Roosevelt Jr., a general who died of a heart attack not long after landing on Utah beach.  It is very moving to see the long lines of white marble markers, most of them with crosses, but a few with stars of David.

Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves

Near the entrance and where ceremonies are carried out is a beautiful bronze sculpture called Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves.  In the middle of the cemetery is a multi-denominational chapel with an altar that’s inscribed with “I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.”  I thought it was one of the most moving places I’d ever been the last time and my feelings haven’t changed.  As we walked along the beautifully manicured walkways we could hear birds chirping and singing and I couldn’t help but think of the difference from the sound springing forth from this bluff nearly 80 years ago when there were machine guns, rifles and artillery pieces firing.

Our last D Day stop was the museum at Arromanches   The Allies knew that they needed ports to be able to bring heavy armor (tanks), artillery and supplies and the Germans held the ports and had heavily fortified them.  The Allies had learned that the hard way when they made an attempt to capture the port of Dieppe in August 1942.  In that battle of the 6000 Canadian troops who were landed within less than 12 hours  more than 3600 were killed, wounded or captured and the Royal Air Force lost more than 100 planes.   So the Allies had designed and built the pieces for two man made ports with floating docks and bridges.  One was constructed at Omaha Beach and the other at Arromanches.  The one at Omaha was destroyed on June 19, 1944 by a huge storm, but the remnants of the one at Arromanches can still be seen and the museum there has all sorts of displays of the construction and equipment used.  It also has many things from the rest of the invasion.   Just a few weeks ago a new building was opened and the one I’d visited before was torn down.  It’s a worthwhile place to visit to understand the huge undertaking that was done 80 years ago.

A sunken caisson which formed part of the port

Hard to see but there are a few rectangular pieces in the water that formed part of the man-made harbor

We still had a little time so on our way back to Cherbourg we stopped in Bayeux and went to the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux to see the Bayeux Tapestry.  This is a remarkable embroidered cloth that is about 20 inches tall and 220 feet long. It tells the story of the reason for William, Duke of Normandy, invading England and defeating King Harold in 1066, in other words the Norman conquest.  The thought is that it was created to tell the people, who were not literate, the story of the events in a set of 58 tableaux; you might call it an 11th century cartoon depiction.  What is amazing is that the tapestry is believed to have been made only a few years after the conquest making it nearly 1000 years old.  It tells the story in vivid depictions of people, animals and places and is truly remarkable to see.  Unfortunately but understandably no photos may be taken of this 1000 year old treasure, so if you want to see what it looks like you'll have to google it.

Then it was time to get back to Cherbourg and the ship. In fact, we arrived only a few minutes before we were due to sail.  We weren’t the last to board though because just behind us came another group.  Whew!  I was glad we made it although our next port was just a few miles down the road.

Anyway, It was a very nice and informative day.  Our guide Alain was great and gave us just enough information.  The weather held out and I saw some new things along with places I wanted to revisit.  The only downside was that we walked about 5.5 miles and I was frankly pooped.  Tomorrow I have a pretty easy day and then we have a sea day so I’ll be able to recuperate.  I’ll tell you more about the ship and the vibe here then too. À bientôt.

April 23 - Catch-up and I’m only on day 2!

Sunday morning  I had breakfast with my friend at the hotel and then we said our goodbyes.  She had a driver taking her home and I had Richard of Richard’s Taxi Service taking me to Dover.  It had started to drizzle as we left the hotel and along the way it became a veritable deluge.  I sat in the front seat with Richard and we had a nice chat on our close to two hour drive. Traffic was so-so and the time passed quickly.

Dover Castle

White Cliffs of Dover (not quite as sunny as the one I put as a header)

Embarkation was quick and painless.  My cabin was ready, the same kind I had last cruise, and after dropping off my carryon I headed to lunch in the Colonnade.  It was crowded!  Perhaps it was because there were lots of us new folks boarding at around the same time and perhaps it was compounded by the fact that the people staying on didn’t want to do much ashore in the deluge, but the place was packed and the service was spotty.  While I was looking at the buffet I ran into four people I knew from previous cruises.  That was nice and it will be fun catching up with them.

After lunch I went to my cabin and found my suitcases waiting so I unpacked and stowed everything away.  This cabin has lots of storage space.  It’s obligatory that everyone watch the safety video (I let it play while I unpacked) and then I had to go and have my card scanned at my muster station. After that I called my friend from the Antarctica cruise and we met in Seabourn Square and talked about our plans for the next few days.

Dinner was uneventful and tasty. I didn’t check the time , but I know we left a little late.  Since we had such a short distance to travel tonight it wasn’t a problem.  Onward to Normandy

April 23 - Hounslow, England

It’s Sunday morning and I’m here at the Sofitel at Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport.  I arrived yesterday close to noon after an uneventful flight from Richmond to Newark and then onward to London.  I had high expectations for my layover at Newark because I had read on some travel websites that the United Polaris Lounge there was “about the best in the US.”  My standards must be different.  Oh, it was big and had lots of seating and places to plug in.  I had read that they had great food there and I was determined to try a new tactic to attempt to get so some sleep on the plane.  I would eat dinner in the lounge and then declare lights out when I boarded.  I wasn’t expecting Michelin star food, but what was there was just bad. That plan went out the window. Sadly, the food on the plane was worse.  Needless to say I haven’t gained weight on the first day of my trip.

Anyway,  the flight was uneventful; my bags came quickly.  I found a black taxi, that’s what they call official ones here, and had him drive me to my hotel at another terminal.  This place is so big that it took about 20 minutes driving.  There is a train that’s free, but there is no way I could manage my suitcases and get on and off a train.  I learned an interesting thing about black taxi drivers. In order to get a license they have to pass what they call a “knowledge” test. That includes obvious things like learning city streets and the surrounding suburbs.  But it also includes being able to converse about world affairs to some extent.  My driver had an accent that would have done a performance as a cockney in My Fair Lady proud.  As soon as we took off he engaged in a conversation about the state of American politics as compared to those in Britain. I won’t tell you what his thoughts were, but he was a very interesting “chap” to listen to.

After I checked in and took a little nap, I got cleaned up and went to the club they have here and met my friend Toni.  We met on the last cruise and she drove down and spent the night in the hotel too.  We talked from 3:30 until 11:30 last night about all sorts of things.  Along the way we had dinner (fish and chips which were quite good) and caught up on things.  She’s a widow like me with only one son who lives in Thailand and I think she gets pretty lonely.  I can relate to that.

After a decent night’s sleep, I’m getting ready to meet her for breakfast and then we’ll say our goodbyes – she to head back to somewhere in the country about an hour from London and me to Dover to board my ship.  On the ship will be another friend I met going around South America and the fact that we’re staying in touch is one of the most wonderful things about cruising.  I’ve made some lifelong friends in faraway places.

I’ll write more later when I’m settled aboard.

April 20 -“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

Jacques Cousteau, the famous oceanographer, said that and evidently I’ve fallen under the sea’s spell.  I leave tomorrow for my next adventure on the Seabourn Ovation.  I booked the cruise while on my last voyage when I realized that I had a birthday coming up.  If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know that last year I had a spectacular birthday including an evening concert in the ruins of Ephesus.  My family will be busy working and in school on that day, so I decided to celebrate on another cruise.  A friend from the Quest will be on the first part of my voyage and I’m meeting a couple of other cruise friends along the way which will make the experience that much better. 

The Seabourn Ovation

I fly to London first and after a night at the hotel I like there, and dinner and breakfast with one of my newly met friends,  I’ll head down to Dover to board the Ovation on Sunday.  My cruise will take me to some places I’ve been before along the French and Spanish coasts before doing a circumnavigation of the British  Isles.  I haven’t seen many places in England and I’ve never been to Scotland, so there will be lots of new things to see.  I haven’t planned a lot (I haven’t really had much time) but I know I’m going to revisit the D Day sites on the coast of Normandy.  I did that with my husband  five years ago and it was one of the most moving days of my life.  My English friend Hilary is meeting me in Liverpool and she has a lovely day planned for us with some really neat (does anyone use that word anymore?) things planned.  I’ll give you a clue – it has something to do with a pretty famous band that came from Liverpool.  More about that later.

Anyway, I finally finished packing, one of my least favorite things to do, and I hope that I did a better job packing than for my last cruise.  Fortunately this time I'm not going literally to the ends of the earth, so if I forgot something I should be able to get it along the way. Ciao for now!