Willem's Planet

We made it!  We had more than three hours at Heathrow’s Termical 5 before the flight back to Seattle -but the experience at Heathrow was a good one.  Everything works well and the security check point was efficient and not nearly as onerous as the ones here in the States.  After arriving at Seattle airport, it took more than an hour to get through passport control at US Customs.  And there was more waiting at the taxi stands : the lines were very long.  So we opted for the light rail train from the airport to Mount Baker station where our friend Steve came to pick us up.  Thanks Steve!

We’ve gone ‘full circle’ and arrived at Southampton this morning.   We left our checked luggage outside the door last night, and all 3,000 (and more) of us will be taken to the airport, or just to London.  Believe it or not, there is a number of people just staying put on the ship – they are going on another cruise, on the same ship !  This ship goes up to Norway as well, so that might be the one that they are on. So there is a busride to the airport, and then our flight will leave Heathrow early afternoon and get us back to Seattle about the same time on Thursday.

 

It was a long day, but interesting to see the Normandy beaches made famous by the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.  Our tour guide was Amelié (a very French name, and she spoke with a very French accent).  Our first stop was at the village of Arromanche, where the temporary harbour and vehicle landing strips were built.  The British landed there. Then we stopped at the large American Normandy Cemetery and Memorial that overlooks Omaha beach.    It’s actually American property, given to the USA by the French government.   Then we made a stop down at the Omaha beach and one more at Utah beach.  We had one World War II veteran in the group (you have to be  say, 85 or older if you were a young man at the end of the war).

So .. the voyage around the British Isles is coming to an end!  Tonight it’s packing up, and off to Southampton and directly to Heathrow airport from there for the  flight back to Seattle.

We’re in the English Channel, or shall I simply say The Channel, so as not to offend the French too much who may equally claim the name to be La Manche.  (The French term has been in use for a longer time than the English one, actually).  We’re heading toward the port of Le Havre in the north of France.  I’m signed up for a long bus ride to Omaha Beach where the famous Normandy landings in World War II happened.

We arrived in Edinburgh on Monday morning, but (somewhat shockingly) there was no dockside to moor at.  Part of the problem is that the 18 storey tall cruise ship could not pass under the Fourth River Bridge, an engineering marvel of stone pillars and steel trusses that was constructed in the 1890s.    So the tender boats got us to shore for our excursion to Edinburgh castle, the city of Edinburgh and the royal Brittania yacht (Queen Elizabeth’s yacht for state visits, commissioned in 1954 and only retired in 1997).

It was a gorgeous sunny day, the best so far this year, said the locals, and the Edinburgh castle was crowded.  We filed into the castle’s museum to see the Scottish crown jewels : not as impressive as the ones in the Tower of London!  a crown with gold and pearls and some diamonds (I think), and a big square stone called the Stone of Destiny. (It played a central role in the crowning of several Scottish kings and at times, have been lost for many decades in the mists of time and legend).

I would have loved to see more of the city.   The city has lots of grreenerry (imitating our guide’s Scottish accent), and the very modern building housing the Museum of Scotland that was designed by a Spaniard was not on our list to do.

Monday night we set sail for Le Havre on the French coast, but we will need a day of sea in the North Sea to get us there.

 

Invergordon is where we moored on Sunday morning.  The sky was blue and the air was crisp: a beautiful day on the Scottish highland.   We went out to Dunrobin castle near the village of Golspie, about an hour from Invergordon.  We made a little detour through the village of Tain.  (I would have loved to go to Loch Ness nearby to check out the ‘home’ of the Loch Ness monster, but there is only so much to fit into one day at the shore).

We’re making our way up around the northern part of the British Isles.  It’s all Scotland here, and our next port- of-call is Invergordon.  To get there we have to go all the way around the north and then east and south, some 500 miles from where we left Greenock port (Glasgow area) on Friday night.  It’s been blustery and raining most of the day, and we’ve seen some rocky outcroppings in the sea, and some coastline on and off during the day when the rain and fogginess allowed.

We docked at Greenock port in the Glasgow area on Friday morning.  After breakfast we took the bus out to Culzean Castle, about an 1 ½ hr drive to the south from Glasgow.  The castle is much more recent : 19th century, and furnished inside.  No pictures allowed inside, though.  On the way back we stopped at the town of Ayr to check out the scenery, the shopping and the Scots.   We have a day at sea on Saturday.  We have to make it down and up all the way toward the northern coast of the British Isles to reach Inverness for the next stop.

We  steamed  into Belfast harbor this morning.  After breakfast, we took a bus into the city for a tour, starting at the Belfast City Hall on Donegall Square.  A young red-haired Irishman called Liam took us through the main lobby, the chambers and the dining hall.   The city officially became the capital of Northern Ireland in 1921.

After walking around a few blocks we stopped at McHughes’s pub, established 1711 said the front sign.   I had a Harp lager.  The harp is one of Ireland’s national symbols, maybe more so than the (sometimes silly) three leaf clover.  After that the official excursion was done, and we were left to our own devices to walk around the city.  Besides the very old buildings that survived World War II and ‘The Troubles’ (the ethno-nationalist conflict that reached its bloodiest year in 1972), there is not a whole lot of eye-catching architecture to be seen, to be honest.  Many of the buildings are plain, utilitarian, some downright ugly.  There is not a lot of car traffic in the city; lots of buses, though.  To be fair, it is not a city on a par with Dublin or Liverpool as far as size goes.  Belfast’s population is only about 280,000; all of North Ireland’s population at about 1.8 million.

P.S.  Happy Fourth of July to my American readers!  The cruise ship seemed to roll out all its red-white-and-blue decorations that it had, and put up a display of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, the Statue of Liberty, and painted portraits of prominent US presidents.  They blasted out Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ from 1985 over the closed circuit TV in the staterooms this morning.  If I can say : it’s not the best Fourth of July song.  Springsteen’s point with the song was that in spite of being born in the USA, many people (and especially war veterans) are having a very tough time these days.

We arrived in Liverpool this morning, and set out for Conway (Welsh: Conwy) castle in north Wales out after breakfast.  I was thrilled to get to see some of Wales, since I have family connections on my mom’s side that come from Wales.  The castle was built by King Edward I circa 1283 (!) and gives a good impression of what a real castle looked like.   The castle had many rooms, some with fireplaces, the walls covered with tapestries for additional insulation, some very deep wells, kitchen, dining room, even a retreat for the king when he tired of his rowdy guests.   After Conway the bus driver took us to a village called Betws-y-Coed (that’s Welsh, English for Chapel-in-the-Woods) for lunch.  Then we went a little further south across the moors of Wales with the landscape dotted with sheep, and back up to Liverpool.  There was still time to walk around Albert Dock, check out its nice new Maritime Museum and the Museum of Liverpool (which of course featured The Beatles, and the two English Premier League soccer teams of Liverpool and Everton).

P.S.  I made a photo collage of some of the day’s highlights so that I have to upload only one picture.  I hope it gives an impression of the day.  The ship’s satellite internet connection is very expensive and very temperamental !

We arrived at the port of Dublin early morning.  The cruise ship had to be navigated into a narrow passageway to the harbour, and then manoeuvred around by almost 180 degrees to berth it for its departure Tuesday night.  Our excursion for the day took us to an estate and garden called Powerscourt in the southern outskirts of the city for the morning, and then we were brought back to downtown Dublin and left to our own devices to find a pub for lunch, take in the scenery and do some shopping.   It was raining on and off, but we still managed a good amount of walking around between the rain showers.  I was impressed with the mix of old and new buildings.  The commercial property development on the north side of the river came to an abrupt halt with the 2008 financial crises, however.   Several new buildings are sitting idle and waiting for tenants.  We are sailing across the Celtic Sea to the United Kingdom for an arrival at Liverpool on Wednesday.

Early on Monday morning, our cruise ship made its way into the little port town of Cobh (pronounce ‘Cove’, the Gaelic name does not have a ‘v’) this morning.   Cobh was the most important point of emigration for Ireland right into the 1960’s, and the last port of call for the ill-fated Titanic in 1912.  Cork is not far away, but the excursion that we selected for the day took us elsewhere.  A big coach bus took us via the M8 motorway (freeway) to the town of Cashel to visit the ‘Rock of Cashel’, a combination castle-cathedral.  Maurín (‘Maureen’) told us all about the surroundings and some Irish history on the way.  We were served us a hearty lunch of vegetable soup, boiled potato, diced carrots and chicken, and then we took a winding road back to the cruise ship with stops at the towns of Lismore, Midleton.   I would say the stop at Lismore and its garden was the highlight of the day.

We arrived into Guernsey early Sunday morning.  There is no way for the enormous cruise ship to dock at St.Peter’s Port on the east side of the island, so the ship stays outside the harbor at sea, and we are ‘tendered’ to shore and back with the ship’s tender boats.  We had to be back early at the ship since it’s a long way up to Cork in Ireland, and it’s going to be full steam ahead to make it there in time.

Our Boeing 747-400 with the Union Jack on the tail was just a little late departing Seattle at 7 pm Saturday night.  Some 8 1/2 hours later, we had to circle a few times around London Heathrow airport, since a plane ran off the runway, the pilot said.  Princess Cruises met us at arrivals but made us wait a bit before they put us on the bus to Southampton.  Ours was actually the last bus they put on for arriving passengers, and by the time we got to the cruise ship, there was no line of embarking passengers left at all.  I think our party of 6 from the Seattle flight were the very last to board!  So by now it was Saturday afternoon at 5 pm in Southampton, and it was a nice sunny summery day on the south coast of England.  Promptly after 5 we set sail for the first stop, at Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey.

I am more or less packed for the flight to London for the British Isles cruise on the Princess Cruise line. Just a few more things and then close the suitcase.  I have printed luggage tags for the ship, and these go on to the luggage checked in for the flight.  That way they can handle it and put it on the bus that will take us to the Southampton port from London Heathrow airport.    I even have some British pounds and Euro currency in case I need it for an emergency.  Will we ever get to a cashless world?  Not in a long time, at least.

I had quite an adventure getting to the hotel last night, but the Hertz rental car’s Neverlost navigation system got me there and back to the airport.  A good thing it was, that I arrived early : Delta called me and said they have a better itinerary for me, through Cincinnati instead of Minneapolis.  Besides, the storm system may delay the Pittsburgh flight again, so better to get out on the earlier flight to Cincinnati, said the agent. No problem!  Make the change and thank you! I said.