The Marina docked in Southampton, UK around 7am. We said goodnight, not goodbye, to our bags by 10:30 last evening, and all passengers were expected to be out of their cabins by 8am. The four of us were up, shared one last breakfast in the Grand Dining Room, and were ready to disembark promptly at 8am. The bags were well organized and easy to find, and we had been cleared by Immigration three days earlier. Nice and easy.

Marion had arranged for our driver for the day, Steve, who had been a career printing papers salesman, until he lost his job. He worked for the equivalent of airport parking – for cruise terminals – for three years, and then formed his own business, New Forest Platinum Tours, which ranges from being a taxi/executive transportation service to a tour guide service of the New Forest area. Interesting 60 year old guy. He was our driver for the day, which basically meant picking us up at the cruise terminal, getting us to Portsmith to view a needlepoint done by a young Mr. George Records back in the mid-1800s, and to view some documents provided by the HMS Warrior and HMS Victory regarding George Records, who joined the Royal Navy when he was either 14 or 16, I believe. Marion made all the arrangements with the authorities, in advance.

We arrived in Portsmouth, and were a bit early, so we walked around memorials for the Titanic and sailors, in general. We found the navy yard and were directed to Security, where we got temporary photo id badges for entry to the library’s reading room, and were picked up by one of the library’s personnel. The needlepoint was amazing, to me. It was very detailed and creative, and contained two photographs of the young man, which considering it was the mid-1800s was amazing to me. Marion is the historian, but this relative served on both the Black Prince and on the HMS Warrior, which was the first iron-hulled, armored warship build for the Royal Navy, http://www.hmswarrior.org/, commissioned in 1860, and was decommissioned May 31, 1883 – never having fired a shot in battle.

Being a legacy of the ship, we were offered a free tour by one of the super guides. This was extremely interesting. The Warrior was a full sailing ship – yet was also powered by steam, with interesting design considerations, like lowering stacks to allow full sails, and raising the propeller to reduce drag and increase speed when under full sail. You truly got a feel for what life on board was all about – the positioning of the leadership/command of the ship from the crew – with the marines in the middle. It had a full laundry, kitchen, etc. Fascinating.

 

It was getting late, and we were hungry, so we called Steve, and while he was getting ready to meet us, we grabbed a few sandwiches and drinks, and met him at the curb. From Portsmouth, it was a 60-90 minute drive into Central London, which Steve wasn’t entirely familiar with. I became navigator, using Steve’s GPS, and Marion backed me up with use of her European smart phone. It seemed like a long way around, but we got there in one piece.

Getting to the flat at 58 Maddox Street, practically at the corner of New Bond Street (had to say it), we met Ricardo, who is the management representative for this flat, on the first floor, or one level up from the street. Ricardo is from Brazil, and very smooth. He showed us around the flat and all the really cool appliances in the kitchen. After settling in and connecting all our devices, we ventured the 3 or 4 blocks to John Williams Department Store and their well-known food court (super market), grabbing a couple bottles of wine, bread, wine and some essentials.

After dinner and sitting around for a bit, we were tired enough to hit the sack.

 

Bruges is the last stop before steaming to Southampton, UK to end our cruise.

Bruges. I like the way Bruges just rolls off the tongue. The last time were in Belgium was 1975, when Alison and I were in Brussels on business with Scott Paper Company. Wow – 38 years ago!

We sailed into the port and docked at 7am. The port is relatively small, and the cruise ship(s) are mixed in with containers and military, etc. They did have a passenger bridge, which was nice, but virtually nothing on the docks – when you’re ready, hop off the boat and get on a bus.

Bruges, as we know it, is relatively small, but goes back to the 11^th or 12^th century. It is known for its chocolate, lace, and piggy backs on Antwerp for diamonds – and, simply, being quaint, which it is. There are three sections to Belgium; the Flemish 60% (Dutch), French 30%, and the smallest portion of less than 10% German. The population of Belgium is about 11 million, and Bruge, the second largest city is, well, small. They got into shipping / transportation rather late in the game, with their ports being built, bombed, re-built, bombed again, and re-built again. At this point, they are expanding the port resources, which will be good.

After a vigorous walk on the deck, and breakfast in the Grand Dining Room, which was almost empty, we reported for our excursion departure at 9:45. Bus #19 departed at 10, and we arrived in Bruge by 10:30. The first portion of our excursion was a walking tour of the city; quaint squares, churches, changing architecture, 300+ Madonna statues, a review of the city, then and now. It was all good stuff, but you could tell that we were all “excursioned out”. We had an OK 30 minute canal tour – with a younger/satirically funny guide, which was a nice break.

More walking, and we landed at our designated meeting point, and given almost 2-1/2 hours of free time for lunch and shopping. It was actually warm enough – with our jackets on – to sit at an outdoor restaurant in the square. Barry and I had macaroni and ham, Alison had lasagna, and Marion had a Panini. We also had a local beer. Did you know that each kind of beer has its own glass? The beer was good and the food plentiful. For dessert? What else, we shared a couple of Belgian Waffles.

We managed to find the square and the meeting spot, on-time, extended our group walk by another several minutes, and made it back to the bus, and on to the ship by 4pm or so. Our room was made up, as usual, but it was sad to see our suit cases on top of the bed, a reminder that we have to pack and leave our bags out for pickup by 10:30 tonight. With mixed feelings, we are ready to leave the ship, but not ready to give up the somewhat luxurious lifestyle!

Ahhhh, Amsterdam. My first time, and all kinds of expectations, including windmills, the red light district and legal smoking houses, etc. But, not really. We were assigned to Bus #20 for this excursion, and Vera was our guide.

Minor point, but one of the things I noted during this cruise was an increase in the number of excursion outfits that provided emergency numbers when you are in-country. Hey – just in case. Vera also passed out a local candy – a coffee and a butterscotch toffee hard candy that were wonderful. In fact, we ended buying some in a store at the end of the day.

A word of caution: respect bikers and the bike paths! The most striking fun fact I learned was that Amsterdam has 800,000 residents and 650,000 bikes! They are everywhere, and the bikers are not sympathetic to pedestrians or cars. In total, the Netherlands have a population of about 16.5 million. Bikes are everywhere, and innovative, and pragmatic. Many are modified for carrying of infants and toddlers – safely. They are on racks, bullpens, ferries, etc. Everywhere.

Amsterdam is the capital city of the Netherlands. I always thought that Amsterdam was in Holland. Yes, but Holland appears to be the name of two provinces in the Netherlands, North Holland and South Holland, and Amsterdam appears to be part of both. OK. It is, in fact, a low-lying country, with many canals and dams, or dykes.

We have seen a large number of on and off-shore modern wind mills and wind farms throughout the region, and Amsterdam was no exception. We saw only one “traditional” windmill that is really a monument to the old days, in Amsterdam.

It’s a beautiful city. They were not bombed during WW II, which meant that a lot of their buildings remain standing. Many residences actually lean forward and have the arms extending from the top of the building – used to raise items to the upper floors. The town hall is known as the ugliest building in Amsterdam. Taxes were based on the width of the buildings, so it was not entirely unusual to see houses with few, or at least, narrow windows.

The primary objective of our particular excursion was the Ann Frank House (Haus). I have to admit that I did not fully appreciate the story, nor am I going to try to recite it here, but touring the house where the family built a business, then hid in that very building for over two years before being turned in – then, Ann dying in a concentration camp only a month before liberation of that very camp, was striking. She was quite an amazing young girl. Well worth the visit.

The famous Red Light district was not on our tour, unfortunately; however, we passed the suburban version (at somewhat of a distance, in a moving bus). The real deal seems to operate in the evening – after 9pm, but the suburban version starts on the 2^nd floor and operates from 8am to 6pm or so. Oh, well. Not much to talk about.

Spending 2 weeks on a cruise, requires the guests to maintain an acceptable level of cleanliness, which of course 600 years ago on ships like the Vasa in Sweden, did not offer quite the same options. We have traditionally been on ships that have a combined tub/shower, but this ship has a separate shower unit. This shower has provoked a number of humorous conversations.

Of necessity the cabin area on the ship is quite small, and areas for the desk (mini), couch (small 2 seater) and bathroom are spatially configured to be just large enough to handle the activity. Note however that the bed is a regular queen size.

I cannot give you the exact size of the shower, so the next best size reference is attached – a picture of the footprint of the shower with various well-known objects on the base as reference points. It is not a regular square or rectangle, as it has a large corner loped off as well as a smaller one.

I have found that keeping one’s eyes closed helps dispel the claustrophobic feeling, and turning so your arms and elbows reach to the greatest available dimension allows washing the greatest number of body parts. After 10 days of showering, we have finally mastered the art of washing our hair and our feet. One technique we have not mastered yet is how to pick up the shampoo bottle when it slips out of your hand and lands at our feet.

We have seen no recommendations as to how many can shower at one time, but we can unequivocally suggest only one! (Thoughts of two showering together sends us into paroxysms of laughter).

 

I love days at sea. What are your plans? There ARE NONE!
Actually, we woke up to the beautiful sunrise, started a load of laundry, had an aggressive walk up on deck 15, picked up the laundry, showered, ran down to breakfast on deck 6, and went down to deck 5 for UK Immigration for entry to Southampton. We then walked back up to deck 9 – and it’s knot even 10:30.
OK, so now we get to rest. 🙂
More later.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

8:45 is a very respectable excursion departure time.

Bus tour, including a visit to the Little Mermaid statue (1913) – good story.

Guided boat tour for one hour through the canals of Copenhagen – very interesting. Cool and overcast, but not raining, which was a blessing. Ended up at the port, and essentially dropped within very easy walking distance of the Marina. The canal system was beautiful and included many “low bridges” and tight turns throughout. We saw many buildings and pieces of art. One was the Black Diamond, which was the Royal Library – had a 7 degree wall of glass that reflected the water (I wish it were sunny). Tower of Our Savior’s Church – gorgeous winding stairs to the top of the tower – in the wrong direction! Many house boats, colorful houses. Several islands. All-in-all, a marvelous of combination of old and new. We also was the old stock exchange, which had a spire of the 4 dragons. We wrapped up the boat tour by seeing the Little Mermaid again – from the water, this time.

We passed through a pedestrian and biking bridge under construction. The middle portion was not finished due to “a miscalculation”, so they are still working on fixing that so they can finish the bridge.

Movies – last part of the new Star Trek movie and most of Tom Cruise’s new movie (eh), while playing with pictures and snoozing on and off. We opened the balcony curtains to the realization that a live band was playing military marches and one of two South Korean naval vessels had docked in the slip next to ours. This was part of the 60^th Anniversary of the Korean War commemorations being run by the UN, South Korean and those allies that helped the effort – including Denmark. We watched as the second ship was escorted in via tug. Very cool. The Marina was slipping away from the dock shortly after.

As we head toward the North Sea and Oslo, Norway, we have heavier weather – winds from the North – and we have not had ANY of this to-date on the trip. The boat is moving about, a bit. This will last throughout the night and into tomorrow morning. We don’t dock until tomorrow morning around 11.

The four of us went down to the happy hour around 5:30 – 2 for 1 – and then moved to our 6:30 reservation at the Red Ginger, the Asian specialty restaurant. It was excellent. On the way back to our room, we heard trivia questions over the speakers on the next deck and decided to enter the four of us as team BG (Bond Ghiglione). We didn’t do too bad, really. After that, it was back to our rooms for a nice night’s sleep.

We docked in Rostock (Warnemunde) Cruise Port around 7am, and scampered to Bus #1 not long after the gangways were readied. Thank goodness for room service.

Alison and Marion got us on to a small group tour (OE – Oceana Exclusive), which maxed out at 16 people. With a truck and bus speed limit of 100 km/hour, or about 65 mph, we had a three hour ride, on beautiful highways and scenery – lots of wind farms – into Berlin, which has a population of about 3.2 million.

Our guide from Rostock, Rougui, has been a lifelong resident of “East Germany”, and was delightful company for the bus ends of the tour, providing us with lots of information. The bear is the national symbol, and when we passed a bear statue in the median of the highway, we were told that we arrived in Berlin. Shortly thereafter, we picked up Sonia, our guide for Berlin. She has a German father and an English mother and was raised in South Africa, Iran, England, and now calls Germany home – married with a little girl. We continued with a bus tour of Berlin, to begin with. We noticed a large number of television news vans at more than one stop. Why? The national elections were scheduled for the next day, Sunday, September 22, 2013. Angela Merkel is the popular incumbent, but there was concern that a lazy attitude could impact election turnout and her chances. Well, to give you a sneak peek at the headlines Sunday night: In Berlin, “Merkel romps to victory in German election” There was a 70% turnout – not shabby.

We saw Brandenburg Gate, which was in the middle of the “kill zone”, which was considered part of the Berlin Wall. We also saw the Reichstag, which is the German Parliamentary building – lots of TV cameras for the election, and a lot of preparation for the Berlin Marathon, which was coming up on the 28^th. During the latest reconstruction, there is a famous dome, in which you can buy tickets and walk up. The Brandenburg Gate is also the end of the marathon, which is where President Reagan uttered those famous words, “Tear down this wall.”

One inspirational item we saw – suitable for beer drinkers – was the “Beer Bike” – https://www.google.com/search?q=beer+bike+germany&rlz=1C1CHVN_enUS535US535&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ga5CUsqpJfW14APy7oHIDQ&ved=0CDYQsAQ

We visited the Jewish Memorial sculpture, which was interesting – and near Hitler’s unmarked bunker, basically a dirty empty parking lot, at this point. The Jewish population is growing – up to about 17,000 people, today.

Next stop – the Wall – a section 1km long, that was left standing – the “east side gallery”. Artists, basically graffiti artists, have appropriately decorated this section of the wall. We then drove around and saw museum island, which had about 5 museums, then passed the square where the famous Nazi book burnings took place.

We had free time for lunch, and the four of us selected a small restaurant that the locals seemed to appreciate. We had “sausage” and meatballs and veal with local beer, which we enjoyed – and saw an apple strudel at the table next to us, and we just had to have it! Good lunch.

Next stop, Checkpoint Charlie – not the original, and it has signs and actors present. There is a double set of cobble stones that mark the location of the original wall. The area itself is highly commercialized, but you still got the feeling of what it was like.

Did you know that West Berlin (the good guys) were an island within East Germany. The Russians tried to force the inhabitants out of West Berlin, after the war, but between 1948 and 1949, for 13 months, all supplies were flown in to keep it going, with a commitment that we would never stop. Flights averaged every minute or so, which is incredible. The airfield was closed to air traffic just 4 years ago, and is now used by the public for recreation. The Templehof Airlift Memorial is a large memorial to the pilots who died during that effort. The Germans are still trying to figure out what to do with the massive facilities in the area. There is a Allied Museum, which we visited, which included the original Checkpoint Charlie, a piece of the wall and a watch tower, and a Haviland aircraft that was used during the airlift.

One interesting story of the airlift was a pilot who saw the children around the airport – close to starving. He decided to tie handkerchiefs to Hershey bars and drop them, parachute style, during the airlift – thousands of candy bars. He became known as the Candy Bear. He is now 92 years old, lives in Florida, and still gives inspirational speeches.

The bus arrived back at the ship around 8:30 and we were surprised that the staff was lined up on the dock to welcome us back to the ship, there was a big banner, and a band playing music. Nice. We basically just had dinner and crashed.

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Prior to today, Friday, September 20, 2013, we sail, arrive in a new port and hop off on an excursion – lasting anywhere from 4 to 18 hours before getting back on-ship. And, we’ve been dealing with time changes on a regular basis, jumping ahead of Philadelphia by 6 hours when we landed in Stockholm, to 7 hours ahead in Helsinki, to 8 hours ahead in Russia and the Baltic States, down to 7 hours in Riga, and down to 6 when we arrive in Germany tomorrow morning.

So, with all we’ve done, so far, a day at sea is basically a day to recuperate. We “slept in” and didn’t go down to breakfast in the Grand Dining Room until after 8am, sat on the balcony and read for a couple hours, attended a lecture on Baltic Amber – did you know that the “good stuff” is 20 million years old? We had lunch in the Grand Dining Room, read, slept, worked for a bit. The Ghigliones invited us over for champagne and trivia before dinner, and Alison swept both games – I came in last. We went down for a late dinner at 8:30 or so – in the Grand Dining Room, and we are busy wrapping up our evening and heading to bed.

Our colds are progressing. I had the latest start and my nose is running like a water fall. Ugh!

So, I finished my first book of the trip, and will begin the next tonight. We have to check in tomorrow morning at 7:05 for our excursion to Berlin. All-in-all, a 13 hour day, including 6 hours of bus travel.

Good night all.

Thursday, September 19, 2013 – we are nearing the halfway point of our cruise, and our first “sea day” is tomorrow. Our cruise takes us to two of the three Baltic States, Estonia and Latvia. We will not be stopping to see Lithuania.

Riga is the capital, with a population of 700,000. Lithuania has a population of approximately 2.2 million; twice the size of Estonia, but still relatively small. Like the others, they were part of the Soviet Union from 1940 through 1981, when they gained their independence with the end of the USSR. They became a member of the European Union in 2004, and in January, 2014, will adopt the Euro as their currency. Timber is their primary exportable resource, with about half their land covered with trees. They also buy/sell coal, and any number of other resources from Russia to other countries; their ports being in a prime location. Tourism is also blossoming, and I can see why.

We spent our time in the Old City, which has a lot of character – and a lot of churches! They have been underneath the Swedes, the Polish, the Germans, the Russians, and, finally, independent. They have their own language, but at least half the population speaks Russian, too; although that is slowly fading as the Latvian schools gain prominence over the Russian schools.

The Marina came up river to Riga, and docked as far up river as physically possible – just short of a suspension bridge across the river. The port side of the ship is right along a grassy knoll, which Is right next to a busy expressway on the edge of town, which is on the other side of the roadway. It has the look and feel of parallel parking in downtown to go on a shopping trip. While coming up river, we passed a number of mercantile ports and beautiful shipping facilities – gorgeous, in fact. The new city is as new and modern as any modern city I’ve seen – largely the result of recovering from world wars and oppression under the Soviets, and undergoing significant economic recovery and expansion. The old city is gorgeous and full of character, squares, churches and shops. A number of buildings have been restored or reconstructed in the architecture of the original period.

The ship docked at 9, and we didn’t have to meet for our excursion until 9:30 – a mini-break! We were assigned to Bus #2 for the 20-30 minute bus tour around town, dropping us off in Old Town. Anna, our guide, did a good job of showing us around town and providing an informative background. The black cat is actually a lucky creature here in Latvia. Amber is very popular. Woolen goods are popular throughout the Nordic community. Parliament has 101 members that sit for 4 years, etc. etc.

We actually walked 15 minutes or so back to the ship. It turned out to be a wonderful day – sunny and relatively mild temperatures in the low sixties. A light lunch was had, and we met/chatted with a couple from Alberta; followed by naps, blogging and reading. Marion and Alison and Barry all have colds — and I’m fighting off a tickle in my throat. I’m doomed.