June 11

June 11 Andalsnes, Norway.  The weather outside appears lovely judging by the tv feed from the camera up front. I am sorry to miss my tour here where the spectacular Romsdal Alps meet the north end of the Romsdalfjord. In 2010 the Hurtigruten Ferry came into Romsdalfjord as far as Molde, but not all the way up to the end. At least I have a fine camera view on the tv even if I can't take photos myself. I'm also sorry that I'm missing activities on board, especially some of the movies that I haven't seen, although some of the other stuff sounds like fun also. Oh well ... better that I be fit for cruise number 4.

The "HazMat" guys are a trip. One dons protective gear and comes into the cabin while the other waIts in the hall. The "inside" guy has a disposable apron, shoe covers, rubber gloves and a mask plus a big spray bottle of disinfectant, a couple of wipes of some sort, and perhaps scariest of all, a big red trash bag marked BIOHAZARD.  All hard surfaces that you might have touched get cleaned, and any trash, including the pressed paper trays, paper plates, cups, napkins, etc. from room service go into the red bag. The outside guy runs errands like clean glassware, ice, etc. and hands stuff in. When he's done, the inside guy stands on the threshold to the room and strips his gear into the red bag before stepping back into the hall. They take this stuff seriously, as well they should. I'm sending some stuff to the laundry. It goes out in a "special" pink laundry bag, and I was warned that it will be washed in VERY HOT water. I said that if it doesn't survive, that's okay, and got only a solemn look in reply. It probably goes straight into an autoclave. 

Oh goodie. Today I get a ham sandwich instead of a boiled chicken sandwich for lunch. Still drinking flat Coke from the little toy cans for the electrolytes. Ah HA! Potato chips! Oh joy, oh rapture!

And more good news! According to Dr. Farouk Parker, I may get sprung from this durance vile tomorrow! He and his staff of duty nurses, especially Stephanie, have been great. Now, if I can just kick the cough...

To celebrate, I ordered a "Pizza American" for dinner. Major Mistake. P&O's version of pepperoni pizza is not for the faint of heart or any other organ. Fortunately, my friends of the "HazMat" team arrived a short time later for their evening visit and put the pizza and its aroma into a red BIOHAZARD bag which solved that problem!

June 6 - 10

June 6, Southampton. Since I'm mostly unable to go do what I wanted to do here, I spent the greater part of the day reading "Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper, and a fine old space opera shoot 'em up it was. 

The Novotel hotel here in Southampton is newly renovated with lots of ultra-modern furniture that is a little lower than I prefer, but manageable. The tub, sink and shower are all higher than optimum for me. Go figure. It is very close to Mayflower Quay, but not so close to the Carnival-owned Ocean Terminal.  If you are sailing from Southampton, it would behoove you to find out, before you make hotel reservations, which pier your ship will be at. On Caribbean Princess, we sailed from the former and returned to the latter. Also, there seems to be a certain amount of noise in the area: sirens, horns, whistles, and the occasional deep reverberating boom as well as occasional odd noises inside the hotel. It's not constant noise, just occasionally startling ... especially the boom which I have yet to identify. Then there were the "rabid robo-termites" chewing holes in the hotel's walls as part of the final stages of the renovation, although I'm told that is done now. It's okay ... the place is clean and nice, and the staff are very helpful.

June 7, still at Southampton. As before, I spent the day sleeping, reading and watching BBC2, plus a bit of a chat with Jeff. Not feeling too great this past day or so, but should perk up in a while. I do admit that thoughts of my own bed, bath, etc. have begun occasionally crossing my consciousness.. 

June 8. On to cruise #3 on P&O's Ventura up to Norway. Ably assisted by taxi driver Paul and Assistance Agent John I left the hotel about noon and whizzed through check-in to be deposited on Lidoe  Deck to await cabin availability. By the time I got to my cabin, I realized I had a sore throat, cough and a fever which turned out to be 102. So off to Medical to be perforated by the doc on board. Will spend a day or two in my cabin til that goes away. Didn't have anything scheduled for 2 days anyway ... a day at sea and a day at Bergen. Remembering the old days sailing on Sitmar when the doc on board was a retired Italian grandpa, and you just prayed that you could understand each other.

June 9 the less said, the better ...note to self:  round two of stomach bug does not go well with heavy cough.

June 10 the rest of the ship is visiting Bergen. I'm still in quarantine in my cabin with twice daily visits by the nursing staff and the HazMat boys who come to "sanitize" the place. The only good news today is that I can get electrolytes from flat non-diet Coke instead of little "flavored" packets of powder mixed with water ... all the flavors were bad, but the banana was really really ugly. So now I have a lot of little toy cans (150 ml) of Coke sitting open on the dresser going flat.

June 5

June 5 end of cruise number 2, Southampton, England.

There was the usual sort of pseudo-chaos getting off the ship, but I got through it and grabbed a taxi to the Novotel. It's a very modern decor hotel fairly near the docks. First I napped through lunch, then I went downstairs to the hot spot in the lobby and unsuccessfully tried to do several things. First was to try to load photos into my recent posts - nope, no luck.

Second was to try to arrange some activities for while I'm here in Southampton - also no go. This is a somewhat bare bones hotel with no concierge desk, but the front desk people have tried their best. I especially wanted to visit Down House, Charles Darwin's home in Downe, Kent. Which is part of the "English Heritage" group along with Stonehenge et al. The quote I got before I left home was for over $1,100 for a car and driver for the day. The quote the hotel got from a local taxi company was £500 or about $625. While I really want to see Down House, I don't really want to see it that much.

I can probably get to Stonehenge via public bus, if I can get to the central bus station, but I did see it years ago when you could still walk up among the stones. I may wind up just vegging at this hotel for three days of non-excitement. If the weather is nice, maybe I'll go to the local zoo. I'll let you know, but don't expect too much.

June 3/4

Am finally at hotel with wi-fi in Southampton, but still can't seem to get photos into blog posts. Sorry.

 June 3 at sea again. The seas have been really calm, almost glassy, including the Atlantic, the North Sea and the English Channel. Come to think of it, all the cruises I've taken in the past 5 years (6 except for a hurricane in Drake's Passage) have been quite calm. Gotta keep that weather magic powered up and working!

 First I slept really late, getting up only briefly to let room service deliver breakfast which I did eventually have for lunch. I then "planned" a day of not doing much of anything and achieved it. I sat in the Library for a while and partially listened to the excitement of the Egg Drop Contest out in the Atrium. Evidently contestants get some time to try to devise a container for an egg to keep it from breaking when dropped. It appears that most break, and only a few survive, but I'm not sure how high the drop is...3 feet or 3 floors. It's just another variety of shipboard silliness. I generally avoid such activities even as a spectator, and if I rarely do go to watch, I sit in the back row and never volunteer for anything.

 I had a nice chat with a lady from Brisbane. She and her husband had been driving around England for a month. They got tired of that and happened to see an ad for this cruise in a travel agency window. It was the right timing and a heavily discounted price, so they hopped on to see Ireland and Scotland. That's something about cruises...people aren't afraid to strike up a conversation with a perfect stranger. I like that.

As it was a formal night, I finally made it up to Skywalker's for the Captain's Cocktail Party. To get
there, you hike to the aft elevators and go to the top which is Deck 18. Then you walk up a long slope to get to Skywalker's on Deck 19. There you get a great view of the ship's wake, a free glass of champagne and an hors d'oeuvre or two. Then you reverse the process to get to dinner down on Deck 6.

June 4 is our last stop at Le Havre, France. I'm not sure why this is on the itinerary instead of one of the east coast British ports. It's probably so that the Americans can do all-day tours to Paris or Normandy and say they've been to France.. I, personally, am doing everyone in Paris a big favor by not going there. Each time I've been to Paris in the past, either the bus drivers or the Metro workers or both have gone on strike resulting in traffic jams so colossal that the entire city was grid-locked and you couldn't get anywhere at all.

 In fact, I didn't even set foot on Le Havre. And have no photos worth posting. There is a huge
passenger terminal which supposedly has free wi-fi, but this can wait for a more comfortable venue. The city center is a very long walk away, mostly through the docks, although there is a shuttle over there for a few euros. There are several other cruise ships in port including the Celebrity Infinity and another whose name I can't see and whose logo and paint job I don't recognize.

So I decided to just take it easy, pack up slowly, and enjoy the ship with most of the passengers gone. However, there were a fair number of people sunning themselves up on Lido Deck, and even a few in swimming. Brrr.

June 1/2

June 1 at Invergordon, Scotland which is as far as we can get up Cromarty Firth towards Inverness. If I had known how far the hike was to the tour buses, I'd have left the ship sooner so I wouldn't have to hustle so fast. Ah well, I made it eventually.

My tour guide this afternoon was one James Monroe in kilt of his clan tartan and a tweed jacket in a nice soft green. His accent was perfectly understandable, but Andy, our driver, had an accent so thick that even James missed it occasionally, and to me it was like a foreign language with a sprinkling of English words. 

I think they have a different kind of grass over here that they use for silage as it is a whole lot greener than our grass at home. That may be why Ireland is called the "Emerald Isle," but the same stuff is in the fields of the Orkneys and Scotland too. Anyway it contrasts beautifully with the bright yellow of fields of rape seed in bloom. (That's the plant that canola oil comes from.) Then there's the darker yellow of either gorse or broome along the roadside. James said the way to tell the difference between gorse and broome is to put on a kilt and sit on it...if it's comfortable, it's broome, if it's prickly, it's gorse. The bright green also makes the sheep and cattle show up well, especially the bright white lambs.

We did a pretty comprehensive drive-by tour of Inverness which looks like a really lovely city. This is a photo of Inverness Castle from across the Ness River. We then headed up the Ness River and along the Caledonian Canal which I hadn't heard of before this trip. It connects the Atlantic Ocean with the North Sea diagonally across the middle of Scotland through the Grand Cleft. It's a geologic fault zone that created a series of lakes/lochs that were connected by pieces of canals with locks. Unfortunately, by the time it was completed, most cargo ships were too big to use it, and now it's mostly used by fishing and pleasure boats.

We eventually got to Loch Ness through alternating periods of sun and showers. Our main destination for the tour was Urquhart Castle. It's a rather magnificent ruin of a really old castle at one end and a much newer part at the other end, all with a fantastic view of Loch Ness. There is a fine Visitors Centre with a film, a cafe and, of course, a gift shop. While I did manage to get downslope from the bus park to the center (and back up again later), I did not actually go on downhill to the castle itself. Instead, I bought a very large chocolate muffin, sat on the patio of the cafe and shared it with a duck. I didn't get a photo of the duck due to my fingers being sticky and covered in muffin crumbs.

We came back to the ship over the hills and through the heath-covered moors, then back down to the green arable lands again. As has happened on several of my afternoon tours, I was almost the last one back on board. I am still amazed at how fast the crew can "break camp" and stow all the equipment they use for gangways and security checks, including the big machines that screen your bags.

June 2 Edinburgh. Well, not actually at Edinburgh. We're out in the Firth of Forth about a 20 minute tender ride from South Queensferry where we get our tour bus to Edinburgh. Caribbean Princess is too tall to get under several bridges particularly the antique Forth Rail Bridge in its bright red coat of paint. At least we're not out in the North Sea trying to tender into some place, although this has been an exceptionally smooth trip so far. My weather magic is still working except for a few brief showers. 

The tour I had was excellent, especially for one of the "drive-by photo shoot" kind. Our main stop was two hours at the Royal Scottish Museum which was brilliant! In fact, I could have easily spent a whole day there. It's an amalgamation of two museums, one was archaeology, anthropology and Scottish history, and the other was technology and engineering with a Scottish focus.  The building is a combination of Victorian and modern styles and was recently renovated to be fully accessible. The photo (that will eventually be) here is of the Museum's Grand Gallery. I ditched the guided part of the museum visit and had a fine time wandering about. I even got up to the roof terrace with its fabulous view of all of Edinburgh and this shot of the Castle.

May 30/31

Still no photos.

May 30, at sea sailing up the west coast of Scotland and eventually across the top toward the Orkney Islands. The weather was okay until awe encountered fog in the early afternoon. The fog horn continued to sound at least until I went to bed. Here's hoping it clears for our visit to Kirkwall tomorrow,

As a sea day, it was essentially a day of rest. I didn't sleep in too late, but took my time getting out and about. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get the May 28/29 blog post and photos uploaded.  I've about had it with the whole process. It doesn't work well for me at all, especially with the slow connection at sea. Pfui. 

I had lunch today at the International Cafe in the lower level of the ship's atrium called the Piazza. It was quite pleasant listening to the fine string quartet playing there. They play quite a variety of musical genres which makes their performances very popular. Later there was a performance by a duo doing a balancing act. She handed things to him, and he balanced them on his forehead in various combinations. I didn't see all of that, but I imagine it gets more exciting in higher seas than we have had on this trip.

This evening was the first of two formal nights. Ray and Irene and I all looked pretty spiffy. Ray ordered a bottle of wine and we had a very good dinner, although not the usual formal night fare of lobster or "surf and turf." 

May 31 at Kirkwall, Orkney Islands. This was originally listed as a tender port, but there is a brand new pier built especially long enough for cruise ships about 2 miles from town. The most outstanding thing about the Orkney Islands is their almost total lack of trees. Every place there was a small copse of trees in a sheltered fold of the hills, our guide made a point of mentioning them. The second most outstanding thing is the huge harbor among the islands called Scapa Flow. 

Despite being at the same latitude as the tip of Greenland, the climate of the Orkneys is greatly mitigated by the Gulf Stream, except for today which was by turns cloudy, misty, cold. and very windy. Just before I went out for my tour, the temperature was about 46F, and I doubt it went up any. There is some wind power on the island, most of it smaller versions of windmills put up by farmers and other residents. Much of their electric power comes via cable from mainland Scotland 10 miles away. We did see a tidal power apparatus which had been pulled out up on the do k for repairs. It looked like a windmill built for Jupiter, very blocky and sturdy-looking.

I took a brief tour here, sort of a scenic drive around the island referred to as Mainland. We went through Kirkwall which is the capitol of the islands, then to see the Italian Chapel. This was built between 1942 and 1944 by Italian prisoners of war captured in North Africa and sent here to work on what's called "Churchill barriers" between some of the islands to keep the Germans out of the huge natural harbor called Scapa Flow where most of the British fleet was based. The Italians asked for a place to worship and were allotted two Quonset nuts which they joined together to make the chapel. They then created a facade for it and one man painted the inside in beautiful trompe d'oeil style. This photo is not the altar area which is beautiful, but neither is it tile and plaster work...it's only paint. Now most visitors to the Orkneys visit it. That's over 200,000 visitors a year to a group of some 67 islands, 20 of which are inhabited by a human population of around 21,000.

I don't know how many sheep or cattle there are per resident, but it's bound to be a lot. All the hillsides were neatly divided into fields by either wire fences or dry stone walls. Most fields were growing sheep or cattle, or bright green grass to feed sheep or cattle. It being late Spring, the calves and lambs had recently been turned out into the fields with their mothers, and many were actively gamboling as we went by. Very picturesque, but not very photogenic from a bus.

After the Italian Chapel, we went mostly around the island to reach the most famous area.of Neolithic remains where we saw the World Heritage Site called the  Ring of Brodgar Stone Circle and Henge, and the Standing Stones of Stennes shown here in a sheep pasture where you can walk right up to them (stones or sheep). We went past the newly discovered "Neolithic temple" at the Ness of Brodgar which was basically an excavation site covered in black plastic awaiting the arrival of another dig season. Then en route back to the ship, we passed the Maes Howe Chambered Tomb which mostly looks like a hump out in a field, but I understand has astronomical properties. These Neolithic sites are over 5,000 years old.

Have I mentioned often enough how huge this ship is? Here it is dwarfing the town of Kirkwall.

 

May 28/29

I'm posting without photos which will be added when I can solve whatever problem exists.

May 28 on to Belfast where we should arrive about 10:30 a.m. I probably shouldn't mention this, but on the first cruise, and so far on this one, the seas have been very calm. Another day or two and we should be out of the shelter of Ireland into the North Atlantic and/or North Sea. Not that I'm wishing for bad weather, you understand, just commenting on good luck to date.

I spent a quiet morning on board then went for a driving tour of Belfast in the afternoon. We covered the sights of the city pretty thoroughly. Our first stop was Belfast Castle with its lovely gardens and picnic areas (it's now a city park but was the home of the Chichester family who more or less founded Belfast).

Then we drove through a number of neighborhoods, both rich and poor, Royalist and Republican, lovely detatched homes with gardens in one area and row houses with little greenery but walls covered with murals and graffiti in another area. 95% of children still go to all-Catholic or all-Protestant schools, but the percenntage of integrated schools is slowly growing as parents don't want their children to grow up as they themselves did during the Troubles. This photo shows the Shankill Road side of the wall that still divides the Catholic and Protestant areas. The other side is the Falls Roads area. The wall wasn't high enough, so they added to it. Now the big colorful graffiti are totally covered by handwritten notes expressing hope for peace and mutual respect signed by people from all over the world. But walls like this and murals of sometimes violent scenes of the Troubles are what the children in these working class neighborhoods have to look at every day. No wonder they are still separate.

We visited two other gardens: the ones at Stormont which is Northern Ireland's capitol building, and the Botanic Gardens at Queen's University. Our guide, Chris, is a naturalist who normally leads birding tours, so several birders among us were quite happy. Mostly I stayed on the bus and chatted with the young driver, Mark. We also saw the rather exotic-looking Titanic Museum at what was the shipyard of Harland and Wolff where it was built, but didn't go in. We saw the restored ship Nomadic which was built expressly as a tender to ferry first and second class passengers out to Titanic from Cherbourg where the Titanic was too big to go in. It served its purpose only once.

May 29 and we are at Greenock, Scotland which is located where the River Clyde exxpands to become the Firth of Clyde. A firth in Scotland is pretty much like a fjord in Norway. Greenock is the port for Scotland's largest city, Glasgow which is about 45 minutes' drive up river.

 

For once I was up in time to go to the dining room for breakfast. Then, as my tour wasn't until this afternoon, I wandered the ship a bit and found the spa where I intended to make an appointment for a pedicure. As it turned out, I got it right then as most people had gone ashore already. A nice young Jamaican woman named Tonya did a great job for me, and in plenty of time for me to veg out a bit before lunch.

 

There are tons of things to visit here from castles to cathedrals, not to mention the Scottish Wool Centre in Glasgow, but having seen three medium to large city centers in a row, I opted for an afternoon drive in the countryside up to the village of Luss on the banks of Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond is the second largest freshwater lake in Scotland behind Loch Ness which I plan to see on another tour. It was a beautiful drive out through the highlands and along a series of lochs, both salt and fresh water. I wished for a decent map to see where we were since the twisty mountain road completely confused my sense of direction for a while.

First we went through the small town of Greenock which is unusual in that its center area still has managed to support a wide range of traditional shops like a butcher, baker, news vendor, cafe, coffee shop, etc. which in most villages have succumbed to competition from big grocery stores at the outskirts of the towns. If I could walk better, I would have enjoyed "doing" its main street. Here's a photo of one I know some of my friends will enjoy.

After crossing the Firth of Clyde on a ferry, we went past Holy Loch where the US Navy based nuclear subs with Polaris missiles for many years during the Cold War. After the US Navy left, the area was cleaned up and decontaminated and the base housing was sold off to locals. 

We got a little lesson in Gaelic place names. Loch = lake. Ben = mountain. Dun or dum = fort or castle. Mor = big. So when we went past Benmor, we were passing Big Mountain. Our guide tried to teach us a simple phrase or two, but anything over four letters long is not pronounced in any way that looks familiar to me. The letters could just as well be replaced by hieroglyphics and make as much sense. The children are taught Gaelic in school, but relatively few adults remain fluent in it beyond a few phrases.

Next we went along Loch Eck. While our guide commented about its remoteness and there weren't many villages, there were occasional houses, small hotels and caravan parks along the way. Past Benmor, another loch or two, and up over a pass, we eventually arrived at the seriously picturesque village of Luss on the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond where we had a break for drinks, snacks and a bit of walking about. Of all the photos I took of lochs, due to trees and bushes along the roadside, this is the only one I got of Loch Lomond. Fortunately, it also shows Scottish bluebells which were in bloom everywhere on mountainsides and roadsides reminding me somewhat of the bluebonnets in Texas. We came back down out of the highlands at the lower end of Loch Lomond to the town of Dumbarton which is known for its whiskey distilleries and crossed the River Clyde on a bridge to get back to Greenock and the ship.