Gibraltar

Our next stop is Gibraltar. We have been there many times, so decided to have a late start. The weather was cold and rainy. We were going to meet a young couple we meet on the ship and then walk over to Spain. 

Gibraltar is a very small country, that borders with Spain. The airport is along that border and cars and people can cross it. When a plane is landing they stop everyone, land the plane and then you can cross again. 

We walked in to town and it started to rain.  We thought it would let up so headed to the border. Then it started to pour. We stopped in a mini mart hoping it would stop. It did let up a little, so we headed out. 

We found an umbrella that had broke and had some fun with it. 

It was exciting to cross the runway.  I had never crosses an active runway before. 

Once on the other side we went through customs ( a booth, where they checked our passports). Walked in and decided to get a coffee. 

The rain started to let up so we started back. We had to go through customs again (a booth), but got our passports stamped. 

On the way back Tim found some balloons and decided to play tour guide. 

We then made our way into the town to find a restaurant we had been to before for a snack and internet. They were packed so we couldn’t get in. After walking around a bit more we headed back to the ship. 

Had a good but wet day.  

Next stop Cartagena…….

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Funchal, Madeira

Our first port is Funchal, Madeira. We were here last year and did a tour around the island. It is a very beautiful island. 

Today we decided to explore the city of Funchal. We walked in from the ship.  The island is very mountainous. This is a restaurant on top of a hill, but it looks like it could of been a pirate liar or something. 

We walked along the water and came across this “food truck”. It was smaller than any food truck I’ve ever seen, but was very cute. I’m not even sure how the guy fit in the cab to drive it. He only sold coffee, looked good. 

There were some buckets and this statue 

 Kept walking until we found the area where all doors were painted. Some of them were interesting and some were works of art. (These are all doors into someone’s house or a shop)

We found this canal, I love the way you can find beauty in the middle of the city. 

We wandered over to the fish market, my it was smelly in there 😀

Then off to find a supermarket for lunch supplies. It is always an experience shopping in foreign markets. Every one is set up so differently then our markets back home. There is also a language barrier that makes it fun trying to find something. We finally got everything we needed so we went to look for a place to eat. We usually try to find somewhere with a view, but that isn’t always possible. 

Today we looked for the cathedral.  We found a nice place to sit and started to unpack our lunch. As we were setting up a man walked by with an accordion. Tim gave him a tip to play for us.  He was good and we had music with our lunch. We started to eat lunch and it started to rain. 

There was a nice lady right next to us selling flowers and she had a table undercover, out of the rain. We asked if we could use a corner of her table. She said of course and even moved some of the flowers out of the way to make room for us. We shared some of our chips and cookies with her. She was so nice, we had just had to buy a bunch flowers from her. She made us 2 beautiful bunches and only charged us €6. 

We walked around and found a beautiful street. 

We found a plaza 

And a beautiful garden. 

We then found a coffee shop, had a macchiato and used the internet. 

Started heading back to the ship, taking our time seeing what we could find. 

And now it’s time to board the ship. Had a great day. 

Next stop Gibraltar………..

Grenada

Grenada is a beautiful island. We were there on a Sunday so wasn’t much open. 
These guys were playing the steel drums as we walked on to the island. 

 

our ship

  

steel drum band

 

We walked through this tunnel and checked the town out. 

 

sign outside tunnel

  
 

Found a beautiful harbor. 

   
   
Decided that not much was open so we found a water taxi to take us to a beach.   

view on our way to beach

The water taxi guy was very nice. He was willing to take us back to the ship to grab something we forgot. We decided we didn’t need it so just headed to the beach. It was a very beautiful beach. 

  

 

our view from the shade

 
 

We got chairs in the shade. 

bathing beauties

Tim and Ron went swimming and found a lot of starfish. They were really big and heavy. 

   

  

  

   

  

After awhile there it was time to head back to the ship. The water taxi guy was waiting for us. 

   
  

our water taxi driver

 
Time to board the ship. 
Next stop Bonaire……..

St Thomas

The first day on the ship was at the private island for Princess. We had been there many times so Patty and I stayed on board on the ship, but Tim and Ron went a shore for a swim.  

princess cay (private island)

  

Tim and Ron at princess cay (private island)

 
The next day we were at sea. Not much happening just lots of relaxing and sunbathing.
The first real port we had was St Thomas. As we had all been there before we caught a taxi and went to a beach. 

  
On the beach we rented chairs under the shade of some trees. There was a hen with a bunch of babies walking around. Spent the afternoon there enjoying the sea, lunch and beers. 

  
  
  
We always see the iguanas by the ship. 

  
The next port is Dominica……

On the road again……

Well it’s that time of year again. We are getting ready to cruise to Europe. 

We started our trip early and spent a couple of days in Naples, Florida, with our friends Ron and Patty. This was our first time to Naples, and we were excited to spend time at their house. 

 We got there late the first night and had a wonderful dinner with Ron and Patty and some other friends. 

Then the next morning we went on a tour of Naples. It is a beautiful town. They live in a beautiful place

 

on Naples pier

 
 

on the beach

   

where Ron just to work and we had lunch

   

lunch

 Our other friends Bruce and Susan are going with us, so they got in the second night. We all went to dinner and then got ready for the next day. 

In the morning we all drive to Ft Lauderdale to catch the ship for a 10 day then on to Europe. 

Southampton/Italy

We had one day at sea before we disembarked in Southampton, England. It was cold and rainy most of the day which was OK since we had to pack and get ready to head to Italy. 

Once we were off the ship, Tim had arranged for a car service to pick us up and take us to the airport with a stop in Winchester on the way. 

   

 The driver was waiting for us with this sign. 😄

Winchester was a very quaint town. There is a famous cathedral there. 

  

Outside 

Inside 

  

  

  

  
Jane Austen lived in this area and was buried in this church.

 

There was also a copy of the Gospels written on vellum (calf skins). 

After walking around the cathedral, we walked around some of the town.  

  
  
  
  
We found the Main Street and saw these cookies in the widow of a bakery.  Just had to smile.

  
There was a street fair going on, so we walked around looking at the booths. 

  
  
 
 

Coffee anyone? 

  
We ran into this character and of course had to taKe a picture with him. I think he was collecting money from the local animal shelter.
Got some lunch from one of the vendors and went back to the car to head to the airport 
After a short flight we were in Bologna, Italy. We have stayed in Bologna the last 3 years. We really like it. It is a great hub city, easy to catch a train and do a day trip to a lot of places. 
  
These cars were in the airport in Bologna as we were walking out 
After checking in we had dinner and called it a night. 
Next, our week in Bologna ………
Linda  

Glasgow, Scotland

We docked in Greenock, Scotland. Greenock is a sleepy port town. There didn’t seem to be much going on even though it was 10 am. We headed toward the train to go into Glasgow. 

  

  
  
(Greenock)

  

We saw some beautiful flowers in a park we walked through. 

On the way to the train, we ran into the guy and of course Tim had to take a picture. 😄
  

Once we made it to the train station we had only 2-3 minutes to catch the train. Tim found a woman with a handheld ticket machine. She walked to the train, printing the ticket as we went, so we would make the train. 

On the train a lady sitting behind us asked us how long we were in Glasgow for and we told her just for the day. She handed us a piece of paper and said she had written out some places she thought we should visit. That was so nice of her. We found most everyone was really nice.

  
  

The train station in Glasgow was very beautiful.

  

I thought this sign in the train station  was funny. Notice the sizes. 

We took the lady’s advice and headed toward the shopping district. 

  

  
We found a Starbucks and an Apple Store.  

  

  

We found this police box that was green instead of blue, not sure why, maybe because we were in Scotland not England

  

We also saw this cool building that a coffee shop was in. 

  

We then walked to modern art museum that was ok, but had a cool statue in front

  

Then we found a nice square with benches to have lunch in. 

  

It was very cold, but we found a bench out of the wind.

  

We saw a Jamie Oliver restaurant 

  

From there we walked to a giant park 

  

and then Kevingrove museum and art center They had some cool stuff inside.

  
  
(This was a trophy from a boat race)
  
(Suits of armor and spears)

  

(A dog made of boots in the children’s section)

From the museum we headed back to the ship. 

Once we were back in Greenock we saw this sign…….

  

Unfortunately it was closed. I would of loved to gone inside. (My maiden name was McLean)

Next stop Southampton, England, then on to Italy 

Linda 

Dublin, Ireland

The next day we were in Dublin, Ireland.  We didn’t dock until noon, which was nice since we didn’t have to get up early and rush off the ship.

We got a cab from the port into town. The cab dropped us off at the city center. We walked around and got our bearings, the headed to Trinity College, where the Book of Kells  was. The book of Kells is a bible that was made of velum (calfskins) around 800 AD.  They had a great museum that we walked through and then saw the book. Upstairs from the book was a library called the Long Room, with some of the oldest book around. It was a beautiful room! 

  

   

 
After having our lunch in the college cafeteria we walked to the Guinness Factory and saw some of the town 

  

  

  
Once at the Guinness factory, we took the tour. It was interesting and a huge place. There are 7 stories. 

  
  
  (Tools used with the barley) 
They had some really cool exhibits from some of their past media ads. 

  
  

  
I think this my favorite one, it was so silly. 

  
  
It moved and was fun to watch. 

On the 7th floor was a bar call The Sky Bar and it had 360 degree views of the city. We even saw rainbow 

   
 
After the Guinness Factory we walked back into town and found a pub for dinner. We wanted to find a real Irish pub and I think we found it. They had music and even Irish dancing. 

   
 

  
After dinner we got at cab back to the ship. 

Was a great day! Next stop Scotland…..

Linda 

Cork, Ireland

We finally made it to Cork, Ireland after a few mishaps. The first night out to sea from the Azores we had a medical emergency on board and had to turn the ship around and have a woman med- evacuated, her appendix burst. They made an announcement throughout the ship saying that there was an emergency and a plane would be flying over the ship. Then they cleared the decks and a helicopter hovered over the ship above our room and they got the lady and her husband off. We later heard she was going to be ok. So of course we were behind and going as fast as we could to make up time, but the weather was bad (very windy and rainy) so that put us behind too. But we made it without any further mishaps, just a little late. 

We had hired a van for the day for 12 people. The first place they took us was into Cobn (pronounced Cove). This is the place we should of docked, but because of the change of plans there was another ship there that had this berth. Cobn is a very nice port town. We saw some of the town and the church there. 

 

   

Then we stopped at the cemetery when a lot of the passengers from the Lusitania were buried. The Lusitania was a passenger ship that was sunk during WWI. 

 
   

  

From there it was on to Blarney Castle. The gardens there were beautiful. It was very rainy and cold. 

  

    

     

       

 

We stood in line for about an hour, climbing to the top of the tower where the Blarney Stone was. 

  

  

    

  (Some views from the tower) 

Just as we made it to the top the sun came out.

   

Tim, Ron and Patty “kissed” the stone,  (I didn’t, you had to lay down and hang over the side of the tower to kiss it, NO thanks lol)

  

 

Found this tree stump with a vine growing up it and mushrooms at the top. 

    

 

The driver then dropped us off in Cork for a few hours. We walked around a bit, then found a pub to get something to eat and check internet. We talked to the owner and learned that 4 generations of his family has owned and worked there. 

  

He also told us some of the history of the area and how it had flooded really bad about 50 years ago. He even let us go behind the bar and took a picture for us.  

  

Then it was time to head back to the ship.

Next stop, Dublin, Ireland 

 Linda

Here we go again…..

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. We are traveling again so will be posting about that right now. Our first stop was Ft Lauderdale. We spent a few days there. 

  

   

View from our hotel 

Then on to the Caribbean for a week.  It was very relaxing

First stop was Grand Cayman. That was a beach day. We got a cab and went to Seven Mile Beach. This was a very beautiful beach. 

  

After the beach we found some internet and then headed back to the ship. A quite day. 

The next stop was Routan, Honduras. We had not been there before. Walked out of the port area and found a cabbie we hired for the day. He took us to an iguana refuge. It was interesting, and there were iguanas everywhere. 

 

 

The driver got some leaves to feed them with. They all went crazy over the leaf. They were climbing over each other to get them. 
  
    After the iguanas we went to the the other side of the island to West Bay beach where we had lunch and spent the afternoon on the beach. 

After a small tour of the island it was time to go back to the ship. 

Next stop was Cozumel. 
We had 5 of us and we rented a van to take us on a tour around the island. 

We saw a small  Mayan ruin, tequila factor and a reggae bar 

   

 

Back to the ship, a day at sea and then to Ft Lauderdale where one set of friends disembarked and more friends joined us (Ron & Patty).

Linda