Wednesday, April 29, 2009 – at home
Well, the first thoughts crossing my brain this morning were:
What time did I order room service?
And
I cannot quite picture who the room steward is.
!??!?!?!?
I don’t think reality has totally sunk in yet.
:)
Have a great day!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
First day at home
Monday, April 27, 2009 – first day at home
You know what I noticed today…
The flannel sheets are still on the bed and it is 90 degrees today.
My master bathroom is HUGE compared to the one in our stateroom.
I hear birds singing (there are no birds at sea!).
There was no evening entertainment tonight (what happened??).
Christmas gifts, cards and decorations are still around the living room.
I refuse to have the suitcases in the house and create more clutter so we have them in the garage. We can unload them from there!
You know what I noticed today…
The flannel sheets are still on the bed and it is 90 degrees today.
My master bathroom is HUGE compared to the one in our stateroom.
I hear birds singing (there are no birds at sea!).
There was no evening entertainment tonight (what happened??).
Christmas gifts, cards and decorations are still around the living room.
I refuse to have the suitcases in the house and create more clutter so we have them in the garage. We can unload them from there!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Arrival back to the United States of America!
Sunday, April 26, 2009 – Home, Sweet Home
Our last clock change...
Brilliantly sunny and hot day in NY and Delaware!
We were up by 4:30AM to be out on deck as we sailed in the dark up the Hudson River. We crossed under the Verazzano Bridge and then past the Statue of Liberty. I thought of how different the journey was of my grandparents to America. Their transatlantic crossing was not filled with daily social activities and elegant cocktail parties and balls and scrumptious meals. They were apprehensive to leave their homeland and were very unsure of their future in their new country…and yet they came to America.
The sun was just beginning to appear over Brooklyn as the ship spun around in front of Governors Island to face once again toward the UK. They are ready to sail tonight at 5PM. Our balcony had the most spectacular view of the Statue, Governors Island and Manhattan.
Breakfast was a hurried affair and farewells were said to many. It was a very sad time but there was so much to be done in getting off the ship that I did not have time to think about it then. I stood out on the balcony for a few minutes to soak it in but then had to get moving.
We were in the first group off so I could clear the way for the UPS van meeting us BUT found one of my suitcases had the zipper broken in transit from the ship to the dock. It took some time to find tape and make it at least moveable…but we managed and had no problems with customs. The porter put our 10 bags (!! – try NOT to travel with this many) in the corner under the canopy and we hunted down the truck meeting us. Found that and the clients who needed the assistance and we made that work. Then we found some other friends and they offered to drop Gene at Avis car rental so off he went to pick up the car. In the meantime, another friend found out her limo had been cancelled, so we offered her a ride to Newark Airport, as long as the luggage would fit! She had already shipped 14 cases so there was only one large one and a small one to add to our pile.
The Dodge Magnum (station wagon) arrived and we managed to squeeze us and the luggage in and we were off. The Queen Mary 2 was resting quite regally, in the sunshine, and we waived our farewells until next time.
The drive home went quickly, but we were both extremely tired; perhaps slightly depressed and very tired. It is over. We have just cruised around the world for 3 ½ months. 3 ½ months. We’ve had a quick glance at the wonders of the world. All of them deserve a return visit.
We’ve made some wonderful new friends and miss them already. Meals, and even walking the corridors!, were a great social activity! The “people” make a trip. The sights are always there but the people involved in the visit make it memorable. The funny moments when cultural differences collide or when haggling over an inexpensive item becomes a matter of principle…the people are just as memorable, and maybe more so, than the sights.
I have not come up with an answer yet for “Where did you like best?”...that will take some time. Perhaps as I review the photos and scan my memory bank, an answer will emerge with due justification.
I hope you know by now it was a great trip. It was a great voyage. It transported me back in time to the days when the oceanliners were the way to travel. I loved it!
I was very fortunate to have the strong support of my loving and dear family and boss, Joyce, behind me at home, handling the mail and bills and phone calls and hard work! God, family and friends…every day is better with all three.
So go out there and travel. The world is a big and beautiful place. Pick a continent to explore. Pick a region to discover. Pick a local museum to visit. Book that trip you have always wanted to take. There is no time like the present. Go for it!
Bon Voyage!
Our last clock change...
Brilliantly sunny and hot day in NY and Delaware!
We were up by 4:30AM to be out on deck as we sailed in the dark up the Hudson River. We crossed under the Verazzano Bridge and then past the Statue of Liberty. I thought of how different the journey was of my grandparents to America. Their transatlantic crossing was not filled with daily social activities and elegant cocktail parties and balls and scrumptious meals. They were apprehensive to leave their homeland and were very unsure of their future in their new country…and yet they came to America.
The sun was just beginning to appear over Brooklyn as the ship spun around in front of Governors Island to face once again toward the UK. They are ready to sail tonight at 5PM. Our balcony had the most spectacular view of the Statue, Governors Island and Manhattan.
Breakfast was a hurried affair and farewells were said to many. It was a very sad time but there was so much to be done in getting off the ship that I did not have time to think about it then. I stood out on the balcony for a few minutes to soak it in but then had to get moving.
We were in the first group off so I could clear the way for the UPS van meeting us BUT found one of my suitcases had the zipper broken in transit from the ship to the dock. It took some time to find tape and make it at least moveable…but we managed and had no problems with customs. The porter put our 10 bags (!! – try NOT to travel with this many) in the corner under the canopy and we hunted down the truck meeting us. Found that and the clients who needed the assistance and we made that work. Then we found some other friends and they offered to drop Gene at Avis car rental so off he went to pick up the car. In the meantime, another friend found out her limo had been cancelled, so we offered her a ride to Newark Airport, as long as the luggage would fit! She had already shipped 14 cases so there was only one large one and a small one to add to our pile.
The Dodge Magnum (station wagon) arrived and we managed to squeeze us and the luggage in and we were off. The Queen Mary 2 was resting quite regally, in the sunshine, and we waived our farewells until next time.
The drive home went quickly, but we were both extremely tired; perhaps slightly depressed and very tired. It is over. We have just cruised around the world for 3 ½ months. 3 ½ months. We’ve had a quick glance at the wonders of the world. All of them deserve a return visit.
We’ve made some wonderful new friends and miss them already. Meals, and even walking the corridors!, were a great social activity! The “people” make a trip. The sights are always there but the people involved in the visit make it memorable. The funny moments when cultural differences collide or when haggling over an inexpensive item becomes a matter of principle…the people are just as memorable, and maybe more so, than the sights.
I have not come up with an answer yet for “Where did you like best?”...that will take some time. Perhaps as I review the photos and scan my memory bank, an answer will emerge with due justification.
I hope you know by now it was a great trip. It was a great voyage. It transported me back in time to the days when the oceanliners were the way to travel. I loved it!
I was very fortunate to have the strong support of my loving and dear family and boss, Joyce, behind me at home, handling the mail and bills and phone calls and hard work! God, family and friends…every day is better with all three.
So go out there and travel. The world is a big and beautiful place. Pick a continent to explore. Pick a region to discover. Pick a local museum to visit. Book that trip you have always wanted to take. There is no time like the present. Go for it!
Bon Voyage!
Galley tour and last day on the ship...
Saturday, April 25, 2009 – last day at sea!!!!!!!!!!
Set our clocks back another hour. We are now just an hour ahead of Delaware.
We woke up to the loudspeaker hunting for a crew member so you knew something must be wrong. About 20 minutes later, the Commodore came on the speaker to say he had been found and all was well. Well, the gossip has it that he was indeed found, in a location where he was not supposed to be. Word has it that he will soon be “visiting his mother” from the next port of call, NY.
We were late for breakfast so they were not happy with us. But we made it for last call in to the kitchen. Worked on paperwork before our 11:15 galley tour. It was great! We toured the main galley for the largest restaurant onboard, the Britannia. We saw the stations for the each course, the dishwashing, the drinks area, the new glasses being delivered, cakes being baked, soups being made, meats being cut, fish being filleted, bread being baked…It was very clean and they have won 100% ratings in the last years of health inspections from the US Dept. of Health.
They spend approx. $41,000 per day on food. There are 150 chefs under the direction of the Executive Chef. There are 85 dishwashers, pot washers and galley cleaners working around the clock. The restaurants serve over 1200 meals per seating and there are at least four seatings a day. There is a provision team of 13 who load all the Stores (food supplies) in the major ports of call and issue the Stores when required. Sometimes when they unexpectedly need additional food in a port, they have to go 3-4 stores to buy the quantity they need – like 500 pounds of butter. They cannot take it from one store or their supply will be depleted and they will not be able to serve their regular customers. They have a petty cash fund of $250,000. There are 21 refrigerated rooms for all the food and beverage items.
Every seven days they load fresh milk, vegetables and fruit as well as fish and seafood.
Every 14 days they load dry and frozen products.
Requisitions are submitted up to three months in advance for longer voyages and 3-4 weeks in advance for the transatlantic voyages.
On a typical 6-day transatlantic crossing, the following quantities of food are consumed:
50 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables
12 tons met
8 tons poultry
13 tons fish and seafood
2 tons cheeses and dairy products
2 tons sugar
5000 gallons fresh milk
32,400 eggs
20 kg Russian Caviar
4 tons flour
2 tons rice
Other trivia about the meals onboard…
120 pizzas are consumed each day
700 English scones are served during afternoon tea
9500 canapes are consumed ruing the Captain’s cocktail parties
Almost 16,000 meals each day are prepared and consumed onboard
Approx. 87,000 pieces of china and glassware are used within the dining areas and they all have to be washed!
Over 8000 linen napkins are used and laundered every day
6000 cups of tea are served daily
Almost 610 miles of cling film is used onboard each year!!
We had a fun lunch with friends and then worked on paperwork. We were supposed to be packing but we still needed time to explore the ship. Missed the wine tasting and decided to roam the decks. Found the library and stationery store, the outside elevator and the golf simulator. The decks were incredibly windy and I can understand how someone could be swept off the deck and into the sea!!!!
They carry additional azipods in the front of the ship and they look like modern art! But they are so heavy and awkward, Cunard found it more sensible to carry them onboard and have them for any needed emergency.
We climbed to find the four pools – three outdoor and one indoor, the paddle tennis area, the lookout (near the top of the ship over the bow), the golf cages, the huge open deck spaces which must be great when sailing in warm climates for parties and sunning and cafes…
We passed the kennel and heard the dogs barking, found the Canyon Ranch Spa and beauty salon, the fitness center (the view from here is not nearly as nice as on the Queen Victoria), the shop (Hermes, H. Stern, the logo shop…)…
Dressed for dinner and we joined some of the group for a cocktail party in their suite. Everyone has bottles and bottles of wine to be consumed before we arrive in NY tomorrow!! We had the strip steak and they prepared it tableside for us -- a huge piece of steak with all the trimmings! I went to the show in the Royal Court Theatre and enjoyed Bettine Clemens on her flute and then the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers singing about arriving in New York as an immigrant.
Up to pack and pack and pack. It never seems to end! But finally all the cases are out in the hallway and I plan to be up at 4:30AM to see the Verrazzano Bridge and then the Statue of Liberty. I remember passing it in 1983 on the QEII and how much it meant to me then (age 24) to be coming home after living in the UK. I am sure I will feel even stronger tomorrow about arriving back into the country I love. I heard many passengers say today they are so glad to be going home to the United States of America. It is wonderful to travel but it is even more wonderful to arrive home. We have passed through many lands and you can’t help but compare them to your own. With the Constitution to back us and our Bill of Rights to support us, America is the place to be. No other country enjoys the freedom we have. Let’s work to keep it that way. Sometimes you have to leave to realize how good you have it at home.
Several times during the day the fog set in around the ship and the whistles were blown every minute and then every five minutes. I like their sound. It makes it feel like the golden olden days of crossing the Atlantic.
Set our clocks back another hour. We are now just an hour ahead of Delaware.
We woke up to the loudspeaker hunting for a crew member so you knew something must be wrong. About 20 minutes later, the Commodore came on the speaker to say he had been found and all was well. Well, the gossip has it that he was indeed found, in a location where he was not supposed to be. Word has it that he will soon be “visiting his mother” from the next port of call, NY.
We were late for breakfast so they were not happy with us. But we made it for last call in to the kitchen. Worked on paperwork before our 11:15 galley tour. It was great! We toured the main galley for the largest restaurant onboard, the Britannia. We saw the stations for the each course, the dishwashing, the drinks area, the new glasses being delivered, cakes being baked, soups being made, meats being cut, fish being filleted, bread being baked…It was very clean and they have won 100% ratings in the last years of health inspections from the US Dept. of Health.
They spend approx. $41,000 per day on food. There are 150 chefs under the direction of the Executive Chef. There are 85 dishwashers, pot washers and galley cleaners working around the clock. The restaurants serve over 1200 meals per seating and there are at least four seatings a day. There is a provision team of 13 who load all the Stores (food supplies) in the major ports of call and issue the Stores when required. Sometimes when they unexpectedly need additional food in a port, they have to go 3-4 stores to buy the quantity they need – like 500 pounds of butter. They cannot take it from one store or their supply will be depleted and they will not be able to serve their regular customers. They have a petty cash fund of $250,000. There are 21 refrigerated rooms for all the food and beverage items.
Every seven days they load fresh milk, vegetables and fruit as well as fish and seafood.
Every 14 days they load dry and frozen products.
Requisitions are submitted up to three months in advance for longer voyages and 3-4 weeks in advance for the transatlantic voyages.
On a typical 6-day transatlantic crossing, the following quantities of food are consumed:
50 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables
12 tons met
8 tons poultry
13 tons fish and seafood
2 tons cheeses and dairy products
2 tons sugar
5000 gallons fresh milk
32,400 eggs
20 kg Russian Caviar
4 tons flour
2 tons rice
Other trivia about the meals onboard…
120 pizzas are consumed each day
700 English scones are served during afternoon tea
9500 canapes are consumed ruing the Captain’s cocktail parties
Almost 16,000 meals each day are prepared and consumed onboard
Approx. 87,000 pieces of china and glassware are used within the dining areas and they all have to be washed!
Over 8000 linen napkins are used and laundered every day
6000 cups of tea are served daily
Almost 610 miles of cling film is used onboard each year!!
We had a fun lunch with friends and then worked on paperwork. We were supposed to be packing but we still needed time to explore the ship. Missed the wine tasting and decided to roam the decks. Found the library and stationery store, the outside elevator and the golf simulator. The decks were incredibly windy and I can understand how someone could be swept off the deck and into the sea!!!!
They carry additional azipods in the front of the ship and they look like modern art! But they are so heavy and awkward, Cunard found it more sensible to carry them onboard and have them for any needed emergency.
We climbed to find the four pools – three outdoor and one indoor, the paddle tennis area, the lookout (near the top of the ship over the bow), the golf cages, the huge open deck spaces which must be great when sailing in warm climates for parties and sunning and cafes…
We passed the kennel and heard the dogs barking, found the Canyon Ranch Spa and beauty salon, the fitness center (the view from here is not nearly as nice as on the Queen Victoria), the shop (Hermes, H. Stern, the logo shop…)…
Dressed for dinner and we joined some of the group for a cocktail party in their suite. Everyone has bottles and bottles of wine to be consumed before we arrive in NY tomorrow!! We had the strip steak and they prepared it tableside for us -- a huge piece of steak with all the trimmings! I went to the show in the Royal Court Theatre and enjoyed Bettine Clemens on her flute and then the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers singing about arriving in New York as an immigrant.
Up to pack and pack and pack. It never seems to end! But finally all the cases are out in the hallway and I plan to be up at 4:30AM to see the Verrazzano Bridge and then the Statue of Liberty. I remember passing it in 1983 on the QEII and how much it meant to me then (age 24) to be coming home after living in the UK. I am sure I will feel even stronger tomorrow about arriving back into the country I love. I heard many passengers say today they are so glad to be going home to the United States of America. It is wonderful to travel but it is even more wonderful to arrive home. We have passed through many lands and you can’t help but compare them to your own. With the Constitution to back us and our Bill of Rights to support us, America is the place to be. No other country enjoys the freedom we have. Let’s work to keep it that way. Sometimes you have to leave to realize how good you have it at home.
Several times during the day the fog set in around the ship and the whistles were blown every minute and then every five minutes. I like their sound. It makes it feel like the golden olden days of crossing the Atlantic.
Friday, April 24, 2009
16 nautical miles north of the Titanic
Friday, April 24, 2009 – sailed 16 nautical miles to the north of the final resting place of RMS Titanic just before noon
Rainy and dreary – just like a winter day with mild temperatures – beautiful rainbow came out at dinner!
Did you know there is a crater on Mars which is 350 miles WIDE and as long as the width of the continental USA? Did you know there is a mountain on Mars which is 16 miles high?
Up at 8 and ordered room service. Probably last time for that big luxury…and it came within 10 minutes! Maybe being in the Grills category helped with the quick delivery…Had tea and talk with friends in their suite and then to the Groovy Choir singing in the Grand Lobby. It was great fun! They hand out song sheets and the jazz trio plays the songs and you sing along!
Hurried up to the 12th Sports Deck for the Baggo Tournament, which is sliding bean bags onto an aluminum angled sheet. You need to throw the bean bag into the hole to get the most points, otherwise you get one point when it rests on the top.
Went to the Bridge Observation Deck, which is a glass panel behind the bridge. You can look in during the day and see them working but no flash photos can be taken. We also rode on the outside elevator with views of the sea and saw the card room.
Lunch in the Grills Restaurant, did laundry and then met with a friend to transfer some photos and movies onto my computer. Went to see the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) presentation of “Bottom’s Dream”. It was a nice adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and they condensed it to under an hour.
Then at 3:30, I attended the auction of the navigational chart of this voyage. It went for $400 (imagine how much someone spent on the world voyage chart as there were five segments!). Then we had a very informative virtual Bridge Tour. The 2nd and 3rd Officers presented a nice description of the bridge with photos and interesting facts. There are always two officers and two quartermasters on the bridge. He gave a comparison of the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas ship vs. Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. The Freedom is the biggest cruise ship on the seas, at the moment. It is 158,000 gross tons (which is the total of the public space), has only lifeboats, 1001 horsepower, travels 22 knots and cost $590M to build.
The Queen Mary 2 is the world’s largest oceanliner at 148,528 gross tons. Its length, beam and draft are larger than the Freedom, they have 18 tenders (to transfer passengers to shore), 1154 horsepower, can cruise at 30 knots and it cost $800M to build. It has a long bow to cut through the waves, which is 1/2” thicker than other ships. He showed a photo of a Carnival cruise ship in a hurricane with the wave hitting the front of the ship all the way up to the bridge. The Queen Mary 2 has a long, high bow and the water would run off it and back into the sea.
It has one of the biggest bridges in the world. Their two pieces of radar equipment can track ships within a 12 mile and a 24 mile range. They also have a sharp-eye radar system. We try to keep a distance of two miles between us and other ships. They have an echo sounder to find the depth from the bottom of the ship to the bottom of the sea. There are four pods, which are like outboard motors on speedboats. The Azipods rotate 360 degrees and each weighs 250 tons. The propeller blade is 18 feet in diameter! There are four diesel generators and a gas turbine (like a Lear jet). There is enough power on this ship to power the city of Southampton!! We are currently in a storm and the ship is rocking…they are using two stabilizers (out of a total of four) and they help to correct the roll and reduce it by 80% (thankfully).
We saw a TV interview of the Commodore and he mentioned the Queen Victoria had a helicopter evacuation a few hours before we had ours on Monday!!! They had a woman on dialysis who had boarded and then received a call at 2AM that the hospital had a kidney for her! So she was picked up and flown to Cambridge to receive the kidney…and then the same helicopter flew out to pick up our passenger to take him to Cornwall’s hospital! What a coincidence.
This ship makes 450,000 gallons of water a day to serve the ship. They do not have a need to take on much additional water in the ports of call. We travel over 3100 nautical miles to NY.
We read some of the interesting historical articles on the walls and picked up the audio headsets to enhance the experience. Dressed for our very last formal evening on this incredible voyage! Dinner with another couple and we had flambéed cherries jubilee and Baked Alaska (although we did not order both!). Had our last cocktail party with the Commodore and Sr. Officers and had a nice time in the Queens Room. We were late to the production show “Passionata”, a dance production number, so we watched most of it and then went to the second show also! We went to the casino for awhile and took some photos around the ship. We never made it to the Ascot Ball, as the Queens Room is in the back of the ship, which is very inconvenient when you realize how long it is from the theater to the Queens Room!
Lectures: “The Search for Life Beyond Earth”, Cooking demonstration on tiramisu and swordfish.
I found the words to the song I was thinking of for these final days of the trip…
“Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers...”
Rainy and dreary – just like a winter day with mild temperatures – beautiful rainbow came out at dinner!
Did you know there is a crater on Mars which is 350 miles WIDE and as long as the width of the continental USA? Did you know there is a mountain on Mars which is 16 miles high?
Up at 8 and ordered room service. Probably last time for that big luxury…and it came within 10 minutes! Maybe being in the Grills category helped with the quick delivery…Had tea and talk with friends in their suite and then to the Groovy Choir singing in the Grand Lobby. It was great fun! They hand out song sheets and the jazz trio plays the songs and you sing along!
Hurried up to the 12th Sports Deck for the Baggo Tournament, which is sliding bean bags onto an aluminum angled sheet. You need to throw the bean bag into the hole to get the most points, otherwise you get one point when it rests on the top.
Went to the Bridge Observation Deck, which is a glass panel behind the bridge. You can look in during the day and see them working but no flash photos can be taken. We also rode on the outside elevator with views of the sea and saw the card room.
Lunch in the Grills Restaurant, did laundry and then met with a friend to transfer some photos and movies onto my computer. Went to see the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) presentation of “Bottom’s Dream”. It was a nice adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and they condensed it to under an hour.
Then at 3:30, I attended the auction of the navigational chart of this voyage. It went for $400 (imagine how much someone spent on the world voyage chart as there were five segments!). Then we had a very informative virtual Bridge Tour. The 2nd and 3rd Officers presented a nice description of the bridge with photos and interesting facts. There are always two officers and two quartermasters on the bridge. He gave a comparison of the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas ship vs. Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. The Freedom is the biggest cruise ship on the seas, at the moment. It is 158,000 gross tons (which is the total of the public space), has only lifeboats, 1001 horsepower, travels 22 knots and cost $590M to build.
The Queen Mary 2 is the world’s largest oceanliner at 148,528 gross tons. Its length, beam and draft are larger than the Freedom, they have 18 tenders (to transfer passengers to shore), 1154 horsepower, can cruise at 30 knots and it cost $800M to build. It has a long bow to cut through the waves, which is 1/2” thicker than other ships. He showed a photo of a Carnival cruise ship in a hurricane with the wave hitting the front of the ship all the way up to the bridge. The Queen Mary 2 has a long, high bow and the water would run off it and back into the sea.
It has one of the biggest bridges in the world. Their two pieces of radar equipment can track ships within a 12 mile and a 24 mile range. They also have a sharp-eye radar system. We try to keep a distance of two miles between us and other ships. They have an echo sounder to find the depth from the bottom of the ship to the bottom of the sea. There are four pods, which are like outboard motors on speedboats. The Azipods rotate 360 degrees and each weighs 250 tons. The propeller blade is 18 feet in diameter! There are four diesel generators and a gas turbine (like a Lear jet). There is enough power on this ship to power the city of Southampton!! We are currently in a storm and the ship is rocking…they are using two stabilizers (out of a total of four) and they help to correct the roll and reduce it by 80% (thankfully).
We saw a TV interview of the Commodore and he mentioned the Queen Victoria had a helicopter evacuation a few hours before we had ours on Monday!!! They had a woman on dialysis who had boarded and then received a call at 2AM that the hospital had a kidney for her! So she was picked up and flown to Cambridge to receive the kidney…and then the same helicopter flew out to pick up our passenger to take him to Cornwall’s hospital! What a coincidence.
This ship makes 450,000 gallons of water a day to serve the ship. They do not have a need to take on much additional water in the ports of call. We travel over 3100 nautical miles to NY.
We read some of the interesting historical articles on the walls and picked up the audio headsets to enhance the experience. Dressed for our very last formal evening on this incredible voyage! Dinner with another couple and we had flambéed cherries jubilee and Baked Alaska (although we did not order both!). Had our last cocktail party with the Commodore and Sr. Officers and had a nice time in the Queens Room. We were late to the production show “Passionata”, a dance production number, so we watched most of it and then went to the second show also! We went to the casino for awhile and took some photos around the ship. We never made it to the Ascot Ball, as the Queens Room is in the back of the ship, which is very inconvenient when you realize how long it is from the theater to the Queens Room!
Lectures: “The Search for Life Beyond Earth”, Cooking demonstration on tiramisu and swordfish.
I found the words to the song I was thinking of for these final days of the trip…
“Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers...”
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Formal Tea/ At sea in the Atlantic...
Thursday, April 23, 2009 – at sea
Clocks were set back another hour. We are only two hours ahead of DE now.
Sunny and windy all day. Decks were still closed for sports activities.
The 14th Deck has the kennel! We have eight dogs onboard. This is the only ship which will accept dogs for the crossing.
Had a nice breakfast with a friend in the Britannia Restaurant. Ran off to do some mailings, letters and email before 11:30AM (!!) cocktail hour with the Commodore and officers for all World Cruisers who had transferred over from the Queen Victoria. It was held in the Winter Garden which is a very a nice garden area with a low ceiling and lots of greenery and lawn furniture, even though it is enclosed without a moveable roof. A pianist played while we gabbed and gabbed. It is a nice group of people who will soon be on their merry way to new adventures in new lands…
Ran for a very quick lunch (salad) before the planetarium show. Then back for more paperwork before our formal tea in the Queens Room. We had great seats by the window and the string quarter played.
Then worked in the room and delivered some mail. Dinner in the alternative restaurant, the Carvery, with four others and went late (can you believe it??) to the play “Hobson’s Choice” and then the piano recital.
Lectures: “Casablanca and the Making of a Masterpiece”, “When Characters Become the Authors of a Novel”, “A Scientist Goes to the Movies”
Entertainment: RADA presents Hobson’s Choice (play) and a great classical concert with pianist Campbell Simpson, Martini Mixology, Grand Wine Tasting Seminar, Acting Workshop, Creative Arts Class, Bingo!, Computer Lectures, Line dancing, Social Baggo, Bible Study, Canyon Ranch Fitness, Duplicate Bridge, Darts Tournament, Golf Simulator Competition, Pub Team Trivia….
The water has been slightly rough today but the ship is amazing. There is very little movement and I guess that is the benefit of being in an oceanliner.
The days pass so quickly. There is a song from the Mamma Mia movie and I can’t find the lyrics to it but they say something about “freezing that frame in life”. That is exactly what I want to do. Freeze each moment to be able to recall it when I need it – for support, for a happy moment, for a laugh, to share…
Clocks were set back another hour. We are only two hours ahead of DE now.
Sunny and windy all day. Decks were still closed for sports activities.
The 14th Deck has the kennel! We have eight dogs onboard. This is the only ship which will accept dogs for the crossing.
Had a nice breakfast with a friend in the Britannia Restaurant. Ran off to do some mailings, letters and email before 11:30AM (!!) cocktail hour with the Commodore and officers for all World Cruisers who had transferred over from the Queen Victoria. It was held in the Winter Garden which is a very a nice garden area with a low ceiling and lots of greenery and lawn furniture, even though it is enclosed without a moveable roof. A pianist played while we gabbed and gabbed. It is a nice group of people who will soon be on their merry way to new adventures in new lands…
Ran for a very quick lunch (salad) before the planetarium show. Then back for more paperwork before our formal tea in the Queens Room. We had great seats by the window and the string quarter played.
Then worked in the room and delivered some mail. Dinner in the alternative restaurant, the Carvery, with four others and went late (can you believe it??) to the play “Hobson’s Choice” and then the piano recital.
Lectures: “Casablanca and the Making of a Masterpiece”, “When Characters Become the Authors of a Novel”, “A Scientist Goes to the Movies”
Entertainment: RADA presents Hobson’s Choice (play) and a great classical concert with pianist Campbell Simpson, Martini Mixology, Grand Wine Tasting Seminar, Acting Workshop, Creative Arts Class, Bingo!, Computer Lectures, Line dancing, Social Baggo, Bible Study, Canyon Ranch Fitness, Duplicate Bridge, Darts Tournament, Golf Simulator Competition, Pub Team Trivia….
The water has been slightly rough today but the ship is amazing. There is very little movement and I guess that is the benefit of being in an oceanliner.
The days pass so quickly. There is a song from the Mamma Mia movie and I can’t find the lyrics to it but they say something about “freezing that frame in life”. That is exactly what I want to do. Freeze each moment to be able to recall it when I need it – for support, for a happy moment, for a laugh, to share…
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Dad's Birthday...
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 – Dad’s birthday! At sea
Clocks set back another hour. We are almost there now…
Very busy day. Here was the tentative schedule before the day began:
Call clients about some issues
9:30 – meet for paddle tennis
9:30 – pick up planetarium tickets for afternoon show
12:30 – lunch with friends
2:30 – planetarium
4:30 – meet for cocktail party for 5PM
6:30 – cocktails with the Commodore and Sr. Officers
7:30 – dinner
8:45 – show
The day went like this…Up to a windy and blistery day and the upper decks were closed. The Commodore said the wind gusts were like 50 knots an hour -- the speed of the boat combined with the actual wind. Therefore, the upper decks were inaccessible. The hangers in the closet are banging around and the wind is whipping up a storm!! The waves are so pretty…as long as I’m not in a lifeboat bopping along out there…
But anyway, therefore, no paddle tennis. But I did play ping pong for ½ hour and really enjoyed it! There are two tables by the indoor pavilion pool and two whirlpools and the retractable roof was covering it all.
Have to admit that I first went to get an almond/marzipan croissant from the lounge…
Then picked up tickets to the Planetarium’s 2:30 show.
Worked on the speech for the party tonight and got out all the clothes for the day (formal evening). It is almost more of a pain to try to live out of two suitcases when you have all these other ones packed. The one item you need is bound to be in the other case…
Had to make copies, type up notes, go to the purser’s desk, sort out expenses, make a car reservation…the list keeps growing. Anyway, we had a very nice lunch with friends in the Britannia Restaurant and then ran to the Planetarium for the show “Infinity Express”. The show yesterday was better with more photos and motion and less dialogue.
Running late, I dressed as quickly as possible for the cocktail party. Well, let me re-state that. I could not get the zipper up in my emerald green ball gown; I love the color of the dress but the zipper has been a pain in the neck. Every time I wear it, it takes longer and longer to close. And this time was the worst. I finally put it over my head and pulled down with the zipper half up and if someone had been there videotaping the entire episode, AT A LATER TIME, I would have died with laughter to watch myself. But at the time, I wanted to scream!! I was stuck with half of it above me and not being able to pull it down. Oh bother. Finally it all came together and I ran up to host the party!!
The group had a small oddly shaped area in the Commodore Club on the 9th floor at the front of the ship. Large comfortable lounge chairs , drinks and hot and cold canapés. The Commodore, the Staff Captain, the Food and Beverage Manager and the Hotel Manager’s assistant showed up so that was great news. We took some photos and then hurried off to another cocktail party!
The 6:30 party was in the Queens Room in the back of the ship and there were formal officer introductions and more drinks. This was for the Grill guests and we met the Hotel Manager, John Duffy.
Dinner was nice and then the show was the Royal Cunard Singers In Concert. Took some photos around the ship and then worked on the computer.
The wind is still blowing. In the distance, we saw several rainstorms through the balcony and they are beautiful from afar.
Lectures today: NY Tour Talk, “Conversations with Kathryn Harrison”, “History of the Newsreels from Edison to D-Day”.
The Commodore is the highest rank on a cruise line. He is the most senior captain of the entire fleet. He is also the Captain of the ship.
I am amazed at the beautiful art around the ship; the murals are incredible. Have to make some time to walk around slowly and see it all.
I called Dad, for his birthday, from the ship at $4.95 per minute. The cell phone would not work as I can’t find a network; we guess that we are too far away from land to connect.
We did hear good news about the gentleman who was airlifted yesterday. He is resting comfortably in the hospital in Cornwall, UK. Great news.
Clocks set back another hour. We are almost there now…
Very busy day. Here was the tentative schedule before the day began:
Call clients about some issues
9:30 – meet for paddle tennis
9:30 – pick up planetarium tickets for afternoon show
12:30 – lunch with friends
2:30 – planetarium
4:30 – meet for cocktail party for 5PM
6:30 – cocktails with the Commodore and Sr. Officers
7:30 – dinner
8:45 – show
The day went like this…Up to a windy and blistery day and the upper decks were closed. The Commodore said the wind gusts were like 50 knots an hour -- the speed of the boat combined with the actual wind. Therefore, the upper decks were inaccessible. The hangers in the closet are banging around and the wind is whipping up a storm!! The waves are so pretty…as long as I’m not in a lifeboat bopping along out there…
But anyway, therefore, no paddle tennis. But I did play ping pong for ½ hour and really enjoyed it! There are two tables by the indoor pavilion pool and two whirlpools and the retractable roof was covering it all.
Have to admit that I first went to get an almond/marzipan croissant from the lounge…
Then picked up tickets to the Planetarium’s 2:30 show.
Worked on the speech for the party tonight and got out all the clothes for the day (formal evening). It is almost more of a pain to try to live out of two suitcases when you have all these other ones packed. The one item you need is bound to be in the other case…
Had to make copies, type up notes, go to the purser’s desk, sort out expenses, make a car reservation…the list keeps growing. Anyway, we had a very nice lunch with friends in the Britannia Restaurant and then ran to the Planetarium for the show “Infinity Express”. The show yesterday was better with more photos and motion and less dialogue.
Running late, I dressed as quickly as possible for the cocktail party. Well, let me re-state that. I could not get the zipper up in my emerald green ball gown; I love the color of the dress but the zipper has been a pain in the neck. Every time I wear it, it takes longer and longer to close. And this time was the worst. I finally put it over my head and pulled down with the zipper half up and if someone had been there videotaping the entire episode, AT A LATER TIME, I would have died with laughter to watch myself. But at the time, I wanted to scream!! I was stuck with half of it above me and not being able to pull it down. Oh bother. Finally it all came together and I ran up to host the party!!
The group had a small oddly shaped area in the Commodore Club on the 9th floor at the front of the ship. Large comfortable lounge chairs , drinks and hot and cold canapés. The Commodore, the Staff Captain, the Food and Beverage Manager and the Hotel Manager’s assistant showed up so that was great news. We took some photos and then hurried off to another cocktail party!
The 6:30 party was in the Queens Room in the back of the ship and there were formal officer introductions and more drinks. This was for the Grill guests and we met the Hotel Manager, John Duffy.
Dinner was nice and then the show was the Royal Cunard Singers In Concert. Took some photos around the ship and then worked on the computer.
The wind is still blowing. In the distance, we saw several rainstorms through the balcony and they are beautiful from afar.
Lectures today: NY Tour Talk, “Conversations with Kathryn Harrison”, “History of the Newsreels from Edison to D-Day”.
The Commodore is the highest rank on a cruise line. He is the most senior captain of the entire fleet. He is also the Captain of the ship.
I am amazed at the beautiful art around the ship; the murals are incredible. Have to make some time to walk around slowly and see it all.
I called Dad, for his birthday, from the ship at $4.95 per minute. The cell phone would not work as I can’t find a network; we guess that we are too far away from land to connect.
We did hear good news about the gentleman who was airlifted yesterday. He is resting comfortably in the hospital in Cornwall, UK. Great news.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Helicopter airlifted passenger and last Black and White Ball
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 – helicopter airlifted passenger and last Black and White Ball
We set the clocks back an hour. We are only four hours ahead of DE time now.
Sunrise was 5:30 AM and sunset is 8:12 PM.
How could I forget one of the nicest treats? In the Princess Grill, we get personalized stationery!! You can order it however you want. I put “Luisa Georgov, Ensemble Travel”. How innovative. But it looks great!!!
Cloudy and cool. We are definitely in the Atlantic in Spring.
I was up early for appointments and running around. At 8:00, the Captain came on the loudspeaker requesting the Chaplain. He came back on shortly thereafter and announced we were headed back to the Scilly Islands and a helicopter would soon be hovering overhead to transport a gentleman to the mainland. We were asked to clear all upper decks and remain inside the ship, and to not even be out on the balcony. We knew we would have a good viewing point from the Commodore Club so we headed up there and watched as it approached the ship. It circled four to five times and the man was lifted in a gurney to the helicopter to be transported to a hospital. We pray he will arrive safely and be assisted quickly in the hospital. Thank goodness for the advanced technology in the communication and transportation fields – imagine this happening in the 1920s. We have seen this before on a cruise from Bermuda to the USA and it is quite amazing. We should be so grateful this is an option in an emergency at sea.
I picked up free tickets for the 2:30 planetarium show for “Passport to the Universe” narrated by Tom Hanks. There are four shows a day but since the theatre only holds 150 people, tickets are required. It was not a problem to get one – there was no queue when I went at 9:00. Since we are in the Grills, they also hold some tickets back for those guests and keep them in the Grills Lounge.
Of course I visited the Grills Lounge to see what they offer for continental breakfast! And much to my chagrin and happiness, I found they have croissants stuffed with marzipan!!!! Oh dear. I was elated and upset at the same time. My self-control is not going to work on this one, I’m afraid…
Back to the computer center to get help with sending and receiving messages and we took the tour of the ship’s public rooms. 45 minutes of wandering around with a guide and now we are attempting it on our own!
Letters were sent to the officers inviting them to join our cocktail party, I met with the Hotel Manager’s assistant to send out invitations and we enjoyed a nice lunch alone in the Grill.
We hurried to Illuminations to see the show; the chairs recline so it is easier to look above. I swam in the Pavilion Pool with a retractable ceiling. It was quite cool outside with the wind blowing but lovely and sunny. I even took a nap – for 2 hours!
We met our dinner mates – from Topeka, KS and St. Charles, MO! How coincidental since Gene is from Kansas City! One couple did a two week tour of the UK and the other spent two weeks in London in an apartment. Had a very nice dinner – surf and turf. I could not manage any appetizers or soup or salad but of course I could manage dessert – pears in wine sauce.
Entertainment was flautist Bettine Clemen (who was also with us on the Queen Victoria) and tenor Aaron Shaw. We went to our final Black and White Ball, danced the gavotte, saw the professional dancers do two routines, met others and went to the Jazz Club, casino and Golden Lion Pub. Very nice evening onboard and met a nice couple from Liverpool who were married the day I was born and, therefore, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary recently. This is their gift to each other – they are doing a round trip.
Lectures: “Hacking the Brain: What optical and auditory illusions tell us about the mind”, “Three Cunard Queens – the Royal Rendezvous, Farewells and New Beginnings”, “All About Oscar – A Brief History of Hollywood’s Golden Night”, and an art history lecture.
Music onboard: Classical concert with Pianist Stephen De Pledge, Jazz Club in the Chart Room, Cunard String Quartet, G32 disco with DJ and Caribbean Band Vibz and three pianists playing around the ship. There is no shortage of entertainment in the evenings.
This ship is magnificent in its murals, paintings, historical displays and art. It is classic and still modern. Many of the color schemes are the same as on the Victoria but the layout of the ship is completely different. We are still getting lost but finding so many beautiful corners to explore while doing so!
We set the clocks back an hour. We are only four hours ahead of DE time now.
Sunrise was 5:30 AM and sunset is 8:12 PM.
How could I forget one of the nicest treats? In the Princess Grill, we get personalized stationery!! You can order it however you want. I put “Luisa Georgov, Ensemble Travel”. How innovative. But it looks great!!!
Cloudy and cool. We are definitely in the Atlantic in Spring.
I was up early for appointments and running around. At 8:00, the Captain came on the loudspeaker requesting the Chaplain. He came back on shortly thereafter and announced we were headed back to the Scilly Islands and a helicopter would soon be hovering overhead to transport a gentleman to the mainland. We were asked to clear all upper decks and remain inside the ship, and to not even be out on the balcony. We knew we would have a good viewing point from the Commodore Club so we headed up there and watched as it approached the ship. It circled four to five times and the man was lifted in a gurney to the helicopter to be transported to a hospital. We pray he will arrive safely and be assisted quickly in the hospital. Thank goodness for the advanced technology in the communication and transportation fields – imagine this happening in the 1920s. We have seen this before on a cruise from Bermuda to the USA and it is quite amazing. We should be so grateful this is an option in an emergency at sea.
I picked up free tickets for the 2:30 planetarium show for “Passport to the Universe” narrated by Tom Hanks. There are four shows a day but since the theatre only holds 150 people, tickets are required. It was not a problem to get one – there was no queue when I went at 9:00. Since we are in the Grills, they also hold some tickets back for those guests and keep them in the Grills Lounge.
Of course I visited the Grills Lounge to see what they offer for continental breakfast! And much to my chagrin and happiness, I found they have croissants stuffed with marzipan!!!! Oh dear. I was elated and upset at the same time. My self-control is not going to work on this one, I’m afraid…
Back to the computer center to get help with sending and receiving messages and we took the tour of the ship’s public rooms. 45 minutes of wandering around with a guide and now we are attempting it on our own!
Letters were sent to the officers inviting them to join our cocktail party, I met with the Hotel Manager’s assistant to send out invitations and we enjoyed a nice lunch alone in the Grill.
We hurried to Illuminations to see the show; the chairs recline so it is easier to look above. I swam in the Pavilion Pool with a retractable ceiling. It was quite cool outside with the wind blowing but lovely and sunny. I even took a nap – for 2 hours!
We met our dinner mates – from Topeka, KS and St. Charles, MO! How coincidental since Gene is from Kansas City! One couple did a two week tour of the UK and the other spent two weeks in London in an apartment. Had a very nice dinner – surf and turf. I could not manage any appetizers or soup or salad but of course I could manage dessert – pears in wine sauce.
Entertainment was flautist Bettine Clemen (who was also with us on the Queen Victoria) and tenor Aaron Shaw. We went to our final Black and White Ball, danced the gavotte, saw the professional dancers do two routines, met others and went to the Jazz Club, casino and Golden Lion Pub. Very nice evening onboard and met a nice couple from Liverpool who were married the day I was born and, therefore, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary recently. This is their gift to each other – they are doing a round trip.
Lectures: “Hacking the Brain: What optical and auditory illusions tell us about the mind”, “Three Cunard Queens – the Royal Rendezvous, Farewells and New Beginnings”, “All About Oscar – A Brief History of Hollywood’s Golden Night”, and an art history lecture.
Music onboard: Classical concert with Pianist Stephen De Pledge, Jazz Club in the Chart Room, Cunard String Quartet, G32 disco with DJ and Caribbean Band Vibz and three pianists playing around the ship. There is no shortage of entertainment in the evenings.
This ship is magnificent in its murals, paintings, historical displays and art. It is classic and still modern. Many of the color schemes are the same as on the Victoria but the layout of the ship is completely different. We are still getting lost but finding so many beautiful corners to explore while doing so!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Photo of roses from Birthday!
I have been trying and trying to upload the photos but the connection takes too long. On the "new" ship today, I am trying again. First time, it failed. It may appear this time. These are the roses from Joyce, the owner of Preferred Travel, for my 50th! Thanks!! I hope the photo comes through...
Transferring from the QV to the QM2
Monday, April 20, 2009 – Southampton and transfer from Queen Victoria ship to the Queen Mary 2!!
With an early arrival through the English Channel, we were docked and cleared by 8:00AM in the largest cruise liner port in Europe. People began to disembark and suddenly life changes; time schedules take over and life goes back to “normal”.
We were busy cleaning up the last minute items and wandered around saying goodbye to many people. How sad. The many friends we’ve made among the passengers and crew…how nice to create these friendships and we will try to maintain them. I was very sad.
We decided to get off the ship earlier than required and kept seeing people to say goodbye to as we passed each other. Airport shuttles, tour shuttles to Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral to see the Magna Carta and to Windsor Castle were for the others…We had our bus transfer from the QV to the QM2, as they are affectionately called. We had a quick tour through town, the site of the Roman port of Clausentum in the middle Stone Ages. Some of the oldest buildings date back from the 11th century and the Old Town and Walls are great places to wander. The Maritime Museum was once a 14th century wool warehouse. The Museum of Archaeology is in God’s House Tower, a 13 the century gatehouse which was once part of the city’s walled defenses. The RMS Titanic set sail on her ill-fated maiden voyage from here in April 1912; with a crew of 898 only 210 survived and most of the crew were from Southampton. The author Jane Austen lived her also and visited Netley Abbey, a former home to Cistercian monks, which can still be visited today. There is a lot more to do here than I thought!! An hour does not do it justice! The Hilton offers a package with free transfers to and from the ships.
I have to tell you the news of the luggage! Can you believe this? For the 240 passengers transferring from the QV to the QM2, we had 720 pieces of luggage. One family of four had 80 PIECES OF LUGGAGE!!! We heard they are the Tag Hauer watch people but who knows…Compare those numbers to the crew luggage: 135 crew had 150 pieces of luggage.
Those of us (approx. 240, of which 28 are in my group) transferring from the Queen Victoria were allowed onboard first! We were greeted by staff in red uniforms and white gloves. And the entrance grand lobby is grand; three stories high and more modern than the QV. It is a much longer ship and the corridors seem to go on f o r e v e r when you look down the hallway. Our room, 10049, 10th deck, in the Princess Grill section, was ready. But I was not!! What a room. I expected nice but it is the best! We have probably 2.5 times more space than we did in the last stateroom. We have a balcony 2+ times larger than the other one and this one has two lounge chairs plus a table and room for more chairs!! And there is one door but, in total, four glass panels from the stateroom to the balcony!! So when you open the curtains, the view is fantastic. Imagine doing a world cruise from the stateroom…
We have a drinks bar with glass doors with two shelves of glasses. And a walk-in closet with drawers. And a huge bathroom with a tub! And a large area around the sink. And drawers in the bedroom area and a sofa which would seat 3+ very comfortably plus a large arm chair. And the telephone has speakerphone! AND a fruit bowl (to be replenished daily) and gifts of: two bottles of bubbly and two bottles of wine and fresh strawberries! What a dream.
Then the luggage arrived and the room suddenly appeared quite differently. A hurricane had suddenly whirled through 10049. Honestly, the less you have, the better off you are. (At the moment, anyway…)
We ran down to the Kings Court on Deck 7 for a buffet quick lunch. They have different food stations set up – carvery, lotus (Asian) and Italian and the areas are divided into smaller dining sections. We ate quickly and went out to find Avis car rental to check on our NY rental car. It took us about 30 minutes just to walk out of the port!! We walked to the old section of town and then stopped a cab to get a price and found out the librarian from the QV was in the front seat and she was going to the QM2 so we hopped in. What a small world it continues to be.
Back onboard, we sailed at 4:30. We whistled and the QV whistled and it sounds so wonderful. I will miss that so much. The daily noon whistle and sailing past the towns and watching people watch us as we watch them. And the small boats which pass us or sail alongside us and wave. It is such fun. Why we all find it so fascinating, I don’t know, but we do. I love it!
Even using the maps in the stateroom, we are getting lost. I found the computer labroom and they helped me set up the laptop to send and receive. We went to the Golden Lion Pub to meet some friends and talked. Then we had our Princess Grill dinner. We are at a table for six and you can dine whenever you want during the hours of 6:30-9:00 PM. We were there right at 6:30 so we could go to the show but since you don’t have to wait for anyone, we were finished in 45 minutes!! Love it. We have a table very close to the bow of the ship with a great view -- you see the open deck where there will be people lounging during the day (not sure about that one!) but it is a great sunset view also. Dinner was nice – salad, crab cake and scallops and the spa selection for dessert.
The show was a great song and dance by the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers and an introduction to the facilities onboard by the Entertainment Director. There are 2489 passengers onboard and eight dogs. This is the only vessel which can transport dogs across the Atlantic! It is a Royal Mail Ship, therefore RMS Queen Mary 2, is the official name of the ship. We will sail 3200 nautical miles to NY. There are four pods for speed and it will take us five days. There are 130 staff in the entertainment department and we start off tomorrow with the Black and White Ball. There are 1100 seats in the Royal Court Theatre and there is a jazz club. The Canyon Ranch Spa has a staff of 50. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts is onboard also and will perform two shows; there are nine gentlemen hosts onboard to dance with the single women.
On this voyage, the lecturers are:
Scientist Dr. Lewis Dartnell
Writer, Actor and Filmmaker Robert Neal Marshall
Writer and Critic Ian Haydn Smith
Author Kathryn Harrison
We are sailing now. I do feel a definite shudder in the room and we are on Deck 10. We’ll see how that goes.
Only five days left…so very hard to believe.
With an early arrival through the English Channel, we were docked and cleared by 8:00AM in the largest cruise liner port in Europe. People began to disembark and suddenly life changes; time schedules take over and life goes back to “normal”.
We were busy cleaning up the last minute items and wandered around saying goodbye to many people. How sad. The many friends we’ve made among the passengers and crew…how nice to create these friendships and we will try to maintain them. I was very sad.
We decided to get off the ship earlier than required and kept seeing people to say goodbye to as we passed each other. Airport shuttles, tour shuttles to Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral to see the Magna Carta and to Windsor Castle were for the others…We had our bus transfer from the QV to the QM2, as they are affectionately called. We had a quick tour through town, the site of the Roman port of Clausentum in the middle Stone Ages. Some of the oldest buildings date back from the 11th century and the Old Town and Walls are great places to wander. The Maritime Museum was once a 14th century wool warehouse. The Museum of Archaeology is in God’s House Tower, a 13 the century gatehouse which was once part of the city’s walled defenses. The RMS Titanic set sail on her ill-fated maiden voyage from here in April 1912; with a crew of 898 only 210 survived and most of the crew were from Southampton. The author Jane Austen lived her also and visited Netley Abbey, a former home to Cistercian monks, which can still be visited today. There is a lot more to do here than I thought!! An hour does not do it justice! The Hilton offers a package with free transfers to and from the ships.
I have to tell you the news of the luggage! Can you believe this? For the 240 passengers transferring from the QV to the QM2, we had 720 pieces of luggage. One family of four had 80 PIECES OF LUGGAGE!!! We heard they are the Tag Hauer watch people but who knows…Compare those numbers to the crew luggage: 135 crew had 150 pieces of luggage.
Those of us (approx. 240, of which 28 are in my group) transferring from the Queen Victoria were allowed onboard first! We were greeted by staff in red uniforms and white gloves. And the entrance grand lobby is grand; three stories high and more modern than the QV. It is a much longer ship and the corridors seem to go on f o r e v e r when you look down the hallway. Our room, 10049, 10th deck, in the Princess Grill section, was ready. But I was not!! What a room. I expected nice but it is the best! We have probably 2.5 times more space than we did in the last stateroom. We have a balcony 2+ times larger than the other one and this one has two lounge chairs plus a table and room for more chairs!! And there is one door but, in total, four glass panels from the stateroom to the balcony!! So when you open the curtains, the view is fantastic. Imagine doing a world cruise from the stateroom…
We have a drinks bar with glass doors with two shelves of glasses. And a walk-in closet with drawers. And a huge bathroom with a tub! And a large area around the sink. And drawers in the bedroom area and a sofa which would seat 3+ very comfortably plus a large arm chair. And the telephone has speakerphone! AND a fruit bowl (to be replenished daily) and gifts of: two bottles of bubbly and two bottles of wine and fresh strawberries! What a dream.
Then the luggage arrived and the room suddenly appeared quite differently. A hurricane had suddenly whirled through 10049. Honestly, the less you have, the better off you are. (At the moment, anyway…)
We ran down to the Kings Court on Deck 7 for a buffet quick lunch. They have different food stations set up – carvery, lotus (Asian) and Italian and the areas are divided into smaller dining sections. We ate quickly and went out to find Avis car rental to check on our NY rental car. It took us about 30 minutes just to walk out of the port!! We walked to the old section of town and then stopped a cab to get a price and found out the librarian from the QV was in the front seat and she was going to the QM2 so we hopped in. What a small world it continues to be.
Back onboard, we sailed at 4:30. We whistled and the QV whistled and it sounds so wonderful. I will miss that so much. The daily noon whistle and sailing past the towns and watching people watch us as we watch them. And the small boats which pass us or sail alongside us and wave. It is such fun. Why we all find it so fascinating, I don’t know, but we do. I love it!
Even using the maps in the stateroom, we are getting lost. I found the computer labroom and they helped me set up the laptop to send and receive. We went to the Golden Lion Pub to meet some friends and talked. Then we had our Princess Grill dinner. We are at a table for six and you can dine whenever you want during the hours of 6:30-9:00 PM. We were there right at 6:30 so we could go to the show but since you don’t have to wait for anyone, we were finished in 45 minutes!! Love it. We have a table very close to the bow of the ship with a great view -- you see the open deck where there will be people lounging during the day (not sure about that one!) but it is a great sunset view also. Dinner was nice – salad, crab cake and scallops and the spa selection for dessert.
The show was a great song and dance by the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers and an introduction to the facilities onboard by the Entertainment Director. There are 2489 passengers onboard and eight dogs. This is the only vessel which can transport dogs across the Atlantic! It is a Royal Mail Ship, therefore RMS Queen Mary 2, is the official name of the ship. We will sail 3200 nautical miles to NY. There are four pods for speed and it will take us five days. There are 130 staff in the entertainment department and we start off tomorrow with the Black and White Ball. There are 1100 seats in the Royal Court Theatre and there is a jazz club. The Canyon Ranch Spa has a staff of 50. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts is onboard also and will perform two shows; there are nine gentlemen hosts onboard to dance with the single women.
On this voyage, the lecturers are:
Scientist Dr. Lewis Dartnell
Writer, Actor and Filmmaker Robert Neal Marshall
Writer and Critic Ian Haydn Smith
Author Kathryn Harrison
We are sailing now. I do feel a definite shudder in the room and we are on Deck 10. We’ll see how that goes.
Only five days left…so very hard to believe.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
3rd day at sea -- frantically packing!!
Sunday, April 19, 2009 – the last normal morning onboard the Queen Victoria – we are at sea
Sunny and cloudy and cool – about 50 degrees – heading into the English Channel and passing other cruise ships headed to a UK port
Packed, packed and packed. What a mess. It is really quite depressing to try to pack and then to not have to room to pack it! We did end up buying a small duffel bag for the last minute items. I had hoped to get rid of my business box but that is not even an issue. It has to come along…Many, many people are buying additional suitcases or have already bought them along the way. The corridors are lined with cases. And they are collecting them all day long. Most cruises ask you to put them out after dinner. Here, they advise us to put them out as soon as they are ready. You can imagine an average of 8 cases per stateroom and there are over 1000 staterooms. Poor porters!!! We will hopefully not have to claim ours and they will automatically be delivered our stateroom on the Queen Mary 2.
We listened to the Concorde lecture “Concorde Experience Reminisces and Antecdotes”.
British Air had seven aircraft and Air France has five. They flew two times a day from London to JFK/New York. They even flew an around-the-world trip for $35,000 per person for 28-day trip. Cunard and Concorde had a special association and offered promotions to cruise one way and fly home supersonic one way. It took three hours and fifteen minutes for the one way London – New York flight. They flew 2.25 faster than a 747 airplane. Concorde pioneered the “lounge” for pre-departure. You could even visit the flight deck and they had an additional officer onboard to answer your questions so you did not disturb the Captain and First Officer. SXXXXXXX The plane was very narrow and tiny. It was rounded and there was little leg room. They used 250,000 horsepower for take-off and it took 52 seconds to reach the level of noise abatement. When leaving NY, when they passed Nantucket, they could go to Mach 2 and were about 50-59,000 feet about the Atlantic. Canapes, wines, Dom Perignon, three choices for an entrée including lobster, and dessert, cheese and a box of Concorde chocolates were included. They passed out certificates “you flew supersonic” on ___ date. At certain times of the year, you could see two sunrises on one flight! They even flew charters from the UK for 1.5 hours and reached Mach 2 for about 4 minutes. Sometimes they flew transplant organs from NY to London. They would put a flight certificate in the organ box signed by the Captain and crew stating, “This organ has flown supersonically to reach you. We wish you a long life.”
We enjoyed our last dinner in the restaurant and we were all there at the table. Some times one or two of our six were missing. It was nice meal. We said many goodbyes all day and shared gifts and hugs and many tears.
Entertainment was the best yet! Petrina Johnson, a vocalist from the West End, and Adrian Walsh, an Irish comedian. Both were superb and I sat and cried (from joy and sadness) for this last great show in this wonderful theatre. It is absolutely gorgeous with the maroon colors and fantastic lighting and box seats…it is a gorgeous venue for any entertainer.
I kept looking out at the sea as we packed. It won’t be there much longer. In less than a week, we will be home. No more waves crashing and no more ships sailing by. No more ship’s whistle at noon and no more “eat when you want and what you want”. No more late nights working in the Commodore Lounge listening to live piano music. It has been a fabulous voyage; just fabulous.
Tomorrow, we are expecting an easy transfer from the Queen Victoria to the Queen Mary 2. We have 28 of our group continuing on with us and will have another cocktail party! Surprise!
OK – back to packing. They have to be out in less than two hours and the internet center closes in an hour….
Sunny and cloudy and cool – about 50 degrees – heading into the English Channel and passing other cruise ships headed to a UK port
Packed, packed and packed. What a mess. It is really quite depressing to try to pack and then to not have to room to pack it! We did end up buying a small duffel bag for the last minute items. I had hoped to get rid of my business box but that is not even an issue. It has to come along…Many, many people are buying additional suitcases or have already bought them along the way. The corridors are lined with cases. And they are collecting them all day long. Most cruises ask you to put them out after dinner. Here, they advise us to put them out as soon as they are ready. You can imagine an average of 8 cases per stateroom and there are over 1000 staterooms. Poor porters!!! We will hopefully not have to claim ours and they will automatically be delivered our stateroom on the Queen Mary 2.
We listened to the Concorde lecture “Concorde Experience Reminisces and Antecdotes”.
British Air had seven aircraft and Air France has five. They flew two times a day from London to JFK/New York. They even flew an around-the-world trip for $35,000 per person for 28-day trip. Cunard and Concorde had a special association and offered promotions to cruise one way and fly home supersonic one way. It took three hours and fifteen minutes for the one way London – New York flight. They flew 2.25 faster than a 747 airplane. Concorde pioneered the “lounge” for pre-departure. You could even visit the flight deck and they had an additional officer onboard to answer your questions so you did not disturb the Captain and First Officer. SXXXXXXX The plane was very narrow and tiny. It was rounded and there was little leg room. They used 250,000 horsepower for take-off and it took 52 seconds to reach the level of noise abatement. When leaving NY, when they passed Nantucket, they could go to Mach 2 and were about 50-59,000 feet about the Atlantic. Canapes, wines, Dom Perignon, three choices for an entrée including lobster, and dessert, cheese and a box of Concorde chocolates were included. They passed out certificates “you flew supersonic” on ___ date. At certain times of the year, you could see two sunrises on one flight! They even flew charters from the UK for 1.5 hours and reached Mach 2 for about 4 minutes. Sometimes they flew transplant organs from NY to London. They would put a flight certificate in the organ box signed by the Captain and crew stating, “This organ has flown supersonically to reach you. We wish you a long life.”
We enjoyed our last dinner in the restaurant and we were all there at the table. Some times one or two of our six were missing. It was nice meal. We said many goodbyes all day and shared gifts and hugs and many tears.
Entertainment was the best yet! Petrina Johnson, a vocalist from the West End, and Adrian Walsh, an Irish comedian. Both were superb and I sat and cried (from joy and sadness) for this last great show in this wonderful theatre. It is absolutely gorgeous with the maroon colors and fantastic lighting and box seats…it is a gorgeous venue for any entertainer.
I kept looking out at the sea as we packed. It won’t be there much longer. In less than a week, we will be home. No more waves crashing and no more ships sailing by. No more ship’s whistle at noon and no more “eat when you want and what you want”. No more late nights working in the Commodore Lounge listening to live piano music. It has been a fabulous voyage; just fabulous.
Tomorrow, we are expecting an easy transfer from the Queen Victoria to the Queen Mary 2. We have 28 of our group continuing on with us and will have another cocktail party! Surprise!
OK – back to packing. They have to be out in less than two hours and the internet center closes in an hour….
2nd day at sea...
Saturday, April 18, 2009 – at sea – along the coast of Portugal
We are nearing the UK. It is cloudy and gray and damp. I would rather be heading south…It is the first full day at sea in the North Atlantic.
We enjoyed an informal chat with Captain Ian MacNaught (with about 700 others) on his career and life onboard the Queen Victoria. He has been sailing since the age of 4 and now is son is on another ship. Tugs charge $3000 per vessel and they charge more if they touch the ship. Sometimes they are mandatory and Egypt is known to charge more for the “mandatory” tugs and even more for them to “touch” the ship to pick up the “requisite” cigarettes to be passed from the cruise vessel to the tug.
We had a corner of the Lido buffet sectioned off for an informal group luncheon and they came and went as needed. It was a nice.
Many of our group were working at the 2009 Victorian World Cruise Charity Fair and Charity Auction. It was a colorful scene in the Queens Room. There were many booths and…For a $10 raffle ticket, you could win afternoon tea with the Captain. For $1 you could try to move the most peas from one plate to another using chop sticks (!! – YOU try it. I managed to move 127.) For $1 you had to whack a carrot with a butcher knife as it was being dropped from the 2nd floor through plumbing tubing! There was also a computer-generated golf game to try for the highest score. They had massages for $1 a minute and used books and 2nd Hand Rose clothing…where I found a pair of pajamas for $2! I know I certainly don’t need them but the nostalgia is certainly there for the purchase. Someone received them from Qantas Airlines in business or first class and no longer needed them. They are gray with a huge kangaroo on the front with the words “I wish you beautiful travels to Dreamland” by Morrissey. Dreamland is also an aboriginal word for where they meet the neverland spirits; otherwise we consider dreamland to be nighttime sleep. Very nice words, any way you read them, and it will be a memorable souvenir for me. There are art classes onboard also. I went to see the works of art by the students and they were incredible!! Several from my group exhibited and I bought one. This ship has such a nice variety of activities…to discover new talents and to improve on old ones.
Attempted to pack!!! I look around and just wonder how this was all accumulated. I certainly did not create this chaos, did I???? I would almost pay someone to do this job. For once, I really thought of those passengers who have a butler to pack for them. The idea really hit home…what a luxury.
Formal night! The very last one onboard the Queen Victoria for the World Cruise 2009. We met Captain Ian MacNaught at the “Captain’s party for the Full World Cruisers”. The tables were set up with food from several countries -- Dubai, Egypt, UK, France, Mexico, Japan and a dragon centerpiece…it was very creative and colorful. Wonderful production show called “Nations United” by the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers.
Then it was time to work on the computer and to get serious about packing – attempting to pack some cases we will NOT have to open next week and then packing the others with items needed next week. There will be three formal nights. But I think I will also still have my box of papers and files. I had hoped to empty those but…at the moment, the task seems endless.
There was also a backstage tour.
We are nearing the UK. It is cloudy and gray and damp. I would rather be heading south…It is the first full day at sea in the North Atlantic.
We enjoyed an informal chat with Captain Ian MacNaught (with about 700 others) on his career and life onboard the Queen Victoria. He has been sailing since the age of 4 and now is son is on another ship. Tugs charge $3000 per vessel and they charge more if they touch the ship. Sometimes they are mandatory and Egypt is known to charge more for the “mandatory” tugs and even more for them to “touch” the ship to pick up the “requisite” cigarettes to be passed from the cruise vessel to the tug.
We had a corner of the Lido buffet sectioned off for an informal group luncheon and they came and went as needed. It was a nice.
Many of our group were working at the 2009 Victorian World Cruise Charity Fair and Charity Auction. It was a colorful scene in the Queens Room. There were many booths and…For a $10 raffle ticket, you could win afternoon tea with the Captain. For $1 you could try to move the most peas from one plate to another using chop sticks (!! – YOU try it. I managed to move 127.) For $1 you had to whack a carrot with a butcher knife as it was being dropped from the 2nd floor through plumbing tubing! There was also a computer-generated golf game to try for the highest score. They had massages for $1 a minute and used books and 2nd Hand Rose clothing…where I found a pair of pajamas for $2! I know I certainly don’t need them but the nostalgia is certainly there for the purchase. Someone received them from Qantas Airlines in business or first class and no longer needed them. They are gray with a huge kangaroo on the front with the words “I wish you beautiful travels to Dreamland” by Morrissey. Dreamland is also an aboriginal word for where they meet the neverland spirits; otherwise we consider dreamland to be nighttime sleep. Very nice words, any way you read them, and it will be a memorable souvenir for me. There are art classes onboard also. I went to see the works of art by the students and they were incredible!! Several from my group exhibited and I bought one. This ship has such a nice variety of activities…to discover new talents and to improve on old ones.
Attempted to pack!!! I look around and just wonder how this was all accumulated. I certainly did not create this chaos, did I???? I would almost pay someone to do this job. For once, I really thought of those passengers who have a butler to pack for them. The idea really hit home…what a luxury.
Formal night! The very last one onboard the Queen Victoria for the World Cruise 2009. We met Captain Ian MacNaught at the “Captain’s party for the Full World Cruisers”. The tables were set up with food from several countries -- Dubai, Egypt, UK, France, Mexico, Japan and a dragon centerpiece…it was very creative and colorful. Wonderful production show called “Nations United” by the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers.
Then it was time to work on the computer and to get serious about packing – attempting to pack some cases we will NOT have to open next week and then packing the others with items needed next week. There will be three formal nights. But I think I will also still have my box of papers and files. I had hoped to empty those but…at the moment, the task seems endless.
There was also a backstage tour.
On the way to the UK...1st day at sea
Friday, April 17, 2009 – at sea off the coast of Spain
Up late, brilliant sunshine. Computer class, worked on the computer and phone calls and aim to clean up and start packing!!! Went through UK Immigration (onboard the ship – taxpayer’s money at work again), attended the Concorde lecture (History and Future of Supersonic Flight), met with friends and there was a Tug-of-War competition with the crew out by the pool. I attended the book review on “The Boy In the Striped Pajamas” (don’t think I could see the movie after the discussion), and did a lot of “listening” and emails today.
Concorde: The Russians created the Tupolo 144 with a maximum range of 4K miles but it could not cross the Atlantic. They did beat the UK and France for the first flight and breaking the speed of sound by two months. They flew only 55 flights and transported a total of 3000 passengers
In 1963, President Kennedy wanted a supersonic airplane. Lockheed and Boeing worked on it and Boeing came up with the Boeing 2707 for 300 passengers which flew 2 times the speed of sound but the take off weight was too high and the titanium needed was too expensive. The project was cancelled in 1971.
The British are currently working on a “hypersonic” plane with 500 seats on two decks which would use liquid hydrogen as fuel (an issue). It would go five times the speed of sound. There are continual issues with flying over land and the sonic boom associated with the plane.
There are three companies looking at a new supersonic plane now in the USA. XB70 goes three times the speed of sound; a supersonic bomber and is in Dayton, OH at the Air Force Base.
Chief Engineer Smith flew the Concorde 6,727 hours of which 5,000 of these were supersonic. He has crossed the Atlantic 1,557 times on the Concorde and 1,938 times total. The Concorde flew to 228 destinations (on charity, charter and scheduled flights).
He showed one plane which was not air-worthy, which the engineers called “24,000 rivets flying in loose formation”!!
We sailed past the “rock” of Gibraltar, also a country and enjoyed a fantastic show with West End singer, Petrina Johnson. And then we enjoyed a fabulous crew show at 10:30 – it was great to see them so enthusiastic as they danced and sang for us.
The entertainment staff are making up for lost time due to the virus and they even had a cocktail party today at noon! The new guests who joined in Singapore on March 19 have not had their first get-together with the Captain and Sr. Officers so there is a lot to be done.
Ship’s event: Culinary Demonstration; “Florence Nightingale, Founder of Modern Nursing and Much More”, Blind Wine Tasting Seminar
Up late, brilliant sunshine. Computer class, worked on the computer and phone calls and aim to clean up and start packing!!! Went through UK Immigration (onboard the ship – taxpayer’s money at work again), attended the Concorde lecture (History and Future of Supersonic Flight), met with friends and there was a Tug-of-War competition with the crew out by the pool. I attended the book review on “The Boy In the Striped Pajamas” (don’t think I could see the movie after the discussion), and did a lot of “listening” and emails today.
Concorde: The Russians created the Tupolo 144 with a maximum range of 4K miles but it could not cross the Atlantic. They did beat the UK and France for the first flight and breaking the speed of sound by two months. They flew only 55 flights and transported a total of 3000 passengers
In 1963, President Kennedy wanted a supersonic airplane. Lockheed and Boeing worked on it and Boeing came up with the Boeing 2707 for 300 passengers which flew 2 times the speed of sound but the take off weight was too high and the titanium needed was too expensive. The project was cancelled in 1971.
The British are currently working on a “hypersonic” plane with 500 seats on two decks which would use liquid hydrogen as fuel (an issue). It would go five times the speed of sound. There are continual issues with flying over land and the sonic boom associated with the plane.
There are three companies looking at a new supersonic plane now in the USA. XB70 goes three times the speed of sound; a supersonic bomber and is in Dayton, OH at the Air Force Base.
Chief Engineer Smith flew the Concorde 6,727 hours of which 5,000 of these were supersonic. He has crossed the Atlantic 1,557 times on the Concorde and 1,938 times total. The Concorde flew to 228 destinations (on charity, charter and scheduled flights).
He showed one plane which was not air-worthy, which the engineers called “24,000 rivets flying in loose formation”!!
We sailed past the “rock” of Gibraltar, also a country and enjoyed a fantastic show with West End singer, Petrina Johnson. And then we enjoyed a fabulous crew show at 10:30 – it was great to see them so enthusiastic as they danced and sang for us.
The entertainment staff are making up for lost time due to the virus and they even had a cocktail party today at noon! The new guests who joined in Singapore on March 19 have not had their first get-together with the Captain and Sr. Officers so there is a lot to be done.
Ship’s event: Culinary Demonstration; “Florence Nightingale, Founder of Modern Nursing and Much More”, Blind Wine Tasting Seminar
Friday, April 17, 2009
Barcelona Spain
Thursday, April 16, 2009 – BARCELONA, Spain!
Sunny and bright with rain and hail!!! Hail in April!!
65 degrees; Best buys are leather, jewelry, perfume, soap and ceramics
Some of the most interesting and unusual architecture in the world. 3M residents; 70 museums, 3 universities and 16 parks. Euro is the currency. Spanish is the language.
The port shuttle took us to the Christopher Columbus monument marking the harbor he entered when returning to Spain after discovering America. The metro took us to the Plaza Catalunya to the public bus #24 to go right to the top entrance of the Park Guell designed by Antonio Gaudi. Gaudi was a architect ahead of his time, using recycled material long before it was a popular idea. His designs combine stone, iron and ceramics in a rather commanding and certainly irreverent fashion.
We walked through the park enjoying the caves with palm tree shaped entrance pillars, the Room of 100 Hundred Columns, a covered market supported by tilted Doric-style columns and mosaic-encrusted buttresses for musicians/buskers, iron dragon at the gates, gingerbread homes, the patchwork Serpentine lizard and water fountains and the park benches in wave shapes and the Gaudi Casa-Museu, wher eh elived with his niece for 20 years. Beautiful colors and designs in an open park to be enjoyed by all! Born in 1852, his career got the boost it needed when he met Count Eusebio Guell, the heir to a textiles fortune, who would become his benefactor for over 30 years. Gaudi built homes with wavy fronts and roofs that look like icing is dripping down a cake.
We walked a long distance to the metro and found the La Sagrada Familia cathedral, the unfinished church by Gaudi. This is Barcelona’s most unforgettable landmark. It is a magical mid-city massif of needles and peaks left by eons of wind erosion and fungal exuberance. It is still under construction and there is now talk of completion with plans to finish it by 2026, which would be 100 year anniversary of Gaudi’s death. To be completed are the towers, the main façade and the covered apse.
We continued walking down Paseo de la Gracia to view the various Gaudi designs. He was commissioned to build them for wealthy families and they stand out today as designs ahead of his time. The Majestic Hotel is one of preferred hotels so we stopped there to tour and continued on to the Cathedral, which was built between 1298 and 1450. Its highlights are the beautifully carved choir stalls, Santa Eulalia’s tomb in the crypt and the battle-marked crucifix from Don Juan’s galley in the Lepanto Chapel and the cloisters.
We were in the Gothic Quarter with narrow cobblestone streets so we wandered around the curvy streets, eventually ending up at The Ramblas, the walking street to the port. There are vendors and cafes scattered along the cobblestone route.
Other sights: Picasso Museum, Montjuic (hilltop park with castle, gardens and museums), Joan Miro Foundation (art museum with Miro’s works), Olympic Stadium from 1929 and the Tibidabo Mountain, the world’s only museum of automation.
The shuttle bus took us back to the ship and it was very sad to think this is our last time to board the Queen Victoria. Ship looks bigger each time we board her.
In front of us was docked a P&O ship, the Oceana. She left slightly ahead of us and sailed passed us, tooting her horns in song and people were on her decks as we were out on ours waving back.
The Queen Victoria tooted back and I was sad. That big lump in my throat turned into tears streaming down my cheeks. What a moment in time. A lovely day with the brilliant sunshine…standing on the balcony viewing the hilltop fort of Montjuic in Barcelona Spain…waving to passengers on a sister ship…while hearing the QV whistles…a moment I will long remember.
We had a nice dinner with bright sunshine streaming in at our table. The sun sets late now, around 8:30 PM.
Entertainment: Paul Ritchie, Harriet MacKenzie and Christina Lawrie and Vincenzo Gentile, a violinist played Hungarian songs. Also worked on luncheon invitation for Saturday.
We are officially OFF RESTRICTIONS! We can now serve our own tea/coffee, choose our own food in the buffet and lounge areas and not be served absolutely everything by a waiter (there were lines everywhere!). We will see how long it lasts this time…
“To make one hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.” Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Sunny and bright with rain and hail!!! Hail in April!!
65 degrees; Best buys are leather, jewelry, perfume, soap and ceramics
Some of the most interesting and unusual architecture in the world. 3M residents; 70 museums, 3 universities and 16 parks. Euro is the currency. Spanish is the language.
The port shuttle took us to the Christopher Columbus monument marking the harbor he entered when returning to Spain after discovering America. The metro took us to the Plaza Catalunya to the public bus #24 to go right to the top entrance of the Park Guell designed by Antonio Gaudi. Gaudi was a architect ahead of his time, using recycled material long before it was a popular idea. His designs combine stone, iron and ceramics in a rather commanding and certainly irreverent fashion.
We walked through the park enjoying the caves with palm tree shaped entrance pillars, the Room of 100 Hundred Columns, a covered market supported by tilted Doric-style columns and mosaic-encrusted buttresses for musicians/buskers, iron dragon at the gates, gingerbread homes, the patchwork Serpentine lizard and water fountains and the park benches in wave shapes and the Gaudi Casa-Museu, wher eh elived with his niece for 20 years. Beautiful colors and designs in an open park to be enjoyed by all! Born in 1852, his career got the boost it needed when he met Count Eusebio Guell, the heir to a textiles fortune, who would become his benefactor for over 30 years. Gaudi built homes with wavy fronts and roofs that look like icing is dripping down a cake.
We walked a long distance to the metro and found the La Sagrada Familia cathedral, the unfinished church by Gaudi. This is Barcelona’s most unforgettable landmark. It is a magical mid-city massif of needles and peaks left by eons of wind erosion and fungal exuberance. It is still under construction and there is now talk of completion with plans to finish it by 2026, which would be 100 year anniversary of Gaudi’s death. To be completed are the towers, the main façade and the covered apse.
We continued walking down Paseo de la Gracia to view the various Gaudi designs. He was commissioned to build them for wealthy families and they stand out today as designs ahead of his time. The Majestic Hotel is one of preferred hotels so we stopped there to tour and continued on to the Cathedral, which was built between 1298 and 1450. Its highlights are the beautifully carved choir stalls, Santa Eulalia’s tomb in the crypt and the battle-marked crucifix from Don Juan’s galley in the Lepanto Chapel and the cloisters.
We were in the Gothic Quarter with narrow cobblestone streets so we wandered around the curvy streets, eventually ending up at The Ramblas, the walking street to the port. There are vendors and cafes scattered along the cobblestone route.
Other sights: Picasso Museum, Montjuic (hilltop park with castle, gardens and museums), Joan Miro Foundation (art museum with Miro’s works), Olympic Stadium from 1929 and the Tibidabo Mountain, the world’s only museum of automation.
The shuttle bus took us back to the ship and it was very sad to think this is our last time to board the Queen Victoria. Ship looks bigger each time we board her.
In front of us was docked a P&O ship, the Oceana. She left slightly ahead of us and sailed passed us, tooting her horns in song and people were on her decks as we were out on ours waving back.
The Queen Victoria tooted back and I was sad. That big lump in my throat turned into tears streaming down my cheeks. What a moment in time. A lovely day with the brilliant sunshine…standing on the balcony viewing the hilltop fort of Montjuic in Barcelona Spain…waving to passengers on a sister ship…while hearing the QV whistles…a moment I will long remember.
We had a nice dinner with bright sunshine streaming in at our table. The sun sets late now, around 8:30 PM.
Entertainment: Paul Ritchie, Harriet MacKenzie and Christina Lawrie and Vincenzo Gentile, a violinist played Hungarian songs. Also worked on luncheon invitation for Saturday.
We are officially OFF RESTRICTIONS! We can now serve our own tea/coffee, choose our own food in the buffet and lounge areas and not be served absolutely everything by a waiter (there were lines everywhere!). We will see how long it lasts this time…
“To make one hated is more difficult than to make oneself loved.” Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
At Sea - lecture on the Concorde!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 – Taxes are due! We’re sailing!
Slept late and ate late. Cloudy, sunny and perfect temperature. We passed a few islands but mostly just a day at sea.
Thoroughly enjoyed the lecture on “The Sound Barrier and Development of Concorde – a Technical Innovation” by Sr. Training Engineer Officer for British Airways Concorde, Ian Smith. (A big regret I have that I never flew the Concorde…)
The Concorde flew at 50,000 feet, had 100 seats, used four Rolls Royce engines, was 204 feet long and had an 83 foot wing span. It reached speeds of 1350 mpg, mach 2, two times the speed of sound. The first flight was in March 1962 and the first commercial flight was January 1976. The last flight was in November 2003 with a service time of 27 years and 9 months (why did I not fly it once??!). They had a three man crew (there was one woman Captain!). The first plane to exceed the speed of sound flew in 1948. A total of 20 planes were built by France and the UK and 14 were in regular service. It used 28,000 gallons of fuel with a 4,500 mile maximum range. Upon landing, the nose moves 5-12.5% down so the Captain can view the landing strip. The nose reaches a temperature of 261 degrees and the planes becomes 10 inches longer while in flight! He told a cute story of how one officer inserted a notebook in some of that newly created 10 inches of open space during the flight and by the time they landed, they could not retrieve the notebook. It had become “stuck” into the “lost” 10 inches of space. They had to wait until they were airborne again to retrieve it! Another cute story was about the carpet. They had to find a manufacturer who made a stretchy carpet – it had to stretch and shrink ten inches in-flight!
Cunard and Concorde had a special relationship. Sometimes the Captain of the Concorde would fly over the QE2 and both Captains would talk to each other and all passengers could listen. The Concorde Captain heard a huge boom and thought it was a huge crash. It turned out to be the sonic boom from the Concorde, which the Concorde officers had never heard before. It had been relayed to them via the telephone from the ship!
The two captains discussed menus and the Concorde Captain read theirs to the QE2 passengers. The QE2 Captain said that if he read their onboard menus, the Concorde would land before he was finished!
I worked on inventory and paperwork and we had the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers in a matinee performance of “Hit Me With A Hot Note” and it was great. They seemed more bubbly and enthusiastic today. There are wonderful documentaries on TV…now we are seeing northern Spain and bullfights.
I came out of the internet area and a Scottish man (whom I do not know) said, “You have your requisite pile of papers with you, I see.” I looked at him and agreed. He asked what I could “possibly be doing with all those papers all the time” and more about Ensemble Travel. The entire conversation brought a smile to my face.
Entertained by Adrian Walsh, an Irish comedian, and he was really good.
Enjoyed the movie, “Mamma Mia” (AGAIN) at the 10:30 showing. There were approx. 8 of us in the audience! From just watching it about a month ago, it was still a fun movie!
Lectures: “Out of Egypt 1: The Alexander Romance”, “Gallipoli 1915, an important Allied Catastrophe”; Classical Concert with Violinist Harriet MacKenzie and Pianist Christina Lawrie
Slept late and ate late. Cloudy, sunny and perfect temperature. We passed a few islands but mostly just a day at sea.
Thoroughly enjoyed the lecture on “The Sound Barrier and Development of Concorde – a Technical Innovation” by Sr. Training Engineer Officer for British Airways Concorde, Ian Smith. (A big regret I have that I never flew the Concorde…)
The Concorde flew at 50,000 feet, had 100 seats, used four Rolls Royce engines, was 204 feet long and had an 83 foot wing span. It reached speeds of 1350 mpg, mach 2, two times the speed of sound. The first flight was in March 1962 and the first commercial flight was January 1976. The last flight was in November 2003 with a service time of 27 years and 9 months (why did I not fly it once??!). They had a three man crew (there was one woman Captain!). The first plane to exceed the speed of sound flew in 1948. A total of 20 planes were built by France and the UK and 14 were in regular service. It used 28,000 gallons of fuel with a 4,500 mile maximum range. Upon landing, the nose moves 5-12.5% down so the Captain can view the landing strip. The nose reaches a temperature of 261 degrees and the planes becomes 10 inches longer while in flight! He told a cute story of how one officer inserted a notebook in some of that newly created 10 inches of open space during the flight and by the time they landed, they could not retrieve the notebook. It had become “stuck” into the “lost” 10 inches of space. They had to wait until they were airborne again to retrieve it! Another cute story was about the carpet. They had to find a manufacturer who made a stretchy carpet – it had to stretch and shrink ten inches in-flight!
Cunard and Concorde had a special relationship. Sometimes the Captain of the Concorde would fly over the QE2 and both Captains would talk to each other and all passengers could listen. The Concorde Captain heard a huge boom and thought it was a huge crash. It turned out to be the sonic boom from the Concorde, which the Concorde officers had never heard before. It had been relayed to them via the telephone from the ship!
The two captains discussed menus and the Concorde Captain read theirs to the QE2 passengers. The QE2 Captain said that if he read their onboard menus, the Concorde would land before he was finished!
I worked on inventory and paperwork and we had the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers in a matinee performance of “Hit Me With A Hot Note” and it was great. They seemed more bubbly and enthusiastic today. There are wonderful documentaries on TV…now we are seeing northern Spain and bullfights.
I came out of the internet area and a Scottish man (whom I do not know) said, “You have your requisite pile of papers with you, I see.” I looked at him and agreed. He asked what I could “possibly be doing with all those papers all the time” and more about Ensemble Travel. The entire conversation brought a smile to my face.
Entertained by Adrian Walsh, an Irish comedian, and he was really good.
Enjoyed the movie, “Mamma Mia” (AGAIN) at the 10:30 showing. There were approx. 8 of us in the audience! From just watching it about a month ago, it was still a fun movie!
Lectures: “Out of Egypt 1: The Alexander Romance”, “Gallipoli 1915, an important Allied Catastrophe”; Classical Concert with Violinist Harriet MacKenzie and Pianist Christina Lawrie
Rome, the Eternal City
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 – ROME, the Eternal City
Time change! We are now only 6 hours ahead of DE.
Another beautiful day. Without those spring showers, this is a beautiful time of year to travel. The skies were a clear blue and it was 70 degrees.
We docked in Civitavecchia, which means “small town” and is about 45 miles from the center of Rome. It has a lovely seafront promenade, lined with small shops and cafes. There is a central pedestrian zone where a glass ceiling (on the sidewalk) shows ruins of the old town below. You can see an old street sign, the frame of a building and pottery and ceramics found when excavating. Fort Michelangelo is at the entrance of the harbor.
It is an easy walk to the train station – 9 euros per person ($11.28) for the day pass for all modes of transportation. The trains leave frequently and there are 4+ stops in the center of Rome. We got off at St. Peter’s (Vatican) and walked about 5 minutes to the Square. We meandered. I was trying to find certain items to purchase and either the stores were not open or they were sold out. We hopped on bus 64 and it drove us past some of the major sites in the city and through the crowded streets…Plaza de Venezia, across the Tiber River, past the Circus Maximus, Trajan’s Column, the Arch of Constantine, Roman Forum, near the Colosseum and Appian Way, past several museums and designer shops and it ended at the main train station – Termini. We hopped back on the same bus to go back to St. Peter’s Basilica (the largest church in the world) and walked to the entrance to the Vatican, on the very far right of St. Peter’s. The high brick sloping wall was the outside perimeter of Vatican City.
Vatican: We had purchased the entrance ticket online (18 euros) last night (VERY LATE) and had a 1:00 entrance time. There was a long queue but with the printout of the ticket purchase we had no line and were entered with the groups about ½ hour earlier than our confirmed time. It was crowded throughout the entire museum; after all, it is Easter week. There was a continuous stream of people on each escalator and on all the steps up and down to the various rooms. The windows were open and there was a great breeze blowing.
Each room is more ornate than the last. You follow the flow of the crowds and end in the Sistine Chapel, recently re-opened after years of restoration. In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to fresco more than 10,000 square feet of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The task took four years and the result is a masterpiece.
The Vatican Museums are the public art and sculpture museums in the Vatican City, which display works from the extensive collection of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Julius II founded the museums in the 16th century. As of 2007, it was visited by 4,310,083, which to me meant they brought in over $254M in admission tickets alone!
The Museums originated as a group of sculptures and the popes were among the first sovereigns who opened the art collections of their palaces to the public promoting knowledge of art history and culture. We toured these rooms: Gallery of Tapestries form the 15th and 17th centuries, the Gallery of Maps, The Raphael Stanze (rooms) and the Loggia, the Chapel of Nicholas V, the Sistine Chapel, the Borgia Apartment, the Pinacoteca, the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Religious Art and the Missionary-Ethnological Museum. Whew!! So many sections to cover; we heard it is 4.2 miles of walking.
Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, with a population of 2.7M within 496 square miles. Its history spans over 2,500 years and is one of the founding cities of Western Civilization. It was the center of the Roman Empire, which dominated Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for 400 years from the 1st century BC until the 4th century AD. It is the home of the Roman Catholic Church and the site of the Vatican City, an independent city-state run by the Catholic Church within the enclave of Rome. They mint their own coins and issue their own postage stamps. Rome’s historic center is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
“Any ruler who refuses to cooperate will be regarded as Rome’s enemy. Those who are not with us are against us.” Roman general in Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
Upon returning to Civitavecchia we looked around and meandered back to the port. We thought we were in plenty of time for the all-aboard time of 7:30 but quickly found out the last bus to the ship was supposed to have been at 7PM. Well, it never came and people were still standing around waiting. Someone called the ship and another bus was NOT coming to get us so we started walking. At least 2 more miles after all the walking we had done during the day! One kind lady who works at the port used her personal vehicle to shuttle the older folks back and forth to the ship but most of us were on foot. They could see us coming from the bridge so no one was left behind but sometimes you just never know if all will go according to schedule.
Too late and too tired to attend the violin concert by Vincenzo Gentile.
Time change! We are now only 6 hours ahead of DE.
Another beautiful day. Without those spring showers, this is a beautiful time of year to travel. The skies were a clear blue and it was 70 degrees.
We docked in Civitavecchia, which means “small town” and is about 45 miles from the center of Rome. It has a lovely seafront promenade, lined with small shops and cafes. There is a central pedestrian zone where a glass ceiling (on the sidewalk) shows ruins of the old town below. You can see an old street sign, the frame of a building and pottery and ceramics found when excavating. Fort Michelangelo is at the entrance of the harbor.
It is an easy walk to the train station – 9 euros per person ($11.28) for the day pass for all modes of transportation. The trains leave frequently and there are 4+ stops in the center of Rome. We got off at St. Peter’s (Vatican) and walked about 5 minutes to the Square. We meandered. I was trying to find certain items to purchase and either the stores were not open or they were sold out. We hopped on bus 64 and it drove us past some of the major sites in the city and through the crowded streets…Plaza de Venezia, across the Tiber River, past the Circus Maximus, Trajan’s Column, the Arch of Constantine, Roman Forum, near the Colosseum and Appian Way, past several museums and designer shops and it ended at the main train station – Termini. We hopped back on the same bus to go back to St. Peter’s Basilica (the largest church in the world) and walked to the entrance to the Vatican, on the very far right of St. Peter’s. The high brick sloping wall was the outside perimeter of Vatican City.
Vatican: We had purchased the entrance ticket online (18 euros) last night (VERY LATE) and had a 1:00 entrance time. There was a long queue but with the printout of the ticket purchase we had no line and were entered with the groups about ½ hour earlier than our confirmed time. It was crowded throughout the entire museum; after all, it is Easter week. There was a continuous stream of people on each escalator and on all the steps up and down to the various rooms. The windows were open and there was a great breeze blowing.
Each room is more ornate than the last. You follow the flow of the crowds and end in the Sistine Chapel, recently re-opened after years of restoration. In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to fresco more than 10,000 square feet of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The task took four years and the result is a masterpiece.
The Vatican Museums are the public art and sculpture museums in the Vatican City, which display works from the extensive collection of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Julius II founded the museums in the 16th century. As of 2007, it was visited by 4,310,083, which to me meant they brought in over $254M in admission tickets alone!
The Museums originated as a group of sculptures and the popes were among the first sovereigns who opened the art collections of their palaces to the public promoting knowledge of art history and culture. We toured these rooms: Gallery of Tapestries form the 15th and 17th centuries, the Gallery of Maps, The Raphael Stanze (rooms) and the Loggia, the Chapel of Nicholas V, the Sistine Chapel, the Borgia Apartment, the Pinacoteca, the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Religious Art and the Missionary-Ethnological Museum. Whew!! So many sections to cover; we heard it is 4.2 miles of walking.
Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, with a population of 2.7M within 496 square miles. Its history spans over 2,500 years and is one of the founding cities of Western Civilization. It was the center of the Roman Empire, which dominated Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for 400 years from the 1st century BC until the 4th century AD. It is the home of the Roman Catholic Church and the site of the Vatican City, an independent city-state run by the Catholic Church within the enclave of Rome. They mint their own coins and issue their own postage stamps. Rome’s historic center is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
“Any ruler who refuses to cooperate will be regarded as Rome’s enemy. Those who are not with us are against us.” Roman general in Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
Upon returning to Civitavecchia we looked around and meandered back to the port. We thought we were in plenty of time for the all-aboard time of 7:30 but quickly found out the last bus to the ship was supposed to have been at 7PM. Well, it never came and people were still standing around waiting. Someone called the ship and another bus was NOT coming to get us so we started walking. At least 2 more miles after all the walking we had done during the day! One kind lady who works at the port used her personal vehicle to shuttle the older folks back and forth to the ship but most of us were on foot. They could see us coming from the bridge so no one was left behind but sometimes you just never know if all will go according to schedule.
Too late and too tired to attend the violin concert by Vincenzo Gentile.
Monday, April 13, 2009
At sea...
Monday, April 13, 2009 – in the Ionian Sea
Well, it is windy, rainy and 60 degrees. At our noon update from the Captain, he said, “Welcome to Europe”. How true. After all those wonderfully warm days in Asia, we have indeed been back in Europe since leaving Turkey. But it is springtime and the blooming flowers are making up for the chillier temperatures!
Laundry, work and a special lunch at the Todd English with friends! Great way to spend a rocky day at sea.
By afternoon, we were passing through the Straits of Messina (Sicily) and the waves were crashing so high around us. Even on our balcony on the 8th deck, the waves hit our balcony doors! But it did not last long. By dinner time, the Mediterranean Sea was smooth again. We sailed past Stromboli, a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, one of the three active volcanoes in Italy. The last major eruption was in August 2008 and today it was spewing volcanic ash and gray smoke. The sky was a clear blue except for the smoke and dust from the volcanic island. It was a beautiful site.
We had an Elton John impersonator tonight for a formal night entertainment and violin and classical pianist at 2:00PM. Lectures today: “Phoenicians: merchant explorers”, “The Fall of the Second Roman Empire and the Rescue of Mussolini”, “Magic Realist Italy: An Artist’s View”.
Well, it is windy, rainy and 60 degrees. At our noon update from the Captain, he said, “Welcome to Europe”. How true. After all those wonderfully warm days in Asia, we have indeed been back in Europe since leaving Turkey. But it is springtime and the blooming flowers are making up for the chillier temperatures!
Laundry, work and a special lunch at the Todd English with friends! Great way to spend a rocky day at sea.
By afternoon, we were passing through the Straits of Messina (Sicily) and the waves were crashing so high around us. Even on our balcony on the 8th deck, the waves hit our balcony doors! But it did not last long. By dinner time, the Mediterranean Sea was smooth again. We sailed past Stromboli, a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, one of the three active volcanoes in Italy. The last major eruption was in August 2008 and today it was spewing volcanic ash and gray smoke. The sky was a clear blue except for the smoke and dust from the volcanic island. It was a beautiful site.
We had an Elton John impersonator tonight for a formal night entertainment and violin and classical pianist at 2:00PM. Lectures today: “Phoenicians: merchant explorers”, “The Fall of the Second Roman Empire and the Rescue of Mussolini”, “Magic Realist Italy: An Artist’s View”.
Easter in Athens!
Sunday, April 12, 2009 – Easter Sunday in Athens, Greece
Sunny and warm. They celebrated Palm Sunday in Greece today, while we celebrated Easter Sunday onboard the ship.
We were up for sunrise service on the ship and then heard 8:00 taps at the nearby military camp and saw them raise the Greek flag.
The port of Piraeus is about 7 miles from downtown Athens and we took the local metro/train to the city center. You can buy a day pass for 3 euros ($3.90) for metros and buses. It was a good mile to the metro from the port but it was an interesting walk. We entered two Greek Orthodox churches and observed some of their Palm Sunday services. Vendors were already out selling their wares (many are from Senegal and Bangladesh) and the road was along the harbor front so you see the various ferries which travel to all the Greek islands. MANY MANY ferry boats!
The metro was quick to Syntagma Square, where Parliament is located. Our goal was to see the changing of the guards at 11:00 as it is a special ceremony on a Sunday. There was a large marching band and a 30+-person contingent of soldiers for today’s guard ceremony. The soldiers wear a short white/beige skirt with 400 pleats in it, white/beige tights and rounded toe shoes with a huge tassel on the front and red round hat and carry rifles. The pleats signify the 400 days of rule under the Ottoman Empire.
We went to the Hotel Grand Bretagne and had a wonderful view of the Acropolis and the main city sites. It is a Starwood/Sheraton property right in the heart of the action! We headed to the cathedral and peeked in the windows of a 14th century chapel, visited a 12th century chapel and continued walking through the Plaka, the heart of the city with its cafes and shops. It was sunny and bright so the streets were full of visitors, vendors and locals; it was a very welcoming atmosphere.
We headed to the Museum of Local Instruments. You could see them through the ages and listen to them via headphones. And there was a turtle in the courtyard of the museum. We watched him wander around a bit as we relaxed under some trees. They have such incredibly pliable necks!
We decided to get on to the metro and go wherever it took us! The metro happened to stop in Attica due to maintenance repairs so we wandered around the residential district. Not many people spoke English but we found a bus to take back to the city center. At Omonia Square we found another bus, hopped on that one to take the metro back to the port and then another bus to the passenger terminal. It was a beautiful day with spring sunshine. A great day to see explore Athens wandering through the streets with the Acropolis hovering above you.
Athens is the capital and largest city in Greece, also known as the birthplace of democracy. Named after the goddess Athens, it is one of the oldest cities in the world with a recorded history of at least 3,000 years. Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state center of learning, home of Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. The classical era heritage is still evident in the city, portrayed through the ancient monuments and artworks, the most famous being the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896.
“The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” Plato, The Republic, Book 8, Section 565
Back onboard, it was another formal night and we had fantastic entertainment by the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers in “Jazz Blues and Rock’n Roll”. We watched both shows!
Sunny and warm. They celebrated Palm Sunday in Greece today, while we celebrated Easter Sunday onboard the ship.
We were up for sunrise service on the ship and then heard 8:00 taps at the nearby military camp and saw them raise the Greek flag.
The port of Piraeus is about 7 miles from downtown Athens and we took the local metro/train to the city center. You can buy a day pass for 3 euros ($3.90) for metros and buses. It was a good mile to the metro from the port but it was an interesting walk. We entered two Greek Orthodox churches and observed some of their Palm Sunday services. Vendors were already out selling their wares (many are from Senegal and Bangladesh) and the road was along the harbor front so you see the various ferries which travel to all the Greek islands. MANY MANY ferry boats!
The metro was quick to Syntagma Square, where Parliament is located. Our goal was to see the changing of the guards at 11:00 as it is a special ceremony on a Sunday. There was a large marching band and a 30+-person contingent of soldiers for today’s guard ceremony. The soldiers wear a short white/beige skirt with 400 pleats in it, white/beige tights and rounded toe shoes with a huge tassel on the front and red round hat and carry rifles. The pleats signify the 400 days of rule under the Ottoman Empire.
We went to the Hotel Grand Bretagne and had a wonderful view of the Acropolis and the main city sites. It is a Starwood/Sheraton property right in the heart of the action! We headed to the cathedral and peeked in the windows of a 14th century chapel, visited a 12th century chapel and continued walking through the Plaka, the heart of the city with its cafes and shops. It was sunny and bright so the streets were full of visitors, vendors and locals; it was a very welcoming atmosphere.
We headed to the Museum of Local Instruments. You could see them through the ages and listen to them via headphones. And there was a turtle in the courtyard of the museum. We watched him wander around a bit as we relaxed under some trees. They have such incredibly pliable necks!
We decided to get on to the metro and go wherever it took us! The metro happened to stop in Attica due to maintenance repairs so we wandered around the residential district. Not many people spoke English but we found a bus to take back to the city center. At Omonia Square we found another bus, hopped on that one to take the metro back to the port and then another bus to the passenger terminal. It was a beautiful day with spring sunshine. A great day to see explore Athens wandering through the streets with the Acropolis hovering above you.
Athens is the capital and largest city in Greece, also known as the birthplace of democracy. Named after the goddess Athens, it is one of the oldest cities in the world with a recorded history of at least 3,000 years. Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state center of learning, home of Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. The classical era heritage is still evident in the city, portrayed through the ancient monuments and artworks, the most famous being the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896.
“The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” Plato, The Republic, Book 8, Section 565
Back onboard, it was another formal night and we had fantastic entertainment by the Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers in “Jazz Blues and Rock’n Roll”. We watched both shows!
Mykonos Greece
Saturday, April 11, 2009 – Mykonos Greece!
I have always wanted to visit Mykonos. You hear so much about this island of white-washed homes. It was an afternoon-only port of call so we did not have much time to explore.
The morning was spent working in the room on many projects. We realize the time is soon upon us to get organized and packed, which will require strength and patience!!! And maybe some extra space in suitcases. Many, many people have purchased additional suitcases!
Mykonos –
We had to tender as they were repairing their pier (of all days!). But it was a short five minute ride and we were right on the beach and main street in the town of Hora. Wandered around to see a few of the 365 beautiful churches from the Byzantine period, fish stalls made of marble and many cafes along the water’s edge. Petros is the local pelican and town mascot.
Mykonos, in the Cyclades chain of islands in the Aegean Sea, is a mass tourist destination known for its intense nightlife, white-washed buildings and beaches. With a population today of 9,300, archeologists found settlement on Mykonos in the early part of the 11th century BC. From as early as the 16th century, the windmills are one of the most recognized landmarks of the island.
I opted for the ship’s tour to Delos, 22 miles off of Mykonos, one of the most important archaeological sites in Greece. The ship had chartered a boat to transfer about 100 of us and we had the entire island to ourselves. As you approach, the guidebooks state it looks like a pile of stones…and they are right! It is hard to distinguish much from the reconstructed stone structures until you reach land. There are very few tall structures remaining, due to the earthquakes through the years.
According to Greek legend, the twin Gods Apollo and Artemis were born to Leto on the shores at Delos’ Sacred Lake and the event rocked the ancient world. Temples went up, the island was cleansed (corpses were removed), and a sizeable community of priests and privileged classes was established with a population of 25,000.
Various homes in the remains of the city have existing mosaic flooring so we explored several of them scattered along extremely narrow cobblestone streets which were made for walking, and not for animals and carts. The theatre, with seats for 5500, is still there, as is the Avenue of the Lions (from 7th century BC), the Agora (market place), the Temple of Apollo and the Sacred Way.
For nearly 1000 years, this sanctuary as the political and religious center of the Aegean and host to the Delian Festival every four years. In the 4th century BC, the Romans turned it into a grand trade fair and made Delos a free port. It also became Greece’s slave market where as many as 10,000 slaves were said to be sold on one day. By 300AD, the island had only a small Christian community and then became a pirate lair during the Ottoman period. The French came along in the late 1800s to begin the major excavations you see today.
And again, the flowers made the day. The red poppies, the yellow ?? and the blue ?? were beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And we were the only people on the island!! We were told it is hot with dead grass in the summer and overrun with tourists, but you have to go when you are there! We were fortunate to see it under these conditions.
I wandered the streets of Hora and enjoyed the creative designs in the jewelry shops. There are some wonderfully small boutique hotels (which I can imagine may be noisy in the high season) and a multitude of cafes. Very typical white washed houses, winding and very narrow streets, small Greek Orthodox white washed churches with domes and windmills high on the hill. Picturesque.
Carvery dinner with friends in the alternative restaurant. The entertainment was a double-bill: Nick Lewin (comedian) and David McLaine (vocalist) but we missed some of it due to our late dinner.
I have always wanted to visit Mykonos. You hear so much about this island of white-washed homes. It was an afternoon-only port of call so we did not have much time to explore.
The morning was spent working in the room on many projects. We realize the time is soon upon us to get organized and packed, which will require strength and patience!!! And maybe some extra space in suitcases. Many, many people have purchased additional suitcases!
Mykonos –
We had to tender as they were repairing their pier (of all days!). But it was a short five minute ride and we were right on the beach and main street in the town of Hora. Wandered around to see a few of the 365 beautiful churches from the Byzantine period, fish stalls made of marble and many cafes along the water’s edge. Petros is the local pelican and town mascot.
Mykonos, in the Cyclades chain of islands in the Aegean Sea, is a mass tourist destination known for its intense nightlife, white-washed buildings and beaches. With a population today of 9,300, archeologists found settlement on Mykonos in the early part of the 11th century BC. From as early as the 16th century, the windmills are one of the most recognized landmarks of the island.
I opted for the ship’s tour to Delos, 22 miles off of Mykonos, one of the most important archaeological sites in Greece. The ship had chartered a boat to transfer about 100 of us and we had the entire island to ourselves. As you approach, the guidebooks state it looks like a pile of stones…and they are right! It is hard to distinguish much from the reconstructed stone structures until you reach land. There are very few tall structures remaining, due to the earthquakes through the years.
According to Greek legend, the twin Gods Apollo and Artemis were born to Leto on the shores at Delos’ Sacred Lake and the event rocked the ancient world. Temples went up, the island was cleansed (corpses were removed), and a sizeable community of priests and privileged classes was established with a population of 25,000.
Various homes in the remains of the city have existing mosaic flooring so we explored several of them scattered along extremely narrow cobblestone streets which were made for walking, and not for animals and carts. The theatre, with seats for 5500, is still there, as is the Avenue of the Lions (from 7th century BC), the Agora (market place), the Temple of Apollo and the Sacred Way.
For nearly 1000 years, this sanctuary as the political and religious center of the Aegean and host to the Delian Festival every four years. In the 4th century BC, the Romans turned it into a grand trade fair and made Delos a free port. It also became Greece’s slave market where as many as 10,000 slaves were said to be sold on one day. By 300AD, the island had only a small Christian community and then became a pirate lair during the Ottoman period. The French came along in the late 1800s to begin the major excavations you see today.
And again, the flowers made the day. The red poppies, the yellow ?? and the blue ?? were beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And we were the only people on the island!! We were told it is hot with dead grass in the summer and overrun with tourists, but you have to go when you are there! We were fortunate to see it under these conditions.
I wandered the streets of Hora and enjoyed the creative designs in the jewelry shops. There are some wonderfully small boutique hotels (which I can imagine may be noisy in the high season) and a multitude of cafes. Very typical white washed houses, winding and very narrow streets, small Greek Orthodox white washed churches with domes and windmills high on the hill. Picturesque.
Carvery dinner with friends in the alternative restaurant. The entertainment was a double-bill: Nick Lewin (comedian) and David McLaine (vocalist) but we missed some of it due to our late dinner.
Istanbul, Turkey
Friday, April 10, 2009 – Istanbul, Turkey
Perfect day again!! Blue skies, 65 degrees, sunshine and spring flowers in bloom all around us. The tulip is their national flower and the sidewalks are lined with flowers in perfect bloom, just like Dover, DE!
We had a delay in getting off the ship as there was a US Navy ship in our berth. We were supposed to be off at 8 but finally got off at 10. The bus was waiting for our private tour for the Ensemble travelers and we headed out of town to join in the mix of the other 18 million in this large city.
Crossing over the Galata bridge to the old town, we went to the famous Blue Mosque (the Sultan Ahmet Mosque), the symbol of Istanbul with its six minarets. Completed in 1616, the mosque was part of a complex which consisted of a mosque, tombs, fountains, kitchens and a bath. The 21,000 blue Iznik tiles covering the walls have given the mosque its popular name. We had to remove our shoes before entering the mosque and found it is carpeted inside. It is still used for prayer daily and there are sections barricaded so the tourists do not get too close to those praying. The ezan (call to prayer) is broadcast through loudspeakers from the minaret five times a day (dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, dusk and after dark). Men wear perfume when praying in the mosque and there is a separate women’s section upstairs.
We walked to the Hippodrome, once the site of great chariot races and Byzantine civic life. There are three monuments there today: the Obelisk of Theodosius, the bronze serpentine column and the column of Constantine.
St. Sophia, a 6th century basilica famous for its gigantic domes and magnificent mosaics, was once the largest church of the Christian world. There is constant restoration of the ceiling tiles and mosaics and you can walk on an interior upper level to view the vastness of the basilica. It is one of the best examples of Byzantine architecture.
At the Grand Bazaar, there are 4000 vendors selling carpets, leather goods, jewelry, antique reproductions and other items. The oldest part of the market is Cevahir Bedesteni, which specializes in gold and silver works. We bought a hat and considered a silver ring but that did not make the cut. Stray cats call the area home.
We visited the Cinar carpet store – to use their bathrooms! I’m sure they offer their facilities to get groups in the door. Since we were in there, I checked the prices and found a beautiful silk carpet, 10” x 14” (INCHES that is), with 1,069 knots per square inch for a mere $2,700. They have won the “America’s Magnificent Carpet Award” award for three years now. And they have the world’s largest double-knotted handwoven silk carpet in the industry for sale for over $1.9M. It took over four years to complete, weights 700 pounds, has 64 million knots and had 18 weavers working on it. The photo is absolutely gorgeous and you really must see their website, or better yet, come on over and choose one yourself. They are the Best of the Best! www.cinarhali.com.tr
We headed to lunch at the Kaylon Hotel on the water. In a bright and airy room, we have views of the Bosphorus Sea and enjoyed lamb, eggplant, tomatoes and rice while local musicians played for us.
The cruise on the Bosphorus Sea was fun, exhilarating, and interesting. Our group of 39 had a chartered boat which would hold 150, so we had plenty of room. The entire downstairs was enclosed with a bar and snacks and tables and the upper deck was open with (lawn) chairs and benches. There was commentary as we sailed on both the European and Asian shores of Istanbul passing the impressive homes ($1-5M price range), two forts and castles (one was built in 2.5 months!), the palaces of Dolmabahce, Ciragan and Kucuksu, the Conqueror’s Bridge and the Beylerbeyi Palace and the learned of the city’s commuter problems. We ended where the Black Sea meets the Marmara Sea. The weather was ideal! Then we headed back to the ship to collapse! It was a wonderful tour and day in Istanbul.
Facts on Turkey:
Turkey is divided between the continents of Europe and Asia. It is a rich melting pot of the East and West. Istanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire which dominated the Mideast for many years. Topkapi Palace, the official residence of the Ottoman Sultans and home to treasures that include Spoonmaker’s Diamond, had a large harem with over 1000 concubines, who were protected by eunuchs. Taking a haman, a Turkish bath, is part of the Muslim faith as cleanliness is considered an important part of their faith. The Turkish delight dessert story: It was originally made by the Chief Confectioner for the Sultan who loved it and thus was made for the general public. It consists of dates, honey, roses and jasmine. Belly dancing originated in the gypsy quarter in Istanbul. They believed it was a fertility rite to aid women in childbirth. Agatha Christie wrote “Murder on the Orient Express” when she was in Istanbul. Florence Nightingale, the “Lady of the Lamp”, worked at her first hospital here. There is a museum detailing her long hours of dedicated nursing on a military base in the area.
The scents and colors of the blooming flowers all around the city really enhanced the trip. What a beautiful time of year to travel.
Dinner and show and computer work – the usual.
Perfect day again!! Blue skies, 65 degrees, sunshine and spring flowers in bloom all around us. The tulip is their national flower and the sidewalks are lined with flowers in perfect bloom, just like Dover, DE!
We had a delay in getting off the ship as there was a US Navy ship in our berth. We were supposed to be off at 8 but finally got off at 10. The bus was waiting for our private tour for the Ensemble travelers and we headed out of town to join in the mix of the other 18 million in this large city.
Crossing over the Galata bridge to the old town, we went to the famous Blue Mosque (the Sultan Ahmet Mosque), the symbol of Istanbul with its six minarets. Completed in 1616, the mosque was part of a complex which consisted of a mosque, tombs, fountains, kitchens and a bath. The 21,000 blue Iznik tiles covering the walls have given the mosque its popular name. We had to remove our shoes before entering the mosque and found it is carpeted inside. It is still used for prayer daily and there are sections barricaded so the tourists do not get too close to those praying. The ezan (call to prayer) is broadcast through loudspeakers from the minaret five times a day (dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, dusk and after dark). Men wear perfume when praying in the mosque and there is a separate women’s section upstairs.
We walked to the Hippodrome, once the site of great chariot races and Byzantine civic life. There are three monuments there today: the Obelisk of Theodosius, the bronze serpentine column and the column of Constantine.
St. Sophia, a 6th century basilica famous for its gigantic domes and magnificent mosaics, was once the largest church of the Christian world. There is constant restoration of the ceiling tiles and mosaics and you can walk on an interior upper level to view the vastness of the basilica. It is one of the best examples of Byzantine architecture.
At the Grand Bazaar, there are 4000 vendors selling carpets, leather goods, jewelry, antique reproductions and other items. The oldest part of the market is Cevahir Bedesteni, which specializes in gold and silver works. We bought a hat and considered a silver ring but that did not make the cut. Stray cats call the area home.
We visited the Cinar carpet store – to use their bathrooms! I’m sure they offer their facilities to get groups in the door. Since we were in there, I checked the prices and found a beautiful silk carpet, 10” x 14” (INCHES that is), with 1,069 knots per square inch for a mere $2,700. They have won the “America’s Magnificent Carpet Award” award for three years now. And they have the world’s largest double-knotted handwoven silk carpet in the industry for sale for over $1.9M. It took over four years to complete, weights 700 pounds, has 64 million knots and had 18 weavers working on it. The photo is absolutely gorgeous and you really must see their website, or better yet, come on over and choose one yourself. They are the Best of the Best! www.cinarhali.com.tr
We headed to lunch at the Kaylon Hotel on the water. In a bright and airy room, we have views of the Bosphorus Sea and enjoyed lamb, eggplant, tomatoes and rice while local musicians played for us.
The cruise on the Bosphorus Sea was fun, exhilarating, and interesting. Our group of 39 had a chartered boat which would hold 150, so we had plenty of room. The entire downstairs was enclosed with a bar and snacks and tables and the upper deck was open with (lawn) chairs and benches. There was commentary as we sailed on both the European and Asian shores of Istanbul passing the impressive homes ($1-5M price range), two forts and castles (one was built in 2.5 months!), the palaces of Dolmabahce, Ciragan and Kucuksu, the Conqueror’s Bridge and the Beylerbeyi Palace and the learned of the city’s commuter problems. We ended where the Black Sea meets the Marmara Sea. The weather was ideal! Then we headed back to the ship to collapse! It was a wonderful tour and day in Istanbul.
Facts on Turkey:
Turkey is divided between the continents of Europe and Asia. It is a rich melting pot of the East and West. Istanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire which dominated the Mideast for many years. Topkapi Palace, the official residence of the Ottoman Sultans and home to treasures that include Spoonmaker’s Diamond, had a large harem with over 1000 concubines, who were protected by eunuchs. Taking a haman, a Turkish bath, is part of the Muslim faith as cleanliness is considered an important part of their faith. The Turkish delight dessert story: It was originally made by the Chief Confectioner for the Sultan who loved it and thus was made for the general public. It consists of dates, honey, roses and jasmine. Belly dancing originated in the gypsy quarter in Istanbul. They believed it was a fertility rite to aid women in childbirth. Agatha Christie wrote “Murder on the Orient Express” when she was in Istanbul. Florence Nightingale, the “Lady of the Lamp”, worked at her first hospital here. There is a museum detailing her long hours of dedicated nursing on a military base in the area.
The scents and colors of the blooming flowers all around the city really enhanced the trip. What a beautiful time of year to travel.
Dinner and show and computer work – the usual.
Kusadasi Turkey for EPHESUS
Thursday, April 9, 2009 – Kusadasi, Turkey
Sunny day with perfect weather!
Turkish Lira = US$1 is 1.56 lira
Port time was an early 7:00 but we only had until 1:00 so we were up very early to be the first off the ship to make the most of our time. We hired a taxi for three of us and enjoyed the time with Savash, our driver, as he guided us. We had been to this area about nine years ago so it was nice to relive it again.
Kusadasi is a mountainous resort town on the Aegean coast. The Yavansu Fault Line passes nearby and there have been earthquakes here throughout history. The name comes from Kus (bird) and ada (island) as the peninsula has the shape of a bird’s head. With a residential population of 50,000, it rises to over 500,000 during the summer months.
We began at the House of the Virgin Mary, (Meryemana) a humble chapel located in the valley of Bulbuldagi, on the spot where the Virgin Mary is believed to have spent her last days. She came here with St. John and stayed from 37-45 AD. This is 9 km from Ephesus and the site was officially sanctioned for pilgrimage in 1892. Consider reading “Mary’s House” by Donald Carroll, which traces the extraordinary history of this small pile of stones back over 2000 years. To Muslims, Mary is Meryemana, Mother May, who bore Isa Peygamber, the prophet Jesus. Below the chapel is a wall covered in rags. The Turks tied bits of cloth, paper or plastic to a frame and make a wish. The Pope visited in November 2006.
Just down the hill is the Ancient City of Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which was destroyed by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom in 401 AD. It was rebuilt in Emperor Constantine I and new public baths were erected. You can actually sit on the old latrines for a great photo! There are long stone benches, about 12 feet long, with cut out holes. There are no stall doors between the holes (!) and there is a sewer gutter in front of the bench area. The city was partially destroyed again in 614AD by another earthquake. The city was originally on the harbor but the area slowly filled with silt from the River Miander.
Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia cited in the Book of Revelation. The Gospel of John was written near here and it is also the site of a large gladiator graveyard. The magnificent Library of Celsus was built in AD125 and once held nearly 12,000 scrolls. Designed with an exaggerated entrance to enhance its perceived size, the building faces east so that the reading rooms could make best use of the morning light. The theater has an estimated seating capacity of 44,000 and is believed to be the largest outdoor theatre in the ancient world.
You do feel as if you are walking through an ancient city. You can visualize the citizens in their togas hurrying down the narrow streets. Columns line the avenues, terrace cottages line the hillside and the excavations of statues and reliefs are all around you. They litter the sides of the street and show how advanced the craftsmen were in their carvings. It is at least a mile from the entrance to the exit and then there were stalls and stalls of vendors. This is a truly one of the grandest reconstructed classical cities in the eastern Mediterranean.
I slipped down the marble steps at one point and fell onto my pinky! How can a body fall and their entire weight go on their pinky finger?? The camera fell apart and the batteries rolled but we found the pieces. At first, we thought the camera was broken but the camera shop managed to help me put it back together. My pinky is slightly swollen but not broken and I am fine.
On we drove to St. John’s Basilica, a holy pilgrimage site where St. John wrote the fourth book of the Gospel on Ayasuluk Hill. A 4th century tomb was believed to house his remains so Emperior Justinian erected a magnificent church (526-65AD) over the tomb with 11 domes! Another earthquake left it in a heap of rubble and it was only a century ago when restoration began again. There is also a hilltop citadel built in the 6th century but you cannot visit it as the walls are falling down.
Our guide owns a quaint and clean boutique hotel with 12 rooms facing the ruins of St. John’s Basilica. Bella Hotel. They are written up in Lonely Planet, Fodors and Frommers guide books for very good value with character. There is a lovely restaurant on the top floor with a GREAT view of the ruins, of their resident storks and nests on the telephone poles. Half to the area is enclosed to sit on carpeted benches with a fireplace and the other half is open-air. Great atmosphere! And his family sells carpets, paintings and very nice ceramics…
Just down the street is the Temple of Artemis, once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was larger than the Parthenon in Athens with 127 columns, all with figures carved around the base. Only one pillar remains today.
Peaches, oranges, cotton, artichokes, pomegranate, pears, dates and olives are grown in this region. The Silk Road (China) ended in Ephesus many years ago and was the reason for the prosperous city in Turkey. From here, goods were shipped to Europe.
We found a nice grocery store to buy water and an ice cream bar and headed back to the ship. The pier is very upscale with designer shops and touristy gifts. They have done a wonderful job of creating village streets with interesting shops for the passenger who does not wish to tour the area. There is an ocean drive filled with hotels and restaurants and it must be lively at night.
The afternoon was pleasant with colder winds than we are used to – about 50 degrees! Entertainer was Francisco Yglesias, a Paraguayan harpist. It was a very unusual harp and he played Latin and international songs which were quite lively!
Lesson for today: Don’t be so vain that you feel the need to match the shoes to the outfit when climbing around ruins. Wear sneakers when you know you should.
Sunny day with perfect weather!
Turkish Lira = US$1 is 1.56 lira
Port time was an early 7:00 but we only had until 1:00 so we were up very early to be the first off the ship to make the most of our time. We hired a taxi for three of us and enjoyed the time with Savash, our driver, as he guided us. We had been to this area about nine years ago so it was nice to relive it again.
Kusadasi is a mountainous resort town on the Aegean coast. The Yavansu Fault Line passes nearby and there have been earthquakes here throughout history. The name comes from Kus (bird) and ada (island) as the peninsula has the shape of a bird’s head. With a residential population of 50,000, it rises to over 500,000 during the summer months.
We began at the House of the Virgin Mary, (Meryemana) a humble chapel located in the valley of Bulbuldagi, on the spot where the Virgin Mary is believed to have spent her last days. She came here with St. John and stayed from 37-45 AD. This is 9 km from Ephesus and the site was officially sanctioned for pilgrimage in 1892. Consider reading “Mary’s House” by Donald Carroll, which traces the extraordinary history of this small pile of stones back over 2000 years. To Muslims, Mary is Meryemana, Mother May, who bore Isa Peygamber, the prophet Jesus. Below the chapel is a wall covered in rags. The Turks tied bits of cloth, paper or plastic to a frame and make a wish. The Pope visited in November 2006.
Just down the hill is the Ancient City of Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which was destroyed by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom in 401 AD. It was rebuilt in Emperor Constantine I and new public baths were erected. You can actually sit on the old latrines for a great photo! There are long stone benches, about 12 feet long, with cut out holes. There are no stall doors between the holes (!) and there is a sewer gutter in front of the bench area. The city was partially destroyed again in 614AD by another earthquake. The city was originally on the harbor but the area slowly filled with silt from the River Miander.
Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia cited in the Book of Revelation. The Gospel of John was written near here and it is also the site of a large gladiator graveyard. The magnificent Library of Celsus was built in AD125 and once held nearly 12,000 scrolls. Designed with an exaggerated entrance to enhance its perceived size, the building faces east so that the reading rooms could make best use of the morning light. The theater has an estimated seating capacity of 44,000 and is believed to be the largest outdoor theatre in the ancient world.
You do feel as if you are walking through an ancient city. You can visualize the citizens in their togas hurrying down the narrow streets. Columns line the avenues, terrace cottages line the hillside and the excavations of statues and reliefs are all around you. They litter the sides of the street and show how advanced the craftsmen were in their carvings. It is at least a mile from the entrance to the exit and then there were stalls and stalls of vendors. This is a truly one of the grandest reconstructed classical cities in the eastern Mediterranean.
I slipped down the marble steps at one point and fell onto my pinky! How can a body fall and their entire weight go on their pinky finger?? The camera fell apart and the batteries rolled but we found the pieces. At first, we thought the camera was broken but the camera shop managed to help me put it back together. My pinky is slightly swollen but not broken and I am fine.
On we drove to St. John’s Basilica, a holy pilgrimage site where St. John wrote the fourth book of the Gospel on Ayasuluk Hill. A 4th century tomb was believed to house his remains so Emperior Justinian erected a magnificent church (526-65AD) over the tomb with 11 domes! Another earthquake left it in a heap of rubble and it was only a century ago when restoration began again. There is also a hilltop citadel built in the 6th century but you cannot visit it as the walls are falling down.
Our guide owns a quaint and clean boutique hotel with 12 rooms facing the ruins of St. John’s Basilica. Bella Hotel. They are written up in Lonely Planet, Fodors and Frommers guide books for very good value with character. There is a lovely restaurant on the top floor with a GREAT view of the ruins, of their resident storks and nests on the telephone poles. Half to the area is enclosed to sit on carpeted benches with a fireplace and the other half is open-air. Great atmosphere! And his family sells carpets, paintings and very nice ceramics…
Just down the street is the Temple of Artemis, once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was larger than the Parthenon in Athens with 127 columns, all with figures carved around the base. Only one pillar remains today.
Peaches, oranges, cotton, artichokes, pomegranate, pears, dates and olives are grown in this region. The Silk Road (China) ended in Ephesus many years ago and was the reason for the prosperous city in Turkey. From here, goods were shipped to Europe.
We found a nice grocery store to buy water and an ice cream bar and headed back to the ship. The pier is very upscale with designer shops and touristy gifts. They have done a wonderful job of creating village streets with interesting shops for the passenger who does not wish to tour the area. There is an ocean drive filled with hotels and restaurants and it must be lively at night.
The afternoon was pleasant with colder winds than we are used to – about 50 degrees! Entertainer was Francisco Yglesias, a Paraguayan harpist. It was a very unusual harp and he played Latin and international songs which were quite lively!
Lesson for today: Don’t be so vain that you feel the need to match the shoes to the outfit when climbing around ruins. Wear sneakers when you know you should.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Sea day April 8
Wednesday, April 08, 2009 – at sea on the way to Kusadasi, Turkey
We move the clocks an hour forward this time – we are now 7 hours ahead of DE.
Worked in the morning and slept in the afternoon. Had much to do to organize the private shore excursion for our Ensemble Travelers. The ship is preparing for an art auction of rare Rembrandt etchings. There will be various pieces ranging from a starting bid of $20,900-40,600. I’m sure my bid will not be accepted…
We had our last Ensemble cocktail party tonight and it was a relaxing and enjoyable time even if the officers could not attend due to the norovirus.
Egyptian Ball was tonight. The costumes were amazing!!! You have never seen so many Cleopatras in your life!! Lectures: “The Campaigns of Alexander the Great”, “Cleopatra and her Romans”, Legacy of a legend: Queen Elizabeth 2”, Birthstone, Wine Tasting Seminar, “Make Up Tips and Tricks”, Blackjack Tournament and Book Club
Entertainer was David McLaine, from the UK, and he sang Bobby Darrin and Tom Jones songs! Wonderful.
We move the clocks an hour forward this time – we are now 7 hours ahead of DE.
Worked in the morning and slept in the afternoon. Had much to do to organize the private shore excursion for our Ensemble Travelers. The ship is preparing for an art auction of rare Rembrandt etchings. There will be various pieces ranging from a starting bid of $20,900-40,600. I’m sure my bid will not be accepted…
We had our last Ensemble cocktail party tonight and it was a relaxing and enjoyable time even if the officers could not attend due to the norovirus.
Egyptian Ball was tonight. The costumes were amazing!!! You have never seen so many Cleopatras in your life!! Lectures: “The Campaigns of Alexander the Great”, “Cleopatra and her Romans”, Legacy of a legend: Queen Elizabeth 2”, Birthstone, Wine Tasting Seminar, “Make Up Tips and Tricks”, Blackjack Tournament and Book Club
Entertainer was David McLaine, from the UK, and he sang Bobby Darrin and Tom Jones songs! Wonderful.
Egypt!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 – ALEXANDRIA, Egypt
It is the desert! Chilly in the morning and hot during the day
Egypt is part of our cultural past, appearing prominently in both the classical and biblical traditions with influence from the Orient, the Islamic world and Africa.
We were up at 4:45 and out the door by 6:30AM!! Cool and sunny and the port of Alexandria is beautiful. New building (which is for looks only as you do not pass through it!!) and nice landscaping. Even the post office comes onboard.
(In case you wonder how mail is posted…in some ports, the post office comes onboard, along with the local bank, to do the necessities. If neither comes onboard, the ship handles the posting of mail at the next available port and the cost is added to our onboard account.)
There were 37 buses to take most of us to Cairo (3 hour drive) to see the pyramids in Giza and either the Egyptian Museum or the Step Pyramid at Djoser/Saqqara. We traveled in a convoy to Cairo and passed many oil refineries, fishing boats on a marsh which looked like they were right off a Vietnamese postcard, and fields of vegetables and fruits. They grow dates, aloe, oranges and olives in abundance and the entrance to the farms has a beautifully decorated archway. There were several food processing plants and new developments where you can live, study and shop in your neighborhood so you do not have to fight the traffic in to and out of Cairo. There were very large cone-shaped figures for homing pigeons also.
It was an interesting drive and we enjoyed the company on our bus. We were on the back-up bus along with the extra guides and management of the tour company so we had an opportunity to mingle with them. The back-up bus is exactly what it states. If a tour bus breaks down, they have this one available right away to keep the tour moving. Brilliant to be so forward thinking…but you have to be when you have passengers with only 15 hours in a port and the distances are so great. We were always the last bus in line.
Horses and carriages and donkeys blended in with the large trucks, buses, cars and tri-wheeled cars on the major roads. They do not use horns, they do not use turn signals, we saw very few stop lights in a city of over 15,000,000, there are police check points all over the place, they create their own driving lanes as very few are marked anyway and, yes, we did see one accident as a car sped along and flipped over and another Cunard bus was stuck in traffic for an hour due to another accident. A front seat on the tour bus is sometimes NOT the best seat in the house.
Our first stop was at the most famous site in Egypt: the pyramids at Giza, the sole survivors of the Seven Wonders of the World. Each pyramid complex has a number of features: pyramid temple, causeway and valley temple. The pyramid stood within a paved court and enclosure wall with the temple on the eastern side and a statue of the dead king in an adjacent shrine. The entrance to the pyramid was on the northern side. Satellite pyramids were thought to be burial places for queens. A causeway connected the pyramid temple with the valley temple which stood at the edge of the flood plane. Used to bring the casing stone from the river during construction, the causeway was afterwards enclosed to serve as the corridor between the two temples.
The Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) dates from 2589-2566 BC. The pyramid was believed to be the repository of Divine Wisdom but Egyptologists have no doubt that these were nothing more than royal tombs. The largest (Khufu) covers 13 acres at its base, had an original height of 481 feet, of which the top 31 feet are now missing. It was originally faced in fine white limestone. You can visit inside the pyramid but it is rather an anticlimax and claustrophobic. The corridor is150 feet long and the King’s Chamber is built of granite with an empty and unadorned black granite sarcophagus. The ceiling of the chamber has nine slabs and there are five relieving chambers above the burial chamber which cannot be seen. On another side of the pyramid, a cache was discovered which contained the coffin and burial furniture of Queen Hetepheres but her coffin was empty.
There was a Boat Museum housing a cedar wooden boat of 140 feet long which would have ridden very high in the water. It may actually have been used to take the kings’ mummified body to Abydos and bring it back to Giza for burial.
The second pyramid of Khafre (Chephren) is from 2558-2532 BC. It is built on slightly higher ground with a steeper inclined and appears to be larger than the other, but is not.
The Awsan red granite blocks and limestone blocks have been fitted into position rather than just being piled up. Inside was a floor of alabaster and there were 23 statues of the king – whose fragments are now in the Egyptian Museum.
The smallest of the three main pyramids is Menkaure built between 2532 and 2503 BC.
The funerary temple was completed in mud-brick and a series of splendid sculptures was found here depicting the king and his consort, with the goddess Hathor and the nome deities. In alabaster and schist, they are now in the Egyptian Museum and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
There were many camels and horses around the pyramids and you could ride them all. We took the camel ride and have photos with the pyramids in the background. Today, the city is just outside the entrance gates of the pyramids but so are the sands of the desert! You can ride the camel out into the desert and get all three pyramids in a great photo. The pyramids used to be 6.8 miles from the city.
Just down the hill sits the Sphinx, from the Greek word “living image”. It was carved around 10,000 BC from quarrying stone leftover from the Great Pyramid and measures 66 feet high and 187 feet in length. The body is that of a lion and deterioration of the Sphinx is due to the poor quality of the stone, time, pollution and a rising water table. The place is surrounded by vendors!
Cairo, once dubbed “Mother of the World”, is the largest city in Africa and the Arab World. The conflict between Egypt and Rome provided the background to one of the greatest romances of literature, the love of Antony and Kleopatra. Egypt plays a prominent role in the biblical narratives, particularly in the Old Testament with the stories of Joseph and Pharaoh and of Moses and the Exodus.
Islamic Cairo: Mosques are the place where the Muslim community gathers for the ritual prayers on Fridays; they are the only prayers that are recited in public or in communion. It has always had a political as well as a religious importance. Before reciting prayers, the faithful engage in political discourses. This encourages social integration since each locality has only one main mosque. It may be compared to that of the Christian cathedral in history. The main difference is that the mosque is not considered by the Muslims as a house of God but rather as a house of believers, a haven where people gather in observance of the rites of prayer. In its most traditional form, it is composed of an open interior court off which are located various rooms and chambers, adorned with elegant porticoes. We hear the call to prayer during our tours, as they are heard five times a day.
Coptic Cairo: The Copts have lived peacefully alongside the Muslim majority; they were never persecuted by the Muslims in Egypt. The most ancient and interesting of the remaining Coptic churches are situated in the heart of Old Cairo. The early churches were usually constructed according to a Roman Basilica plan with a central nave with two side aisles separated by a colonnade and an apse at one end. The north aisle is reserved for women. The sanctuary almost always consists of three chapels, each with its own altar. A throne for the bishop and seats of the officiating clergy are behind the altar. The churches are extremely simple and rather plain with a narrow doorway in order to conceal the presence of a religious building in a sea of houses.
The Egyptian Museum is the largest museum in the country for Egyptian artifacts. It has outgrown its space and is somewhat congested. The ground floor has statuary and statuary and statuary! You just cannot imagine how cluttered and dusty they are; makes you wonder how many more are in storage. And you think your garage is cluttered???? The upper floor has the Tutankhamun galleries, royal coffins and jewelry.
We also toured the Step Pyramids, the Third Dynasty Step Pyramid of Djoser. This is the earliest large-scale stone building in the world. The complex comprises courts and halls surrounding the pyramid itself. Many of the buildings are in fact dummies: rubble structures faced in polished stone, but without internal chambers. You enter via a columned hall with carved great doors standing permanently open. There is a huge courtyard and as they are still excavating, you are able to see steps descending into the earth to get an idea of the depth of the original pyramid. You can barely see the bottom so it is quite deep! You cannot access the steps but they say there are stelae (inscriptions on columns) showing the king performing the rituals of the sed-festival and the faience tiles imitate reed matting (now restored and in the Egyptian Museum).
We also visited the pyramid of Unas, from 2375-2345 BC, the last king of the Fifth Dynasty. The burial chamber was interesting. You descend a steep stairway into a low corridor which ends in a suite of rooms. The burial chamber is covered with inscriptions in sunken relief filled with blue pigment, which are the Pyramid Texts, prayers and utterances to effect the resurrection of the king. His basalt sarcophagus is faced in alabaster and delicately carved and painted. One room was used for the vessels (urns) to hold what he might need in the next world – jewelry, food, clothing…
To get to this area, you pass a canal and a continuous stream of shops and schools (even the international school) and small plots of ground where they are farming. It is fascinating to watch the activities from the bus window – horses pulling carriages alongside the small trucks and cars and large tour buses. No lane markings and no speed limit and very few lights to control the traffic. At one point, on the main road out of the city, we were detained in traffic for about an hour. The turning lane from the opposite side of the highway did not have a turning signal or stop sign but had been able to inch their way forward to cross over our lane and we were stopped. I’ll see if I can explain this better so you can understand it…They were following each other so closely there was no way for our lane to proceed and in order to continue their turning, they were making a U-turn into our lane and then another U-turn so they were facing us head on and THEN turning to the LEFT to get out of our lane of traffic. It was unbelievable. They were facing us in our lanes and on our right hand shoulder of the road facing us! The bus driver and guide were hollering and shaking their fists and I can only imagine what they were saying. Finally the two of them exited our bus and went over to one public bus and attempted to physically pull the driver out of his seat!!! I turned away at that point. Police finally arrived on the scene and stopped their flow of traffic and we were allowed to proceed. Never attempt to drive in Cairo.
We reached the ship fifteen minutes before sail-away. The sunset over the Desert Road was beautiful, as was the full moon shining over the towns now lit with a few lights.
The entertainer was Nick Lewin, a comedian. I am so far behind in writing this that I honestly can’t remember if he was funny or not!!
My lesson for the day:
Sand + dust = straw hair
The city of Alexandria itself is very interesting but we did not have time to explore on this trip, and I remember very little from being there 26 years ago. With a population of 4.1M, it is the 2nd largest city in Egypt and the city’s largest seaport. It extends 20 miles along the Mediterranean Sea and is an important industrial center because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. It was founded in 334BC by Alexander the Great and remained Egypt’s capital for nearly a thousand years. It was known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (a gigantic mirror reflected the sun during the day and firelight at night to guide ships to port); the Library of Alexandria, the largest library in the ancient world; and the catacombs of Kom el Shuqafa, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages (an ornate complex arranged in three levels with a tomb, statues and pillars and a large banquet hall). Ongoing maritime archeology (yes, maritime archeology) began in 1994 and is revealing details of a city named Rhakotis.
“Civilization is not by any means any easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other is by being corrupt.” Oscar Wilde, Lord Henry, in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
It is the desert! Chilly in the morning and hot during the day
Egypt is part of our cultural past, appearing prominently in both the classical and biblical traditions with influence from the Orient, the Islamic world and Africa.
We were up at 4:45 and out the door by 6:30AM!! Cool and sunny and the port of Alexandria is beautiful. New building (which is for looks only as you do not pass through it!!) and nice landscaping. Even the post office comes onboard.
(In case you wonder how mail is posted…in some ports, the post office comes onboard, along with the local bank, to do the necessities. If neither comes onboard, the ship handles the posting of mail at the next available port and the cost is added to our onboard account.)
There were 37 buses to take most of us to Cairo (3 hour drive) to see the pyramids in Giza and either the Egyptian Museum or the Step Pyramid at Djoser/Saqqara. We traveled in a convoy to Cairo and passed many oil refineries, fishing boats on a marsh which looked like they were right off a Vietnamese postcard, and fields of vegetables and fruits. They grow dates, aloe, oranges and olives in abundance and the entrance to the farms has a beautifully decorated archway. There were several food processing plants and new developments where you can live, study and shop in your neighborhood so you do not have to fight the traffic in to and out of Cairo. There were very large cone-shaped figures for homing pigeons also.
It was an interesting drive and we enjoyed the company on our bus. We were on the back-up bus along with the extra guides and management of the tour company so we had an opportunity to mingle with them. The back-up bus is exactly what it states. If a tour bus breaks down, they have this one available right away to keep the tour moving. Brilliant to be so forward thinking…but you have to be when you have passengers with only 15 hours in a port and the distances are so great. We were always the last bus in line.
Horses and carriages and donkeys blended in with the large trucks, buses, cars and tri-wheeled cars on the major roads. They do not use horns, they do not use turn signals, we saw very few stop lights in a city of over 15,000,000, there are police check points all over the place, they create their own driving lanes as very few are marked anyway and, yes, we did see one accident as a car sped along and flipped over and another Cunard bus was stuck in traffic for an hour due to another accident. A front seat on the tour bus is sometimes NOT the best seat in the house.
Our first stop was at the most famous site in Egypt: the pyramids at Giza, the sole survivors of the Seven Wonders of the World. Each pyramid complex has a number of features: pyramid temple, causeway and valley temple. The pyramid stood within a paved court and enclosure wall with the temple on the eastern side and a statue of the dead king in an adjacent shrine. The entrance to the pyramid was on the northern side. Satellite pyramids were thought to be burial places for queens. A causeway connected the pyramid temple with the valley temple which stood at the edge of the flood plane. Used to bring the casing stone from the river during construction, the causeway was afterwards enclosed to serve as the corridor between the two temples.
The Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) dates from 2589-2566 BC. The pyramid was believed to be the repository of Divine Wisdom but Egyptologists have no doubt that these were nothing more than royal tombs. The largest (Khufu) covers 13 acres at its base, had an original height of 481 feet, of which the top 31 feet are now missing. It was originally faced in fine white limestone. You can visit inside the pyramid but it is rather an anticlimax and claustrophobic. The corridor is150 feet long and the King’s Chamber is built of granite with an empty and unadorned black granite sarcophagus. The ceiling of the chamber has nine slabs and there are five relieving chambers above the burial chamber which cannot be seen. On another side of the pyramid, a cache was discovered which contained the coffin and burial furniture of Queen Hetepheres but her coffin was empty.
There was a Boat Museum housing a cedar wooden boat of 140 feet long which would have ridden very high in the water. It may actually have been used to take the kings’ mummified body to Abydos and bring it back to Giza for burial.
The second pyramid of Khafre (Chephren) is from 2558-2532 BC. It is built on slightly higher ground with a steeper inclined and appears to be larger than the other, but is not.
The Awsan red granite blocks and limestone blocks have been fitted into position rather than just being piled up. Inside was a floor of alabaster and there were 23 statues of the king – whose fragments are now in the Egyptian Museum.
The smallest of the three main pyramids is Menkaure built between 2532 and 2503 BC.
The funerary temple was completed in mud-brick and a series of splendid sculptures was found here depicting the king and his consort, with the goddess Hathor and the nome deities. In alabaster and schist, they are now in the Egyptian Museum and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
There were many camels and horses around the pyramids and you could ride them all. We took the camel ride and have photos with the pyramids in the background. Today, the city is just outside the entrance gates of the pyramids but so are the sands of the desert! You can ride the camel out into the desert and get all three pyramids in a great photo. The pyramids used to be 6.8 miles from the city.
Just down the hill sits the Sphinx, from the Greek word “living image”. It was carved around 10,000 BC from quarrying stone leftover from the Great Pyramid and measures 66 feet high and 187 feet in length. The body is that of a lion and deterioration of the Sphinx is due to the poor quality of the stone, time, pollution and a rising water table. The place is surrounded by vendors!
Cairo, once dubbed “Mother of the World”, is the largest city in Africa and the Arab World. The conflict between Egypt and Rome provided the background to one of the greatest romances of literature, the love of Antony and Kleopatra. Egypt plays a prominent role in the biblical narratives, particularly in the Old Testament with the stories of Joseph and Pharaoh and of Moses and the Exodus.
Islamic Cairo: Mosques are the place where the Muslim community gathers for the ritual prayers on Fridays; they are the only prayers that are recited in public or in communion. It has always had a political as well as a religious importance. Before reciting prayers, the faithful engage in political discourses. This encourages social integration since each locality has only one main mosque. It may be compared to that of the Christian cathedral in history. The main difference is that the mosque is not considered by the Muslims as a house of God but rather as a house of believers, a haven where people gather in observance of the rites of prayer. In its most traditional form, it is composed of an open interior court off which are located various rooms and chambers, adorned with elegant porticoes. We hear the call to prayer during our tours, as they are heard five times a day.
Coptic Cairo: The Copts have lived peacefully alongside the Muslim majority; they were never persecuted by the Muslims in Egypt. The most ancient and interesting of the remaining Coptic churches are situated in the heart of Old Cairo. The early churches were usually constructed according to a Roman Basilica plan with a central nave with two side aisles separated by a colonnade and an apse at one end. The north aisle is reserved for women. The sanctuary almost always consists of three chapels, each with its own altar. A throne for the bishop and seats of the officiating clergy are behind the altar. The churches are extremely simple and rather plain with a narrow doorway in order to conceal the presence of a religious building in a sea of houses.
The Egyptian Museum is the largest museum in the country for Egyptian artifacts. It has outgrown its space and is somewhat congested. The ground floor has statuary and statuary and statuary! You just cannot imagine how cluttered and dusty they are; makes you wonder how many more are in storage. And you think your garage is cluttered???? The upper floor has the Tutankhamun galleries, royal coffins and jewelry.
We also toured the Step Pyramids, the Third Dynasty Step Pyramid of Djoser. This is the earliest large-scale stone building in the world. The complex comprises courts and halls surrounding the pyramid itself. Many of the buildings are in fact dummies: rubble structures faced in polished stone, but without internal chambers. You enter via a columned hall with carved great doors standing permanently open. There is a huge courtyard and as they are still excavating, you are able to see steps descending into the earth to get an idea of the depth of the original pyramid. You can barely see the bottom so it is quite deep! You cannot access the steps but they say there are stelae (inscriptions on columns) showing the king performing the rituals of the sed-festival and the faience tiles imitate reed matting (now restored and in the Egyptian Museum).
We also visited the pyramid of Unas, from 2375-2345 BC, the last king of the Fifth Dynasty. The burial chamber was interesting. You descend a steep stairway into a low corridor which ends in a suite of rooms. The burial chamber is covered with inscriptions in sunken relief filled with blue pigment, which are the Pyramid Texts, prayers and utterances to effect the resurrection of the king. His basalt sarcophagus is faced in alabaster and delicately carved and painted. One room was used for the vessels (urns) to hold what he might need in the next world – jewelry, food, clothing…
To get to this area, you pass a canal and a continuous stream of shops and schools (even the international school) and small plots of ground where they are farming. It is fascinating to watch the activities from the bus window – horses pulling carriages alongside the small trucks and cars and large tour buses. No lane markings and no speed limit and very few lights to control the traffic. At one point, on the main road out of the city, we were detained in traffic for about an hour. The turning lane from the opposite side of the highway did not have a turning signal or stop sign but had been able to inch their way forward to cross over our lane and we were stopped. I’ll see if I can explain this better so you can understand it…They were following each other so closely there was no way for our lane to proceed and in order to continue their turning, they were making a U-turn into our lane and then another U-turn so they were facing us head on and THEN turning to the LEFT to get out of our lane of traffic. It was unbelievable. They were facing us in our lanes and on our right hand shoulder of the road facing us! The bus driver and guide were hollering and shaking their fists and I can only imagine what they were saying. Finally the two of them exited our bus and went over to one public bus and attempted to physically pull the driver out of his seat!!! I turned away at that point. Police finally arrived on the scene and stopped their flow of traffic and we were allowed to proceed. Never attempt to drive in Cairo.
We reached the ship fifteen minutes before sail-away. The sunset over the Desert Road was beautiful, as was the full moon shining over the towns now lit with a few lights.
The entertainer was Nick Lewin, a comedian. I am so far behind in writing this that I honestly can’t remember if he was funny or not!!
My lesson for the day:
Sand + dust = straw hair
The city of Alexandria itself is very interesting but we did not have time to explore on this trip, and I remember very little from being there 26 years ago. With a population of 4.1M, it is the 2nd largest city in Egypt and the city’s largest seaport. It extends 20 miles along the Mediterranean Sea and is an important industrial center because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. It was founded in 334BC by Alexander the Great and remained Egypt’s capital for nearly a thousand years. It was known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (a gigantic mirror reflected the sun during the day and firelight at night to guide ships to port); the Library of Alexandria, the largest library in the ancient world; and the catacombs of Kom el Shuqafa, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages (an ornate complex arranged in three levels with a tomb, statues and pillars and a large banquet hall). Ongoing maritime archeology (yes, maritime archeology) began in 1994 and is revealing details of a city named Rhakotis.
“Civilization is not by any means any easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other is by being corrupt.” Oscar Wilde, Lord Henry, in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Transiting the Suez Canal
Monday, April 06, 2009 – SUEZ CANAL, Egypt
Arguably the single most vital traffic artery in the world; an average of 90 ships a day pass through transporting 14% of the world’s trade
We, and the entire ship it seemed, were up extra early as we began our crawl through the Suez Canal. There are no locks and you would think it would be monotonous viewing with sand all around you but it was a great day!! It was so interesting. You are so close to land that the people are whistling and shouting and waving to you. There are flies and birds flying around; these have not been seen in weeks!!! As we were traveling northbound, the starboard side, right, is mostly sand dunes. There are few buildings and even fewer homes. There is a ferry service to serve both sides of the canal. There are many military installations along the left bank, and soldiers were even out there waving to us.
There are only three main cities along the route. We started at Suez, at the south end, which was heavily damaged during the 1967 and 1973 wars. It is now an industrial center producing petrochemicals, fertilizers and cement. We saw many oil wells and pumping stations. Then Ishmailia is along the way, a pleasant town with tree-lined boulevards and parks along the waterfront. Port Said is at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, established in 1859 as a base for the construction and operation of the canal and today is the home of duty-free goods.
The idea of opening a canal dates back to 2100BC!!!!! Who would have thought that???!!
The earliest attempt took place during the 26th Dynasty in Egypt and over 120,000 men lost their lives. It was only abandoned when an oracle warned the king that invading foreigners would be the only ones to profit by it!!! Around 500BC, Darius I completed the project through to Great Bitter Lake. It was extended and then abandoned about 200AD.
Work commenced again in 1859 and finished in 1869. Guiseppe Verdi composed the opera AIDA for the completion of the canal. Egypt’s ruler had financed a third of the canal’s construction, which contributed largely to his bankruptcy. In 1875, shares were purchased by the British government and the canal became a focal part of the wars in the area.
The Suez Canal is an artificial canal 101 miles long and 984 feet wide at its narrowest point. It was built to allow two-way water transportation between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before it opened in 1869, goods were sometimes off- loaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
There are no locks and sometimes the ships look as if they are floating through sand when you see them at a distance as you can’t see the water at all! Remember the saying, “Ships of the desert”? There is one shipping lane with several passing areas. On a typical day, three convoys transit the canal: two southbound and one northbound.
We were in a convoy of nine ships going northbound, each spaced 1.5 miles apart. We transited from 7:00AM-5:00PM at an approx. speed of 9miles/hr. The low speed helps prevent erosion of the canal banks by ship’s wakes. In 2003, it was reported that 17,224 ships passed through the canal averaging about 8% of the world’s shipping traffic. Receipts from July 2005 – May 2006 totaled $3.246 billion dollars and 18,193 ships passed through the canal.
We began in the Gulf of Suez Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) and then proceeded to a waiting area. We dropped anchor until we were notified of our position in the convoy. We proceeded to the Newport Rock Channel to make sure we were at the entrance of the canal in order to start the convoy at 6AM. We entered via Little Bitter Lake at 8AM, which takes 30 minutes to cross. Then we entered the east branch of the channel to get to the Great Bitter Lake, which is a salt water lake between the north and south part of the Suez Canal. Just before noon we passed the Gebel Maryam war memorial on the port side. We passed a much larger war memorial on the starboard side in mid-afternoon with huge stadium next to it and green grass park, which is highly unusual in the desert. Then we passed under the Suez Canal Bridge and reached Port Said about 5PM. I counted 24 ships waiting to begin their convoy on the southbound journey.
This piece of trivia really took me by surprise…
Our Statue of Liberty was originally designed to stand in Port Said at the entrance to the Suez Canal!! Inspired by the colossal statues at Abu Simbel (Egypt), French sculptor Bartholdi formulated the idea of a huge statue of a woman bearing a torch to represent progress. The idea was ultimately abandoned due to the cost and the “Light of Asia”, was sent to New York, where she became Lady Liberty.
!!!!! What do you think about that?? I never learned that story in history class!!!
Spent a lot of time on passenger work today! Email and telephone bills will be a shock, I’m sure.
Gorgeous weather with a warm sun yet the day started out hazy and cold!! I actually had my wool slacks and long sleeve shirt on while others were running around in their shorts!
We were the only ones at our dinner table, which was fine. Entertainment was Katzenjammer, the four-handed pianists and Emma Sinclair and Christopher Riggins, singers. I worked on the computer for about 2 hours and prepared for Cairo/Alexandria!
The ship and public areas are still under restrictions due to the noro-virus.
Lectures: “Galileo and Darwin”; Carol Thatcher “Travels: On and off the Red Carpet”; Meet the Environmental Officer; “Port Architecture” and documentary on the Suez Canal.
Arguably the single most vital traffic artery in the world; an average of 90 ships a day pass through transporting 14% of the world’s trade
We, and the entire ship it seemed, were up extra early as we began our crawl through the Suez Canal. There are no locks and you would think it would be monotonous viewing with sand all around you but it was a great day!! It was so interesting. You are so close to land that the people are whistling and shouting and waving to you. There are flies and birds flying around; these have not been seen in weeks!!! As we were traveling northbound, the starboard side, right, is mostly sand dunes. There are few buildings and even fewer homes. There is a ferry service to serve both sides of the canal. There are many military installations along the left bank, and soldiers were even out there waving to us.
There are only three main cities along the route. We started at Suez, at the south end, which was heavily damaged during the 1967 and 1973 wars. It is now an industrial center producing petrochemicals, fertilizers and cement. We saw many oil wells and pumping stations. Then Ishmailia is along the way, a pleasant town with tree-lined boulevards and parks along the waterfront. Port Said is at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, established in 1859 as a base for the construction and operation of the canal and today is the home of duty-free goods.
The idea of opening a canal dates back to 2100BC!!!!! Who would have thought that???!!
The earliest attempt took place during the 26th Dynasty in Egypt and over 120,000 men lost their lives. It was only abandoned when an oracle warned the king that invading foreigners would be the only ones to profit by it!!! Around 500BC, Darius I completed the project through to Great Bitter Lake. It was extended and then abandoned about 200AD.
Work commenced again in 1859 and finished in 1869. Guiseppe Verdi composed the opera AIDA for the completion of the canal. Egypt’s ruler had financed a third of the canal’s construction, which contributed largely to his bankruptcy. In 1875, shares were purchased by the British government and the canal became a focal part of the wars in the area.
The Suez Canal is an artificial canal 101 miles long and 984 feet wide at its narrowest point. It was built to allow two-way water transportation between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before it opened in 1869, goods were sometimes off- loaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
There are no locks and sometimes the ships look as if they are floating through sand when you see them at a distance as you can’t see the water at all! Remember the saying, “Ships of the desert”? There is one shipping lane with several passing areas. On a typical day, three convoys transit the canal: two southbound and one northbound.
We were in a convoy of nine ships going northbound, each spaced 1.5 miles apart. We transited from 7:00AM-5:00PM at an approx. speed of 9miles/hr. The low speed helps prevent erosion of the canal banks by ship’s wakes. In 2003, it was reported that 17,224 ships passed through the canal averaging about 8% of the world’s shipping traffic. Receipts from July 2005 – May 2006 totaled $3.246 billion dollars and 18,193 ships passed through the canal.
We began in the Gulf of Suez Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) and then proceeded to a waiting area. We dropped anchor until we were notified of our position in the convoy. We proceeded to the Newport Rock Channel to make sure we were at the entrance of the canal in order to start the convoy at 6AM. We entered via Little Bitter Lake at 8AM, which takes 30 minutes to cross. Then we entered the east branch of the channel to get to the Great Bitter Lake, which is a salt water lake between the north and south part of the Suez Canal. Just before noon we passed the Gebel Maryam war memorial on the port side. We passed a much larger war memorial on the starboard side in mid-afternoon with huge stadium next to it and green grass park, which is highly unusual in the desert. Then we passed under the Suez Canal Bridge and reached Port Said about 5PM. I counted 24 ships waiting to begin their convoy on the southbound journey.
This piece of trivia really took me by surprise…
Our Statue of Liberty was originally designed to stand in Port Said at the entrance to the Suez Canal!! Inspired by the colossal statues at Abu Simbel (Egypt), French sculptor Bartholdi formulated the idea of a huge statue of a woman bearing a torch to represent progress. The idea was ultimately abandoned due to the cost and the “Light of Asia”, was sent to New York, where she became Lady Liberty.
!!!!! What do you think about that?? I never learned that story in history class!!!
Spent a lot of time on passenger work today! Email and telephone bills will be a shock, I’m sure.
Gorgeous weather with a warm sun yet the day started out hazy and cold!! I actually had my wool slacks and long sleeve shirt on while others were running around in their shorts!
We were the only ones at our dinner table, which was fine. Entertainment was Katzenjammer, the four-handed pianists and Emma Sinclair and Christopher Riggins, singers. I worked on the computer for about 2 hours and prepared for Cairo/Alexandria!
The ship and public areas are still under restrictions due to the noro-virus.
Lectures: “Galileo and Darwin”; Carol Thatcher “Travels: On and off the Red Carpet”; Meet the Environmental Officer; “Port Architecture” and documentary on the Suez Canal.
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