By Nick, in which we drink Murphy’s and Guinness in Ireland, but miss out on a Cornish pasty or cream teas, say farewell to our floating friends and complete out 360 degrees.
In the last post, we’d just about finished our transatlantic crossing, which, thanks to the same weather that generated all the fog, turned out to be not half so bumpy as we’d been led to expect. In fact, hardly bumpy at all, and, according to one of the officers, that plus our almost four days of fog is very unusual. Lucky old us.
So, on this morning – a gloriously bright, hot and sunny one – we arrived (as usual, just as we were waking up) at the Port of Cork in Cobh (not Cohb as I wrote last time – sorry about that) which, as I also wrote (correctly) is pronounced Cove. However, it used to be called Queenstown (pronounced Queen’s-town) and thus named was the last port of call for the ill-fated SS Titanic. We could have caught the train to Cork just a few miles to the north of Cobh – the station is right by the cruise terminal – but we wanted to spend our time here, exploring the town (lovely, by the way) including it’s connections to the famously doomed liner.
We found the tourist information office quite quickly, and, once we’d got some Euros, bought a booklet for a self-guided Titanic walking tour, taking in several of the towns notable landmarks along the way. One of the first stops was the Old Cemetery (the oldest grave is from 1698) which is some way out of town. (Actually, it should have been one of the last stops, but for some reason we decided to do the tour in reverse.)
Although this was a Titanic tour, actually the site relates more to another, equally terrible maritime disaster of just three and a bit years later, during the first World war: the sinking of another great passenger liner, the Lusitania. Although an act of war (she was hit by a German torpedo) rather than an accident, the civilian loss of life was similar in scale to that of the Titanic, as was the number rescued, as was the number of bodies recovered. It was to Cobh (as I’ve said, then Queenstown) that those in this last category were brought and where they were laid to rest.
Another of the stops on our tour was St. Colman’s cathedral. Begun in 1868 and consecrated in 1919, it ranks, in my mind at least, as one of the most amazing churches I’ve ever seen. The detail in the masonry alone is almost overwhelming. It’s not the largest cathedral we’ve visited – though definitely big enough to qualify – compared to the size of the town, though, it’s huge. Well worth a visit.
After all our walking, which took us the length and breadth of Cobh, we reckoned we’d earned a sit down, a drink and a bite to eat. Unfortunately, although the first cafe we chose had some excellent rhubarb pie, it didn’t have Wi-fi. However, they were able to point us in the direction of one that did, so after we’d watched the world – including, Kitty (as in ‘Hello, Kitty’) Mario (as in Super Mario) and Jerry (as in Tom and Jerry) – go by, we moved on. (Who knew Rhubarb was an hallucinogen.) At the second cafe, we got all our e-mailing, photo uploading and blog-post publishing done plus bumped into Georg and Barbara, who had taken the train into Cork, and compared notes.
With a couple of hours in hand between being kicked out of the cafe and our scheduled departure, there was plenty of time to enjoy some local produce – both Murphy’s and Beamish are brewed in nearby Cork – before returning to the ship. I have to confess, not only were we the last back on board, but that I was having to concentrate quite hard in order to keep a straight face (and line) as we passed through security.
We then spent a very silly and giggly half an hour our so on Georg and Barbara’s balcony watching and listening to a brass band on the quayside play as we sailed away. Half-way through the manoeuvre, the ship had to turn around in the harbour, which meant we had to (we just had to) run from their cabin to ours on the other side of the ship in order to keep waving and clapping until the band packed up and went home. Must have been the rhubarb.
Just time to change for dinner in the Grand Dining Room (during which there may have been more liquid refreshment – I honestly can’t remember) from which we were the last to leave. Strong stuff, that rhubarb.
Anyway, instead, we did a bit more packing, then, when our room attendant arrived to clean and so forth, went for a coffee in Baristas, where several other passengers were grumbling about another missed port. (Mostly their second; our fourth.) While we there, in his most cheery and excited voice, the Cruise Director announced the alternative schedule of activities he and his his team had been working hard to put together: a film we’d never heard of, needlepoint and scarf tying. Whoop-de-do.
Blogging and stitching continued until it was time to change for dinner with Georg and Barbara in the Grand Dining Room: our last, but not theirs. Georg and Barbara had been allowed to stay on one extra night and to disembark in Amsterdam. This was to avoid a tedious flight home via Manchester and somewhere else, due to a last minutes change imposed on them. (It would also avoid all manner of disruptions due to a French air traffic controllers strike, of which at this stage they were blissfully unaware.) Anyway, it meant they could take a fast train almost all the way home with just one change and no baggage restrictions.
We had a brilliant ‘farewell’ dinner, made all the jollier by a special bottle of Champagne plus another of red wine courtesy again of the General Manager, Dominique Nicole, but, we think, prompted by Branco, the Serbian headwaiter who was so concerned when we went into Lima on our own and who has been one of our pals throughout the voyage.
When the meal was over, there were so many goodbyes and photographs and hugs and swapping of e-mail addresses, that we were again the last to leave the restaurant. By the time we’d finished our packing, put our bags out (late) and got into bed for our last night aboard, it was already well past midnight, with our alarm set for barely five hours later so as not to miss our arrival into Southampton via the Solent, at the start of our final day.
Once ashore – incidentally, no one asked to see our passports, which were returned to us the previous afternoon – we loaded up Marion’s car and received in return a large envelope containing several smaller ones with instruction on when to open them. The first envelope contained train tickets to Hove. Having arranged to meet Marion and Juli’s mum at our pre-booked hotel, we then jumped in a taxi with just our small backpacks and drove the short distance to Southampton Central Station.
We got to the station just in time to catch the 10:33 to Brighton, Hove being the stop before. On the train, we watched the longitude figure of the GPS app on my phone count down towards the start/finish line, due south of the West London Novotel in Hammersmith, where we started our trip 360 days go and to where we shall return to close the loop in five days time, a full year after leaving it.
We had an anxious few minutes as we got closer and closer to Hove when I wondered if I’d made a mistake. But, with barely a minute to spare, we crossed the line jut before the train pulled into Hove station. From there, we got another taxi to the Lansdowne Spa Hotel, which we’d booked and paid for just over a year ago, and discovered to our stunned surprise that the hotel had closed down. The hotel signage was still there, but all the ground floor windows and doors were covered over with sheets of metal. We tried phoning, of course, but the number we had was disconnected.
Marion and Juli’s mum were waiting out side in Marion’s car and the four of us repaired to a Starbucks just along from the hotel to discuss what to do next. Juli ordered drinks and asked one of the servers if they knew what had happened to the hotel. Apparently it closed just before Christmas, without notice and leaving the staff unpaid. Merry Christmas, not.
Fortunately, on the way to the Starbucks, I’d spotted a small guest house just 100 yards along from the hotel that had a ‘Vacancies’ sign in the window. So, after we finished our drinks, we toddled along there, where the owner was very please to accommodate us. (Apparently business has been a bit slow all round.) From there, the four of us found a small restaurant for lunch (on Juli’s mum – thanks, Pauline) after which Marion and Juli’s mum went home and we returned to our guest house, the Regency Lansdowne. (***)
You have to laugh when these things happen, but it’s just typical that the one hotel I booked – Juli made all the Australian arrangements while I was still working – my one contribution to the plan, and it goes tits up. Irritatingly, although I paid for it with a credit card, the total was just one pound shy of £100, the amount above which you can claim from your card provider.
Anyway, having had a bare five hours sleep the night before, I decided to have a nap while Juli uploaded her photos and checked e-mails, taking advantage of the free Wi-fi. (Take note, Australia.) By 7.00pm, we were ready to eat again, so walked along the seafront into next-door Brighton and had, what else: fish and chips. It’s good to be back in England.
So there you are: 360 degrees in 360 days.
Tomorrow we begin the final leg of our journey, back to where it all began, via, we know not where. (Second envelope over breakfast.)
TTFN - N
[Click here for more photos from the Celtic Sea.]
[Click here for more photos from the UK.]
Days 357 & 358 (Ireland)
In the last post, we’d just about finished our transatlantic crossing, which, thanks to the same weather that generated all the fog, turned out to be not half so bumpy as we’d been led to expect. In fact, hardly bumpy at all, and, according to one of the officers, that plus our almost four days of fog is very unusual. Lucky old us.So, on this morning – a gloriously bright, hot and sunny one – we arrived (as usual, just as we were waking up) at the Port of Cork in Cobh (not Cohb as I wrote last time – sorry about that) which, as I also wrote (correctly) is pronounced Cove. However, it used to be called Queenstown (pronounced Queen’s-town) and thus named was the last port of call for the ill-fated SS Titanic. We could have caught the train to Cork just a few miles to the north of Cobh – the station is right by the cruise terminal – but we wanted to spend our time here, exploring the town (lovely, by the way) including it’s connections to the famously doomed liner.
We found the tourist information office quite quickly, and, once we’d got some Euros, bought a booklet for a self-guided Titanic walking tour, taking in several of the towns notable landmarks along the way. One of the first stops was the Old Cemetery (the oldest grave is from 1698) which is some way out of town. (Actually, it should have been one of the last stops, but for some reason we decided to do the tour in reverse.)
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| Oldest grave from 1698 by the old chapel |
Although this was a Titanic tour, actually the site relates more to another, equally terrible maritime disaster of just three and a bit years later, during the first World war: the sinking of another great passenger liner, the Lusitania. Although an act of war (she was hit by a German torpedo) rather than an accident, the civilian loss of life was similar in scale to that of the Titanic, as was the number rescued, as was the number of bodies recovered. It was to Cobh (as I’ve said, then Queenstown) that those in this last category were brought and where they were laid to rest.
Another of the stops on our tour was St. Colman’s cathedral. Begun in 1868 and consecrated in 1919, it ranks, in my mind at least, as one of the most amazing churches I’ve ever seen. The detail in the masonry alone is almost overwhelming. It’s not the largest cathedral we’ve visited – though definitely big enough to qualify – compared to the size of the town, though, it’s huge. Well worth a visit.
After all our walking, which took us the length and breadth of Cobh, we reckoned we’d earned a sit down, a drink and a bite to eat. Unfortunately, although the first cafe we chose had some excellent rhubarb pie, it didn’t have Wi-fi. However, they were able to point us in the direction of one that did, so after we’d watched the world – including, Kitty (as in ‘Hello, Kitty’) Mario (as in Super Mario) and Jerry (as in Tom and Jerry) – go by, we moved on. (Who knew Rhubarb was an hallucinogen.) At the second cafe, we got all our e-mailing, photo uploading and blog-post publishing done plus bumped into Georg and Barbara, who had taken the train into Cork, and compared notes.
With a couple of hours in hand between being kicked out of the cafe and our scheduled departure, there was plenty of time to enjoy some local produce – both Murphy’s and Beamish are brewed in nearby Cork – before returning to the ship. I have to confess, not only were we the last back on board, but that I was having to concentrate quite hard in order to keep a straight face (and line) as we passed through security.
We then spent a very silly and giggly half an hour our so on Georg and Barbara’s balcony watching and listening to a brass band on the quayside play as we sailed away. Half-way through the manoeuvre, the ship had to turn around in the harbour, which meant we had to (we just had to) run from their cabin to ours on the other side of the ship in order to keep waving and clapping until the band packed up and went home. Must have been the rhubarb.
Just time to change for dinner in the Grand Dining Room (during which there may have been more liquid refreshment – I honestly can’t remember) from which we were the last to leave. Strong stuff, that rhubarb.
***
The next morning, we arrived into Dublin for our second and last port of call in Ireland. Dublin is another large container and ferry port, and from our room, we could see dozens of trailer units neatly lined up and ready to board one of two P&O ferries, including half a dozen Guinness tankers.
After breakfast, we walked ashore and took a shuttle bus into the centre or the city and headed straight for Trinity College and the Book of Kells. There was quite a long queue for the exhibition running out the door and half way round the quadrangle. The exhibition was quite small, but included some of their other treasures, some of which are even older than the Book of Kells, which, if you don’t know, is an 9th century copy of the four gospels.
The bound manuscript, which was created in the mid to late 800s by three (possibly as many as six) monks (probably on Iona in Scotland) contains, in addition to the writing, the most wonderful and detailed illuminations. The exhibition explains how the text and illustrations were made using all sorts of vegetable, animal and mineral compounds to create the often vividly coloured pages on sheets of vellum produced from the skins of 185 calves.
The Book of Kells itself is in the last small room of the exhibition in a glass topped, presumably climate controlled display unit, with very dim light from the top only. If you lean over the case to get a better look, you immediately put the book in shade. That’s assuming you can get anywhere near the cabinet to try, of course. There was quite a press, despite the flow and numbers of visitors being controlled by room attendants.
From there, you pass immediately into what they call the Long Room, which is the Old Library. (We didn’t see the new one.) Don’t know if it’s coming from a small dark room or what, but the impression you get on entering the long room is that you’ve just come into a great cathedral to the glory of books. In addition to being (very) long, it’s also enormously tall with a high vaulted ceiling several stories (pun intended) above you.
Yet again, on leaving the library and stopping for a drink, we bumped into Georg and Barbara who’d just had a tour of the university by one of the students. They were off to catch a hop-on-hope-off bus tour of the city, but we wanted to walk to have more time to take photos. In hindsight, it might have been better to have gone with them, because we ended up wandering here and there to no great effect. However, we managed to see quite a bit, including St. Patrick’s cathedral, just one of many great churches in the city.
Back on-board marina, exhausted after our long walk and frustrated after just missing a shuttle back to the ship and having to wait another half hour, we had tea and some sandwiches before trouping back down stairs to wait with a small group of other passengers. We’d all received invitations to a bridge tour, which, like the galley tour, we’d been asked to keep secret. I’d mentioned in a mid-cruise comment card some weeks ago that we’d very much like to have a look round the bridge and we finally got the invite just a day or two before.
The young man conducting the tour – they all look like young men to me now – was (one of?) the third officer(s). He looked fresh out of college, but was apparently licenced to drive this multi-million dollar vessel. Speaking of driving it, though mostly it’s steered automatically by a satellite navigation system (hope it’s not just something from Halfords) there are three sets of helm controls: one in the middle, and two others in the bits of the bridge that stick out either side of the ship for manoeuvring in port, etc.. Slightly disappointingly, ‘the wheel’ is more like a dial to adjust the angle of the rudders, which can also be set independently by two small levers, as can the speed of the propellers, so no great brass telegraph system to communicate with engineering either. At least the one in the middle actually has a wheel, but it’s smaller than even the smallest car steering wheel. How could you lash someone to that?
One little factoid we learned from looking around the bridge while we were there: at 22 knots (the speed we doing across the oceans) it takes Marina over one and a half kilometres to stop or five minutes. If someone were to fall or jump overboard – happens more often than you might think, apparently – there would be very little chance of recovering them, let alone rescuing them, and at night there would be none.
Back in our room, we had more tea (Juli) and the last of our Canadian beer (me) before changing for dinner (our last visit to Red Ginger) plus reading and sewing while our final bit laundry span round.
After dinner, we cut along to the Marina lounge to catch the end of that night’s show featuring a farewell salute from the staff and crew, very nearly all 800 of them. (Presumably this is when they leave our new young third-officer friend in charge.) Coming out afterwards, we bumped into, who do you think, Georg and Barbara, who talked us into going for a drink. (Very little persuasion required.) Georg and Barbara did their bit for the exports of their neighbours in The Netherlands and enjoyed a Grolsch each, but Juli and I performed our own small salute to the Republic of Ireland as she disappeared into the darkness by downing a Jameson’s and a Guinness respectively. Slainte.
[Pub quiz factoid: both parent companies of Grolsch (SABMiller) and Guinness (Diageo) are headquartered in London, UK. Jameson’s is, ultimately, French.]
Days 359 & 360 (United Kingdom – country #47)
Today, we should have been ashore in Falmouth, Cornwall. But while we were having an early brunch in the Grand Dinning Room (arrival to our anchorage was scheduled for late morning) the Captain made an announcement to the effect that sea conditions made tendering operations impossible. Seems there was a large swell, which we could barely feel, that would make getting into the small boats too dangerous. Falmouth is Europe’s deepest harbour (third deepest in the World) so why couldn’t we dock? Hmmm.
Anyway, instead, we did a bit more packing, then, when our room attendant arrived to clean and so forth, went for a coffee in Baristas, where several other passengers were grumbling about another missed port. (Mostly their second; our fourth.) While we there, in his most cheery and excited voice, the Cruise Director announced the alternative schedule of activities he and his his team had been working hard to put together: a film we’d never heard of, needlepoint and scarf tying. Whoop-de-do.
On the plus side, I’m now up-to-date with the blog and Juli has all but finished her sixth needlepoint kit. We also got the chance for a last teatime in Horizons. However, whatever their clotted cream is, it’s not Rhoda’s.
Blogging and stitching continued until it was time to change for dinner with Georg and Barbara in the Grand Dining Room: our last, but not theirs. Georg and Barbara had been allowed to stay on one extra night and to disembark in Amsterdam. This was to avoid a tedious flight home via Manchester and somewhere else, due to a last minutes change imposed on them. (It would also avoid all manner of disruptions due to a French air traffic controllers strike, of which at this stage they were blissfully unaware.) Anyway, it meant they could take a fast train almost all the way home with just one change and no baggage restrictions.
We had a brilliant ‘farewell’ dinner, made all the jollier by a special bottle of Champagne plus another of red wine courtesy again of the General Manager, Dominique Nicole, but, we think, prompted by Branco, the Serbian headwaiter who was so concerned when we went into Lima on our own and who has been one of our pals throughout the voyage.
When the meal was over, there were so many goodbyes and photographs and hugs and swapping of e-mail addresses, that we were again the last to leave the restaurant. By the time we’d finished our packing, put our bags out (late) and got into bed for our last night aboard, it was already well past midnight, with our alarm set for barely five hours later so as not to miss our arrival into Southampton via the Solent, at the start of our final day.
***
We woke, just ahead of the alarm, as the ship was coming round the eastern tip of the Isle of White, on another misty morning. Our course took us right along the north-east edge of the Island, past Osborne House to Cowes before turning north to make our way up Southampton Water to our disembarkation point, the Southampton City Cruise Terminal.
While we were having breakfast in the Grand Dining Room, we got a message from Juli’s best friend Marion to say that she and Juli’s Mum, Pauline, had arrived at the terminal, ‘Welcome home Juli & Nick’ banner in hand. (If you have sharp eyes, you may just be able to see in the centre of the left-hand photo. If not, see the right-hand photo for details.) They had also had an early start in order to drive all the way down from West London to meet us, come on board for a private tour of the ship, take the bulk of our luggage back home with them and to give us our final instructions for the next five days.
Once ashore – incidentally, no one asked to see our passports, which were returned to us the previous afternoon – we loaded up Marion’s car and received in return a large envelope containing several smaller ones with instruction on when to open them. The first envelope contained train tickets to Hove. Having arranged to meet Marion and Juli’s mum at our pre-booked hotel, we then jumped in a taxi with just our small backpacks and drove the short distance to Southampton Central Station.
We got to the station just in time to catch the 10:33 to Brighton, Hove being the stop before. On the train, we watched the longitude figure of the GPS app on my phone count down towards the start/finish line, due south of the West London Novotel in Hammersmith, where we started our trip 360 days go and to where we shall return to close the loop in five days time, a full year after leaving it.
We had an anxious few minutes as we got closer and closer to Hove when I wondered if I’d made a mistake. But, with barely a minute to spare, we crossed the line jut before the train pulled into Hove station. From there, we got another taxi to the Lansdowne Spa Hotel, which we’d booked and paid for just over a year ago, and discovered to our stunned surprise that the hotel had closed down. The hotel signage was still there, but all the ground floor windows and doors were covered over with sheets of metal. We tried phoning, of course, but the number we had was disconnected.
Marion and Juli’s mum were waiting out side in Marion’s car and the four of us repaired to a Starbucks just along from the hotel to discuss what to do next. Juli ordered drinks and asked one of the servers if they knew what had happened to the hotel. Apparently it closed just before Christmas, without notice and leaving the staff unpaid. Merry Christmas, not.
Fortunately, on the way to the Starbucks, I’d spotted a small guest house just 100 yards along from the hotel that had a ‘Vacancies’ sign in the window. So, after we finished our drinks, we toddled along there, where the owner was very please to accommodate us. (Apparently business has been a bit slow all round.) From there, the four of us found a small restaurant for lunch (on Juli’s mum – thanks, Pauline) after which Marion and Juli’s mum went home and we returned to our guest house, the Regency Lansdowne. (***)
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| Pauline and Marion having to laugh |
Anyway, having had a bare five hours sleep the night before, I decided to have a nap while Juli uploaded her photos and checked e-mails, taking advantage of the free Wi-fi. (Take note, Australia.) By 7.00pm, we were ready to eat again, so walked along the seafront into next-door Brighton and had, what else: fish and chips. It’s good to be back in England.
So there you are: 360 degrees in 360 days.
Tomorrow we begin the final leg of our journey, back to where it all began, via, we know not where. (Second envelope over breakfast.)
TTFN - N
[Click here for more photos from the Celtic Sea.]
[Click here for more photos from the UK.]
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