The Cruise Line is Holland America, and the ship is the MS Eurodam with 11 decks, holds 2100 passengers, is 935 feet long, and can do around 24 knots.








Our itinerary is: fly from LAX to Barcelona transferring directly to the ship; cruise to several Spanish ports along the Mediterranean (Valencia and Cartagena), sail through the Straights of Gibraltar (with a stop in Gibraltar), around the Iberian Peninsula stopping at several ports in Spain (Cadiz and Vigo) as well as Lisbon, Portugal; traveling through the Bay of Biscayne to Portland, England; across the English Channel to Cherbourg, France; up to Brugge, Belgium, and then through the North Sea to our final destination Copenhagen, Denmark. We'll stay in Copenhagen two nights before flying back home. The cruise itself is 12 days long - total trip 16 days.

Can we handle a 12-day cruise (our longest yet)? Can we survive the flight over in economy class? Will we win the battle against 2000+ passengers for access to the breakfast buffet?..and my first day on board the ship, I discovered that our "Drink Package" which included 15 free drinks per person per day (including alcohol) is not like roll-over minutes - if you only consume 5 drinks one day, you cannot have 25 the next day. *SIGH*....A true test of our survival skills.


Thursday, May 7, 2015

Day 10: May 4 - Portland, England

We arrived in Portland late morning after a full day at sea, and boarded a tour bus headed for Stonehenge.


They had a nice set-up at Stonehenge, with self-guided audio tours which were quite extensive and informative plus a nice interpretive center.  

Stonehenge is masked in mystery as there are no written documents from this site - it was built between 3000 and 4000 BC.  However, it seems to me that their findings of human remains and other burial artifacts indicate that it had been used as a cemetery or burial ritual site.

The bus ride was a 2-hour trip each way, which gave us a nice scenic drive through the southern England countryside with a most excellent tour guide.  Everything was soooo green, with a contrast of bright yellow fields of Canola. Love the old English architecture.
The weather has turned much colder now, compared to Spain and Portugal.




Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)