Day 9: May 3 - Day at Sea

After Vigo, we spent a day at sea, sailing through the Bay of Biscayne on our way to Portland, England.  Diane had a facial, and we a nice leisurely day on board.  

Backgammon on the aft deck

We continued our International Backgammon Tournament which has Diane leading 10 games to my 4.  Time to break out my lucky dice.

Our Dining Table

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.

Day 11: May 5 - Cherbourg, France

After Portland, England, we crossed the English Channel and arrived in Cherbourg, France early morning.  It was quite breezy, and cold...the weather was picking up.  We didn't have a scheduled tour in Cherbourg, so we caught a shuttle bus to downtown and took a nice horse carriage tour around town.  





Cherbourg was a rather large harbor city with significant traffic,  rather new industrial buildings, and so many of those damned tourists.  Since the city was situated on the Normandy beach area, it suffered from the WWII invasion, corresponding structural damage, and hence had rebuilt.  Nevertheless, there were a few quaint narrow streets and french cafes.  

We happen to be there just prior to the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Day 12: May 6 - Brugge...Where for art thou?

The weather worsened while in Cherbourg, so instead of leaving Tuesday afternoon for Belgium, the captain made the decision to remain in port overnight and wait for the weather to subside. There were reports of storms and tornados in northern Germany.


So, instead of arriving in Brugge on Wednesday morning, we remained tethered to the port in Cherbourg.  We remained in port pretty much the whole day 11, and finally left port around 7:00 m on Wednesday - more than 24 hours later tan planned.

Understandably, this caused us to skip the port of Brugge in Belgium (which we were very much looking forward to), and instead sail straight away for Copenhagen.

Day 13: May 7 - Day at Sea

We continued our speedy cruise to Copenhagen (Thursday was originally planned as a day-at-sea anyway).  The MS Eurodam has a top speed of 23.9 knots (27.5 mph)...and the captain maintained a speed of nearly 22 knots trying to make up time.

So, we stayed on board, took some Dramamine, continued our Backgammon tournament, and ate...and ate....and ate some more.

Day 14/15: May 8/9 - Copenhagen

We arrived in Copenhagen around noon on Friday, 5 hours late.  It required a little over 3 hours waiting before our group assignment was allowed to disembark.  We transferred to the Palace Hotel in downtown Copenhagen & finally checked in late in the afternoon, but enough time to walk around a little and had dinner outside on the plaza.

Saturday was dark, cold, rainy, and windy.  We took a nice double-decker bus tour around town which allowed us to hop & off.  We “hopped off” and had lunch on the famous Nyhavn (New Harbor) canal despite the inclement weather.  saw the historical Mermaid statue, the queen’s yacht,  many great medieval structures, and the famous Tivoli Gardens (which is more an amusement park - like a smaller version of Knotts Berry Farm than gardens).

An Old Elevator - It'll never Pass OSHA

Double-Door Entry to the Hotel Room?

The Copenhagen Fire Dept as our Sunday morning wake up crew!

Epilog

All in all, we gave the vacation a 5 out of 10.  

The Pros: 

• We saw many great historical sites
• Visited foreign countries and cities for the first time
• Learned about Stonehenge and other ancient celtic and medieval ruins
• Met some interesting and fun people from all parts of the world
• Relaxed & had fun
• Played Team trivia with new friends (and won twice!)
• Ate way too much food
• We played our International Backgammon Tournament (which out of a total of 26 games played, I won only 8 of them…so that’s kind of a con)
• Perhaps the biggest Pro:  Ability to see all of these sites without checking in and out of hotels, packing & unpacking, renting cars, and getting lost driving on foreign streets.

The Cons:  

• Getting up at o’dark 30 to start or end a vacation is not our idea of a vacation!
• Fighting crowds of people at the Lido breakfast buffet and on and off buses and tour groups
• We must say that Holland America could have done a little better job with their communications, procedures, and services
• And it may be just Holland America (and we’re no spring chickens)…but there a lot of really old people on these cruises! We felt out of place at times.

It may be quite a while before we plan another cruise.  We'll stick to putting the top down and hitting the road!