Blogs from Europe

Happy Birthday to Patterson and Melody! Fourteen years ago, was a pretty busy day. And many of the days since have been packed with interesting things. Thanks for keeping us all entertained. I just noticed the dates have been in error for the last couple of posts. I don’t know if I can correct that, but I will try. We had another night of smooth sailing and we both got a pretty good night sleep. We aren’t completely over our colds, but they are considerably better – the symptoms seem to be clearing almost as quickly as they came. We are in Portland, England. Never heard of it before - that’s understandable because there isn’t much here. This is a sheltered harbor which was a jumping off point for the invasion on D-Day. Otherwise, it is ... read more

After another scrumptious breakfast we packed the cars to head south towards Cork but more specifically this morning to the Jameson Heritage Centre at Midleton. The SatNavs were programmed, and it looked like we were going to take the N24 across to the M8 and then rocket down the motorway. Ahem, we were driving around Limerick again on the N18 expecting to flow onto the M7 and then head off onto the N24 at Junction 29 but, that’s not what happened. At Junction 1/30 where the N18 and M7 intersect we were directed off into Limerick. Whaaaat?! After negotiating a number of busy roads in Limerick we found that Apple Maps had decided to redirect us onto R512, R514 and R513 to Mitchelstown before setting us on the motorway (M8) heading south to Cork. And we ... read more

Hello from Falmouth, England. Last night we sailed from Cobh and had the smoothest night’s sail of the whole cruise. Unfortunately, we have started to reacquire the colds we had in St Louis prior to leaving. Janet was actually able to sleep pretty well last night, but David was all congested and didn’t get much sleep. Hopefully tonight will be better in all respects. We had breakfast in the Marketplace on deck 15. From there we had a good view of Falmouth. This is the 3rd time we have been here, and we knew it involved a 25-minute trip to/from shore in one of the lifeboats. This just didn’t appeal to us, so we had planned to have a quiet day on the ship. This enabled David to have a 2-hour nap after breakfast. Lunch was ... read more

Thursday, we went to our next new country Northern Ireland. We woke up in Belfast. Our tour was supposed to be later that day. We went down to the shore excursion check-in and got on an earlier excursion. The guide for our tour was very knowledgeable and explained the history and unrest of the area. There is still unrest today but it’s more between the people that want a united Ireland vs the people that are loyalist to the crown. Sections of town have peace walls separating the neighborhoods to keep others out. In some areas there are gates that are closed in the evening and sometimes on weekends with a no-mans land in between. He explained how the murals seen on many walls show the political leanings of the area. We heard about when Queen ... read more

This morning found us heading north-west across the country towards Limerick rather than south-west towards Cork. Ordinarily a circumnavigation of Ireland would continue clockwise around the country BUT we had to make another compromise on OUR itinerary because of Bloody Bruce! Bruce and the E-Street Band are playing Cork tomorrow night, so fans booked out all the accommodation in and around Cork months ago!! Fortunately, it’s a small island and the cities aren’t too far apart. We will head down to Cork on Friday after Bruce packs up and leaves. We started out travelling west on the N25 from which we could see another spectacular bridge crossing the River Suir. After we navigated a short section of the N9 and turned onto the N24 Bernie spotted a place to pull over to photograph the bridge. We ... read more