The cruise begins

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Guernsey

The cruise ship can’t dock on this little island, so a tender pulls up to the side of the ship and up to 150 people cram into it for the short ride to shore. It was rough. Anybody with mobility issues would have trouble navigating on and off the tender.

The Channel Islands are closer to France than England and were the only British territory occupied during the Second World War. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a novel about that period. It must be popular because not only was it made into a film in 2018, but they have shore excursions taking you around to many of the locations that could have been in the story. Both Dianne and I read and enjoyed the book (and must find the movie), and also the tour.

That took up half a day so for the afternoon we just planned to walk around in St Peter Port to see what we could see. Lots of shops, pubs, churches. We chose to walk along the sea wall to see if we could fine the Underground Museum. I figured anything that discussed the resistance and things like that would be interesting. Wrong. Well, it was interesting, but it also wasn’t just the Underground Museum, it was under ground! It was in the tunnels built by the Germans as part of their defenses and converted to a museum after the war. It was full of British and German memorabilia. I found the original posters outlining the rules of occupation very interesting having read the book.

The tender ride back to the ship was pretty rough. The tender pilot had trouble with something because we had to make several passes before we got connected. Once tied up, the transfer was easier than on the way out.

Back on the ship, we figured out the pools and hot tub routines and had supper in the buffet. We watched a Movie outside on the top deck. The movie was Top Gun: Maverick. If you suspended belief for a while, it was pretty good.

First Sea Day

The trip from Guernsey to Hollyhead in Wales is fairly long so we have a “sea day”, the first of three. I think the cruise line just wants us as a captive market to sell us stuff.

In fairness, there are usually several presentations that are interesting to most of us. The first one we saw was on the Battle of the Atlantic. I thought that was a rather unusual topic for a cruise presentation but there were lots of people there. It was very interesting.

We checked out the promenade deck. 3.2 times around is a mile after which we are allowed to have an ice cream cone. The cones are complementary, but “we” have this rule to prevent overeating. The ship library and games room are also very nice and well stocked with games, jigsaw puzzles and card decks. I forget what game we were playing but Dianne threw out a 9 of clubs which I didn’t want so I picked up a new card. Wait a minute, it was the 9 of Clubs. We checked the deck and there were many cards missing and several others duplicated. There were probably 100 decks in the cupboard, so we took them out and checked. Most were screwed up in some way. We spent a few minutes sorting all the decks into order and felt very satisfied when we were finished. The next day I overheard someone comment that all the suits were in ascending order and how weird was that. I just smiled.

The evening show was the first of three comedians we will see this cruise. Very entertaining. Clean and funny. The way we like our comedy.

Hollyhead, Wales

The ship docked, so no tender. Yeah. We had a 1:30 tour booked so planned to just walk around the town. Oops. The ship docks in the middle of an active port so they can’t have people wandering around. On a free shuttle bus and off to the town itself. Not as big a deal as tendering.

The town was very walkable although they weren’t big on street signs. There weren’t that many choices so winding our way to the local maritime museum was easy. A typical small centre museum, crammed with all kinds of interesting displays with lots of local information. Several volunteers were present and would have spent all day talking to you if you let them. One thing we didn’t expect was five stained glass windows from a decommissioned church that were going to be discarded. The museum said they would take them. Unexpected but effective the way they displayed them.

On the way back to the starting point to pick up our tour, Dianne did an almost face plant when she lost her footing crossing the road. She managed to hold it together until she got to the grass on the other side. She had a couple of noticeable bruises near her right eye and her glasses took the brunt of the fall. Luckily, she had brough her spare pair. Her other pair will wait until we are home to get fixed.

Our tour involved a bus ride to Beaumaris Castle dating from the late 1200s. It is basically ruins now but still an interesting visit. Especially since it was the end of summer break, so they had lots of activities and displays going on all day. They had a series of archers demonstrating their skills. One fellow was dressed up as a knight and at the end of the demo the archers lined up and fired their arrows into him! The archers made their own bows and arrows. One spectator complained the arrows had no tips! I don’t think he would have been too happy being on the receiving end of even rubber tipped arrows.

Hollyhead is on an island and the castle is on the opposite side from the cruise terminal. The bus trip took us up one side and back the other. Very pleasant to just sit there and leave the driving to others. We met some other buses and trucks that resulted in some interesting shuffling as the drivers negotiated past each other. A very satisfying day.

Liverpool

Bring on the Beatles. OK, I’m not Beatles crazy, but it is hard to avoid them in this town. We hit the usual museums but spent most of the time walking about. The waterfront is quite walkable. Dianne was coming down with a cold, slight fever and a nasty cough so we wandered until we found a convenience store so we could buy some throat lozenges then headed back to the ship for a lazy evening.

Liverpool really expanded during the period of the slave trade. Part of one of the museums was devoted to the rise and fall of slavery in England. Very thought provoking.

Greenock (near Glasgow)

The ship docks in Greenock which is a short train ride away from Glasgow. Many people booked excursions into Glascow and some even into Edinburgh which made no sense to us as we were stopping in Edinburgh when we got around to the other side of the British Isles. The town of Greenock is pretty interesting in itself and we decided to stay there as we had stayed in Glascow on a previous UK trip.

The volunteers greeting us at the dock included a couple of pipers. Several delightful ladies offered all kinds of tips with maps to support their ideas. We went off to see the Watt/McLean Museum. On our way there we discovered another church (there’s a surprise) that had a volunteer couple who were delightful. We must have spent half an hour with them and learned lots about the area.

The McLean Museum is housed in a beautiful old building that, to our surprise, was purpose built in 1876 to hold the museum. James Watt is the inventor who was responsible for development in the efficiencies of steam power. Yes, he is the guy they named the watt after.

We followed the City Walk brochure by walking the trail “backwards”. And we managed to get ourselves lost a couple of times. Costa Coffee is a chain we have used before, even in China. We tried to visit them in London on several occasions but never seemed to be able to find one that had space so we started looking for other options. In Greenock we managed it without even trying. Go figure.

Coming out of the mall where CC was located, Dianne spotted a library and, of course, couldn’t resist dropping in. Except it was 12:55 and they closed at 1:00 that day. We did get a quick peek inside then had a delightful conversation with one of the librarians.

We weren’t exactly sure where we were but fortunately the ship is pretty obvious, sitting there tied up to the pier. So, we headed across country and found the beginning of the Esplanade which ran along the water all the way to Gourock, another town on the coast. The weather was great, the scenery fabulous so we just kept going until it was time to head back to the ship.

One stop on our way was at Lyle Kirk which was originally built in 1591 as Old West Kirk on a site near the present cruise ship terminal. In 1925, Harland and Wolff (remember them?) needed some land near the Clyde. Over the next two years the Church was moved stone by stone to its present location. Some graves were also relocated and made interesting reading, if you are as interested in these things as Dianne and I are.

All in all, the excursions, organized or not, that we have had on shore have been great. Is our good luck ToBeContinued?

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Photos

Foreshadowing?
We found this sign outside a pub quite amusing.

TLC - The Little Chapel
One of three tiny chapels built in the early 1900s by on priest out of shells. Our guide was distresseed that we couldn't get into it but it was so small you really didn't need to.

Restful country scene
Lovely scenery with stone walls everywhere

Fort Grey
Built around the time of Napoleon to keep out the French. Eventually became a shipwreck museum but we didn't have time to tour it.

Low tide
We were amazed how low tide looked.

Victor Hugo
Wrote Les Miserables while living on Guernsey. One of my favourite books. His house is a museum on top of a high hill but I didn't feel up to the climb.

Titanic
It seems one can't escape referenes to this famous ship.

Isaac Brock
We all know about Isacc Brock and the War of 1812 (don't we?) but we didn't know he was born on the Isle of Guernsey!

The Underground museum
Not a Resistance themed museum, it was literally under ground.

Original Posters
Many examples of postings that were put up during the occupation.

Not our tour bus
But they were going to the same places we were. I just liked the bus.

Must be in Wales
This friendly fellow greeted us just after we got off the ship.

Stained glass
Resurrected by the martime museum from a church that was being demolished.

More restful countryside
... with sheep!

Beaumaris Castle
Built around 1282 by Edward I, still interesting although its best days are behind it.

Target practice
This poor knight certainly got the worst of it. He was quite a character really playing up his part. The many kids on their last weekend before school thought it was great fun.

Narrow roads
Dianne shot this from the bus as we squeezed past this van. Several times people had to back up and do some serious jockeying to get past.

Liverpool architecture
The ship docks right in the Liverpool harbour. Lots of neat stuff to see without having to go far.

Fab 4
Can't escape them. These statues were right where we got off the ship. I was amazed Dianne got a picture without a horde of tourists hanging from it.

The Liver birds watch over the city
The story goes that if these 5.5m tall birds on top of the buildings ever fly away, the city would cease to exist.

Reminder of the past
There was quite the history of Liverpool's involvement in the slave trade on display in one museum.