SOUTH AMERICA BLOG #3
22 November 2008
Costa Rica is trying hard to become attractive to travelers. Our stop at Puntarenas (Sp = Sandy point) introduced us to some wonderful sandy beaches, typical Central American life style, a warm muggy climate and not much that would steal vacationers away from Cancun and Acapulco. We chose a shore excursion that would show us the exotic side of jungle bound Puntarenas.
Our tour entitled “Train, Bus and Boat adventure” did indeed feature all three forms of transportation as we explored the sea shore, the interior jungle and looked for crocodiles and exotic birds in a river flowing into the Pacific Ocean. Everything went smashingly well until we came to a wide spot in the road where we were to meet a train on a narrow gauge rail line next to the road. We left the bus and stood in the shade it created for the best part of an hour waiting for our train ride. A series of frantic calls by our guide finally determined that something had gone wrong with the track and the train couldn’t reach us. It was decided that if the train couldn’t come to us we would go to the train. Our bus rattled over country roads, past meager homes and small tilled fields as we fought our way deeper into the jungle. We found the train parked next to a small school in a village that featured a half dozen homes, a dozen or so smiling inquisitive kids and a beleaguered looking crew. We scrambled aboard the little train and began our ride through the Costa Rican jungle which looked something like Tarzan films minus hanging vines for dramatic tree to tree jungle travel. Our train whistled along for a while before slowing to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Looking out the opened window of our coach we watched a crew of a half dozen workers as they stared questioningly at a section of track as we crept by. Apparently a rain storm earlier in the day had washed out a small section that had just been jury rigged for our passage. Not a single one of the staring workers looked as though he believed our train could really make it through…but we did. We eventually popped out of the jungle at the spot where we had waited an hour for our train.
Our bus now picked up speed racing over rough winding roads to take us to our boat ride segment of the tour. The boat was a part of a local concession that promised sightings of alligators and rare birds, and maybe an iguanas or two as we explored the Tarcoles River. We began with an immediate sighting of a crocodile who appeared to be chained to the pier. We did see flocks of Macaws, at least that is what our guide called a bunch of birds that flew over, and a gazillion or so snowy egrets. We were a bit disappointed not to be introduced personally to a spoonbill or a jacanas that our advertisement had touted for the area. We did spot a number of crocodiles that seemed to smile in anticipation of dinner when we floated by. It surprised us to see a family of locals out for an afternoon swim just a couple of hundred yards up stream from the advertised meanies. The promised treat of local fruit while listening to authentic local marimba performers was shortened to a quick stanza or two while we off loaded the boat and climbed aboard our bus where we found a plate of fruit on each seat. Dottie found that Costa Rican fruit is kind of squishy as she sat down before realizing lunch had been served. The Norwegian Sun delayed its planned departure for our late arriving tour bus and our wonderful visit to Costa Rica ended.
Our visit to Manta, Ecuador left us with an entirely different feeling about Central America. Manta, a city of more than 200,000, is a bustling port community serving the sea going transportation needs of the country. The Pacific beaches of Ecuador provide breath taking views of the sea meeting the land. Manta beaches were selected for the sixth annual South American Wind Surfing Championship. Ecuador’s tuna fishing industry works out of Manta with literally dozens of tuna boats unloading tons of tuna around the clock. We were fascinated as we watched cranes lower nets into the holds of the boats and return with huge loads of fish that were dumped into trucks for transport to local canneries.
We learned that the area we now know as Ecuador was originally visited by a Spanish scouting expedition in 1526. Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadores invaded the country six yeas later. Following Pizarro’s death, his brother Gonzalo took over and led a rebellion against Spain. Gonzalo’s independent rule lasted until 1548 when the Spanish Crown defeated his small army.
The independence leader, Simon Bolivar, finally defeated the last vestiges of Spanish colonial rule in 1822 when several future South American countries formed the Republic of Colombia including what is now Venezuela, Panama and others. Ecuador withdrew from the the Republic in 1830 and has been a self governing country since.
The grand adventure of our cruise was our three day shore excursion to Macho Picchu, and ancient Inca city and a site that is now one of the “Seven Wonders of the Modern World. We began with a 6:00 AM ride by bus to the Lima, Peru International Airport. An hour long flight took us from sea level at Lima to 11,000 feet at Cusco, Peru. We had been warned to expect some difficulties with the sudden altitude change and we did. Just walking from the plane to a bus which would take us to our hotel was breath taking, like it took a lot more breath than we had to give.
Our hotel was as grand as we have ever known and our guide’s admonition to take a nap was followed by Bill as Dottie managed to arrange our few things for our two night stay. Our lunch and afternoon tour of Cusco introduced us to the local sights and Inca lore that pervades everything. During our visit to the Cathedral of Cusco our guide pointed out the many ways that Inca beliefs were woven into the Catholic ideology. Incas worshipped nature and their descendants have created a form of Catholicism that incorporates the ancient worship of Inca idols in small but observable ways. A prominent statue of St. Paul holding a large cross included an obvious sun carved in the middle of the cross to indicate the Inca worship of the Sun. Our guide spoke of the confusion that the mixing of beliefs has caused, especially among young people. It was suggested that although the country is basically Catholic, few if any of the younger generation attend church or refer to themselves as Catholic.
Our city tour took us to the Plaza Recogido, Plaza de Armas, Santo Domingo Convent and the winding ancient streets of the city of 400,000. All of the sites visited contained portions of previous Inca stone architecture. Along the way we learned that Peru, a country of 24 million has 19 million cell phones. The country is slowly growing out of a long period of inflation and lack of financial growth. We saw few cars outside the city indicating low income among a large part of the population. We did observe that everything seemed very clean as compared to other developing countries we have visited.
On our second day, we were up before 4:00 AM to catch a bus at 5:00 AM that would take us to the Macho Picchu train. During our first night at Cusco, Dottie was kept awake by a constant cramping and involuntary movement of her legs caused by the sudden change in altitude. The train ride took us from Cusco at 11,000 feet, across a pass at 13,000 feet, to Macho Picchu at 8,000 feet in the high jungle of Peru. Our train followed the Ollantaytambo River which flows down the eastern slope of the Andes into the Amazon River. The rapid descent of the river provided wonderful views of white water rapids along the way. Occasionally we passed small farms where corn and potatoes were being grown.
Macha Picchu was awesome, to say the least. The Inca city built in 1450 and abandoned in 1540 was never visited by the Conquistadors. There are several theories about why people abandoned the site. The most logical seems to be that the terraced fields were unable to feed a growing population. Another theory is that the Spanish gift of smallpox invaded the town through visitors from Cusco and drove the inhabitants away thru fear. Whatever the case, the site was soon overgrown by jungle and not known to the outside world until 1911 when an American professor/explorer, Hiram Bingham, visited the site after learning about it from neighbors. The site was subsequently cleared of jungle to display what is seen today.
Pictures of the site show huge buildings built Inca style with large limestone blocks amazingly shaped and fitted without mortar so that they have remained through the centuries’ many earthquakes. We climbed the many stone stairways connecting buildings until our legs were numbed. Even though the altitude difficulties we were experiencing told us otherwise, we couldn’t imagine not seeing everything there was to see. Our four hours at Machu Picchu left us with some marvelous memories of what the amazing Inca civilization accomplished
Our knowledge of the Inca Empire was enriched by each of the guides along the way. The Incas built one of the largest and wealthiest empires in the western hemisphere between 1100 and 1500 AD covering much of the region now included in present day Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. The empire was ruled by a king who was worshipped as a god. The empire disintegrated when the king and his brother fought for control.
The ancestors of the Incas are interesting people. They farm areas of the Andes as high as 19,000 feet. We saw productive farm operations at 13,000 feet. They continue to follow a conservative set of rules to live by that were written by some ancient Inca king. One king dictated that no couple would have sex during the month of November each year. To this day August birthdays are the most popular among Peruvians. Peruvians are friendly and outgoing with visitors, especially if the visitor appears to be in a mood to pose with a Llama for a photo or by some handiwork created by a semi-talented housewife.
We managed a few poses but avoided collecting Peruvian handicrafts. Even though we knew in our hearts that our family members would really be excited about receiving a hand made flute for Christmas, our luggage was overweight before leaving home and we simply are not using enough tooth paste and deodorant to make more room for such good stuff.
Smelling good with pleasant love you all
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
South America Blog #2
SOUTH AMERICA BLOG #2
17 November 2008
The Big Guy is looking after us!
Back in July on board the Norwegian Jewel, the crew told us that all one had to do to get married on board was to let the staff know. Later, in August on board the Norwegian Jade, the same message came across loud and clear. Just ask and it happens.
Just before sailing, Bill called Norwegian Cruise Lines to see if there was anything we had to do before boarding to have a marriage take place. We were told, for the first time, that requests had to be made thirty days before sailing! Yikes!
Hoping that rules were made to be broken, we made contact with the officer in charge of such things as soon as we boarded the Norwegian Sun on November 4. We found that 1) this captain did not do marriages and 2) there was no ship’s Chaplain on board on this cruise. We asked what options were open to us. Marvelous Claudia Lay, Group Services Coordinator, went to work on our behalf and look for ways to get us married. The best she could do was a civil ceremony at Manta Ecuador on November 15. Since this seemed like our only option, we asked that arrangements be made. We were required to furnish legal proof that Bill was not married. He emailed his attorney to have the document faxed to Manta. A few days later Manta reported that a copy would not do and that an original document was required. Since the piece of paper was locked in Bill’s safety deposit box Manta was scratched.
It next occurred to us that Bill’s brother Loran could fly down and join the cruise in time to meet our November 16 hoped for wedding date. Loran quickly agreed and Bill set about to rent a cabin for his stay on the Sun. Bill immediately found that NCL doesn’t allow passengers to join a cruise mid stream (so to speak). Bill called the NCL offices at Miami and talked to a line of supervisors who refused to budge on the issue. Brother Loran was scratched as an option.
We met with the travel company sponsoring the Machu Picchu shore excursion to see if he could arrange something at 8,000 feet during our visit to Cusco, Peru. He was quick to state that he knew of an Inca Shaman who regularly did “Commitment Ceremonies” and went to work making arrangements for us. We thought about the idea for a few days and decided against a ceremony squatted in the dirt while a brown skin native danced around sprinkling us with good luck potions.
We decided that the eggs in our basket had dwindled down to a final few that required that we find a passenger on board who could do the deed for us. For more than a week we had told everyone we had met of our lack of success in making our marriage a reality. We had half of the passengers saying hello to us and nodding their heads negatively to report on their searches. Bill offered our room steward $50 if he could find a minister among the 900 staff on board.
Finally, on Saturday November 15, we had two hot leads. A couple we had never met tackled us in the dining room and told us of a father and son they had met one of which had claimed to be a minister. At the same time, Denny, the man who bought Bill’s contracts for five cruises, reported finding a retired prison Chaplain he had met over the bridge table. Before we made contact, Claudia Lay called to tell us about the same man. Claudia met Reverend Joe Rigby when he asked if he could conduct a Sunday morning service on November 16 in the absence of anything planned by the ship. She suggested we go to the service and introduce ourselves.
On Sunday morning, November 16, we met Reverend Rigby after the service and arranged to have lunch with himnd his wife Shirley. Over lunch we found that Reverend Rigby would be pleased to marry us. We quickly contacted Claudia Lay who busted her buns making everything happen. Within a few hours, the Chapel was reserved, the Four Seasons Dining Room arranged a separate room for our wedding party dinner, Dottie called a number of our shipboard friends and invited them to our wedding and wonderful Claudia scratched up a handful of little flowers and arranged them in a small bridle bouquet.
A dozen couples arrived at the Chapel precisely at 6:00 PM and Reverend Rigby made us man and wife. Friend Marty Finver, the Bridge Director, was our official photographer providing a nice record of our big moment.
Our wedding dinner at the Four Seasons Restaurant was a masterful touch. New friend Roger Kent, who with his wife Anne served as our witnesses, offered the first toast as the one person in the room who knew us better than any others. Roger and Anne met us in the embarkation line at Francisco on November 4. The two dozen guests consumed nine bottles of ship’s wine that we provided as they enjoyed two and half hours of enjoying the moment with us.
When we had an opportunity to toast the moment, we thanked our new friends for making this big moment in our lives memorable. We also recognized that we had been blessed by our savior with a rich new future that we accepted with the realization that his expectation of us is that we would share with all we meet, through our example and actions, that love can be and should be a part of each senior citizen’s life. As two who have passed their seventy-fifth majority, we know that the richness of life found in a loving relationship can be possible if we learn to expect and work for the happiness that follows.
We love you all so very much,
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Bill and Dottie Berck
17 November 2008
The Big Guy is looking after us!
Back in July on board the Norwegian Jewel, the crew told us that all one had to do to get married on board was to let the staff know. Later, in August on board the Norwegian Jade, the same message came across loud and clear. Just ask and it happens.
Just before sailing, Bill called Norwegian Cruise Lines to see if there was anything we had to do before boarding to have a marriage take place. We were told, for the first time, that requests had to be made thirty days before sailing! Yikes!
Hoping that rules were made to be broken, we made contact with the officer in charge of such things as soon as we boarded the Norwegian Sun on November 4. We found that 1) this captain did not do marriages and 2) there was no ship’s Chaplain on board on this cruise. We asked what options were open to us. Marvelous Claudia Lay, Group Services Coordinator, went to work on our behalf and look for ways to get us married. The best she could do was a civil ceremony at Manta Ecuador on November 15. Since this seemed like our only option, we asked that arrangements be made. We were required to furnish legal proof that Bill was not married. He emailed his attorney to have the document faxed to Manta. A few days later Manta reported that a copy would not do and that an original document was required. Since the piece of paper was locked in Bill’s safety deposit box Manta was scratched.
It next occurred to us that Bill’s brother Loran could fly down and join the cruise in time to meet our November 16 hoped for wedding date. Loran quickly agreed and Bill set about to rent a cabin for his stay on the Sun. Bill immediately found that NCL doesn’t allow passengers to join a cruise mid stream (so to speak). Bill called the NCL offices at Miami and talked to a line of supervisors who refused to budge on the issue. Brother Loran was scratched as an option.
We met with the travel company sponsoring the Machu Picchu shore excursion to see if he could arrange something at 8,000 feet during our visit to Cusco, Peru. He was quick to state that he knew of an Inca Shaman who regularly did “Commitment Ceremonies” and went to work making arrangements for us. We thought about the idea for a few days and decided against a ceremony squatted in the dirt while a brown skin native danced around sprinkling us with good luck potions.
We decided that the eggs in our basket had dwindled down to a final few that required that we find a passenger on board who could do the deed for us. For more than a week we had told everyone we had met of our lack of success in making our marriage a reality. We had half of the passengers saying hello to us and nodding their heads negatively to report on their searches. Bill offered our room steward $50 if he could find a minister among the 900 staff on board.
Finally, on Saturday November 15, we had two hot leads. A couple we had never met tackled us in the dining room and told us of a father and son they had met one of which had claimed to be a minister. At the same time, Denny, the man who bought Bill’s contracts for five cruises, reported finding a retired prison Chaplain he had met over the bridge table. Before we made contact, Claudia Lay called to tell us about the same man. Claudia met Reverend Joe Rigby when he asked if he could conduct a Sunday morning service on November 16 in the absence of anything planned by the ship. She suggested we go to the service and introduce ourselves.
On Sunday morning, November 16, we met Reverend Rigby after the service and arranged to have lunch with himnd his wife Shirley. Over lunch we found that Reverend Rigby would be pleased to marry us. We quickly contacted Claudia Lay who busted her buns making everything happen. Within a few hours, the Chapel was reserved, the Four Seasons Dining Room arranged a separate room for our wedding party dinner, Dottie called a number of our shipboard friends and invited them to our wedding and wonderful Claudia scratched up a handful of little flowers and arranged them in a small bridle bouquet.
A dozen couples arrived at the Chapel precisely at 6:00 PM and Reverend Rigby made us man and wife. Friend Marty Finver, the Bridge Director, was our official photographer providing a nice record of our big moment.
Our wedding dinner at the Four Seasons Restaurant was a masterful touch. New friend Roger Kent, who with his wife Anne served as our witnesses, offered the first toast as the one person in the room who knew us better than any others. Roger and Anne met us in the embarkation line at Francisco on November 4. The two dozen guests consumed nine bottles of ship’s wine that we provided as they enjoyed two and half hours of enjoying the moment with us.
When we had an opportunity to toast the moment, we thanked our new friends for making this big moment in our lives memorable. We also recognized that we had been blessed by our savior with a rich new future that we accepted with the realization that his expectation of us is that we would share with all we meet, through our example and actions, that love can be and should be a part of each senior citizen’s life. As two who have passed their seventy-fifth majority, we know that the richness of life found in a loving relationship can be possible if we learn to expect and work for the happiness that follows.
We love you all so very much,
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Bill and Dottie Berck
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
SoAmerica Blog #1
South America BLOG #1
12 November 2008
Our South America adventure began wonderfully as Joy volunteered to drive us to Pier 35 on the San Francisco Embarcadero. Even though we arrived early we were greeted by several hundred fellow passengers waiting in line for the embarkation process. Within minutes we were well acquainted with a wonderful couple, Ann and Roger from Hawaii. We knew we would see them often during the next 34 days.
Our first port of call was Los Angeles harbor at San Pedro. As one of the world’s largest container ports, our landing had all of the characteristics of arriving in Chicago by train. We really didn’t plan to go ashore but our unpacking found a couple of necessities missing. Since walking anywhere from the port is 1)a long way and 2) not particularly safe, we opted for a cab to take us to the nearest Walmart or whatever. The cabs that were available were choosing passengers that wanted their $75 quickie tour of LA highlights and not particularly interested in short hauls. After waiting patiently for the best part of an hour, we found another couple with a similar need and decided to share a rented car. The car rental turned out to be a godsend. It was cheaper by far than a local cab and gave us an opportunity to make some new friends; Debbie and Trevor from Texas.
Arrival at Acapulco followed three great days at sea as each day became warmer and longer. We took the city tour that included a stop at the famous Mirador Hotel where Mexican divers have been diving off a cliff into 12 feet of water for forty years to entertain guests. After a quick Marguerita we were treated to the famous spectacle of normal looking men diving 110 feet into a rising tide to make us happy. Since the divers do their thing five times a day, seven days a week they must know how to do what they do. We enjoyed the dives and a ten minute folkloric show and we were on our way.
We learned a lot about Acapulco from our seasoned guide who still smiled after telling the same jokes for the twelve years. The wonderful bay was home to the Nahua tribe for 2000 years before they were conquered by the Aztecs a hundred years or so before Hernan Cortez and his sailors took the port in 1521. Acapulco ultimately became the jumping off point for later Spanish exploration of Mexico and points south as far as Peru. Later it became the only port authorized by Spain to receive Spanish galleons from the Philippines and China. Legend has it that the first foreign visitor to Acapulco was a Chinese monk named Fa Hsien sometime around 417 AD.
Our ship parked just below the Spanish Fort San Diego constructed in 1616 and rebuilt in 1776 after a great earthquake. The fort is now a national museum that we decided not to visit.
J Paul Getty recognized the resort potential of the area and built the first major hotel, the Pierre Marquez, in 1957. In the fifties an international airport was built and the Mexican government encouraged the development of more resort facilities. Today the bay is surrounded by luxury hotels that attract visitors from all over the world. Acapulco is the major vacation spot for Mexicans. Just a four hour drive from Mexico City, many Mexicans frequent the area annually. Today, the older area, known by locals as Acapulco Traditional, has hotels available for as little as $10 a day per person.
Our tour took us by the “Black Lagoon”, the site of many movies including the African Queen, Tarzan, Papillon and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. We drove by the Acapulco Princess Hilton and the Pierre Marquez all near the little neighboring town of Puerto Marquez.
After our tour, we set out on foot to explore the Zocolo, the town square, and strolled along the waterfront where local fishermen were selling the catch of the day.
Another day at Sea brought us to the Guatemala port of Puerto Queztal. The temperature had now reached the mid eighties accompanied by a humidity of 95%. We opted to go ashore and visit the small group of merchants who live off of the cruise ship tourist trade. Some fellow passengers took excursions into Guatemala City and/or Antigua, an hour’s drive away.
Our stroll ashore gave us an opportunity to be confronted by the usual aggressive merchants of all kinds of handicrafts, watch mothers teaching their kids how to weave the wonderful stuff that folks like us will pay big bucks for, tour a “Jade Museum” where we learned a lot of stuff about Jade and it’s many colors, listen to some marvelous marimba music played by eight marimba players working two huge marimbas and see a staged fashion show where lovely ladies and handsome gentlemen modeled Guatemala traditional clothes that one would never see on the street.
The next few days we will be visiting ports every other day with days at sea in between. As we creep closer to the Equator it gets warmer and muggier; but not inside where the ship’s air conditioning system keeps all at a marvelous if not a bit chilly 70 degrees.
We’ve had some interesting moments during our first week at sea that we will tell about later. For now, we’re happy as clams, we are well and smiling, life couldn’t be better….unless maybe if we could spot one of those giant sea turtles that people keep seeing pass our ship.
We send our love to all……
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill
12 November 2008
Our South America adventure began wonderfully as Joy volunteered to drive us to Pier 35 on the San Francisco Embarcadero. Even though we arrived early we were greeted by several hundred fellow passengers waiting in line for the embarkation process. Within minutes we were well acquainted with a wonderful couple, Ann and Roger from Hawaii. We knew we would see them often during the next 34 days.
Our first port of call was Los Angeles harbor at San Pedro. As one of the world’s largest container ports, our landing had all of the characteristics of arriving in Chicago by train. We really didn’t plan to go ashore but our unpacking found a couple of necessities missing. Since walking anywhere from the port is 1)a long way and 2) not particularly safe, we opted for a cab to take us to the nearest Walmart or whatever. The cabs that were available were choosing passengers that wanted their $75 quickie tour of LA highlights and not particularly interested in short hauls. After waiting patiently for the best part of an hour, we found another couple with a similar need and decided to share a rented car. The car rental turned out to be a godsend. It was cheaper by far than a local cab and gave us an opportunity to make some new friends; Debbie and Trevor from Texas.
Arrival at Acapulco followed three great days at sea as each day became warmer and longer. We took the city tour that included a stop at the famous Mirador Hotel where Mexican divers have been diving off a cliff into 12 feet of water for forty years to entertain guests. After a quick Marguerita we were treated to the famous spectacle of normal looking men diving 110 feet into a rising tide to make us happy. Since the divers do their thing five times a day, seven days a week they must know how to do what they do. We enjoyed the dives and a ten minute folkloric show and we were on our way.
We learned a lot about Acapulco from our seasoned guide who still smiled after telling the same jokes for the twelve years. The wonderful bay was home to the Nahua tribe for 2000 years before they were conquered by the Aztecs a hundred years or so before Hernan Cortez and his sailors took the port in 1521. Acapulco ultimately became the jumping off point for later Spanish exploration of Mexico and points south as far as Peru. Later it became the only port authorized by Spain to receive Spanish galleons from the Philippines and China. Legend has it that the first foreign visitor to Acapulco was a Chinese monk named Fa Hsien sometime around 417 AD.
Our ship parked just below the Spanish Fort San Diego constructed in 1616 and rebuilt in 1776 after a great earthquake. The fort is now a national museum that we decided not to visit.
J Paul Getty recognized the resort potential of the area and built the first major hotel, the Pierre Marquez, in 1957. In the fifties an international airport was built and the Mexican government encouraged the development of more resort facilities. Today the bay is surrounded by luxury hotels that attract visitors from all over the world. Acapulco is the major vacation spot for Mexicans. Just a four hour drive from Mexico City, many Mexicans frequent the area annually. Today, the older area, known by locals as Acapulco Traditional, has hotels available for as little as $10 a day per person.
Our tour took us by the “Black Lagoon”, the site of many movies including the African Queen, Tarzan, Papillon and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. We drove by the Acapulco Princess Hilton and the Pierre Marquez all near the little neighboring town of Puerto Marquez.
After our tour, we set out on foot to explore the Zocolo, the town square, and strolled along the waterfront where local fishermen were selling the catch of the day.
Another day at Sea brought us to the Guatemala port of Puerto Queztal. The temperature had now reached the mid eighties accompanied by a humidity of 95%. We opted to go ashore and visit the small group of merchants who live off of the cruise ship tourist trade. Some fellow passengers took excursions into Guatemala City and/or Antigua, an hour’s drive away.
Our stroll ashore gave us an opportunity to be confronted by the usual aggressive merchants of all kinds of handicrafts, watch mothers teaching their kids how to weave the wonderful stuff that folks like us will pay big bucks for, tour a “Jade Museum” where we learned a lot of stuff about Jade and it’s many colors, listen to some marvelous marimba music played by eight marimba players working two huge marimbas and see a staged fashion show where lovely ladies and handsome gentlemen modeled Guatemala traditional clothes that one would never see on the street.
The next few days we will be visiting ports every other day with days at sea in between. As we creep closer to the Equator it gets warmer and muggier; but not inside where the ship’s air conditioning system keeps all at a marvelous if not a bit chilly 70 degrees.
We’ve had some interesting moments during our first week at sea that we will tell about later. For now, we’re happy as clams, we are well and smiling, life couldn’t be better….unless maybe if we could spot one of those giant sea turtles that people keep seeing pass our ship.
We send our love to all……
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill
Thursday, September 4, 2008
BLOG #15
5 September 2008
Hello to all……………we’ll be home this evening.
Rome is one spot in the world that everyone ought to experience at least once in a lifetime. As a matter of fact, it seemed as though everyone was doing exactly that during our one day visit. The Norwegian Jade was just one of eight large cruise ships that we could count in the harbor at Civitavecchio, the harbor that serves Rome. We knew for sure that everyone was trying to meet the above goal when we taxied to Trevi Fountain to toss a few coins. Our estimate was that there had to be at least three or four thousand picture takers in the Piazza Trevi during our visit. We got our pictures but it took a lot of elbowing and determination to get close enough to see if there was actually water in the fountain. There was.
We signed up for a shore excursion that promised a bus ride around Rome to see the really good stuff and three and half hours on our own to do what we wished. Our guided tour took us to the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Circus Maximus, the Spanish Steps, several dozen of the more than 700 churches in Rome, the seven hills of Rome, and a whole bunch of other stuff that was interesting at the time. After riding on a bus for three hours we wished for something to eat which we found at a nearby local. Then we were off to see the Vatican up close. We joined a two block long line leading to St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest religious building in the world. The line moved quickly as we were carried first to the tombs of the Popes that took us past the last pope’s beautifully lit niche and then to that of St. Peter, the first Pope. Upstairs we joined the awe struck as we gawked at the beauty of Michelangelo’s marvel that took the best part of a hundred years to complete. As a part of a crowd into the thousands, we reverently viewed the wonderful art work and statuary that makes St. Peter’s what it is. Finally we worked our way to Michelangelo’s “Pieta”, the white marble sculpture of Jesus laying across Mary’s lap that has entranced millions of visitors with its simplicity and fullness of meaning.
We couldn’t do the Vatican without experiencing the Sistine Chapel so we followed much smaller crowds out of the Basilica and around the Vatican Wall to the Vatican Museum. We found that one just doesn’t visit the Sistine Chapel. The path to the Sistine Chapel takes visitors through fifty-four separate chapels before entering the Sistine. The trek was more than worth it. The Sistine Chapel certainly lives up to its reputation for beautiful paintings created by Michelangelo and reverence. Even though several hundred people stood with us with necks bent back to look upwards, the silence was unbelievable. For a moment a little chatter began. A loud clap from an attendant was all it took for silence to return.
Once back on the street we reevaluated our plan to walk through the Roman Forum and Coliseum. The temperature had grown into the nineties and muggy. We already felt a little crisp from sun burn while standing in lines. Instead, we hailed a cab and headed for Trivi Fountain and the apparent primary focus of interest for Rome visitors.
We found the fountain, managed our way through the throngs of picture takers, pick pockets and men dressed up as Roman Centurions ready to pose, whip in hand, for the picture sure to thrill those back home who would feel obligated to look at everyone of your gazillion pictures from your Roman holiday. We managed a couple of snaps and decided that the lunch we hurriedly consumed several hours earlier hadn’t met our needs. We found a nearby sidewalk café where we could get a panni and cup and watch the hordes of tourists passing to and from the Piazza Trevi. They were all smiling and so were we.
Our stop at Livorno, Italy provided a jump off point for passengers who wished to do the great art museums in Florence, or the history and leaning-ness of Pisa, or to traverse the glorious Tuscany countryside and sample the famous wines of the areas. We chose to visit Pisa and its famous leaning tower. On the way we learned that Tuscany is one of Italy’s twenty regions and perhaps its most famous. The rolling hills reminded us of the foothills growing eastward out of San Joaquin Valley minus the oak trees.
Before we left Livorno our guide let us know that Livorno was the first major city in Italy to allow true freedom of religion. As a result, the city has had a more cosmopolitan population than is usual for the country. The city also hosts what was described to us as the United States largest military base in Europe. We drove along side the base for miles and were convinced she was right. She complained, in an off hand way, that the U. S. required all working on base to be able to speak English. This has been a thorn in the side of Livornoians for decades.
Pisa is famous for its “Leaning Tower” which actually leans fourteen degrees off of plumb. As a matter of fact, the other two 12th and 13th structures near the tower also lean. The tower was leaning before it was completed with dozens of adjustments made to keep it from falling over. Our guide told us that sooner or later it will fall but not for another century or so. As long as people are willing to pay fifteen euros for the privilege of climbing to the top, Pisa folks will find a way to keep it in place. The lean of the tower did make Galileo’s experiments with falling objects a little easier to manage and right there in the town where he grew up.
The Cathedral next to the tower was actually begun in 1053. It is unusual in that it exhibits elements of Romanesque, Gothic Moorish and Byzantine architecture. The result is a marvelously beautiful church. The Construction of the Baptistery next door was begun in 1152 and is of Romanesque style. The site is completed with a graveyard referred to locally as the Campo Sacre. Local lore insists that those buried in the “sacred field” turn to skeletons within the first twenty-four hours after burial. It struck us that they must have some very hungry termites in Pisa.
Our final cruise day took us to Villafranche and Monaco, the thirteenth country Dottie has visited in the past thirty-eight days (Her globe trotting total is now sixteen countries…and growing). We quickly decided after our visit that this must be the home of more wealthy people than any other two square kilometer space on the globe. Gas stations we passed posted prices of about $10.00 US per gallon. We learned that the smallest possible flat in town would cost well over a million dollars. The yachts rocking gently in the harbor spoke of great wealth. Even the run abouts tied up to the sea wall looked expensive.
Our tour took us past the houses of Princesses Caroline and Stephanie and to the castle where brother Albert now resides. We toured the Cathedral of Monaco and thought we were in a church serving millions rather than the 43,000 inhabitants. About 30,000 workers come into town each day to take care of the rich and famous and to sell baubles to tourists. Casino Square was bordered on one side by the world famous casino, a second side by a hotel where prices start at $1800 a night and a third by a huge sidewalk café where most people only sat in the shade rather than be subject to the pricey menu. Most of our tour group got off easy by buying little ice cream cones for about $6.00 a scoop.
Our guide reminded us that our tour bus was creeping along the hallowed lanes where formula I cars scream by at better than 300 Km and hour to entertain yacht-setters who come from all over the globe for the festivities. We tried to urge our driver to speed up a little going around hair pin turns but he only responded that he had a wife and nine children to feed.
Now we’re really in a hurry to get home and catch up on the Pleasanton side of our lives. Our bus from the ship will pick us up at the unfriendly hour of 7:00 AM with a travel plan that will have us home a little after 7:00 PM Pleasanton time. If it weren’t for the nine hour time difference it could be a restful bit of travel that included more than twenty thousand miles and a whole bunch of fun.
We love you all. We wished you could have been with us every moment of the trip…………….kind of.
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Bill and Dottie
Hello to all……………we’ll be home this evening.
Rome is one spot in the world that everyone ought to experience at least once in a lifetime. As a matter of fact, it seemed as though everyone was doing exactly that during our one day visit. The Norwegian Jade was just one of eight large cruise ships that we could count in the harbor at Civitavecchio, the harbor that serves Rome. We knew for sure that everyone was trying to meet the above goal when we taxied to Trevi Fountain to toss a few coins. Our estimate was that there had to be at least three or four thousand picture takers in the Piazza Trevi during our visit. We got our pictures but it took a lot of elbowing and determination to get close enough to see if there was actually water in the fountain. There was.
We signed up for a shore excursion that promised a bus ride around Rome to see the really good stuff and three and half hours on our own to do what we wished. Our guided tour took us to the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Circus Maximus, the Spanish Steps, several dozen of the more than 700 churches in Rome, the seven hills of Rome, and a whole bunch of other stuff that was interesting at the time. After riding on a bus for three hours we wished for something to eat which we found at a nearby local. Then we were off to see the Vatican up close. We joined a two block long line leading to St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest religious building in the world. The line moved quickly as we were carried first to the tombs of the Popes that took us past the last pope’s beautifully lit niche and then to that of St. Peter, the first Pope. Upstairs we joined the awe struck as we gawked at the beauty of Michelangelo’s marvel that took the best part of a hundred years to complete. As a part of a crowd into the thousands, we reverently viewed the wonderful art work and statuary that makes St. Peter’s what it is. Finally we worked our way to Michelangelo’s “Pieta”, the white marble sculpture of Jesus laying across Mary’s lap that has entranced millions of visitors with its simplicity and fullness of meaning.
We couldn’t do the Vatican without experiencing the Sistine Chapel so we followed much smaller crowds out of the Basilica and around the Vatican Wall to the Vatican Museum. We found that one just doesn’t visit the Sistine Chapel. The path to the Sistine Chapel takes visitors through fifty-four separate chapels before entering the Sistine. The trek was more than worth it. The Sistine Chapel certainly lives up to its reputation for beautiful paintings created by Michelangelo and reverence. Even though several hundred people stood with us with necks bent back to look upwards, the silence was unbelievable. For a moment a little chatter began. A loud clap from an attendant was all it took for silence to return.
Once back on the street we reevaluated our plan to walk through the Roman Forum and Coliseum. The temperature had grown into the nineties and muggy. We already felt a little crisp from sun burn while standing in lines. Instead, we hailed a cab and headed for Trivi Fountain and the apparent primary focus of interest for Rome visitors.
We found the fountain, managed our way through the throngs of picture takers, pick pockets and men dressed up as Roman Centurions ready to pose, whip in hand, for the picture sure to thrill those back home who would feel obligated to look at everyone of your gazillion pictures from your Roman holiday. We managed a couple of snaps and decided that the lunch we hurriedly consumed several hours earlier hadn’t met our needs. We found a nearby sidewalk café where we could get a panni and cup and watch the hordes of tourists passing to and from the Piazza Trevi. They were all smiling and so were we.
Our stop at Livorno, Italy provided a jump off point for passengers who wished to do the great art museums in Florence, or the history and leaning-ness of Pisa, or to traverse the glorious Tuscany countryside and sample the famous wines of the areas. We chose to visit Pisa and its famous leaning tower. On the way we learned that Tuscany is one of Italy’s twenty regions and perhaps its most famous. The rolling hills reminded us of the foothills growing eastward out of San Joaquin Valley minus the oak trees.
Before we left Livorno our guide let us know that Livorno was the first major city in Italy to allow true freedom of religion. As a result, the city has had a more cosmopolitan population than is usual for the country. The city also hosts what was described to us as the United States largest military base in Europe. We drove along side the base for miles and were convinced she was right. She complained, in an off hand way, that the U. S. required all working on base to be able to speak English. This has been a thorn in the side of Livornoians for decades.
Pisa is famous for its “Leaning Tower” which actually leans fourteen degrees off of plumb. As a matter of fact, the other two 12th and 13th structures near the tower also lean. The tower was leaning before it was completed with dozens of adjustments made to keep it from falling over. Our guide told us that sooner or later it will fall but not for another century or so. As long as people are willing to pay fifteen euros for the privilege of climbing to the top, Pisa folks will find a way to keep it in place. The lean of the tower did make Galileo’s experiments with falling objects a little easier to manage and right there in the town where he grew up.
The Cathedral next to the tower was actually begun in 1053. It is unusual in that it exhibits elements of Romanesque, Gothic Moorish and Byzantine architecture. The result is a marvelously beautiful church. The Construction of the Baptistery next door was begun in 1152 and is of Romanesque style. The site is completed with a graveyard referred to locally as the Campo Sacre. Local lore insists that those buried in the “sacred field” turn to skeletons within the first twenty-four hours after burial. It struck us that they must have some very hungry termites in Pisa.
Our final cruise day took us to Villafranche and Monaco, the thirteenth country Dottie has visited in the past thirty-eight days (Her globe trotting total is now sixteen countries…and growing). We quickly decided after our visit that this must be the home of more wealthy people than any other two square kilometer space on the globe. Gas stations we passed posted prices of about $10.00 US per gallon. We learned that the smallest possible flat in town would cost well over a million dollars. The yachts rocking gently in the harbor spoke of great wealth. Even the run abouts tied up to the sea wall looked expensive.
Our tour took us past the houses of Princesses Caroline and Stephanie and to the castle where brother Albert now resides. We toured the Cathedral of Monaco and thought we were in a church serving millions rather than the 43,000 inhabitants. About 30,000 workers come into town each day to take care of the rich and famous and to sell baubles to tourists. Casino Square was bordered on one side by the world famous casino, a second side by a hotel where prices start at $1800 a night and a third by a huge sidewalk café where most people only sat in the shade rather than be subject to the pricey menu. Most of our tour group got off easy by buying little ice cream cones for about $6.00 a scoop.
Our guide reminded us that our tour bus was creeping along the hallowed lanes where formula I cars scream by at better than 300 Km and hour to entertain yacht-setters who come from all over the globe for the festivities. We tried to urge our driver to speed up a little going around hair pin turns but he only responded that he had a wife and nine children to feed.
Now we’re really in a hurry to get home and catch up on the Pleasanton side of our lives. Our bus from the ship will pick us up at the unfriendly hour of 7:00 AM with a travel plan that will have us home a little after 7:00 PM Pleasanton time. If it weren’t for the nine hour time difference it could be a restful bit of travel that included more than twenty thousand miles and a whole bunch of fun.
We love you all. We wished you could have been with us every moment of the trip…………….kind of.
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Bill and Dottie
Monday, September 1, 2008
BLOG #14
5 September 2008
Hello to all…………Three more ports o’ call to go!
After 35 days afloat and/or roaming around the United Kingdom, our adventuring is almost over for a couple of months and then we’ll be off again.
Following our surprise visit to Gibraltar, we continued on to a planned stop on the Costa Del Sol at Malaga, Spain. The Andalusian coast of Spain and its phenomenal weather (at least 300 days of sunshine each year) has long been a mecca for European vacationers who choose to escape the bleakness of European winters for a tine in the sun. We were not disappointed. We had a number of shore excursions to choose from that would have taken us on tour of places the rich and famous maintain for their vacations. We chose to explore Malaga on our own focusing on a trek across town that would take us to the Picasso Museum - Malaga. We found Picasso and enjoyed over an hour soaking up this remarkable artist’s work. Work from his early years of remarkable skill, as he studied at his art teacher father’s school, and his later years was displayed. He obviously tired of doing portraits and found his unusual talent in an area yet explored by the art world. We decided it would take more than our brief visit to understand what he was trying to portray and a lot, lot longer to imagine one of his best hanging in our living room.
After a leisurely wandering around Malaga, we decided we would see the rest of “old town” the easy way. We hired a horse drawn carriage to fight the traffic and take us by the marvelous old buildings that give Malaga its character. We were amazed to note that the Malaga coach men have apparently trained their horses not to do their thing while on the job. None of the carriages we saw in Malaga used the “poop catcher” that we’ve seen used in almost all of the cities where we thought to look. We were treated to a not too rare heated verbal confrontation between our driver and a motorcyclist who apparently did something displeasing. Our diminutive octogenarian driver sounded seven feet tall as he shouted and shook his whip. We were impressed.
Reading about the history of the area we were impressed at the role the Moors played in developing the culture and infrastructure of Andalusia. In this day and age of concern about Muslims we were impressed that it was the Muslims that established schools and universities in this area, cultivating scholarship and scientific exploration. Muslim and Jewish scholars are credited with reviving and contributing to Western astronomy, medicine, philosophy and mathematics. Muslims and Jews working together? Maybe there’s some hope.
We imagined our stop on the island of Sardinia would be a fishy affair. It wasn’t. Sardinia is second only to Sicily in size as an island and boasts a special regional autonomy with Italy. The island’s history includes evidence that humans lived there as far back as 250,000 B.C. The earliest documented inhabitants are considered to be the Nuraghic people who lived there around 1800 B.C. The island is dotted with over 7000 nuraghi or stone fortresses used for protection by the early residents. Over the centuries, Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Pisans, Genoese, Spanish, Austrians and eventually Italians ruled the island.
Our tour of Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, focused on a visit to the 13th Century Cathedral and the nearby 14th Century Elephant Tower named for the sculpture of an elephant on its ramparts. We found that past residents of Cagliari liked to put their important stuff on top of the highest hill in the city. Our climb to the top gave us wonderful views of the bay and the city, sore feet and sweaty undies. We found, however, that the old saw about “when at the top, there’s no place to go but down” is absolutely true. We followed a suggestion from a couple of young German tourists and followed our noses down hil toward the bay. Since the map we were using didn’t seem to feature the names of streets we found, we asked directions from several locals. The rapid fire Italian “help” we were given actually worked. Much to our surprise, after walking about five miles in all, we found our way back to the shuttle bus that returned us to our ship and a well earned nap.
Our stop at Naples, Napoli to our Italian readers, was on the low key side. Our ship became the eighth in port on a Monday and like half of the fleet, we unloaded before nine in the morning and left for anchorage a few miles off shore. We had signed-up for an afternoon “city tour” so we stayed with the ship as it repositioned. Our planned morning sun bathing session became the delight of the cruise. It seemed as though ninety percent of our fellow travelers left the ship when it was at dock. This left only the two of us interested in basking in the morning sunshine. Imagine if you will two napping souls in the middle of a sea of several hundred lounges, smiling and contentended in the morning quiet………with not a single kid splashing or carrying on in the pool set aside for other than adults. We decided that, at least when it came to cruise sun bathing, it doesn’t get much better.
After lunch we took a tender to shore and joined our afternoon tour. We discovered a bunch of stuff and saw some wonderfully old and historic buildings and such. What we learned was 1) Neopolitan Ice Cream, which must come from Naples or Napoli or maybe Neopoli, doesn’t come in three colors when they serve it in Naples, and 2) you mustn’t buy stuff from shop keepers in Naples because they like to switch your merchandise for an old newspaper when they take it to the back room to wrap and bag. Both of these treasured insights may be totally unfair but at least the latter came straight from our guide’s mouth. At least that is what we thought she said in her marvelous but Italian tainted English.
Our trip took us to the Piazza Plebescito, Naple’s largest piazza where our guide treated us to ice cream and we took a whole bunch of pictures. We witnessed first hand the daring driving that the locals exhibited, especially when we tried to cross a street when they were a hundred meters down the road. You could hear them change gears with a squeal of their tires as the bore down on poor us suggesting that we scamper rather than saunter when crossing their street. The Napoli sky was clear as a bell as we viewed Mt. Vesuvius towering above the city with its wide swath of lava flow from its last activity in the early forties. Our guide explained that what we saw today was not two volcanoes but the remains of Vesuvius after its big blow that blew away several hundred feet of its old crest. Even with its top gone, Vesuvius still stands 1,282 meters above sea level and the town.
Our tour, like any self respecting tour, took us to the nicest part of town where huge houses hang on steep hillsides over looking Naples Bay with marvelous views of the Isle of Capri. We quickly concluded that a lot of well heeled folks have found a nice place to live. We did see where some of the other folks lived and, because it was washday Monday, a whole bunch of laundry hanging from balconies to dry. At first glance we were sure that there must be a law about hanging family undies from the balcony but on closer inspection we found some undies to make things seem normal.
A whole bunch of hugs and kisses to all,
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill
Hello to all…………Three more ports o’ call to go!
After 35 days afloat and/or roaming around the United Kingdom, our adventuring is almost over for a couple of months and then we’ll be off again.
Following our surprise visit to Gibraltar, we continued on to a planned stop on the Costa Del Sol at Malaga, Spain. The Andalusian coast of Spain and its phenomenal weather (at least 300 days of sunshine each year) has long been a mecca for European vacationers who choose to escape the bleakness of European winters for a tine in the sun. We were not disappointed. We had a number of shore excursions to choose from that would have taken us on tour of places the rich and famous maintain for their vacations. We chose to explore Malaga on our own focusing on a trek across town that would take us to the Picasso Museum - Malaga. We found Picasso and enjoyed over an hour soaking up this remarkable artist’s work. Work from his early years of remarkable skill, as he studied at his art teacher father’s school, and his later years was displayed. He obviously tired of doing portraits and found his unusual talent in an area yet explored by the art world. We decided it would take more than our brief visit to understand what he was trying to portray and a lot, lot longer to imagine one of his best hanging in our living room.
After a leisurely wandering around Malaga, we decided we would see the rest of “old town” the easy way. We hired a horse drawn carriage to fight the traffic and take us by the marvelous old buildings that give Malaga its character. We were amazed to note that the Malaga coach men have apparently trained their horses not to do their thing while on the job. None of the carriages we saw in Malaga used the “poop catcher” that we’ve seen used in almost all of the cities where we thought to look. We were treated to a not too rare heated verbal confrontation between our driver and a motorcyclist who apparently did something displeasing. Our diminutive octogenarian driver sounded seven feet tall as he shouted and shook his whip. We were impressed.
Reading about the history of the area we were impressed at the role the Moors played in developing the culture and infrastructure of Andalusia. In this day and age of concern about Muslims we were impressed that it was the Muslims that established schools and universities in this area, cultivating scholarship and scientific exploration. Muslim and Jewish scholars are credited with reviving and contributing to Western astronomy, medicine, philosophy and mathematics. Muslims and Jews working together? Maybe there’s some hope.
We imagined our stop on the island of Sardinia would be a fishy affair. It wasn’t. Sardinia is second only to Sicily in size as an island and boasts a special regional autonomy with Italy. The island’s history includes evidence that humans lived there as far back as 250,000 B.C. The earliest documented inhabitants are considered to be the Nuraghic people who lived there around 1800 B.C. The island is dotted with over 7000 nuraghi or stone fortresses used for protection by the early residents. Over the centuries, Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Pisans, Genoese, Spanish, Austrians and eventually Italians ruled the island.
Our tour of Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, focused on a visit to the 13th Century Cathedral and the nearby 14th Century Elephant Tower named for the sculpture of an elephant on its ramparts. We found that past residents of Cagliari liked to put their important stuff on top of the highest hill in the city. Our climb to the top gave us wonderful views of the bay and the city, sore feet and sweaty undies. We found, however, that the old saw about “when at the top, there’s no place to go but down” is absolutely true. We followed a suggestion from a couple of young German tourists and followed our noses down hil toward the bay. Since the map we were using didn’t seem to feature the names of streets we found, we asked directions from several locals. The rapid fire Italian “help” we were given actually worked. Much to our surprise, after walking about five miles in all, we found our way back to the shuttle bus that returned us to our ship and a well earned nap.
Our stop at Naples, Napoli to our Italian readers, was on the low key side. Our ship became the eighth in port on a Monday and like half of the fleet, we unloaded before nine in the morning and left for anchorage a few miles off shore. We had signed-up for an afternoon “city tour” so we stayed with the ship as it repositioned. Our planned morning sun bathing session became the delight of the cruise. It seemed as though ninety percent of our fellow travelers left the ship when it was at dock. This left only the two of us interested in basking in the morning sunshine. Imagine if you will two napping souls in the middle of a sea of several hundred lounges, smiling and contentended in the morning quiet………with not a single kid splashing or carrying on in the pool set aside for other than adults. We decided that, at least when it came to cruise sun bathing, it doesn’t get much better.
After lunch we took a tender to shore and joined our afternoon tour. We discovered a bunch of stuff and saw some wonderfully old and historic buildings and such. What we learned was 1) Neopolitan Ice Cream, which must come from Naples or Napoli or maybe Neopoli, doesn’t come in three colors when they serve it in Naples, and 2) you mustn’t buy stuff from shop keepers in Naples because they like to switch your merchandise for an old newspaper when they take it to the back room to wrap and bag. Both of these treasured insights may be totally unfair but at least the latter came straight from our guide’s mouth. At least that is what we thought she said in her marvelous but Italian tainted English.
Our trip took us to the Piazza Plebescito, Naple’s largest piazza where our guide treated us to ice cream and we took a whole bunch of pictures. We witnessed first hand the daring driving that the locals exhibited, especially when we tried to cross a street when they were a hundred meters down the road. You could hear them change gears with a squeal of their tires as the bore down on poor us suggesting that we scamper rather than saunter when crossing their street. The Napoli sky was clear as a bell as we viewed Mt. Vesuvius towering above the city with its wide swath of lava flow from its last activity in the early forties. Our guide explained that what we saw today was not two volcanoes but the remains of Vesuvius after its big blow that blew away several hundred feet of its old crest. Even with its top gone, Vesuvius still stands 1,282 meters above sea level and the town.
Our tour, like any self respecting tour, took us to the nicest part of town where huge houses hang on steep hillsides over looking Naples Bay with marvelous views of the Isle of Capri. We quickly concluded that a lot of well heeled folks have found a nice place to live. We did see where some of the other folks lived and, because it was washday Monday, a whole bunch of laundry hanging from balconies to dry. At first glance we were sure that there must be a law about hanging family undies from the balcony but on closer inspection we found some undies to make things seem normal.
A whole bunch of hugs and kisses to all,
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill
Friday, August 29, 2008
BLOG #13
28 August 2008
Hello all from “The Rock”,
The people who put cruises together know a lot about what their passengers need. Having a first day “at sea” was a great way for us to regroup and unwind after our whirlwind visit to London. We didn’t realize how pooped we were until we noted that it was almost eight o’clock when we woke up on our first day afloat. For the two of us early risers, eight o’clock is the next thing to noon on our sleep clocks. The extra winks did us good.
Our first stop at Vigo, Spain gave us an easy transition from merry old London into our new venue; the Iberian Peninsula. We chose to spend our day at Vigo strolling through the town which gave us a small insight into Galacia - the northwest corner of Spain. Parts of the city were 16th and 17th century but most reflected a relatively large city that was very much a part of the 21st Century. We spent a little time touring our first European cathedral, marveling at the stained glass windows and elaborate statues and woodwork. If it weren’t for the presence of worshippers we would have had difficulty defining what we saw as church. Our experiences with the churches we have attended in our lives certainly didn’t include such elaborate houses of worship. The history of Vigo fell into perspective for us when we learned that a nearby town on the Atlantic coast was the first to receive the news of Columbus’s discovery of the Americas when his first ship returned to Spain.
For our next port of call, Lisbon, we decided that rather than spending time seeing another big European town we would travel to Sintra to learn more about the history of Portugal. Our trip from Lisbon to Sintra included a brief stop at Casais, a marvelous little resort town on the Atlantic coastline. The huge homes near the water’s edge and the hotels that had five star written all over their fascades suggested that the wealthy folks in this part of the world had put their stamp of approval on the area. And it was definitely a beautiful spot. We quickly added Casais to the list of places to revisit when the lottery showers us with its favors. The Romans put their stamp of approval on the place in the 2nd Century and it stuck.
Sintra really grabbed our attention. The little town surrounds a palace built by King Charles I in the 15th Century to please his English born wife who found sewerless Lisbon too stinky in the summer time to suit her tastes. The Palace towers above the surrounding village and provides a glimpse of theAtlantic Ocean on a clear day. The queen apparently prospered in the mountain climate at Sintra giving birth to seven royal offspring one of which was Prince Henry the Navigator who made it into the history books with his exploration successes. We spent more than an hour walking through the palace hanging on our guide’s every word. Her commentary was so interesting Dottie lost count of the stairs to the highest tower (over one hundred) but with just enough silent time that Dottie could brag on her 222 step climb to the top of St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
Our guide reminded us that Portugal is a small country; about the size and shape of Northern California north of San Francisco. The country is democratically governed but not in the sense Americans would recognize until about fifty years ago. Before that, a Prime Minister controlled the country for almost forty years. A minor revolution over threw the Prime Minister and a new constitution was adopted that has given direction to the country ever since. A marvelous Bridge greeted us as we entered Lisbon Harbor. The bridge had been built during the reign of the forty year Prime Minister who had his name given to the bridge. When he was overthrown, the Prime Minister’s name was removed and the bridge renamed “Ponte 25 Abril”, the date the Prime Minister was overthrown.
Our next stop was back in Spain and the city of Cadiz. This area in the southwestern part of Spain is known as Andalucia. The history of Cadiz began in the 12th Century and later attracted the attention and ownership by the Carthaginians and the Romans. Today it stands as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Western world.
The old part of Cadiz was just a short walk from our ship so we spent most of a day walking through the old narrow cobble stoned streets and peering into open doorways that allowed glimpse sized bites of how Cadizians live. We visited the Convento de San Francisco and found a quiet sidewalk café on the Plaza de San Francisco for our lunch. Someone on the ship must have announced our presence in town because the marvelous bells in the convent tower peeled exactly 76 times at noon in recognition of Dottie’s birthday a few days earlier. When we asked why all the bells, our waiter simply replied that it was a special occasion. We knew exactly what he was talking about.
We spent our afternoon wandering through the old parts of Cadiz and the Plaza Mina which seems to be the center point of the University of Cadiz. We finished our stroll back to the ship following the shore line and atop the old 18th Century City Wall. We stopped to chat with some student looking young men who understood that we were looking for our ship when we agreed that it was a “barca muy grande”. The students tried to get us to take a shortcut back to the ship and gave us that “loco viejos” look when we headed for the top of the City Wall instead.
Today the weather changed a bit foul and we loved it. We were scheduled to stop at the nothing little port town of Ceuta, Spain but the wind and “chop” made it inadvisable, we were told, to put us ashore by tender. Instead, the captain opted to take the Jade to the port of Gibraltar for the day. Ceuta was only going to be a drop off point for passengers wanting to take a ten hour excursion to Morocco. Since we weren’t interested in Morocco on this trip, we were pleased with the change of venue.
We shuttled from the ship to downtown Gibraltar and then walked the main street a couple of miles to the cable car that runs to the top of Gibraltar. The walk through town reminded us that Gibraltar is still a colony of Great Britain. Although cars haven’t driven on the “wrong side” of the road since 1927, everything else on “the Rock” is British. For generations the British have stationed around 7,000 soldiers at the site. In recent years, that number has been reduced to a couple of hundred whose job it is to maintain the army facilities for a time when they might be needed.
We spotted an English “Bobby” on patrol. After Dottie laid a hug on him he agreed to pose for a picture with Dottie at his side.
The British have controlled the site for several hundred years having defeated the Moors for the ownership of the Rock which effectively controls the Straights of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. In the late 18th Century the Spanish, who have long questioned the British presence at Gibraltar, lay Siege to the fortress for four years. The British had already fortified the area and added greatly to the tunnels in the mountain to provide safe quarters for the defending troops. The Spanish finally gave up and left the British on their Rock and their control of the Mediterranean.
We opted to take a 90 minute mini-bus tour of the Rock rather than wait the estimated hour and a half in line to buy a ticket for a gondola ride to the top. After our tour, we decided we had made a good decision. The usual way to see the rock is to ride up to the top via gondola and walk down the side of the 350 + meter rock, stopping to see the several attractions in the park. Our taxi took us to the top and then stopped at all the special sites along the way. We saw enough Gibraltar Apes, actually Barbary Apes (without tales) to fill a dozen zoos. They are cute but sneaky devils that will steal the food out of your hand if you should decide to buy a snack at any one of the several stalls along the way. Our visit to the huge natural cave and the tunnels dug for military purposes impressed us that we were seeing something very unusual. The view from the top of the Rock showed a rapidly expanding island where shore lines are being filled in so that twenty story luxury apartments can be built for those who seem to think Gibraltar would be a wonderful place to live.
We concluded that Spain and Portugal have their really nice places to live if you like California like climate and old things to look at when you’re not busy with other stuff. On the other hand, Gibraltar impressed us as a fun place to visit but only reasonably suitable as a place to live if you’re a Barbary Ape and you like to eat things that humans throw at you and you enjoy having your picture taken when you’re scratching.
We celebrated our tenth anniversary last night by enjoying dinner at the best specialty restaurant on board. The servers sang “Let me call you sweetheart” to us and presented us with a lovely anniversary cake. Some of the guests dropped by our table to congratulate us on our anniversary which we didn’t tell a soul was a celebration of ten months since the fateful day last October when Dottie bought some records from Bill at his Garage Sale.
Life is great but we’re getting pooped. It looks like the only way we’ll get a recuperative vacation will be to come home…………..for a while.
Our love to our family and friends,
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill
Hello all from “The Rock”,
The people who put cruises together know a lot about what their passengers need. Having a first day “at sea” was a great way for us to regroup and unwind after our whirlwind visit to London. We didn’t realize how pooped we were until we noted that it was almost eight o’clock when we woke up on our first day afloat. For the two of us early risers, eight o’clock is the next thing to noon on our sleep clocks. The extra winks did us good.
Our first stop at Vigo, Spain gave us an easy transition from merry old London into our new venue; the Iberian Peninsula. We chose to spend our day at Vigo strolling through the town which gave us a small insight into Galacia - the northwest corner of Spain. Parts of the city were 16th and 17th century but most reflected a relatively large city that was very much a part of the 21st Century. We spent a little time touring our first European cathedral, marveling at the stained glass windows and elaborate statues and woodwork. If it weren’t for the presence of worshippers we would have had difficulty defining what we saw as church. Our experiences with the churches we have attended in our lives certainly didn’t include such elaborate houses of worship. The history of Vigo fell into perspective for us when we learned that a nearby town on the Atlantic coast was the first to receive the news of Columbus’s discovery of the Americas when his first ship returned to Spain.
For our next port of call, Lisbon, we decided that rather than spending time seeing another big European town we would travel to Sintra to learn more about the history of Portugal. Our trip from Lisbon to Sintra included a brief stop at Casais, a marvelous little resort town on the Atlantic coastline. The huge homes near the water’s edge and the hotels that had five star written all over their fascades suggested that the wealthy folks in this part of the world had put their stamp of approval on the area. And it was definitely a beautiful spot. We quickly added Casais to the list of places to revisit when the lottery showers us with its favors. The Romans put their stamp of approval on the place in the 2nd Century and it stuck.
Sintra really grabbed our attention. The little town surrounds a palace built by King Charles I in the 15th Century to please his English born wife who found sewerless Lisbon too stinky in the summer time to suit her tastes. The Palace towers above the surrounding village and provides a glimpse of theAtlantic Ocean on a clear day. The queen apparently prospered in the mountain climate at Sintra giving birth to seven royal offspring one of which was Prince Henry the Navigator who made it into the history books with his exploration successes. We spent more than an hour walking through the palace hanging on our guide’s every word. Her commentary was so interesting Dottie lost count of the stairs to the highest tower (over one hundred) but with just enough silent time that Dottie could brag on her 222 step climb to the top of St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
Our guide reminded us that Portugal is a small country; about the size and shape of Northern California north of San Francisco. The country is democratically governed but not in the sense Americans would recognize until about fifty years ago. Before that, a Prime Minister controlled the country for almost forty years. A minor revolution over threw the Prime Minister and a new constitution was adopted that has given direction to the country ever since. A marvelous Bridge greeted us as we entered Lisbon Harbor. The bridge had been built during the reign of the forty year Prime Minister who had his name given to the bridge. When he was overthrown, the Prime Minister’s name was removed and the bridge renamed “Ponte 25 Abril”, the date the Prime Minister was overthrown.
Our next stop was back in Spain and the city of Cadiz. This area in the southwestern part of Spain is known as Andalucia. The history of Cadiz began in the 12th Century and later attracted the attention and ownership by the Carthaginians and the Romans. Today it stands as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Western world.
The old part of Cadiz was just a short walk from our ship so we spent most of a day walking through the old narrow cobble stoned streets and peering into open doorways that allowed glimpse sized bites of how Cadizians live. We visited the Convento de San Francisco and found a quiet sidewalk café on the Plaza de San Francisco for our lunch. Someone on the ship must have announced our presence in town because the marvelous bells in the convent tower peeled exactly 76 times at noon in recognition of Dottie’s birthday a few days earlier. When we asked why all the bells, our waiter simply replied that it was a special occasion. We knew exactly what he was talking about.
We spent our afternoon wandering through the old parts of Cadiz and the Plaza Mina which seems to be the center point of the University of Cadiz. We finished our stroll back to the ship following the shore line and atop the old 18th Century City Wall. We stopped to chat with some student looking young men who understood that we were looking for our ship when we agreed that it was a “barca muy grande”. The students tried to get us to take a shortcut back to the ship and gave us that “loco viejos” look when we headed for the top of the City Wall instead.
Today the weather changed a bit foul and we loved it. We were scheduled to stop at the nothing little port town of Ceuta, Spain but the wind and “chop” made it inadvisable, we were told, to put us ashore by tender. Instead, the captain opted to take the Jade to the port of Gibraltar for the day. Ceuta was only going to be a drop off point for passengers wanting to take a ten hour excursion to Morocco. Since we weren’t interested in Morocco on this trip, we were pleased with the change of venue.
We shuttled from the ship to downtown Gibraltar and then walked the main street a couple of miles to the cable car that runs to the top of Gibraltar. The walk through town reminded us that Gibraltar is still a colony of Great Britain. Although cars haven’t driven on the “wrong side” of the road since 1927, everything else on “the Rock” is British. For generations the British have stationed around 7,000 soldiers at the site. In recent years, that number has been reduced to a couple of hundred whose job it is to maintain the army facilities for a time when they might be needed.
We spotted an English “Bobby” on patrol. After Dottie laid a hug on him he agreed to pose for a picture with Dottie at his side.
The British have controlled the site for several hundred years having defeated the Moors for the ownership of the Rock which effectively controls the Straights of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. In the late 18th Century the Spanish, who have long questioned the British presence at Gibraltar, lay Siege to the fortress for four years. The British had already fortified the area and added greatly to the tunnels in the mountain to provide safe quarters for the defending troops. The Spanish finally gave up and left the British on their Rock and their control of the Mediterranean.
We opted to take a 90 minute mini-bus tour of the Rock rather than wait the estimated hour and a half in line to buy a ticket for a gondola ride to the top. After our tour, we decided we had made a good decision. The usual way to see the rock is to ride up to the top via gondola and walk down the side of the 350 + meter rock, stopping to see the several attractions in the park. Our taxi took us to the top and then stopped at all the special sites along the way. We saw enough Gibraltar Apes, actually Barbary Apes (without tales) to fill a dozen zoos. They are cute but sneaky devils that will steal the food out of your hand if you should decide to buy a snack at any one of the several stalls along the way. Our visit to the huge natural cave and the tunnels dug for military purposes impressed us that we were seeing something very unusual. The view from the top of the Rock showed a rapidly expanding island where shore lines are being filled in so that twenty story luxury apartments can be built for those who seem to think Gibraltar would be a wonderful place to live.
We concluded that Spain and Portugal have their really nice places to live if you like California like climate and old things to look at when you’re not busy with other stuff. On the other hand, Gibraltar impressed us as a fun place to visit but only reasonably suitable as a place to live if you’re a Barbary Ape and you like to eat things that humans throw at you and you enjoy having your picture taken when you’re scratching.
We celebrated our tenth anniversary last night by enjoying dinner at the best specialty restaurant on board. The servers sang “Let me call you sweetheart” to us and presented us with a lovely anniversary cake. Some of the guests dropped by our table to congratulate us on our anniversary which we didn’t tell a soul was a celebration of ten months since the fateful day last October when Dottie bought some records from Bill at his Garage Sale.
Life is great but we’re getting pooped. It looks like the only way we’ll get a recuperative vacation will be to come home…………..for a while.
Our love to our family and friends,
Gram and Grampa Bill, Mom and Dad, Dottie and Bill
Thursday, August 7, 2008
August 7 2008
7 August 2008
Hello to all from the North Sea (again),
Our stop in Helsinki featured our first use of one of the ship’s “shore excursions”. Since Bill was more than familiar with the rest of the stops along the way, we chose to go with a “Pro” at Helsinki where the local sights are a bit more spread out than in the other Baltic capitals and not as walk able during a day’s visit. Our guide took us to Senate Square where we could take pictures of the marvelous church and government buildings and walk a short distance to an open air street market that was experiencing a dismal business day, what with the light rain and all. An other stop along the way was the Sibelius Monument, honoring Finland’s most famous son, the composer of “Finlandia”. The monument represented a modernistic impression of a pipe organ the pipes of which seemed to float above the ground. The park like setting had a half dozen busses parked at the curb with several hundred people filling their memory chips with pictures of the beautiful setting.
We also stopped at and toured Helsinki’s famous “Church in a Rock”, a modernistic chapel carved into a rock protruding from the ground in an otherwise residential setting. We were impressed with the effort someone had taken to create an unusual and beautiful chapel that was hard to recognize as a holy place with hundreds of people snapping pictures and young boys meeting the challenge presented by the possibility of scaling the rock outside to see what the world looked like from the top. Our three hour tour ended in downtown Helsinki with an invitation to all to extend the tour by shopping the downtown shops and then walking the two miles back to the boat. We were amazed that almost all on the tour accepted the invitation to shop and walk even though it was Sunday and ninety percent of the stores were closed. We chose to return to the ship and find some relief from the light rain that had followed us all morning.
St. Petersburg will probably be the high light of our cruise. Arrangements had been made months before to meet Bill’ Russian friends for a visit while we were in St. Petersburg. The friends, Andrey and Lena Kirillov and their twenty-four year old daughter Natasha, were the product of a student exchange Bill sponsored in the late eighties and early nineties. The exchange featured fifty sixteen year old Russian students visiting Alameda County for a month and fifty sixteen year old Alameda County students visiting Russia for a month. Students and adult advisors were housed in private homes, studied Russian and English and learned as much as possible about their new friends’ culture. Bill and Dee stayed in the Kirillov’s apartment home on two occasions and Andrey stayed in their home when he came to Pleasanton with Russian students as an advisor. Bill and Dee spent four days with the Kirillov’s in 2005 and Natasha spent a month with them in California in 2006.
We had managed to obtain the necessary visas to visit privately with the kirillovs. One isn’t allowed to travel independently in Russia without a visa. Most passengers on our ship who took tours were covered by the tour operator’s visa.
The Kirillov’s had been told that our ship would arrive at 9:00 AM on Monday morning and that we would be able to meet them at “The Gate” to the port at 10:00 AM. We went through passport control and found a free employees’ bus that took us to the gate; about two miles from our ship. We were in contact with the Kirillov’s by cell phone. When we arrived at the gate, accompanied by a guide that we had met who was returning home because her tour bus broke down, we learned by phone that the Kirillov’s would arrive shortly driving a black Nisson sedan. Our new friend, the out of work tour guide, was a godsend. We knew nothing about where we were going and she knew exactly where we needed to go and what we had to do. It took two passport control check points before we walked through the main gate allowing Bill to breathe easily after sweating a bit with the process. He had learned through the internet what restrictions applied on our travel and that we didn’t meet half the demands he had read about. Our visas worked.
Another call to the missing Kirillovs gave us the information that they had an accident and would be a little late. We found a tree to protect us from the light rain and waited. About 10:30 Andrey appeared out of no where carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. The flowers were handed to Dottie so Andrey and Bill could share an embrace that demonstrated their true friendship. Dottie insisted on getting into the greeting act and laid a hug on Andrey that he will tell his friends about at his hundredth birthday. We learned that their car was involved in a minor accident. They arrived at the gate twenty minutes early. While waiting for us, they decided that our arrival should be celebrated with some flowers. They left to find the flowers, found the flowers and then had their fender bender several miles from the gate. Andrey walked back to meet us leaving Lena and Natasha to deal with the accident reporting.
Somehow Andrey managed to hire a car that picked us up and drove us to the scene of the accident. The Nisson and a small truck were sitting where they had collided blocking traffic for miles. Apparently in Russia you may not move cars involved in an accident until the police arrive. It took more than two hours for a policeman to make the scene and an other hour during which Natasha managed to talk the policeman out of the 4000 Ruble fee (about $180 US) to write up the accident report. Natasha told us how the policeman insisted that he couldn’t feed his family on his $800 a month salary and he needed her help. Natasha, who has become quite a mature business person (she is in commercial banking), held her ground and left with the accident report she needed for her insurance company.
The Kirillovs drove to St. Petersburg from their home near Moscow on Sunday; an eight and a half hour drive over poor roads. When they met us they had planned to take us to breakfast. Breakfast passed, lunch passed but we did have an early dinner.
The first place we were taken was St. Isaac’s Cathedral in the center of St. Petersburg. Getting there taught us quickly that traffic is a big problem in Russia’s cities. During Bill’s visit in 1989 and again in 1990 he recalled that the busses that were used with the students could travel at sixty miles an hour on side streets without hindrance. On our visit, our excellent driver never reached fifteen miles an hour as he weaved through the traffic like a pro.
Dottie was treated to a Russian tradition when Andrey ordered the driver to stop. He hopped out and returned a few minutes later with paper cups and a bottle of cognac. As we drove we sipped making the absence of lunch bearable.
St. Isaac’s Cathedral is a popular tourist destination because one can climb a 220 step set of stairs and reach the base of the rotunda and gain a marvelous view of the city. We were all well into the first hundred steps before Dottie learned that we weren’t half way to the top yet. Her smile turned to that determined look we’ve all seen before and we raced to the top. The view was worth the effort. The day was clear and beautiful as we jostled our way through the crowd around the rotunda and headed down. We found the interior of St. Isaac’s as spectacular as the outside as we browsed around and admired the gothic architecture and the hundreds of religious paintings.
Our driver knew all of the special tourists spots in town and he managed to wend our way through the traffic to find each one for us. Ultimately we arrived at the apartment the Kirillovs were using. It was a large apartment by Russian standards but sparsely decorated. The visit to the apartment was a good opportunity for Dottie to see how the more fortunate of Russian city dwellers live.
At four o’clock our party met a couple who were friends that the Kirillovs had met on a recent vacation in Egypt. The man was a professor of psychology and his wife was a teacher of English. We met at a restaurant in a boat on one of the many rivers that course through St. Petersburg, We quickly decided the restaurant must be one of the finest in the city. Our four hour dinner featured a number of cold dishes of vegetables, meats and cheeses in forms we had never experienced. Dottie’s newest experience of the day was the Russian love of toasts and vodka. The first toasts were short speeches by each of the diners accompanied with vodka, and more vodka, and more vodka. She got in the spirit of the evening and presented her own toast accompanied by yet another splash of vodka.
We returned to the ship knowing that we had a very special day. Tuesday the Kirillovs picked us up again to take us to breakfast before they left for their return drive home. One thing led to another and we found that it was past 10 AM when we walked away from their apartment to find a place to eat. What we found was that most restaurants had stopped serving breakfast and had yet to open for lunch. We walked at least a mile or more before we found a 24 hour Sushi/Whatever chain where we had our meal. We ate our fill but didn’t find anything on the menu that looked like eggs and bacon or hot cakes. Breakfast with chop sticks was a new experience for all of us.
Our last port of call was Tallinn, Estonia. Estonia is a unique little country that has been a recognized entity since the eleventh century but rarely as its own country. The Swedes, the Danes, the Germans and the Russians have taken turns conquering and governing Estonia until the fall of the Soviet sixteen years ago. It is now a self governed country and doing quite well by European standards.
Tallinn has been an important port city for centuries. The old part of Tallinn was developed by the Germans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The old town is still pretty much as it was originally built with winding cobblestone streets and quaint houses that occasionally display a chip in their exterior plaster to reveal walls built of stone rather than bricks. We taxied to the top of the town and walked around the town in a downhill direction allowing us to see much of the little town missed by the organized tours. We made our way to the town plaza where we stopped at a sidewalk café to watch the hundreds of tourists from the five cruise ships in the harbor as they pawed through the Estonian handicrafts in booths on the plaza. A short walk back to our ship ended our Baltic visits each of which gave us an interesting insight into this wonderful part of the world.
Our Love to all,
Gram Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Dottie and Bill
Hello to all from the North Sea (again),
Our stop in Helsinki featured our first use of one of the ship’s “shore excursions”. Since Bill was more than familiar with the rest of the stops along the way, we chose to go with a “Pro” at Helsinki where the local sights are a bit more spread out than in the other Baltic capitals and not as walk able during a day’s visit. Our guide took us to Senate Square where we could take pictures of the marvelous church and government buildings and walk a short distance to an open air street market that was experiencing a dismal business day, what with the light rain and all. An other stop along the way was the Sibelius Monument, honoring Finland’s most famous son, the composer of “Finlandia”. The monument represented a modernistic impression of a pipe organ the pipes of which seemed to float above the ground. The park like setting had a half dozen busses parked at the curb with several hundred people filling their memory chips with pictures of the beautiful setting.
We also stopped at and toured Helsinki’s famous “Church in a Rock”, a modernistic chapel carved into a rock protruding from the ground in an otherwise residential setting. We were impressed with the effort someone had taken to create an unusual and beautiful chapel that was hard to recognize as a holy place with hundreds of people snapping pictures and young boys meeting the challenge presented by the possibility of scaling the rock outside to see what the world looked like from the top. Our three hour tour ended in downtown Helsinki with an invitation to all to extend the tour by shopping the downtown shops and then walking the two miles back to the boat. We were amazed that almost all on the tour accepted the invitation to shop and walk even though it was Sunday and ninety percent of the stores were closed. We chose to return to the ship and find some relief from the light rain that had followed us all morning.
St. Petersburg will probably be the high light of our cruise. Arrangements had been made months before to meet Bill’ Russian friends for a visit while we were in St. Petersburg. The friends, Andrey and Lena Kirillov and their twenty-four year old daughter Natasha, were the product of a student exchange Bill sponsored in the late eighties and early nineties. The exchange featured fifty sixteen year old Russian students visiting Alameda County for a month and fifty sixteen year old Alameda County students visiting Russia for a month. Students and adult advisors were housed in private homes, studied Russian and English and learned as much as possible about their new friends’ culture. Bill and Dee stayed in the Kirillov’s apartment home on two occasions and Andrey stayed in their home when he came to Pleasanton with Russian students as an advisor. Bill and Dee spent four days with the Kirillov’s in 2005 and Natasha spent a month with them in California in 2006.
We had managed to obtain the necessary visas to visit privately with the kirillovs. One isn’t allowed to travel independently in Russia without a visa. Most passengers on our ship who took tours were covered by the tour operator’s visa.
The Kirillov’s had been told that our ship would arrive at 9:00 AM on Monday morning and that we would be able to meet them at “The Gate” to the port at 10:00 AM. We went through passport control and found a free employees’ bus that took us to the gate; about two miles from our ship. We were in contact with the Kirillov’s by cell phone. When we arrived at the gate, accompanied by a guide that we had met who was returning home because her tour bus broke down, we learned by phone that the Kirillov’s would arrive shortly driving a black Nisson sedan. Our new friend, the out of work tour guide, was a godsend. We knew nothing about where we were going and she knew exactly where we needed to go and what we had to do. It took two passport control check points before we walked through the main gate allowing Bill to breathe easily after sweating a bit with the process. He had learned through the internet what restrictions applied on our travel and that we didn’t meet half the demands he had read about. Our visas worked.
Another call to the missing Kirillovs gave us the information that they had an accident and would be a little late. We found a tree to protect us from the light rain and waited. About 10:30 Andrey appeared out of no where carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. The flowers were handed to Dottie so Andrey and Bill could share an embrace that demonstrated their true friendship. Dottie insisted on getting into the greeting act and laid a hug on Andrey that he will tell his friends about at his hundredth birthday. We learned that their car was involved in a minor accident. They arrived at the gate twenty minutes early. While waiting for us, they decided that our arrival should be celebrated with some flowers. They left to find the flowers, found the flowers and then had their fender bender several miles from the gate. Andrey walked back to meet us leaving Lena and Natasha to deal with the accident reporting.
Somehow Andrey managed to hire a car that picked us up and drove us to the scene of the accident. The Nisson and a small truck were sitting where they had collided blocking traffic for miles. Apparently in Russia you may not move cars involved in an accident until the police arrive. It took more than two hours for a policeman to make the scene and an other hour during which Natasha managed to talk the policeman out of the 4000 Ruble fee (about $180 US) to write up the accident report. Natasha told us how the policeman insisted that he couldn’t feed his family on his $800 a month salary and he needed her help. Natasha, who has become quite a mature business person (she is in commercial banking), held her ground and left with the accident report she needed for her insurance company.
The Kirillovs drove to St. Petersburg from their home near Moscow on Sunday; an eight and a half hour drive over poor roads. When they met us they had planned to take us to breakfast. Breakfast passed, lunch passed but we did have an early dinner.
The first place we were taken was St. Isaac’s Cathedral in the center of St. Petersburg. Getting there taught us quickly that traffic is a big problem in Russia’s cities. During Bill’s visit in 1989 and again in 1990 he recalled that the busses that were used with the students could travel at sixty miles an hour on side streets without hindrance. On our visit, our excellent driver never reached fifteen miles an hour as he weaved through the traffic like a pro.
Dottie was treated to a Russian tradition when Andrey ordered the driver to stop. He hopped out and returned a few minutes later with paper cups and a bottle of cognac. As we drove we sipped making the absence of lunch bearable.
St. Isaac’s Cathedral is a popular tourist destination because one can climb a 220 step set of stairs and reach the base of the rotunda and gain a marvelous view of the city. We were all well into the first hundred steps before Dottie learned that we weren’t half way to the top yet. Her smile turned to that determined look we’ve all seen before and we raced to the top. The view was worth the effort. The day was clear and beautiful as we jostled our way through the crowd around the rotunda and headed down. We found the interior of St. Isaac’s as spectacular as the outside as we browsed around and admired the gothic architecture and the hundreds of religious paintings.
Our driver knew all of the special tourists spots in town and he managed to wend our way through the traffic to find each one for us. Ultimately we arrived at the apartment the Kirillovs were using. It was a large apartment by Russian standards but sparsely decorated. The visit to the apartment was a good opportunity for Dottie to see how the more fortunate of Russian city dwellers live.
At four o’clock our party met a couple who were friends that the Kirillovs had met on a recent vacation in Egypt. The man was a professor of psychology and his wife was a teacher of English. We met at a restaurant in a boat on one of the many rivers that course through St. Petersburg, We quickly decided the restaurant must be one of the finest in the city. Our four hour dinner featured a number of cold dishes of vegetables, meats and cheeses in forms we had never experienced. Dottie’s newest experience of the day was the Russian love of toasts and vodka. The first toasts were short speeches by each of the diners accompanied with vodka, and more vodka, and more vodka. She got in the spirit of the evening and presented her own toast accompanied by yet another splash of vodka.
We returned to the ship knowing that we had a very special day. Tuesday the Kirillovs picked us up again to take us to breakfast before they left for their return drive home. One thing led to another and we found that it was past 10 AM when we walked away from their apartment to find a place to eat. What we found was that most restaurants had stopped serving breakfast and had yet to open for lunch. We walked at least a mile or more before we found a 24 hour Sushi/Whatever chain where we had our meal. We ate our fill but didn’t find anything on the menu that looked like eggs and bacon or hot cakes. Breakfast with chop sticks was a new experience for all of us.
Our last port of call was Tallinn, Estonia. Estonia is a unique little country that has been a recognized entity since the eleventh century but rarely as its own country. The Swedes, the Danes, the Germans and the Russians have taken turns conquering and governing Estonia until the fall of the Soviet sixteen years ago. It is now a self governed country and doing quite well by European standards.
Tallinn has been an important port city for centuries. The old part of Tallinn was developed by the Germans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The old town is still pretty much as it was originally built with winding cobblestone streets and quaint houses that occasionally display a chip in their exterior plaster to reveal walls built of stone rather than bricks. We taxied to the top of the town and walked around the town in a downhill direction allowing us to see much of the little town missed by the organized tours. We made our way to the town plaza where we stopped at a sidewalk café to watch the hundreds of tourists from the five cruise ships in the harbor as they pawed through the Estonian handicrafts in booths on the plaza. A short walk back to our ship ended our Baltic visits each of which gave us an interesting insight into this wonderful part of the world.
Our Love to all,
Gram Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Dottie and Bill
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)