Bergen to Barcelona

At Sea Again then SPAIN! 10/16 Another sea day with continued bumpy seas and day of boredom except I again played bridge with Bernie, the British national master, and the two women who are terrible players. Overnight we sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar. We happened to wake up at 2 AM and got up to look out and could see there were lots of lights and that we were fairly close to shore but there wasn't much to see at that hour. 10/17 We woke up in Malaga, Spain to a beautiful sunrise and the promise of a clear day. 10/17 Malaga is a narrow town along the coast that rapidly rises into surrounding mountains. We began with a bus tour up onto the surrounding hills above the town where we walked further up the hill for a spectacular view.   Bull ring and port Back down to sea level we had a walking tour of the town which has Roman ruins found during a construction project. Malaga is where Picasso was born and a bronze sculpture of th...

Rough Seas, Boredom and....FINALLY, Porto 10/13 Day one at sea. I took prophylactic meclizine because of the dire weather predictions. Actually, it wasn't as rough as the day we left Bergen but it was a significantly bouncy, rocky ride, especially in our cabin in the bow but I slept like the dead thanks to meclizine. The day was BORING and spent almost entirely in the 2nd floor lounge reading and playing Words with Friends. Meals were definitely not missed despite the rough seas. There was a nap involved, again, thanks to meclizine. 10/14 Day 2 at sea and more boredom. Somehow managed to sleep until 9:30 AM. For me, I'm sure it was meclizine related. In the afternoon I saw some people playing bridge. When I expressed interest, one of the players said she wanted to stop and invited me to take her place. It was perhaps the worst group of bridge players EVER! They were pre beginning level. I extricated myself after an hour or so. 10/15 We arrived in Porto af...

Honfleur and Portsmouth 10/11 We awoke this morning in Le Havre, a huge, busy port.  Le Havre as viewed from the ship Our neighbors at the dock Our tour is in Honfleur, a medieval town nearby. Our guide was excellent. She gave us some history of Honfleur on the bus en route to Honfleur then took us on a tour of the beautiful town with it's incredibly well preserved medieval buildings.           Erik Satie was born here We had time on our own after the tour and Patty and I annoyed Dick and Ira enough with our shopping that they left us on our own. We had a great time checking out the shops and even tasted some Calvados which is a specialty of the Normandy region.    Lots of Calvados We were back on the ship for dinner and on our way to Portsmouth England where the time change gave us an extra hour to sleep. 10/12 ...

  Amsterdam and Bruges 10/9 We woke in Amsterdam. We were scheduled for a canal cruise which involved arriving at the canal on a bus. The traffic was as bad as 101 on Fri afternoon and the guide was terrible. There was total chaos as we left the bus and boarded the canal boat. The cruise was pleasant but fairly unremarkable. We came back to the ship for lunch then walked back into town taking a longer than necessary route. It was a quite warm and sunny day. Barry wanted to buy some gin and on the way to the liquor store we passed a "hemp" store where I bought some CBD candy. On our way back we stopped for a beer at a small bar and sat outside enjoying watching the world. Random woman but just look at the bike parking lot! Sharon, the non beer drinker took the photo That evening we created a Keystone cops confusion around planning the next day's excursion. I had bought tickets for an 8 hr trip to Bruges and Ghent w...