If it's Saturday this must be Belgium!

Today we are in Belgium. It’s nestled between Germany, France, and Britain, and is famous for lace, waffles, chocolate, friets (French fries but they are Belgium) and even beer.

Through connections with the cruise critic rollcall for this voyage, we were a group of 8 who had pre-arranged a taxi to take us from the ship’s port in Zeebrugge to the quaint city of Bruge, about a 30-minute drive away. Well, we had a snafu and our taxi did not show. This was a chance we took as we had read that often people will hijack another group’s taxi by saying they are the party on the sign the taxi driver has. After waiting about 30 minutes, we figured we were either forgotten or hijacked. We were very lucky to have friends in our cruise critic group and one of them had arranged for a coach bus to transport a number of people. There was room on the bus for our group, so we joined them for the ride to/from Bruge. Whew!!

Initially a trading center in the 11th century through the 16th century, today Bruge prospers because of tourism. It’s a uniquely well-preserved Gothic city and the tourists have found it!

Store window filled with lace products

....and chocolates everywhere!

With a Rick Steves’ book in hand, we followed his suggested walking tour of the city through the squares and along the canals and over the pedestrian bridges. Our first stop was the bell tower that has stood over Market Square since 1300. We climbed about 360 steps up the circular tower for fantastic views of the city. Just before we reached the top, we could see the carillon room, where the 47 bells are played on the quarter hour. We saw the carillonneur using his fists and feet to play the bells.

Bell tower

Very steep, narrow, winding steps to the top of the tower

The Carillonneur

View from top of bell tower of Bruge

We wove our way through narrow streets and large squares, crossing the canals from time to time and enjoying the beauty of the area. The weather was ideal….we were really expecting rain as there is a 50/50 chance at this time of the year.

Canal in Bruge

This portion of canal was originally the moat around the city

Our Colorado neighbors joined us today and we all met at the De Halve Maan Brewery where Terry and Bob went on a tour of the brewery while Tissy and I visited in the restaurant. Unfortunately the brewery tour turned out to be more of a museum and not a working brewery. Hasn’t been for many, many years. But the guys enjoyed their free glass of beer after the tour and chatted with some locals about the Greek situation and the Dave Matthew Band (Terry had on a DMB t-shirt which sparked the discussion).

Deep in discussion with a couple of Bruge locals

We thoroughly enjoyed our day in Bruge. What a fantastic and picturesque city—a definite must-see for anyone going to Belgium. There is so much more to see and museums to visit, but that will have to be another time.

Next…..France and we’ll go to Normandy D-Day beaches and memorials.

Day 14 - Back in Southampton...for just a bit

After leaving Gibraltar we spent 2 days at sea before arriving in Southampton, Great Britain, where all of the Brits we met during the past two weeks leave this ship and we’ll welcome today new cruisers, mostly Americans, to take the trans-atlantic voyage for the next 15 days.

We left the ship this morning, boarded a coach bus, and headed to the Stonehenge area, about 30 miles away. It’s a rainy day and we are in and out of showers as we travel through the English countryside, through the “New Forest” (planted by William the Conqueror about 900 years ago so that the area could maintain wildlife that they would subsequently hunt). In spite of the cloudy, rainy day, the forest was beautiful with the tree leaves in full fall color. We passed through quaint English villages with thatched roofed houses. Our guide said that a thatched roof can last 50 years! It’s made of hay and covered with chicken wire to keep the birds from hauling away strands of hay to make their nests. Never got a picture of a thatched roof as we sped by too fast and raindrops covered the windows.

Stonehenge evolved from a simple bank and ditch in the Neolithic period some 5000 years ago to a very sophisticated stone circle built on the axis of the midsummer sunrise. The bluestones were brought 240 miles from the Presell mountains in Wales. There are many stories about the significance of Stonehenge. It may have been an astronomical observatory or used for sacred rituals linked to the sun, successful crops or even the dead.

Here we are in front of Stonehenge...in the rain

Artist rendition of what Stonehenge probably looked like

We headed toward the town of Salisbury by first passing “Old Sarum”, which is a huge earthwork raised in about 500 BC by Iron Age settlers, and later occupied by Romans, Saxons and Normans. They built a castle and a royal palace and by the mid-12th century, it was a busy town with a fine new cathedral. Lack of water and squabbles between church and military led to the building of a new settlement by the river, now known as Salisbury. Old Sarum was abandoned and fell into ruin. There is nothing left of any building today.

Old Sarum

In Salisbury, we visited the Salisbury Cathedral. I believe this cathedral was the inspiration (and/or filming was done here for the mini-series) of “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett. It is one of Britain’s finest medieval cathedrals. Its spire is the tallest in all of Britain, and the inside is spectacular. There is nearly 800 years of history inside the cathedral including tombs of nobility from the 13th century and Europe’s oldest working clock (1386). The clock is outside on the bell tower; we got a close-up look at the working mechanisms inside the cathedral.

Salisbury Cathedral

Tallest spire in all Britain

The mechanisms of the oldest working clock in Europe

A tomb dated early 1200's

Also inside was one of the four remaining original texts of the Magna Carta. It is 76 lines of Latin exquisitely written on one page of vellum. No photos were allowed of it so I’ll need to find one on the internet for the photobook. It limited the power of the ruling monarchs and nobility back in 1215 AD and protected the rights of the citizens. Since then many countries’ laws as well as our Declaration of Independence are modeled after main points of the Magna Carta.

We headed back to the ship and will soon attend a Meet and Greet of many cruise critic rollcall members that we ‘met’ on the forum prior to the cruise that are boarding today.

Typical Salisbury street

Another street in Salisbury

Tomorrow we are in Belgium!

Gibraltar

Today’s port is Gibraltar…..also known as “The Rock”. It is a peninsula 2.75 miles long, ¾ of a mile wide and 1,400 feet in height. A population of about 30,000 people live in Gibraltar, which is part of the United Kingdom. With its strategic location at the western entrance of the Mediterranean, “the Rock” offers great value as a military strong point. Europe is only 8 miles from Africa at this point. Whoever controls Gibraltar and the harbor at its base is in a good position to control the passage between the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters.

The Rock--Gibraltar

Over the centuries control of Gibraltar has passed from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the Moors from North Africa to Spain and finally the British.

Our plan today was to walk into town from the port and then take the cable car up the side of the Rock. There are roads zigzagging around the top and side of the Rock and plenty of stairs to go from one level to another. We changed our plans when we started to realize how long it would take to walk on these roads to get from one site to another in the limited time we have. So, we became a party of 8 to take a taxi tour of the Rock. In 1.5 hours we were able to cover all the sites on the Rock.

At our first stop we went inside St.Michael’s Cave, with its chambers of stalactites. There is an underground cavern which has become an amphitheater for concerts, plays, and even an occasional wedding.



The amphitheater inside the cave

 Then it was on to see the Apes Den, home of the famous Barbary Apes. Actually tailless monkeys, the Apes are native to this area, but not to the rest of the Spanish mainland. Legend has it that Britain will retain the Rock as long as the Apes live here. At one point during WWII, they seemed to be dying out so to boost morale of the troops, Winston Churchill gave the legend a bit of help by bringing in ape reinforcements from North Africa in 1944.

At several overlooks of the area, we had a good view of the airport runway down below. It stretches from one coastline to the other, a distance of no more than ¾ mile. It separates Gibraltar from Spain and what is most unusual about it is that the road from Gibraltar to Spain crosses the runway and whenever an airplane is landing or taking off, traffic must be stopped!

The airport runway in bottom third of photo....with road crossing over it.

Our final stop on the Rock was at the tunnels dug out and used for firing cannons during wartimes. There are 34 miles of tunnels dug into the limestone rock. These tunnels were used during the Great Siege in 1779-83 during the American Revolution, when the Spanish and French attempted to starve the British into surrendering. The British held strong. More recently Gibraltar was a key naval and airbase during WWII.

Cannon inside the tunnels on the Rock

Having seen the Rock, we spent the afternoon walking around town, enjoying an authentic lunch of British fish and chips and watching a crystal blowing demonstration in one of the shops. It was then time to head back to the ship and say goodbye to the Mediterranean.

An Anglican Church of England with Moorish architecture



Glass blowers



We now will have 2 days at sea as we head toward Southampton.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Today is a sea day as we sail down the coast of Spain and enter the Straits of Gibraltar again. It’s Halloween and there are decorations all over the ship, with pumpkin carvings and Halloween movies showing throughout the day.

Tonight we’ll get all dressed up again for another formal night, along with the Captain’s Cocktail Party that we have an invitation to attend because we’ve cruised several times. It’s time we check it out.

Barcelona

Today is Barcelona, which is one of Spain’s most lively and dynamic cities, but Barcelona is really not Spanish at all….it is the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia. Located on the coast of the Mediterranean, it was a leading trading power in the 14th and 15th centuries. Today Barcelona is a busy, cosmopolitan place, a center of experimentation in politics and the arts. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, and Antoni Gaudi have all called it “home”.

There is a lot to see in Barcelona but being here only for the day we had to decide what we wanted to see for our first-time visit. We chose Gaudi, who combined art nouveau and modernism in his many works found all over town. Gaudi believed in natural and organic lines, with no trace of anything angular or mechanical. We decided to concentrate on seeing a few of his famous projects.

We were among the first off the ship and after a shuttle ride from the port to the Columbus Monument. You would think that Columbus is pointing toward the new world, but he’s not….he is pointing toward his hometown of Genoa, Ital. We started walking up the famous street, La Ramblas. It is a mile long street lined with shops, flower stalls and cafes. Early in the day, it was not very crowded. On our back way down at the end of our day, it was a mass of people going in both directions. We were always on the alert for pick pockets, and luckily didn’t have any problems.

Columbus Monument

La Ramblas in the morning

After reaching the top of La Ramblas we took the advice of our daughter Jen who visited Barcelona in 2010. “Take a taxi between sites, don’t try to walk it all.” We had lots to see and limited time so off we went to our first stop, Parc Guell, Gaudi’s colorful park. He intended this 30-acre garden to be a 60-residence housing project—a kind of gated community. But around the turn of the century (1900) that idea flopped as the high-income families it was intended for didn’t want to live so far away from the shopping and cultural activities.

Parc Guell

Serpent-like mosaic bench

Next we took another taxi ride to Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s most famous and persistent work, an unfinished church. He worked on it from 1883 to his death in 1926. Construction continues today and it is considered about 60% finished. Following the travel tips I had researched prior to this cruise, I booked our tickets for entry into the building over the internet and that proved to be the way to avoid the massive line of people waiting to buy tickets upon arrival. We breezed right by them all and exchanged our internet receipt for our entry tickets. A definite plus when we didn’t have 3 hours to wait in line. The inside appears to be finished as there was a big push to get that done before the Pope’s visit in November, 2010, when he dedicated the church. The outside is still very much in construction phase and will not be finished until approximately 2026. Local craftsmen often cap off their careers by spending a couple of years on the construction site. Gaudi knew that he would not live to see the building completed and recognized that later architects and artists would rely on their own inspiration to complete the project. There were many Gaudi drawings and blueprints in the museum beneath the building and plaster models made throughout the years that were used in construction. It was a most fascinating building and we wandered around for about 2 hours.

Sagrada Familia

Plaster model in museum

But it was time to move on to the next Gaudi building, the Casa Mila—Gaudi’s last major work before dedicating his final years to the Sagrada Familia. The Casa Mila was built to be an apartment building for the middle class. We were able to tour a typical apartment, all set up as it might have been when first occupied. A highlight was the jaw-dropping rooftop, where chimneys look like they could have inspired the Star Wars soldiers.

Casa Mila

The rooftop chimneys standing guard.  There are 30 of them on the roof

View of Sagrada Familia from rooftop of Casa Mila

Next on our list was the Casa Batllo, with skull-like balconies. We decided not to tour the inside of this as time was getting short and we were feeling a bit tired.

Casa Batllo

Close up of the skull-like balconies

So it was time to relax a bit at a little café on the La Ramblas, do a little people watching, and enjoy a little more gelato!

Before heading back to the ship, we walked through the Barri Gotic area and check out the remains of the old Roman wall that protected a smaller Barcino, as the city was called in ancient times..

Remains of the old Roman wall

Then it was down to the Placa Reial, a neoclassical square that has Gaudi’s first public works—colorful helmeted lamp posts.

Gaudi's first public work--a helmeted lamp post

A much busier La Ramblas at the end of the day

It was then time to catch the shuttle bus back to the ship and say “Adios” to Barcelona with hopes that we will return someday….there is so much more to see and experience.