The rest of the vacation

This will be my last blog entry for this trip.  It's a summary of my last few days in London. 

Becky and I checked out of our hotel in Greenwich the day before  yesterday and headed to Paddington.  I dropped my bags off at the Hilton in Paddington and Becky and I had lunch together before I saw her off on the Heathrow express.    

Then I met up with my friend Kris and we headed out to the open  air theatre at Regents Park to see a musical comedy called "Shucked".  It was a lovely sunny afternoon and the performance was excellent. 

Kris and I had dinner at Franco Manca afterwards and then sat chatting at the Costa in Paddington until it was closing and we got kicked out.   It was a great day together. 

Yesterday, I met up with my old school friend Gurjit and we had an amazing afternoon tea at Taj near Buckingham Palace. 

Then we walked over to Hyde park and toured an art exhibit at the Serpentine Gallery. It was so nice to see Gurjit again after so many years.  

Today is my last day in London.  I was due to meet another friend,  but she had to cancel.  So after I check  out of my hotel here in Paddington I'll probably just wander round the shops before  heading out to Heathrow.  I have one more night at the hotel in Terminal  2 before flying home on Sunday. 

Day 21 - Horniman Museum and Gardens

I was watching an episode of QI on YouTube the other day and one of the Victorian curiosities they were asking questions about  (a merman skeleton) had been loaned to them by the Horniman Museum.  I'd never heard of this place,  but a discussion  ensued between the QI competitors, with all of them saying how they'd been to this museum  and how nice it was.  So I decided I should check it out next time I was in London. 

It's a bit out of the way, and being south of the river it's not on the underground network.  Instead,  we walked from Greenwich to New Cross Gate station and took the London  overground Windrush line to Forest Hill.  The museum itself is free, as are the lovely gardens.  It houses a large selection of curios from all over the world that Horniman collected. 

There's also an aquarium and a butterfly house and there was a special exhibition of robots  made in the shape of animals, called "robot zoo",  but these have an entrance fee,  so we didn't do them.

It's Becky's last day in Greenwich (she's heading for Heathrow tomorrow), so after returning  from the Horniman we went for a nice lunch at a restaurant we'd spotted near the Cutty Sark.   The wait staff didn't speak great English  and after ordering "taramasalata as an appetizer ", what we got was taramasalata and an appletizer!  

After lunch we went back to the Maritime Museum again and went around the 1st floor. We hadn't managed to see that floor before the museum  closed for the day on our previous  visit. 

Then it was off to our favourite ice cream shop again which was all we wanted for dinner after such a large lunch.  Today I had caramel popcorn and black vanilla flavours.

Day 20 - Prospect of Whitby

During previous visits to London we've taken  river cruises and sailed past a pub called The Prospect of Whitby several times.

The pub is noticeable because there is a hangman's noose set over the edge of the river just in front of it.  So the guides on the boat always point it out and explain that this marks the location of the aptly named Execution Dock.  Pirates and other criminals were hanged here until 1830, with the bodies often left to be washed away by the tide.

The Prospect is the oldest riverside pub in London, having managed to avoid being burnt down during the Great Fire of London  in 1666. 

The pub is associated with Judge Jeffreys, the notorious  hanging Judge, who was said to enjoy dining at the pub while he watched the executions.

As the pub is very close to where we are staying in Greenwich (albeit on the other side of the river) we decided to go over there today for lunch.  We took the DLR over to Shadwell and walked through Wapping and along the Thames path on the other side of the river. Had a nice lunch at the Prospect and after that it was back to Greenwich to see another  movie.  We've also found a really amazing ice cream shop in Greenwich with some amazing flavours.  So having had a big lunch at the pub we decided to just have ice cream in the evening.  Yesterday I tried lotus biscuit and banana caramel,  so today I had jaffa cake and peach. Yum!

Day 19 - Disembarkation

This morning we had to be out of our room by 8am. We hung out in the ground floor bar waiting to disembark, where they had set up a small breakfast buffet.  After saying  goodbye to some of the friends we'd met onboard we took the clipper to shore and found our cases in the tent they'd set up in the grounds of the Royal Naval College.   This is the end of our cruise, but I still have  6 more nights in London. 

We headed over to our hotel in Greenwich and dropped off our bags, although it was too early for us to check in.  So we walked back to the Royal Naval College and toured the painted room and the chapel for a while.  

We had lunch at a Costa and decided to go to the movies in the afternoon and see "Thunderbolts ".   We walked back from the cinema along the Thames path on the side of the river. It was a lovely afternoon, so we stopped at the  Cutty Sark pub for a cider on the way.  

After checking in at the hotel  we got an early night as we had been up early for disembarkation. 

Day 18 - Arriving in Greenwich

London is the last port of call for our cruise.   We sailed slowly up the Thames this morning.  When I say slowly I mean it - especially when we had to thread our way through the Thames Barrier.  The widest gap in the barrier is 100ft and our ship is 93 ft wide.  So it was a tight squeeze.

Eventually we arrived at Greenwich and dropped anchor near the Cutty Sark.  We still have to take Thames clipper ships to get to shore. 

After a long wait before they finally cleared us, Becky and I made our way to the dock and walked up the hill to the Greenwich Royal Observatory (where the Prime Meridian that marks 0 degrees longitude is marked) and we did the usual tourist trick of standing  with one foot in each of the eastern and western  hemispheres. 

It was a lovely day and the views from the top of the hill were great.

Then we went to the Maritime Museum,  which was a lot more interesting than I was expecting and is definitely worth a visit, if you're ever in Greenwich.   I only wanted to see the Franklin letter (the only communication ever found from the doomed expedition to try and find the northwest passage through the arctic).  I did see this, but also found the exhibition about Tudor and Stuart ships interesting.   Especially fascinating  was the section on Nelson and Trafalgar - they even had Nelson's coat on display, complete  with bullet hole.

Unforunately we were a bit late in the day and the museum was closing at 5pm, so we didn't get to see much else.   We walked over to Greenwich market and, it being Sunday, managed to get a proper Sunday roast dinner at the Admiral Hardy pub, even though it was early evening by now.

Then it was back to the ship for a few last cocktails before  retiring to the room to finish our packing and put our cases out. Tomorrow is disembarkation day.

Day 17 - Happy birthday to me

Docked at the not particularly white cliffs of Dover this morning,  but no bluebirds to be seen.

Becky and I took the shuttle bus up to Dover Castle at 10am.  The cruise daily claims it's the largest Castle in the UK,  although other sources say that Windsor Castle is the biggest.   At any rate, it's a jolly big castle and they had some interesting displays about the siege of the castle during John's reign.   We were also shown round the great tower by a medieval laundress and a pilgrim who had walked all the way from Aquitaine.  They were very funny.  Unforunately, some of the Americans in the group just didn't get the pilgrim's attempt to stay in character when they said they were from  Alabama and he asked if that was "across the water".  Instead,  they kept trying to tell him it was near Florida.

After returning to the ship we enjoyed  a few hours walking on the sundeck before it was time to head to Manfredis restaurant for my birthday  meal.  Where I was given a cake and we were plied with far too many glasses of fizz.

Day 16 - Sailing the English Channel

After a choppy night on the Irish Sea we woke up just as we were passing Lands End.  

Today is our only "at sea" day of the cruise and we're meant to be "sailing the English Channel ", but they kept the ship right out in the middle of the Channel, so there really wasn't anything to look at.  We aso seemed to be going extremely  slow. Despite  having passed  Lands End in the morning  we still hadn't  passed Cherbourg by mid afternoon.   I could have driven from Cornwall to  Dover more quickly. 

At least the weather was nice and Becky and I managed to have a nice walk around the sundeck for an hour.  We also took care of housekeeping items  like doing our laundry,  washing our hair and starting our packing as there are only 2 more days left before we disembark. 

The highlight of the day was winning the last trivia quiz of the cruise.  Rather than bother with a boring photo of the view of the sea from deck, I'll finish with one of the 3000 piece jigsaw that I finally finished (barring a few missing pieces).

Day 15 - Dublin

Docked off Dun Laoghaire (it's pronounced dun leery), this morning and we took the tender to shore, followed  by a bus into the centre of Dublin. 

We started out with a tour of Trinity College which included a visit to their library to see the Book of Kells. Also in the long room of the library was an artwork called Gaia, which was a sort of suspended globe thing.  

After Trinity we walked along the river and saw Leinster House and Dublin Castle and did a whole load of gift shopping,  including  buying each other  birthday presents. 

We had a very nice pub lunch at a place called Kennedys before heading  back to the ship mid afternoon.   

Back onboard we discovered that they had left us a chocolate cake and a bottle of bubbly in the room for Becky's birthday (only a day late).  I wonder if we'll  get another  round in a couple of days for my birthday?

Day 14 - Back in Wales for Becky's birthday

Today we are moored at the cargo/ferry terminal  in Holyhead. 

I'm not sure why we didn't moor at the  other (pretty) quay with the lighthouse,  close to the rather  lovely beach.  Instead, on disembarkation we were treated to a 10 minute bus ride around a parking lot full of shipping containers before being dropped off at the railway station.  I can only assume that docking where we were was cheaper,  allowing  Viking to maximize their profits.

The town centre of Holyhead was pretty run down.  Sort of like a smaller version of Port Talbot.  I had planned on taking Becky out for a meal but even the pubs weren't open.  Then one of the locals suggested we to to the Marina Bistro down at the beach and after a 10 - 15 minute walk in the opposite direction to where we'd come from we discovered a nice promenade with a sailing club, RNLI building, maritime museum and a rather nice bistro where Becky and I had a lovely lunch.

Despite it being Becky's  birthday  we didn't manage to win the Name That Tune quiz in the bar that evening. 

Day 13 - She's Got a Ticket to Ride

Today we are moored on the Mersey in the heart of Liverpool. 

We were booked on the Beatles tour in the morning,  which took us to various stops including the Beatles  museum, Penny Lane, Strawberry  Fields and the childhood homes of John, Paul and Ringo (apparently  the street George lived on is too narrow  to get a bus down).

On our return from the tour we walked around the riverside area and had a late lunch at a nice pub called The Pumphouse.  We returned to the ship in the late afternoon unable to keep our eyes open after a large meal and a couple of ciders.

Day 12 - Belfast

After quite a choppy night at sea, we were booked on the Giant's Causeway tour first thing.  We got to the bus and said hello to the guide who immediately identified us as Welsh.  

It was a couple of hours drive to the Causeway and on the way we stopped  at Dunluce Castle, near the town of Bushmills (where the whiskey comes from). 

When we reached the Causeway visitor centre we took the 15 minute walk down to the stones with some beautiful  views on the way. I climbed up on some of the stones, but not right up on the really tall ones.

The stones are are formed by a rare form of volcanic activity.  Similar volcanic rock formation can by found in Fingal's Cave in Scotland and at Reyjnisfara in Iceland,  but Giant's Causeway  is by far the biggest one with over 41 thousand of these hexagonal columns.  

On the way back we had another  stop at a place  where the coast of Scotland is only 12 miles away.  In the photo below the land beyond the island s actually  the Mull of Kintyre.  Be glad this is a blog not a podcast, so I can't break out into  a very bad rendition of the Paul McCartney song.

After that it was back to the ship for an early  supper  and  early to bed.  We'd been  warned that we were expecting winds of 50 knots and swells of 4 meters in the Irish  sea once we left port, so we didn't want to be walking around  the  ship in that kind of weather. 

Day 11 - Ullapool

Today's stop was at the small port of Ullapool in the Scottish  Highlands.  There's  not a lot in Ullapool  (population  1500) and Becky and I didn't  fancy  any of the excursions  being offered. 

Originally we'd planned to just go ashore by ourselves and perhaps walk around the town,  find a pub, and have lunch there. However,  then we discovered that at this stop we'd have to get a tender to the shore and that it was a morning only stop with the last tender back at 12.30.  Given that it was also Sunday and anything that was there was likely to be closed, we decided to give it a miss and just stayed onboard.   Instead we enjoyed the hot tub and afternoon tea again.

I also made some progress on this 3000 piece jigsaw that I've been  working on with some  fellow  passengers. 

Short entry  for today I know. But it balances out yesterday's monster entry.