Ponta Delgada, Portugal- Le Havre, France- Rotterdam. The Netherlands

Wed. Hey after seven days a sea we are on land.  Ponta Delgada which is a small island part of Portugal.  It was great to get off the ship.  After breakfast we got on a shuttle bus and got left off at the end of the pier. We walked around an old Fort which the army still uses today and saw some taxies. We had one of them take us around the city.  As you can see in the pictures below.  There are many churches and cathedrals.  The town people felt that if they had places to pray they would not have as many earth quakes.  We went past some beaches, gardens, and cemeteries. He took us to an old village and across town to the newer part of town. They raise cattle and corn. There is still growth put a lot of folks have left for Canada and the USA. The driver was very informative and stopped every time we wanted to take a picture.  We all had a wonderful visit at Ponta Delgada.

 Thur. The seas have been calm and the weather warm. This is the day mom went to be with the Lord three years ago. The top pictures are the pictures of dad giving mom a rose. The next row rainbow, one of the ice carvings, dad and Linda on our balconies, a salmon they served for lunch.  Bottom pictures we had another formal night the one on the right is dad’s second dinner of lobster.  

Fri. They had a Filipino Fiesta Food Festival. Many of the staff helped. They had food from there country, did many native dances both old and new, sang songs, and showed us there customs.  The rest of the day we just enjoyed being at sea and relaxing.

Sat. We sailed all night and went to Cork (Cobh) Ireland. Port was far inland and land was very green. Picture below is us coming into port. There were a few massive churches and many homes along the way. They commemorated many things. The mother and two children is a statue here and in New York her looking toward Cork, a ship going in between two bridge pilings, a painted wall for Titanic 100 years ago (which was its last dock), and a statue of a saint guarding the harbor. We saw a unicycle between the boat and the train station. The boat docked on an island with one bridge on and off.

We took a bus to Blarney Castle which has Blarney Stone (if kissed gives you power of eloquence). Built in 1446 it was the strongest castle in Ireland. Picture below top dad and I standing in front of the castle and the castle. Second row where the Blarney stone is from the outside. Bottom right two pictures Linda and I after climbing 100 very narrow steps kissing the stone. Bottom left I had to turn my head for the ceiling was to low and Linda climbing the steps which we're very steep.

The picture below is the gardens on the property.  As we walked the gardens the sun was shinning then poured down rain. The area we saw was beautiful.

Sun. After our bible study we had breakfast then to see the Unique flavors of India. Pictured below some of the dances one they used sticks to keep time. Others scarfs on there arms.  They had traditional dances and modern.  They had food from four regions of India. Most of them desserts. The bottom right picture he rolled out the dough, thinned it like pizza dough then made it into a twisted ball treat.

Mon. We got to La Havre, France /temp. high 54 There was a trolley that took us to town square. Top left two pictures Tower of Saint-Joseph Church. Auguste Perret rebuilt the entire city which was leveled in 1945.  He is known as the “Concrete Promoter” This church was built to dedicate to the 5,000 who died there. The tower is made up of 12,768 Stained glass windows.  The hgt of the building is 107m   Top right is the Cathedrale Notre-Dame The only building to stand after WW2. rest of the pictures are of Place de l’Hotel de Ville which is City Hall, Town Square gardens, fountains, and statues.

Tues.  Now that we are in this part of the world we do not have as far to travel.  We had a nice slow trip to Rotterdam, Netherlands (Holland).  This is the second busiest port in the world.  The first set of pictures is our trip into where the ship was docked.  It took over an hour to get there and the last two miles the ship had to back into dock.

This second picture is some of the buildings.  Note the Bottom second one,  it was designed to have the same tilt as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Middle right Linda liked the “cube homes”.

These are pictures taken from our city tour from Princess, top left is our ship. Below it is the old Rotterdam that is now there all the time as a hotel.   Top middle is the prison. The picture below the prison is the old RR bridge.  They were going to tear it down but the people tied themselves to the bridge because they thought of it as history and wanted to keep it.

Across the top you have a man pulling a suite case. 2nd picture is four healthy trees  holding up a dead tree (representing future and past). Next since this port moves more crude oil than any where else in the world, barrels of crude oil statue. Right picture was done by a famous artist from here.  Second row left is the train station which looks like jaws and that is what they call the station today. Below that is bicycles which is how most people get around here.  This is the most used type of transportation as cars are very expensive to have here.  The rest are fountains, gardens, and delivery cycle.

Our ship left at midnight and this is some of the night pictures.