* LIVE from the Rotterdam - 30 day Passage to Spain and Western Europe - Mar. 30th*

Tile work abounds on many buildings and street signs.

Plenty of flowers too, but Kazu resisted.

And a combination of both flowers (bouganvillia - sp?) and tiles high up on this building.

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If we had just gone to this plaza, we would have skipped a lot of uphill walking. Note to self if you ever come back, bring this picture.

The square is very pretty and full of history and lovely architecture and monuments.

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We had an enjoyable and relaxing day enjoying some of the sights and sounds and flavours of Lisbon.

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I am still jealous that your ship got to stay 2 days is Lisbon.

Great pictures.

kazu,

In your post #478, what is the monument in the first picture honoring? Was it something to do with the earthquake? The parts look "damaged". We have been to Lisbon and never saw that particular monument. I tried to attach the photo to my post, but it was "too large". Thanks for all the pictures and postings; reading this thread every day.

Penny

kazu,

In your post #478, what is the monument in the first picture honoring? Was it something to do with the earthquake? The parts look "damaged". We have been to Lisbon and never saw that particular monument. I tried to attach the photo to my post, but it was "too large". Thanks for all the pictures and postings; reading this thread every day.

 

Penny

That monument was damaged a bit in the great earthquake. It is being refurbished I believe Penny.

My memory is short, but I believe it was a monument to all who fought. I will check with DH to see if my memory is good.

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Since I got my hands on DH's memory card here are a few nicer pics of the Church and Cathedral

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That monument was damaged a bit in the great earthquake. It is being refurbished I believe Penny.

 

My memory is short, but I believe it was a monument to all who fought. I will check with DH to see if my memory is good.

 

The monument was at the end of this...

 

 

 

 

 

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There was no free wifi in Santiago de Compostela nor any real time to post.

I was fully prepared to post on the ship and "pay the piper" so to speak. Got back on the ship, in port and despite 3 bars, NO WIFI. Just the basic Navigator stuff that you get off line. GRRRR

Tried late at night when I knew not many would be on and NO wifi. Same thing in the morning (and kazu is up early).

So, apologies. Not sure when I will get it, but I will keep composing and hope I can post sometime today.

It's our 2nd last sea day, the 25th and we are sailing to Portland. The weather Gods have stopped smiling on us and it is pouring rain and quite chilly outside. Around 50 degrees. Can't complain since they have smiled on us the whole trip and it is a sea day so we have no port to face this weather in. Hoping it changes for tomorrow

Lester is busy treating those of us at the Retreat with coffee laced with chocolate and delivering the Times. LOL. (As in Lots of Love). He really is a jewel.

Ok, back to Santiago de Compostela. As we approached our guide warned us that the front of the cathedral was covered as they are working on the facade and told us we would have to come back in 2021 to see it uncovered.

We only had 3 and 1/2 hours in Santiago de Compostela. I had counted on 4 but, with the late start for the tour I guess it cut into our free time. <sigh>

DH and I were about to make the most of it though and soaked in the ambience in the square.

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The Cathedral and the area is magnificent despite the construction.

It was here I discovered my memory card of my camera was full. YIKES. I have another memory card of course, but, it is back in my cabin. I did have my Ipad though, so I put it to use. It's pics are usually better than the camera's with "no flash" but I prefer the camera for other

DH and I then went into the cathedral itself.

OMG - it is huge and beautiful. Like many, it is quite dark and since flash is not allowed, my pics won't do it justice.

But here you go....

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And a few more for you.

Turns out today that today is a high holiday. So the incense burner was swung. It is always swung on high holidays.

I learned that the real purpose of it originally was to send incense through the church to cut the smell that permeated in the Cathedral. In the old days, people slept here, cooked here and were here all the time. Bathing was not common so something was necessary to alleviate the odour.

No pics are permitted during Mass of course.

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Oops, with wifi not working well, I got thrown off trying desperately to upload pics and forgot menus and when and where.

Here is the menu for our second night in LIsbon

And the When and Where for Vigo, Spain

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Our dinner menu for Vigo night

and our When and Where for our sea day

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Our menu for our sea night (Gala Night)

And our When and Where for Portland...

I will be back later with more on Santiago de Compostela, Vigo and hopefully Portland if the wifi Gods smile on me.

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Jacqui, thank you so much for posting your experiences at Santiago de Compostela. We were so glad to hear that you got to see the original Botafumeiro swing. You brought back very fond memories for Patsy and me. During our visit several years ago, we were able to talk at length with a young lady that had just completed her pilgrimage. She had walked alone and had no one to share her experiences with......and of course we were quite willing to listen to her impressions during her trek. I know Santiago was on your bucket list. I would rank our visit to Santiago de Compostela in the top five of all of our cruise experiences. Again, thank you for sharing your experience and pictures and bringing back such fond memories.

John & Patsy

PS, hope things in the Casino and at Bingo are working out for you! :)

Thanks to CC member Loreto, I got a good tip to visit the Museum of the Cathedral. Our entrance fee was only 8 euros for both of us and it was well worth it IMO.

No pictures are permitted inside, but the artifacts date back centuries and it is really interesting.

Pictures were permitted when we got to the top and were outside though.

Much of the floor here is actually crypts for people buried. Some of the engraving on the crypts is recent but many are very old. Some can no longer be read and only the crest can be made out.

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An old monastery originally, the Paradores of Santiago de Compostela is a very pricey place to stay.

I just had to take a peak inside

The entrance door is fabulous.

Right in the courtyard of the church - there are lovely views of the entire square including this.

We didn't really have the time to savour all the flavour (food) of Santiago de Compostela but it was very enjoyable.

If we had known others were going earlier, I think I would have preferred to have arranged a private transfer/round trip taxi to give us more flexibility.

Once the bus returned to Vigo, we still had time to explore and set out to do so. Vigo is an industrial town so while there are not many historical sights, there certainly are some pretty ones.

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Lovely views as we walked back to the ship:

Some of those were great views from our balcony

You could see some of the mussel farms

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The next day was our sea day & the weather had taken a real turn. Pouring rain and quite chilly. The weather Gods had stopped smiling on us but, at least, it was a sea day and we were not in any port.

The captain warned us that our weather in Portland the next day would be quite similar - "typical English weather". We also received notice that we had to go through immigration on our Portland morning.

There was another medallion ceremony which we enjoy going to so, off we went. Adagio did another great job

We skipped lunch since it was at 11 am and we just couldn't fathom eating at that time. We already had our tiles from the last Mariner's lunch so we didn't pursue getting more. How many tiles do we need? LOL.

This was a packing day for kazu. No, not for disembarkation but for Portland to have one piece of luggage shipped to our hotel in Paris. (You have to manage your own luggage on the train we are taking to Paris, so I had planned to eliminate one piece of luggage to make the remaining luggage easier to handle) That box that the concierge had made for me was about to be put to use. All the tags got affixed, decisions made on what to put in, bag weighed and we were ready to go for the next day.

It was our last Gala night, so we decided to try something different (with a piece of lobster on the side for kazu so she could report - LOL).

DH had the foie gras

And I, the papaya

For the entree DH had the sea bass and I the duck

DH was very happy with his entire meal. I enjoyed my appetizer and the lobster but the duck was too rich with too much sauce to suit me. It was tasty but I could only eat a bit of it.

Our next day is Portland. And, I am slowly catching up.

If the ship's wifi holds, I will happily post more later or tomorrow.

thanks for your patience and so stay tuned.

And we'll take you along the Jurassic Coast.

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Hi, Jacqui, We're just back from BA, and I have read your Live From up to page 17, I think, over the last 2 days, so I thought I had better jump to the end and just let you know how much I am enjoying it. You have to have invested a lot in internet! I have never figured out if there was a way to write a post off-line, and then transfer it to Tapatalk!

On Zaandam, we each managed to get the half-price 100 minute plan, as 5-star mariners, and the 200 minutes lasted us for the 5 weeks - but that was just checking emails for a minute or two a couple of times a day, going off-line to answer them, and then going back on line for another minute or two to send them. Worked out well, but I never checked Cruise Critic, so I'm way behind!

Enjoy the rest of your holiday!:) And please give our regards to your DH.

Lots more great reporting and pictures.

Great idea to send luggage to Paris hotel.

Thank you again for all the photos, especially those of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. I am sorry you had such a short time there but at least you were able to make the most of it. That pilgrimage destination is so special.

Hi Jacqui,

Thank you for the memorable pictures of Santiago de Compostela! I am sorry your time was short there, but glad you saw what was important to you and Jose. I am happy that you were able to go to the museum, it was so impressive, and the views from the top were amazing!

Enjoy the remainder of your cruise.

Karen

Hi, Jacqui, We're just back from BA, and I have read your Live From up to page 17, I think, over the last 2 days, so I thought I had better jump to the end and just let you know how much I am enjoying it. You have to have invested a lot in internet! I have never figured out if there was a way to write a post off-line, and then transfer it to Tapatalk!

 

On Zaandam, we each managed to get the half-price 100 minute plan, as 5-star mariners, and the 200 minutes lasted us for the 5 weeks - but that was just checking emails for a minute or two a couple of times a day, going off-line to answer them, and then going back on line for another minute or two to send them. Worked out well, but I never checked Cruise Critic, so I'm way behind!

 

Enjoy the rest of your holiday!:) And please give our regards to your DH.

Hi Ann,

Welcome home and thank you for the good wishes and kind words. Hope you had a great cruise.

I was composing my posts on pages, then copy and pasted on to tap a talk and uploaded the pictures. Uploading pics is the killer time wise for the internet (depending on how well wifi is working).

I did buy a 1,000 minute plan knowing that I would be using wifi. Had I known how erratic it would be some days I probably would have just gotten the 750 minute plan. Oh well.

Hi Jacqui,

Thank you for the memorable pictures of Santiago de Compostela! I am sorry your time was short there, but glad you saw what was important to you and Jose. I am happy that you were able to go to the museum, it was so impressive, and the views from the top were amazing!

 

Enjoy the remainder of your cruise.

Karen

Karen thank you so much for your tip on the museum. We really enjoyed it.

Good morning from the cold windy (but still lovely) Rotterdam. It's April 25th so we must be in Portland. At least that is what the When and Where says:

The day started with the wonderful line to go through immigration. Once the line got going it moved very quickly and the Immigration officers were polite. The only problem was that they were not done the Seabourn ship as planned so they were about 20 minutes late boarding the ship. So, for those with an early time there was a wait.

Of course, there were the usual stragglers whose names had to be called to come to the Showroom at Sea but for whatever reason it did not hold us up from disembarking for our tour. We are doing a private tour with Claudia (kennykat) and we were allowed off the ship on time.

Portland now requires you take a shuttle out of the port area and no longer permits the guides in. This is a recent change and our guide had e'd Claudia to advise her. This caused a bit of a problem - not only because we had a suitcase and a box to put it in to get in and out of the shuttle, but because we were supposed to meet our guide outside the port gate.

The shuttle driver never announced that we are at the port gate nor asked if anyone wanted off there (it is a shuttle stop). We quickly had a "bad" feeling and called to ask him and he said that the port gate was "back there" and we had better get out now. <sigh>

Claudia and Ken headed back to get the guide to pick the 3 of us up. The poor guide was getting a little worried and I know she was happy to see Ken & Claudia. She dropped us off at Combens which is very close (kazu had researched) and the suitcase was verified and quickly dropped in the box and closed with duct tape. Took no time at all and we were off on our tour.

We left Portland admiring the cottages made of stone. Portland stone was very popular and 1/2 of London is built from Portland stone, including the Tower of London.

We were exploring the Jurassic Coast and this was our first stop:

This has a 19 mile pebble beach which they think was caused by tidal waves. This area had the most shipwrecks. Henry VIII built a sea wall (30 metres tall) and it became a deep harbour.

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