MSC Magnifica picture heavy fun review -- 12 days British Isles incl. DIY port trips

[midwestsunshine]

Stef,

Thank you so much for sharing your amazing trip. The background information you share is so much better than any travel guide! The pictures are phenomenal.

 

Can't wait to take our own British Isle cruise- hopefully in 2016. You can be sure I'll use your review in planning. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

Judy

[spinnaker2]

Stef...I was marveling at the cemetery. It's like a city. I recall feeling that about the cemetery in Buenos Aires, which we toured. Evita is enshrined there, along with many others. One could get lost in the exploration of such a place.

[PegKay]

Stef, you can add me to your long list of devoted readers. We are doing a British Isles cruise with Celebrity in August, 2016. I love your reviews with such beautiful pictures and terrific insight and humor, and your amazing family. I started with this one and I am now reading your Serenade review, then on to Adventure. Keep it up please!

Peggy in Atlanta, GA

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Edited December 18, 2014 by PegKay86

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

sigh -- the joys of telecommunication ... NOT!

 

again I`m at my mom`s house ... surprise, surprise I`m offline again:mad:. Grrrr.....

 

:(I`ll be back as soon as I get connected again.

 

:p:p:pVery very many thank yous to all of you. Wow -- those flattering remarks about the review make me dizzy. I love that you love it....that sounds odd, but I guess you know what I mean. Thanks for all the support!

 

there is a tiny inkling of hope about maybe a tiny MSC cruise between February and March for Tanja and me while Tarik is away skiing....I don`t dare to rejoice yet, but maybe you could hold your thumbs that it might work out....it would of course mean a brand new review as well after the cruise:rolleyes:.

 

Stef

[denisey]

Too bad on the internet being down! I'm glad Mom is nearby, so you can let us know!

 

Holding my thumbs on the March cruise. I think all parents of teenagers need a romantic getaway every now and again!

 

And of course, there is something in it for me in a new wonderful review!

 

So, how can we help? Start a fund raiser? Write letters? Get David Hasselhoff involved?

 

Oh, and I finally booked another cruise, so I can write a fabulous cruise review. But you will have to wait, the cruise is in Feb of 2017!

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Halloween worthy stuff

Some stuff we saw, or were told about sent shivers down our spine … so I call this our Halloween post. Did you know by the way that the rite of Halloween was brought to America by the Irish?

Yup.

And when it was nearly forgotten in Europe, the hype swept back to the old world from overseas not too long ago …

Small word.

Anyway, let’s get started on the spooky stuff. Lol, we’ll start off harmless and add intensity as we go along, okay?

The hollow eyes of this statue with the chain gave me shivers.

I thought this “cross-necklace” looked like someone has made it from human bones.

Restoring?

Are they carving fresh bones;)?

This statue and especially the field behind it has a sad story.

I believe you already got quite a good feel for the hard times Irish people were facing again and again in the past. And who suffers (and dies) first usually?

Right – the small children.

Even apart from the potato famine, Irish families commonly suffered plenty of hardships. The dwellings were tiny, cold and filthy; most of the times many family members had to share one mattress full of fleas and lice, transmitting deseases and weakening the poorly fed kids more than they could stand. Then at night, the small ones simply got suffocated in their sleep, because everybody was so closely huddled up, drained and slept so deep. In the morning it wasn’t unusual to wake up as an Irish kid, turn around and find your little brother or sister next to you blue and cold – dead.

This square behind the angel statue houses over 50.000 !!! unmarked graves of babies and children.

Harmless picture you think? … ha – wait till you hear the story.

As you’ve seen on some of the cemetery pictures already, the whole “old” part of the burial grounds are closed in within solid stone walls. You can see watchtowers every so often. Of course nowadays it isn’t required to guard the dead anymore…but there were times in history, when this was indeed an important task.

Do you remember the mortsafes of Edinburgh?

Lol – mean of me to ask you this after sooo many more posts I know…Lol, just checking on how much you remember. All of you who still know get an “A”. All of you who scroll back to reread get a “B” for the shown effort … lol and the rest – no worries, this isn’t highschool anymore…you can’t flunk this review, so relax! I’ll tell you about the watchtowers anyway.

Human bodies, fresh in their graves, where worth money – a LOT of money. They were sold to be used by anatomy students to practice surgical procedures and to gain anatomical knowledge in general. Dublin -- just like Edinburgh, had a medical facility and paid well for the corpses. Not as well as the Scots did though.

Although it was (of course!) forbidden to dig up the newly-buried corpses, rates as high so the entire family would be living well for two months were just too tempting. If you were even wittier, you managed to smuggle the dug up corpses to Scotland – this way you’d feed your family like kings for

three

entire months!

But how to get a smelly corpse to Scotland unnoticed? Well, here are the two most common ways:

1. Remember the shiploads of grain passing the starving peasants on their way to England? Well, there were still grains traded to the mainland – but now the loose grain contained one or the other hidden corpse once in a while. Well, corpses do tend to rot. Mhhh, how to transport it without the smell being noticed?

2. The corpses not so nice and fresh anymore to be laid down in grain because of their smell, where stuffed into big barrels of Irish whiskey and filled up with the liquor to the top. This way the corpse was somewhat preserved until it was dragged out in Scotland again… and trust me … they still sold that whiskey:eek:, which after this temporary ingredient attachment might have tasted a little … different.

Lol and to prevent all this grave robbery, the walls and the watchtowers were in constant use. At night the cemetery got locked and there were bloodhounds roaming the grounds… but still --- when you starve, you’ll try anything. The graves sometimes were dug up minutes after the pastor and the family left the funeral during broad daylight.

Thank God all this stopped, once the medical facilities had to start documenting, where they got their corpses from. But I especially liked the whiskey story and thought maybe you would enjoy to hear it as well.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Too bad on the internet being down! I'm glad Mom is nearby, so you can let us know!

 

Holding my thumbs on the March cruise. I think all parents of teenagers need a romantic getaway every now and again!

 

And of course, there is something in it for me in a new wonderful review!

 

So, how can we help? Start a fund raiser? Write letters? Get David Hasselhoff involved?

 

Oh, and I finally booked another cruise, so I can write a fabulous cruise review. But you will have to wait, the cruise is in Feb of 2017!

 

Hi, lol -- had to hurry to get the last post out as long as I'm able to. The internet is breaking away all the time and I was happy to get a little "on" time right now. Don't know how long it'll last this time, but a technician will hopefully come soon ... soon probably meaning beginning of January:rolleyes:. Until then I'll just try to post sneakily whenever possible for a few minutes.

 

:eek:Lol -- no Hasselhoff -- please have mercy!!!!!

 

It all depends on if Tanja will get those days off work granted or not. She won't find out until the first week in January and we don't dare to book before that:o.

 

Stef

[Irish Cath]

I think I speak for the cruising world when I say WE MISS YOU. Hope your technical problems are short lived. More importantly I hope yourself, Tanja and Tarik have a really happy, peaceful and enjoyable holiday time.

[bridgetjonesni]

I'm just back from my own cruise and have just caught up with your review. I'm still gripped and can't wait for more. I found your post about the Irish Potato Famine especially moving. I always find it a haunting statistic that the population of the island of Ireland at the beginning of the potato famine was more than it is now (approx 8.2 million then compared to approx 6.5 million now). So many people dead and so many others with no choice but to leave the only home they've ever known... it's chilling.

[tsahall01]

Hey, Stef!!

 

Enjoying your review!! Hope Santa brings you a new internet connection so we can finally find out what really happened in Dublin!! :D

 

All kidding aside, hope you and Tanja and Tarik have a wonderful Christmas!! Warm holiday greetings coming from St Thomas!! Susan :p

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

A very mery christmas to all of you from Tanja, Tarik and myself!

 

Tanja managed to get the computers running again and the connection was stable for the last 24 hours.

 

 

I know -- shame on me that I haven't posted yet, but the christmas celebrations take up all free time right now. I will be back with new posts on Saturday the 27th.

 

Don't worry, I WILL finish this review (next post ---again history -- already almost completely written!)

 

Today, we'll be at my mom's house, enjoying christmas day one... you know we have two of them here in Germany, don't you? Maybe I'll take a picture of us and post it later.

 

Merry Christmas!!!!!

 

Stef

[europe14]

Merry Christmas Stef, Tanja and Tarik!

[spinnaker2]

Hope your First day of Christmas was merry, and you enjoyed the festivities with family.

We are still eating leftovers from Christmas Eve.

[Elmartellama]

Merry christmas!

 

We also have two days over here, plus this weekend as extension! I just love it this year :D

 

Have a bright 2015

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Glasnevin cemetery (post six of nine)

Another history post… ready?

This is according to Bridget the best spot on the cemetery.

This is the so called Cholera-mount. (Guess why it carries that name and why it had grown to be a mount ---- brrrr, shiver) Right in the middle is a single gravestone as the only marked grave on top of the mount. This is the eternal resting place of Charles Stewart Parnell.

Charles Stewart Parnell

Aka “the uncrowned king of Ireland”. Parnell was born in 1846 and entered the political stage aged 29, after three Fenians (explanation will follow) were hanged in Manchester, for a murder, which many Irish thought to be an accident. Already a year after his debut, he got elected to Parliament. He had a plan as to how to disrupt the regular workings of “the mother of all parliaments” and how to draw attention to the Irish cause through that.

He talked! And talked! And talked! His speeches before the parliament lasted hours!

His goal was to push through the so called “Home Rule”, which was a bill to give Ireland more freedoms. The most important issue for Parnell was the right for the Irish to own their own land. He wanted to stop the evictions and the insanely high rents -- basically Ireland for the Irish. He was well on his way to at least achieve parts of it (although the House of Lords again and again vetoed it out) until right at the height of his career in 1881 he stumbled over something very private and intimate.

He fell in love with a married woman. His beloved Catherine O’Shea soon filed for a divorce.

Now divorces were bad in those days …. Only to be topped by the people causing them. So Parnell was politically ruined and although he really tried to remain successful in politics, he was shunned completely.

He did get to marry his love Catherine, but all the stress caused an early death and he died at the age of 45 while on yet another desperate journey to regain political impact.

In death, the Irish forgave him his private escapades. The funeral was HUGE. Picture hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets of the city, as the coffin goes by and thousands on the cemetery itself. The only other as big funeral so far happened when Daniel O’Connell himself died 50 years earlier… but we’ll get to him at the end of the cemetery posts.

Parnell died before the Easter Rising and he never got to see his beloved ”Home Rule” step into action, but he was one of the first passionate politicians, fighting for more Irish independence. What O’Connell started on the grounds of religious equality, he transferred to the political stage and towards an Irish national pride. He pretty much laid the foundation for all the independence activities to come.

This is another grave worth mentioning here.

Jeremia O’Donovan Rossa was a founding member of the Fenian brotherhood and died as an old man in New York City. His body was shipped back to Dublin, where once again hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets as his hearse drove by.

What’s a Fenian, you ask? Well, I already told you about the IRB, remember? And the so called “Fenians” where another group just like that whose goal was an independent Ireland.

Bridget told us more about the origins of the Fenians…but I don’t know if I understood her correctly… anyway, here’s my version from what I understood (without guarantees):

Fenians in the early days where storytellers. Before it was common to use the written word, Celtic storytellers called Fenians roamed the Irish Island to keep people up to date about history, legends and the present. A Fenian was powerful, because of the knowledge he had and because of his ability to control the way that knowledge was delivered to the public. It was said that a Fenian could kill with words – he didn’t even need any physical weapon. And THAT’S powerful. See, I’m not quite sure about whether it was the Fenians who

were

the storytellers or if it was them who

profited

from those storytellers.

O Donovan Rossa’s funeral marked a highlight in the history of this storytelling tradition. Patrick Pearse, the orator of his time was hired to speak beside the grave. When Pearse asked the Fenians who hired him, as to how far he should go, they answered

“make it hot as hell, throw discretion to the winds”

..and that’s exactly what he did.

Actually it was the impact of this speech that started the active planning phase for the Easter Rising. The thousands, who heard Pearce’s speech, soon spread the word … rebellion was in the air. And you already know now how it would continue.

Anyway, here’s the conclusion of the famous speech, held by Patrick Pearse on O Donovan Rossa’s funeral that made it into the history books:

“They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools! –they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”

 

Guess what that did to people! It was more powerful than any army or IRA terrorist attack could have been.

If you’d like to read the whole speech (it’s worth it!) you can find the text here:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Speech_at_the_Grave_of_O’Donovan_Rossa

 

By the time of Bridget telling us this story, Tanja and Tarik needed a break from standing and from listening. Here’s their pooped and ready for lunch bench-picture.

So, we have covered huge chunks of Irish history now… only the “founding father” of the cemetery is left. Daniel O’Connell and his roundtower will hopefully be an impressive end to our tour of the cemetery. But first … you deserve another break and some more pictures without text …

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Glasnevin cemetery (post seven of nine)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stay tuned!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Glasnevin cemetery (post eight of nine)

Daniel O’Connell’s roundtower

Lol. Nahhh, this ain’t it of course….

Ah, here we go.

Underneith the tower, you enter into his tomb. First there’s this “entrance”area with these cages for watchdogs

… they were never in use.

Then you enter into the room that holds the coffin displayed in its center.

The walls are covered with intricate Celtic ornaments and important dates of Irish history.

The feeling is light and airy, not at all what you would expect a tomb to be like.

Behind this central room, you can step through one more gate and gaze up into the actual tower… this is what you’d see:

There was a wooden staircase once to make it possible to walk all the way up to the top (imagine the stunning views over the vast cemetery grounds from up there), but a fire destroyed it completely. There are plans to rebuild them though.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Glasnevin cemetery (last post)

Who was this Daniel O’Connell, whose name seems to pop up everywhere you go in Ireland?

Well, he was a man, who believed that all religions should co-exist on eye-level. He founded this cemetery, because he wanted to create a burial place, where both catholic and protestant citizens could peacefully mourn in a way they thought fit.

He was completely against violence. He said that not a drop of blood should be spilled for an independent Ireland.

His most important achievements were the emancipation of the Catholics. Up to that date, the Catholics of Ireland were treated like second-class people – but what’s even more important was that they FELT like that as well. O’Connell gave them a feeling of self-respect, -esteem and pride. He still holds the nickname “the liberator” for that.

He was all for diversity. Although he spoke Gaelic, he encouraged the Irish to learn English to broaden their knowledge and to be able to communicate better. One of the prejudices of some English were that many Irish Catholics were of poor education. O’Connell wanted to change that and actively tried to enhance learning will and possibilities amongst his countrymen.

He died as an old man on a pilgrimage to Rome. He got as far as Genoa, Italy. Here he pronounced his last wish, which you can see written down in these two pictures:

My body to Ireland --- yep, that happened. Here lies his coffin.

My heart to Rome --- one believes that this happened, although nobody knows, where this last resting place is.

My soul to heaven. He was a Cristian as good as they come, did a ton of good deeds and opposed all violence …if there exists such a thing as heaven … his soul is there….for sure.

One “fun” thing is that you can reach into the stone sarcophagus and actually touch the wooden coffin. It brings great luck if you do. And Bridget also told us we wouldn’t have to worry…the coffin contained an additional coffin made out of lead. People of those days often died of hideous diseases and it wasn’t certain, that the corpses weren’t infectious anymore, even today!

Here you can see the holes where you reach through to touch the coffin.

See the coffin?

Proof! I touched the coffin, we all did.

Would it bring us luck for the remainder of the day? Lol – or maybe it was meant more like a long term life-long luck-deal?

We shall wait to find out!

With this we finish our report on Glasnevin cemetery. It was one of the most memorable tours I ever took and this place is so amazing, that we simply have to return to find out more! For now, we needed food! Lot’s of it. Our heads were spinning and I was badly craving my first Guinness in Ireland.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[msdurk]

Enjoying your posts---but........is there some way you can make your font smaller. Can't get it all on one page. Thank you.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Enjoying your posts---but........is there some way you can make your font smaller. Can't get it all on one page. Thank you.

 

Hi,

 

Welcome! Glad you're enjoying the review.

 

I'm sorry, but I really don't want to change the font in the middle of a review. I will however remember your problem for the next review and start that one off in a little smaller one. I really hop not to offend you with this and hope you'll still stay and "suffer" through the font problem. Thank you!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Gravedigger’s Pub aka John Kavanagh’s (post one of two)

We walked along the yellow line on the map to the pub.

We later on returned through the cemetery gate and the cemetery via the blue route to the bus stop. Would we have known, that the gate would be unlocked, we’d have taken the blue route for both ways.

The Gravedigger’s pub is called such, because it had a neat little clap opening up towards the cemetery. The gravediggers of the past could knock and get their pints of Guinness right through that clap while they were at work. How convenient!

Nowadays it is “just” a regular pub. But wait, not quite so regular after all. The owner, of course another Kavanagh, is in charge of the daily menu. He buys fresh ingredients every day and you never know, what will be prepared that day.

Once back from the market, the chalkboard is being written on. Tadahh the daily food menu. We LOVED it! Don’t ask me what we ate…we were so pooped after the cemetery tour, that we didn’t take pictures of either menu or food …

...but let me tell you it was absolutely delicious!!!!!!!

THE best food of the entire vacation. A bowl filled with vegetables, chicken and a creamy curryish sauce…. My mouth starts watering as I write this. And the desert was to die for! Warm (homemade) Apple tart with Ice cream and fresh blueberries and a crunchy … something, which simply blew you away.

But even before we enjoyed the food, we were delighted to try our first beers in Ireland.

Sorry – I was too thirsty to take a picture of the full pint.

Cheers!

Tanja was a little more disciplined.

Lol – but the glass emptied pretty quickly as well (she isn’t into Guinness (unbeliebable, isn't it?) --- so she tried this one)

 

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Gravedigger’s Pub aka John Kavanagh’s (post two of two)

I was expecting to see a lot of tourists…and was surprised to see the place filled with locals, enjoying their lunch. We got into a lively conversation with this guy, whose motorcycle was parked out front.

It was such a grand time! We had some language barriers ….for example I couldn’t differentiate between “pick up my daughter” and “pick up my dog” … let’s just say that led to some laughs because of weird misunderstandings.

One thing I remember, which flattered me was when we told him what we had planned for the next day … visit Blarney castle to kiss the Stone to get the “gift of eloquence”. He looked at me --- dead serious and said “why would you want to do that? You got that already!” Oh My, I almost would have kissed him if I wouldn’t have been so taken by surprise.

Our little chat took a long time, which seemed to fly by. It was the nicest ever pub experience. The great company, the tasty food and perfect pints got us relaxing and laughing carefree, which felt so refreshing after a tough historic (yet wonderful) cemetery tour.

We found this cool poster about the Bloomsday.

Bloom is a guy in the book “Ulysses” by James Joyce. You basically follow this guy Bloom around for a day in his life in Dublin. Joyce’s goal was to describe the city in a way that you’d always recognize it after having read the book and visiting the actual city.

I wanted to read it – I really did. It’s more than 1000 pages long … I got to page 23 – and gave up. Maybe I’m not ready yet. Sorry Ireland. I tried. But it overwhelmed me.

Anyway, once every year the Dubliners celebrate Bloomsday and reenact some of the scenes at the actual locations of the book. Very cool! I bow deeply to everyone having managed to read this thing front to back. Respect!

Lol, this painting was kinda scary. Oh, you can also see the chalkboard hanging there with the daily menu on it.

And here, behind Tanja you can see the actual bar.

The pub is not fancy.

It is in fact very plain…but that’s exactly what we were looking for and we weren’t disappointed. I’d call it authentic.

The only thing that bugs me is that we didn’t have time to stay longer, chat with even more fabulous people and that I decided against buying one of the offered t-shirts saying “Gravedigger’s Pub” on it at the end. Crap! Gotta return to buy one! I’m a fan now!

 

 

After our visit we returned through that cemetery gate in the back of the picture to the Bus stop to return to the city center. We still wanted to see Molly Malone.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[timetosaygoodbye]

Dear Stef

 

I enjoy your review and hope we've time in 2016 to make the same cruise.

I learned a lot about the brithish isles ;)

 

Thank you from switzerland

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Dear Stef

 

I enjoy your review and hope we've time in 2016 to make the same cruise.

I learned a lot about the brithish isles ;)

 

Thank you from switzerland

 

 

A warm hello to Switzerland!

 

 

 

You're welcome!

 

Thank you for your very first post!

 

 

I hope the weather isn't treating you too roughly these days.

 

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

:DLol -- almost there!

 

:eek:My next post will finally reveil our "Dublin doom".

 

Maybe I'm wrong, and you will all think it's boring:( ... but for us it was the most adrenalin-filled moment of our trip:o ... or of any trip whatsoever:rolleyes:.

 

:)Hope you're as giddy to read it as I'm giddy to finish writing it.

 

Stef