While I mostly write about ports and port experiences, on this sea day I write about some of the social events on the ship. Today we have our third block party, where we all go into the hallway, the staff … Continue reading Sea Day Catch Up.
May 4th and 5th are big days in The Netherlands. On May 5, three days before VE Day, the end of the Second World War in Europe, the German commander in the Netherlands signed an instrument of surrender with the … Continue reading Freedom in Haarlem!
Ghent has three large churches almost in a row. Each one of them is grand enough to be a cathedral, but two are parish churches that look like cathedrals. Gothic Ghent had the mega church figured out before the U.S. … Continue reading St. Nicholas Church, Ghent
The Holland America tour of Ghent may have been the best organized ship tour I have been on. On each bus seat we found a map of Ghent and a card with an emergency number to call in case we … Continue reading Ghent
In an earlier post I talked about “ship days.” Days that we are in a port but choose not to go ashore. This last couple of weeks has been intensive. As I write this leaving the Netherlands we have had … Continue reading Ship Day, Shore Day, Cherbourg
Asterix and Obelix are French comic book characters, Celts, who resisted Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. When I was reading these comics to my kids, I assumed that the Celts in Brittany, a peninsula at the western edge of France, were … Continue reading Celtic France, Brest
Perhaps the rain was an omen. The weather on this cruise has been great but Wednesday we had overcast skies and rain, sometimes heavy. The ship docked at Leixeos, the port for Porto. Holland America ran a shuttle to Natosinhos, … Continue reading A Beautiful Way to Catch a Train, Porto
I was in the crosswalk at about 11:40 Monday morning. The green signal told me I could cross. Then the light went out, it didn’t turn red, it went out. Immediately a car pulled in front of me. He lost … Continue reading Lights Out! Lisbon
Everywhere you look in Portugal (and frequently in Brazil and Cape Verde) you find Azulejo, painted ceramic tiles. Azujelo is from the Arabic Al-zullij, “polished stone.” Our guide on our Lisbon tuk tuk, tour, Maurice, told us they were developed … Continue reading Azulejo, Portuguese Tiles.
At the Barcelona Meetup I had a conversation with Jo Johnston, (Writer on Deck). We discussed the timing of the publication of our blogs. On this trip she published two in one day and decided not to do that again. … Continue reading Manueline Architecture in Lisbon
We are now sailing in Europe and are approaching our stop at Ijmuiden in the Netherlands. One of the tours Holland America is offering is a visit to the towns of Volendam and Marken. I have been holding this post … Continue reading Volendam and Volendam
Sometimes the best days just happen. We had nothing planned for Cadiz, just step off the ship and wander. We loved what we saw from our balcony as we docked and wanted to see it up close. It was Sunday, … Continue reading Sunday in Cadiz
We had two days in Barcelona, but we didn’t spend much time in the city. The two Holland America ships, our Volendam and the Zuiderdam were berthed stern to stern where Holland America staged something called the Grand Reunion. I … Continue reading Rambling the Rambla, Barcelona
Gibraltar is one of the Pillars of Hercules, one of two (or three, people can’t decide which mountain on the African side is the second pillar) that guard the entrance to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic. Britain holds one, Gibraltar … Continue reading The Rock, Gibraltar
In the last post I talked about what Rick, Ilse and Victor would have seen if they had really been in Casablanca in 1941. This post is about what they would not have seen and what might surprise them today. … Continue reading What Rick Would Not Have Seen
What Rick might have really seen in Casablanca. Movie night on Volendam, Casablanca. I have seen it so many times that I “sang along,” quietly, with some of the greatest lines. The film was set in November 1941 and shaped … Continue reading As Time Goes By
The Medina, or old town of Agadir was leveled in the earthquake of 1960. A decade after the quake it was rebuilt, or perhaps reimagined by architect and craftsman Coco Polizzi. His family moved to Rabat, the capital before he … Continue reading Sanitized Souk
The Souk in Agadir is huge. Normally it is chaotic, loud and bustling. But we arrived on Sunday morning. Easter Sunday to boot. So it was quiet. Not as atmospheric as it would be later in the day, but there … Continue reading Sunday Souk, Berber Market
I first learned about Agadir while browsing a brochure rack in the American Youth Abroad travel agency in Dinkey Town next to the University of Minnesota Campus. As graduate students Suzi and I had just been chaperones leading a group … Continue reading Cats Rule the Kasbah, Agadir, Morocco
Our visit to Arrecife, a seaside town on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, was supposed to be just a pleasant stroll along a lagoon, perhaps a coffee in an outdoor café and a visit to the local church and market. … Continue reading The Post I Expected to Make, Arrecife
When César Manrique returned to his native Canary Islands from New York he didn’t like what he saw. On other islands, tall concrete hotels lined the beaches. His own island of Lanzarote had escaped most of this development, but if … Continue reading César Manrique, Canary Islands
One of the advantages of sailing on a half full ship is that we get to do things that we can’t often do and see things that we can’t often see. The Volendam arranged to take us on “Behind the … Continue reading Behind the Scenes on a Sea Day
I originally thought I would be writing this post from Casablanca comparing the Sacre Coeur, a former French Cathedral built in the Art Deco style with clean lines and a simple style with the Hassan II Grand Mosque, which I … Continue reading Serving the Same God, Dakar
…and an additional thought. One of our stops on our Dakar tour was at a Sand Painting workshop where the proceeds from sales of sand paintings go to UNESCO, the UN Educational and Cultural Organization. Sand painting, called “souwér” in … Continue reading Two Dakar Sidebars…