our awesome world adventure

… is a sprawling metropolis along the wide River Tagus … a 7 hour visit is ridiculously short for one of the oldest cities in Europe, so we just touched the historic city centre …

Arriving early we went straight to where all the important people have arrived … kings, queens, conquerors, explorers, pirates … and Jan …

… in front of this impressive square …

… boasting all the usual adornments of huge European Squares.

Through the arch to Rua Augusta, the main shopping/pedestrian street. Is anyone awake at 8am?

We walked on …

… found many more impressive plazas …

… and streets with not much happening …

We ducked in for a quick look at many churches. They all start to look the same after a while, but the number of them, and the dominance over the people that they represent, really is a major head scratcher.

Many of the streets are of granite cobblestones, but there’s an enormous amount of marble just lying about. Like these stairs …

… and this … marble footpath, gutter blocks, and even the white of the pedestrian crossing!!!

After a while we took a break in one of the many cafes (some going back to the 1800’s) …

… and Jan had to have a Portuguese custard tart …

Many old bulidings are elaborately decorated with ceramic tiles or painted bright colours …

Later, we found this huge church, where the stone roof fell in in a big earthquake at 9:25 on a Sunday morning in 1755 … this quake destroyed a lot of the city (including all the big church congregation of course!)

We made our way back to Rua Augusta … awake now …

… and the shops were open … (do all shops have magnets tuned in to Jan’s DNA???)

We then moved on back towards the ship, up to the top of the Alfama district … we could have caught one of the little old 4 wheel trams up the hill instead … hmmmm …

This is the oldest (Moorish) part of town … recently a den of thieves, vagabonds and iniquity, but now UNESCO listed and cleaned up (a bit?). We made our way down the steep stepped “streets” …

… and an occasional little plaza …

… to the ship at the bottom …

… and sailed away. Lisbon deserved (a lot) more time.

The grapes are grown hundreds of kilometres up river in a hot and dry summer, and cold winter, climate. Then the wine is shipped down to the humid Atlantic coast for blending and storage in French oak barrels.

Our highlight was a visit to Taylors (founded in 1692). The port tasting and warehouse tour was a treat.

To get to Taylors we had to trudge up a maze of steep cobbled lanes on the south side of the river in Gaia …

… amongst dozens (hundreds?) of old tiled roof warehouses like these …

… we tasted …

… and toured …

To get there we had walked down equally steep steets in Oporto … very quiet on Sunday morning …

… to the slightly livelier waterfront …

… and across the lower deck of this interesting bridge …

There is no city grid here, it’s a maze … so very frequent needs for checking the maps … (if only they were in English???)

We rode a cable car up so we could walk the top deck of the bridge back to the main town …

… and walked the streets. We found the very fancy railway station – look at these tile decorations …

… bustling streets … and elegant squares …

… and quieter ones …

… this whole street of bars are closed on Sundays!!!

A park with curiously pruned old plane trees …

We lost count of the churches …

Along the way we saw many signs of poverty (many beggars) and dereliction. In this area right adjacent to the big bridge, morning glory has consumed many buildings …

… these are right across the lane from the Bank of Portugal! …

and these, 50 metres from a very posh hotel on the river front.

The ship docked at La Coruna, Spain. Not a significant place on the tourist map it seems, but it’s near Santiago.

Santiago is the third most visited destination for religious pilgrims in the world. (These ones Catholic). It’s the end of the Camino, that starts in many places, as far away as 800km along the Pyrenees in France.

Legend has it that St James the Greater was buried here. His remains now under the alter of the great cathedral.

Here’s one of the hundreds(?) of statues and images of him on our walk to the main square … past a 17th Century(!) medical school.

In the main square, the seat of Government for the state of Galacia …

… and an old university …

… an old hospital (now a hotel where we had lunch) …

… and the cathedral …

all face each other.

We lined up and went inside, past the shell symbol of the pilgrims …

… a mass in progress …

… one of many side chapels …

… a lifesize gold and gemstone statue of St James over the main alter …

… and his remains in a solid silver casket under it …

We came out again …

… and walked the old town … just fabulous.

Many “sidewalks” were covered …

I snacked on an excellent Spanish sausage …

… and we had an absolute banquet for lunch here …

The main square is where the (mostly young) pilgims gather at the end of their walk …

These three showed us their offical pilgimage route and stamps.

They had “only” managed 102km on their 4 day walk.

This isn’t a tourist destination, and I’m not quite sure why a cruise ship would come here given all the other places in Spain one could go???  The contrast with the last couple of stops was palbable.

Sensing this in advance, I had promised Jan time to shop, and she was excited … the shuttle dropped us here …

… and we headed straight for the shopping area … a couple of blocks in, and Jan quoted our granddaughter Victoria … “this is not what I ordered”, where are the nice shops? … after Bordeaux and Saint Jean’ and San Sebastian, I had to agree …

This photo makes it look better than reality!

Jan did finally find one very small boutique, but bought nothing!

So we had a quick look around the old town …

This beach disappears completely at high tide …

The old church was interesting …

… and nearby some old Roman baths “discovered by accident” some years ago … so Gijon is pretty old …

So … we came “home” to the ship and had an afternoon rest.

Saint-Jean-de-Luz is only about 10km from the border and 32km from San Sebastian in Spain. So in the afternoon we took a bus through the beautiful Basque country, across the border to San Sebastian.

What a treat. This town was a favourite of Spanish royalty. Not hard to see why! We drove to the top of the hill on the western headland of the bay …

Then down into the city. “You now have 75 minutes of free time to see San Sebastian” … Oh really?? … 75 hours would be a better time allocation!

The enormous beach is popular … again, no surf here!

The little boat harbour was very crowded …

Then we plunged into the old city … busy streets …

A church at either end of this street …

The basilica was something different … jammed up against buildings all around …

Inside, one of several extraordinary shrines …

A gorgeous day … the city is bigger than we thought … we even found a couple of quiet streets …

Then across The Boulevade, the new city … blocks and blocks of fabulous buildings …

Beautiful squares and a great park/promenade/garden along the waterfront …

Back to the bus just in time …

… a place to re-visit!

We anchored off the beach at Saint-Jean-de-Luz … French for holiday resort!

… and tendered in to the little fishing harbour.

French royalty holidayed here. Indeed Louis XIV built this for his wedding night …

It’s August, and France shuts down for the holidays. The town was buzzing …

… and so was the magnificent beach (but no surf here) …

Facsinating old apartments and pensions front the beach and it’s strange stone wall.

Shopping is obviously a popular pastime …

… and so is drinking …

I declined the nougat …

… but did have a fabulous ice cream.

Marvellous Bordeaux … seems like it deserves it’s moniker of “Paris of the south”. After 4 hours sailing up the Garrone River we docked right here in Bordeaux mid morning, for an overnight stay … this our view from the cabin.

We walked to the centre of the city across an enormous plaza. The French do monuments really well!

To Place de le Comedie … the Grand Hotel and the Grand Theatre face each other across the square …

Then to St Catherine Street … marble paved … a straight mile of shops … Jan was in heaven!

Saint Pierre is nearby … one of the “secondary” churches in town!!!

… so is Place du Parlement … only a panorama could capture it …

past the Bourse (former stock exchange) and back to the ship … (this is actually just one half of it … the other, symmetrical of course, is to the left)

We had to tart up for a dinner extravaganza (courtesy of Oceania) at Chateau Giscours in the Medoc …

Next day we set off early along the riverfront and walked for 8 hours …

…first to Notre Dame … (also one of the secondary churches!)

… but let pictures tell the story … of the amazing buildings …

… with beautiful detail …

Through garden squares (this the Place du Champs de Mars)

… and the Public Garden

Along quiet streets and busy ones …

Cars were banished from many streets … and the modern trams were fabulous.

Fascinating to me were the THREE Unesco listed (humungeous) churches … all within a mile walk … dating back to the 14th century and further … and these in addition to a dozen or so others within that radius! The Church certainly held sway over the populous in those days …

Major cleaning in progress on Cathedral St Andre here. When finished it will be just amazing.

… it’s separated bell tower is already finished.

Along the way we needed a break for coffee …

… and at luchtime Jan had great trouble choosing a wine to drink … in Bordeaux???

… at the end of the day we were stuffed … and walked along the river back to the ship …

… sailing away … farewell beautiful Bordeaux.

… obviously not a highlight on the itinerary, we made this a shopping/rest/haircut day. The ship docked right at the old town and we walked through it about a km to the Mall.

… three pubs in about 100 metres … this must be England!

… there’s an interesting old city wall …

… which even has a pub in it!!

Later we sailed out for France, past an amazingly busy car import/export terminal, then past Portsmouth …

… and the Isle of Wight.

We were first off the ship and into the central market square early. Hardly a soul in sight.

… just some horses waiting for the tourists to wake up.

366 steep steps to the top here … (Jan demurred) …

… for a great view of the city and the empty square below.

Down again, this, the courtyard behind the Belfry.

We wandered down and got on one of these for a canal tour before the queues built up …

A picture postcard around every corner …

… and this fellow taking a nap?

Then we walked and found a wonderful variety of city sights … pretty canals …

… busy streets and squares …

“back alleys” and quiet streets …

This house with a plaque dated 1628 …

city serenity …

through the quadrangle of this old monestary …

… near this, the tallest brick spire in Europe …

along this alley …

to this handsome square called the burg(?)

We found chocolate shops, of course. (there must be hundreds!)

… and place selling lace …

… and this old bird making lace, who demanded money for a photo …

… and this old music man who didn’t …

… along the way we snacked on Belgian waffles (Jan), a spicy Belgian sausage baguette (me, yum!), Belgian chocolate and Belgian beer … at intervals, mind you, not all at once … but we were bulgin’ …

… and so back to the Central Market Square to rendevous with our taxi … just a few more people out and about now!!!

We came through this lock in the morning to be let DOWN to river level …

The cruise along the river for a couple of hours was fascinating. This Mercedes dealership well below river level!

… and lots and lots of these all the way along … (need I say more, Mr Hockey!)

We docked next to the sister of Costa Concordia, called Costa Fortuna … (I wonder if the Italians realise how amusing that ship’s name is to us?)

… and there were literally dozens of these river cruise ships.

Amsterdam felt VERY crowded (almost stressful). With people, tourists … and bicycles … we were told the city has one million of them! (… and Holland 18 million of them!)

… with their own multi-story parking station near Central Railway …

We hopped on a canal cruise … let the pictures tell the story. Bridges, barges, house boats.

Past several classic canal lifting bridges …

… five bridges in a line …

… the oldest houseboat – now an historic relic that can’t be moved!

… and Central Station.

We got off near Anne Frank’s house where the queue of tourists to go in was at least 200+ metres long. We decided not, and had lunch right on the edge of a canal instead …

Then we walked …

… it looked here like new Uni students having a “day out” – in segregated boats???

… eventually to the floating flower market.

Jan got very excited …

So much walking we had to stop for another drink beside this lock.

On board for dinner, and a cruise along the river again …

Back through the 400 metre long lock, with two other small ships, to be lifted UP to sea level … and out to the North Sea.