Spring of 2014 - A 'repositioning' cruise

Beth and I flew to Fort Lauderdale in late April and got on the Celebrity Line's Constellation the next day. It was a great crossing and Beth gave a series of fantastic talks; some were on the history of the explorers going out from the Iberian peninsula. Her visuals (highly developed powerpoint presentations) are tremendous and a lot of people came out each day to hear and see her talks. Our first stop was Lisbon - the weather was fabulous for our day of touring around and visiting the city. We had been there about 3 years ago when we went on a 2-week land tour from Madrid to Portugal and then on to Morocco. But that was January and this was the beginning of May. Quite a difference. Then after another sea day we arrived in Dover where we spent a lot of time visiting and experiencing both the famous Dover Castle and the town itself. Very windy! The next day we were docked in Le Havre (France) just across the English Channel. After exploring the town of Le Havre we took a bus to the coastal/river (the Seine) town of Honfleur. It was a beautiful place, and not at all spoiled by the bus loads of tourists that were arriving from Le Havre. The final day was spent at Zeebrugges (the port of Brugges). However, instead of going to the inland city of Brugges we took a very efficient inter-city light rail (tram) to the Belgian coastal city of Oostend. It was the weekly market day and so it was a most interesting time, in spite of the poor weather. We arrived in Amsterdam on May 9th and had a transfer straight to the airport (Shipol) to catch our plane to Chicago and then on to Vancouver. It was great to be home again as we made our way towards White Rock by train (straight from YVR) and bus using the amazing public transit system that's available to us here in the Vancouver area.