August 10 - Londonderry / Derry

When we got up in the morning and ready for the day, we went on another of the optional tours we had purchased. This one was a tour of the Inishowen Peninsula (Grianan of Aileach). It was a raining, cloudy morning, and we weren't sure what we would see. However, after driving for a couple hours, we went off the main road (narrow as it was), and onto another, even narrower road, beginning to climb up into the hills.

3-ring Stone Fort

Entrance to the Fort

Near the top of the hill, we came upon a stone fort, which was built in a round format. The walls were about 20 feet high, and entry was through a low, narrow doorway. This is where they watched for the enemy ships (Viking, English, French, etc) and brought the people living around the fort inside if they were attacked. There were tunnels inside the walls where the women and children hid during enemy attack, while the men manned the walls and fought off the enemy. Because of the low cloud, we couldn't see too much, but there was a view of the ocean where the enemy ships were trying to come ashore.

View From the Road

After that, we carried on to another view site, but Dawn and I didn't get off the bus. The road was so narrow, that the bus had to stop on the road because he couldn't get turned around if he had gone into the viewing site. Another vehicle came along, and he had to back up until we could get past him. I was sure glad that we weren't driving the bus. My goodness, these roads were narrow. Then it was back to the hotel and lunch.

After lunch, we had a walking tour along the city walls with our guide, Ronan McNamerra. He was a man of Irish / Chinese decent and had a great accent and a great sense of humour. He was a lot of fun to listen to and kept our attention as he gave us some of the history of this city. It was one of the memorable tours because Ronan was so engaging. He had a way about himself that made you pay attention.

City Wall

City Hall

The city wall was built around the city as a means of defence. There was only a small part of the wall left standing for historical purposes. It was about 12 feet wide, and perhaps up to 20 feet high. There were gates to the city built into the wall, and we walked over a couple of them. Then, he took us on a short tour of part of the old town. He talked about the various merchants that were in different locations and gave us a good overview of what life must have been like back in those days.

A highlight was walking past one of the cafes, and the sign that was in the window. It shows in the following picture.

A Sign of the Times?

Finally, he took us back to our pick-up location, and we had a bit of time until the bus was to pick us up. Then it was back to our hotel for dinner, and off to bed. Tomorrow, we were travelling on to Belleek and Galway.

August 9 - Titanic and Giant's Causeway

We were up and off by 8:30 am this morning. Our first stop was in Belfast, where the Titanic was built. They have an exhibit in a very large building that showed the process of the building of the Titanic. It took us through the whole process, right from the time the keel was laid, until the ship was launched. It took us through what life was like for the workers, the riveting of the plates of steel to the keel and struts, the fitting out of the ship, what the rooms in the various classes were like, where the crew lived, and so on. It was different than the exhibit we saw in Victoria because that was to display the artifacts that had been recovered from the sunken ship. This was about the construction of this giant ship.

Rope Bridge to an Island 

From there, we were off along the northwest coast to visit a site known as the Giant's Causeway. This is an area where the volcanic matter was laid down to create a very rugged coastline and some islands off the coast. Of course, there is a legend about how a giant laid down the huge columns of basalt to create a causeway to the Scottish lands where he messed with another giant's wife. That giant came home, and the one from Ireland barely escaped back across the causeway, being chased by the Scottish giant.

When the Irish giant got to his home, he ran into the house and his mother told him to get into bed. When the Scottish giant came in, he was still looking for the Irish giant. He pulled open the bedroom door, and there was the Irish giant in bed, pretending to be a baby. The Scottish giant saw a picture of the Irish giant on the wall, and it looked just like the baby laying in the bed so he ran away, not wanting to meet the father of this giant baby.

As the Scottish giant ran back to Scotland across the Causeway, his heavy steps caused the Causeway columns to collapse, leaving a couple islands in a line across the Irish Sea.

Cement Fence Post

Peace Bridge

From there, it was on to Londonderry / Derry. It is called this because the Protestants are supporters of England, and want it named after London. However, the Catholics want nothing to do with England, and only want it called Derry. It depends who you talk to what it is called.After checking in to the hotel, we went on a walking tour of Derry and the Peach Bridge. This is a walking bridge spanning the river, joining the old part of town with the British fort on the other side. It is an attempt to heal the rift between the religions after the "troubles".

Leaving the Restaurant

After that, it was on to an award-winning restaurant, Tiberquay, for an optional dinner that night. Then, it was back to the hotel and off to bed. Tomorrow, we have a couple tours in and around Londonderry.

August 8 - On to Belfast

We were up early and on the bus by 8:15 am. This morning, we drove to Belfast, with a pit stop on the way. When we arrived in Belfast, we were taken on a Black Cab tour. These were mostly typical Black Cabs that can be seen on British TV. Some of the cabs were small vans that held more people.

One of the Cabbies

Protestant Mural

All the cabs went to the same places, and at times, we stopped and heard from a couple of the drivers who spoke about what Belfast was like during "the Troubles". The cabbies were a mixture of Catholic and Protestant drivers, each having a good sense of humour, but wanting us to see, and get a feel for, what life was like in Northern Ireland during that time.

Mural in Protestant Section

First, we stopped at a Protestant area and one of the cabbies who was Protestant spoke to us about the characters involved, the murals that were painted, and tried to explain why they were fighting to stay as part of the United Kingdom. He talked about some of the leaders who were fighting for their convictions and the many who were killed.

The Wall Between Catholic and Protestant

Then we drove to the wall that is still standing and helping to keep one of the Catholic areas apart from the Protestants. Now they are living in peace, but the wall is not something that they want to take down.  It is a very tall wall (40 feet high) and over a mile long. We stopped and heard about it, and about the people who have written slogans of peace on the wall. Dawn wrote our name on it, along with people like John Lennon.

Catholic Cabbie

Catholic Mural

From there, we went inside the wall and stopped at a Catholic memorial to those killed during the fighting. A Catholic driver gave this presentation, and it was quite a different point of view from the Protestant presentation. He spoke of the sociopaths and psychopaths who shot many innocent women and children. What a sobering set of presentations, even though these cabbies were good friends, with many living in communities of the other religion.

After checking into our hotel, it was back on the bus to take a guided walking tour of the back streets of Belfast. Our guide was a woman who had a great sense of humour. We only walked through a small part of the city, but she took us to many places that we likely wouldn't have gone to. She spoke of them as places the locals went. In all cases, she was a fast-talking, humorous guide.

Mural outside Pub Wall

Carved Wood Door in Pub

We visited one of the local pubs that had a door made of special wood and beautifully carved. Then she took us to another bar (her favourite) where we were treated to a drink as part of the tour. When we were finished there, we re-boarded the bus and drove to a fish and chip shop that had stayed open just for us. This was another favourite of our guide and I have to admit, it was very good.

Then it was back to our hotel, and get ready for bed. Tomorrow, we do some more touring in Belfast, and then drive on to another town.

Bookmaking Shop in Belfast

August 7 - To Ireland

We were up and ready to leave by 4:55 am. Our car arrived, we loaded our bags in the trunk and set off to Munich airport (Dawn and I were the only ones leaving this early). The driver spoke English well, and got us there in plenty of time. Dawn rode in the back seat, and could see the speedometer, and noticed that at one time, we were going over 150 km/h. It didn't feel like that, but he got us there inside of 2 hours.

I had checked in the previous day, so we just had to check our bags, go through security, and then head for the boarding gate. It was quite a walk, and when we got there, there were only 2 other people there already. However, by the time we boarded, the gate was full of people, sitting and standing.  We boarded the plane, found our seats, and flew off to Dublin.

At Dublin, we collected our bags and then found our travel company greeter.  She took us to where the bus was located, and when the driver arrived, we set off for the hotel in Dublin. It was a Radisson hotel, very nice but hot inside the room. We had a bus tour of the city at 3:00 pm so when that time rolled around, off we went to view the sites of Dublin.

We viewed some sites of the city, and finished at a graveyard, for a graveyard tour. The tour was led by a local guide who knew an amazing number of facts and dates. She pointed out the tombstones of some famous people of Ireland, who were instrumental in Ireland being the way it is. The chronology of the walk developed the players in what is known as "the Troubles", and problems between the Catholics and the Protestants. It was an interesting introduction to this country and although the wind was blowing pretty hard, we enjoyed the information.

The tour was followed by a welcome reception at the cafe in the graveyard where we met some of the other people on the tour, and got some drinks and appetizers. We were up and off to Belfast by 8:15 in the morning, so it was back to the hotel and off to bed.

August 6 - Regensburg, Germany

We arrived in Regensburg by 10:00 am and set off on our guided walking tour of Regensburg. It was quite a long walk from the ship, along the riverside until we reached where we were going to go into the old part of town.

We viewed a very old church, the Cathedral of St. Peter, and saw where it was first started about 6 centuries ago, and then had the newer part added on, farther to the west, made of different stone. There is still work going on in present times.

Our guide was very humorous, and we very much enjoyed the stories he told as well as his take on politics, present and past. The final place he took us before leaving us on his own was to the historic Wurstkuchl, a tavern by the Danube. It is considered the oldest "fast-food" restaurant in the world. It was developed to provide a lunch facility for the workers who built a bridge across the Danube in the 12th century.

After he left us, we used the bathrooms that were there, and then went back looking for and ATM the guide had suggested and one of the stores that Dawn had seen on the tour. This was back up the hill into the old town, and then trying to find it. After quite a bit more walking, we finally found all the places we were looking for, and then went back to the ship. We were very tired of walking, going ove 12,000 steps today.

We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening on the ship. We had to get our bags packed and ready because we were the first off the ship (4:55 am) the next morning. Then, there was a farewell cocktail hour and farewell port talk where they clarified the disembarkation procedures for the next day.

Then it was to the dining room for the farewell dinner. They outdid themselves for that meal, once again creating a 5 course extravaganza. Of course the fois gras was not to our taste, but the rest was simply amazing. As we had done for the rest of the trip, we ate too much. Dinner was followed by the final entertainment show in the lounge - "Hansi" a comedy musician. He was fairly funny, but we decided to leave before the show was over because we had to get up so early.

Then it was into bed, setting the alarm for 3:45 so we could be ready when the ride arrived to take us to Munich.

August 5 - Passau, Germany

We arrived in Passau at about 7:00 am.  This is another old city where 3 rivers meet; the Danube, the Inns, and the Ilz. It was the one port where Dawn was concerned about the water level because she could remember from a few years ago, watching pictures on the news of Passau being seriously flooded. We had been told that if the water is too high, we won't be able to get under some of the bridges, so would have to move from place to place on buses. As it was, that didn't happen.

Today, there was an optional tour to Salzburg which we were not going on. We had been there when we were here for the Finland hockey tournament, and the tour was the same as we had gone on. Instead, we went on a brief walking tour of the old town and visited some of the sites in the city.

The church was one of the highlights of this tour. It has an organ with over 1700 pipes, and each day at 12:00 noon, there is a half hour concert. We wanted to go to it, so made sure to purchase tickets for this concert. Then, there was a more than an hours wait until the concert started. It was drizzling on and off, so wasn't the most pleasant of times, but we were able to get into some stores (of course) to purchase some souvenirs.

With about an hour to go, we finally went back to the church and sat on some benches that were under cover, to wait until the doors opened. We watched more and more people coming to purchase tickets, and it looked like there was going to be a big crowd.

When the doors opened, we finally got in and grabbed a couple of chairs, rather than sit in the hard, uncomfortable-looking pews. Before the concert started, it seemed that the place was full. Someone said at one point that they thought there were 400 people there for the concert, and that sounded about right.

When it started, we sat and listened for the half hour. It was pretty amazing to hear the high and the low sounds that could be created. There were 5 different places where the pipes were located in the church, and the pieces that were played highlighted the various pipe sections. It was like stereo sound, hearing where the sounds came from.

After that, it was back to the ship to laze around for the rest of the day. As I said, we were tired, and it felt good to not have something on the agenda. During the wait, there was an announcement over the PA system that they were going to move the ship for a couple hours because they needed a diver to go down and make some repairs to the thrusters. We sat in the lounge at the front, and watched as they moved the ship, and then moored at another industrial dock to wait for the diver to arrive.

Finally he showed up, got into his wet suit and went in the water. Later he came back up and got a torch to cut something. Then, his helper pulled up some grating, which I at first thought was stuck in the thruster prop, but turned out to be the cover of the thruster. After this, they started pulling something up, which turned out to be a very long piece of mooring rope that had been caught in the thruster propeller.

We were moored here much longer than anticipated, so the ship taxied the people who had stayed on shore back to this moorage area. When everyone was aboard, we left for our final port, Regensburg.

August 4 - Cesky Krumlov

We arrived in Linz, Austria about 7:00 am. From here, we had booked an optional tour to a medieval town in the Czech Republic called Cesky Krumlov. It was about a 2 hour drive from the ship, and we had to bring our passports because there was a possibility that we would have to show them at the border.

We took a pit stop at a gas station, just before the border, and then continued on. As it was, there were no guards visible when we got to the border although there was a bit of a roadblock a short distance later in a small village. We didn't get stopped and so carried on to the site.

Fountain in the Garden

When we arrived, the bus let us off near the upper gates of the town. We met our local guide, Lukas, at that point, and began the walk into the town. The upper part consisted of both an English garden and a French garden. They both were quite nice to see. We walked through the gardens and down toward the castle, going down a very old rock staircase. Then we continued downward and came to a viewing area by the palace that gave us a very nice view of the town that was below the palace.

View Through Porthole

When we finished there, we continued walking down towards the river that was like a natural moat around the town. The cobblestone streets were narrow and somewhat hard to walk on. We looked at the shops that were there and got out of the way of the few cars that drove down the streets. Not many were allowed there. They had to get special permits to drive in the old town, and these were hard to get.

Lukas had quite a dry sense of humour and told us many stories about this town and his country. He told one story about the town barber and his beautiful daughter. The crazy, rich king living in the palace took a fancy to the barber's daughter and took her to live with him in the palace. After some time together, he got angry at her and threw her out of the palace window.

Looking up at the Palace

Fortunately, she didn't die due to landing on the garbage that gathered below the palace walls. She was injured, but living, and she went back to live in her father's house. Later, the crazy ruler wanted her to come back to live with him, but her father refused, so the ruler had him killed and the girl came back to live in the palace. Well, a couple weeks later, he got angry with her again and decided to chop her up into small pieces with his sword and then throw her out the palace window. He wanted to make sure that she was really dead this time.

We stopped for some photos on a bridge crossing the river below the palace. The palace wall was very imposing. Lukas pointed out an interesting item hanging out from the wall of the castle. This was the toilet which worked on the gravity principle, with all the waste dropping to the grounds below the wall.

From there, we walked around some more, viewing some of the sites in the village. Then we went into an old restaurant for lunch. This was an interesting place, with many small rooms that lots of our group had to squeeze into. We were fortunate to get seats near the door so there was a bit of a breeze blowing in to cool us off. The other rooms were small and hot.

After that, we had free time for a couple hours to explore, but we were tired and hot and decided to go to the meeting place to wait. We sat on the bridge for a while and then joined a lady from the ship who was sitting outside a restaurant having a coffee. We joined her and ordered a soft drink. While we waited, more and more of our group joined us until it seemed like almost everyone was there, filling the tables outside the restaurant.

Finally, everyone was there, and the cruise directors returned to take us back to the bus. Thank goodness we didn't have to walk back up the way we came in, but it was quite a long walk back to the bus. Then it was the trip back to the ship and some comfortable rest.

Tomorrow, off to Passau.

The Town

Palace Decoration

Tower

Panorama of the Village