June 22-24. LGW-IST-KUL-ADL

Traveling again. But our flight wasn't until nearly 6pm, do hurry up and wait. We mostly sat around all morning. Well, I did, while Lynn finished packing. Then early afternoon we were driven to Gatwick, went through the various queues, then sat around for a few hours. Then more queues into the gate and onto the plane. 

Fortunately the first flight was relatively brief,around three and a half hours. Though when we landed we were taxiing for at least 20 minutes. Istanbul is a seriously big airport, but apparently not big enough: the plane stopped in the middle of nowhere and we were bussed to a terminal.

More plane seatbelts now have a sash strap that you pull down and clip on for takeoff and landing. I'm torn - I appreciate it cars they make seatbelts much safer, but in planes they're very annoying and I don't remember to ever put them on until told. I assume smart people have decided they make a difference, though it's hard to imagine in (and I prefer not to imagine it while sitting on a plane).

The leg from Istanbul to KL was the longest of the trip, around 10 hours. But we slept for maybe half of it (it's hard to keep track of the time) and it was pretty comfortable. As Dad predicted, it wove a path below Ukraine and above Iraq.

You might need to compare that with a map to make sense of it, the borders in that region are pretty complicated.

So I'll finish here, sitting in KL airport waiting for our final flight home.

June 9-10. At Sea

 Another two days sailing slowly from Norway back to Southampton. I anticipate no internet access and nothing to see but sea.

Because I have the space, I'll include a map of the walk I did on Saturday.

May 31-June 1. At Sea

 I have pre-prepared this entry. We have two sea days as we travel from Southampton to Norway, following this route:

We'll not have internet access in this time - you can buy access on the ship, but it costs a staggering £14-20 per day, and as we're not doing anything I can't imagine that I will have anything to say.

13 May. Porto

 Today marked the end of our land tour and the start of our river cruise. So this is the plan for the next week:

This meant we had today free, and we took the morning to take it easy and get organised. At checkout time we ventured out and our first stop was the Livraria Lello bookshop, close to our hotel and reportedly an inspiration for Harry Potter (JK Rowling disputes this, but it's beautiful anyway). It was a bit of a circus with a 10 euro entry fee and long queues who were allowed in at timed intervals. The interior was crammed with adolescents. Many of the books seemed to hav unique, customised covers.

Next, I went up the Torre dos Clerigos while Lynn had a coffee. This required me to follow a convoluted path through the church and then battle the crowds up the narrow tower steps.

Can you find Lynn?

There she is!

We meandered around the city and stopped in a cafe to have a light lunch, then back to the hotel where we read for a short time before taking a taxi to the marina. The taxi took us to a place we weren't expecting, but luckily he knew better and the ship was there. When we got on our cabin was ready and we could unpack, find our way around, have a drink and dinner. Our cabin is compact but smart and the ship has only been in service for about a month.

May 8. Sintra, Coimbra

 We left Lisbon this morning. After dragging our bags about a block (all the central streets are paved with smart but slippery black and white stones) we boarded a comfortable minivan that fits the dozen of us with a couple of seats to spare.

Here's a map of our tour. Bear in mind that Portugal is not a big place, so Sintra's only an hour and a bit north of Lisbon and is essentially continuous with the suburbs. Coimbra is two plus hours further again, depending on traffic.

Sintra is up in the hills, so it's several degrees cooler and where the royal family etc had their summer homes. It was certainly cool today but also horribly crowded, perhaps because a train strike yesterday meant more people today We started at the Pena Palace on the hill above the town. It's striking, kind of ugly inside and out. But there were very long periods standing in queues, to get into the house then at various points.

After this we waited more for our van and eventually got down to the town, where we were turned loose. Lynn and I found a small wine bar for a platter and tasting of local wines.

                                        

Then to fill in time we looked around the Sintra Palace. This was much less crowded and more pleasant. It was also fairly bare, but a few rooms were great.

The two and a half hours to Coimbra were smooth and comfortable, but we didn't arrive until after seven and now look forward to walking around here tomorrow.

May 3. Just Herne Bay

 Seems we're still not over our jet lag - woke at at nearly 10am today. Fortunately, we didn't have anything planned for the day and we ended up just going in to the town centre to the supermarket. At least Lynn did - I got out and walked back along the seafront.

So with nothing else to write abut, this might be a good time for a quick orientation. Kent is in the south east corner of England, below London. Herne Bay is on the north side of the county, kind of on the wide estuary mouth of the Thames. In the sea to the north you can see a windfarm and, on clear days, Maunsell forts - defensive structures like a small oil rig built in World War II. The next town west is Whistable - a small and pretty town famous (within the UK) for oysters and very busy with day trippers on weekends and any sunny day.

Herne Bay itself is also a bit of a holiday town. Certainly it has amusements on and around the pier etc. But like most of these places the area around it is filling up with new developments for people working locally or commuting into London. Lynn's family, the Harrises, live on eastern edge and only a hundred metres or so back from the sea cliffs. Further east is Reculver, where I visited the church ruins and roman fort remains a few days ago. It's also where the bouncing bomb was tested.

So my walk first took me past the pier. This was packed with people and attractions. It used to be very long, but much of it fell down in a storm 50 years ago and the tip is stuck out in the sea.

Herne Bay Pier

Cut-off Pier End

Then I walked further, past all the weekend day trippers eating fish and chips from cardboard boxes. There is one of the first stand-alone clock towers built on the foreshore.

Clock Tower and Seafront, low tide

Once past the end of the town centre there are cliffs backed by the suburbs, with periodic paths up and down.