May 21, 2015
We were up at
5:30 a.m. The temperature was 5 C, with little wind and a partly sunny sky. We
had a quick breakfast in the Horizon Court buffet and met the group at 6:30 in
the Wheelhouse Bar. By 7, we were off the ship, had collected our luggage in
the warehouse and were on the bus en route to Heathrow Airport. A patchy fog was visible as we left
Southampton on the motorway. We were dropped off at Terminal 2 and had our
luggage weighed and boarding passes in hand before 9 a.m. This was the best group disembarkation of the
past three group voyages. By 9:30 we were through security and browsing the
stores in building A. At the Duty Free
store an employee had samples of Pimm’s No.1 liqueur, which was nice just by
itself. We relaxed with coffees before walking over to
building B through the tunnel under the tarmac. Steps 3,461. While walking around we spotted Ed and Linda
and told them which gate to go to for boarding the plane in 70 minutes. When had
logged 5,801 steps by 11:35 (6:35 a.m. in Toronto) when we boarded the plane.
The Boeing 777-300ER holds 458 passengers.
The temperature was only 9 C and the sky was cloudy. As we taxied for takeoff the captain
announced that out of the left side windows we could see a retired British
Airways Concorde airplane. About 90
minutes in the air, a hot meal was served, either salmon or pasta with couscous
salad, a bun, and a cookie accompanied with juice, wine or a soft drink. It was about eight hours since we had eaten
breakfast on the ship. About 30 minutes before landing in Toronto, Canada
Border Services forms were distributed to passengers. It took about an hour to
pass through customs and security. We
celebrated with Tim Hortons iced cappuccinos joining Ed, Linda, Karen and
Peter. We had over two hours to wait for
the next flight, but logged over 11,000 steps for the day before boarding the
plane. Among the passengers were members
of the Brandon Vincent Massey school band returning from Newfoundland. We
arrived at home 22 hours after getting up and had a total of 12,327 steps for
the day.
May 20, 2015
We awakened at
6:30 to a temperature of 9 C, a little wind and partly cloudy. We are docked in
Le Havre, France today. It is the largest container ship port in France and
received a World Heritage Site designation in 2005. Le Havre is located at the
mouth of the Seine River in the French region of Lower Normandy and became the
port city for Rouen in the 16th century. There is an eight meter
difference between low and high tides. After being occupied by the German army
in 1940, the port was bombed regularly by the Allied air force during the next
four years to prevent an invasion of England being launched from the area. The city was rebuilt under the supervision of
architect Auguste Perret until his death in 1954.
Some of the
tours offered from the ship were trips leaving very early in the morning, to
Paris or Versailles or the Normandy landing beaches of June 1944, all these trips
take more than 3.5 hours of driving to get to their destinations. There was
also a tour to Rouen only a 70 minute drive away. We are taking a morning excursion
to Honfleur, France, less than a 30 minute drive away.
Our drive took
us toward Rouen, but we turned at the town of Harfleur then proceeded over the
Seine River on the Tancarville Suspension Bridge completed in 1959. The word
fleur is a Viking worf word meaning “creek”. We drove through agricultural
countryside and saw Normade cattle in the pastures. They are reddish brown and white spotted and
originate from cattle brought by Viking invaders in the 9th and 10th
century. They are both dairy and meat
cattle. In the villages some houses were timbered or half-timbered, some had
thatched roofs with the peaks growing flowers, other roofs were red tiled or
slate covered. There are many apple orchards.
The apples are used for apple cider or for the production of Calvados,
an apple brandy which 40% alcohol.
Some of the roads
were narrow in the villages. We arrived
in Honfleur for a walking tour. The bus was parked near a canal where several
river cruise ships were berthed. We took pictures of the MS River Venture of
Hamburg. Honfleur was a fishing village
when in 1608 Samuel de Champlain sailed from Honfleur with settlers for New
France and established a settlement at present day Quebec City. The walking
tour took us to the old town which was once walled. Place Arthur Boudin is an
open space bordered by building from the 17th and 18th
centuries that surrounded a church that no longer exists. Next we ventured
along cobble stone lanes and came to a lane where cattle were slaughtered in
the street and the butcher shops were located 200 years ago. Next stop on the way to the old harbour was
another narrow street where the old prison is located, now a museum. Across the
street is an ancient church which faces the old harbour. The old harbour today
holds a variety of yachts. The buildings, surrounding the old harbour, were
built in the 16th and 17th centuries. They are still occupied as residences with
restaurants and shops on the lower floor. The Vieux Bassin, old dock, dates to
the late 17th century and the King's Lieutenant’s house, or Lieutenance,
stands at the entrance. On a street on
the other side of the old harbour in the wooden St. Catherine’s Church built in
the 15th century after the end of the 100 Years War between France
and England. Ships carpenters built the
church from wood, after the stone foundation was laid, since there was not much
money. The floor is stone and the
ceiling looks like an overturned wooden boat.
The church has two altars, from building an addition in a later century,
but only one is regularly used. The church’s bell tower is located across the
small square. Today there is a farmers market in the square. Peter bought a 50
ml bottle of Calvados in the market and we each sampled it. We decided that
Calvados is an acquired taste. On
Saturdays, the market has more vendors. We were able to explore the area for about an
hour before meeting at the bus. There are many art shops in the old town area
due to the influence of the past movements of Impressionist Artists, such as
Claude Monet, and Romantic Art. The route back to the ship included crossing
the Normandy Bridge, completed in 1994.
It is a 856 meters long cable-stayed bridge over the Seine River estuary.
There is a shorter 1959 constructed cable-stayed Severins Bridge in Cologne,
Germany, crossing the Rhine River, which we should see in the fall. We also took pictures of the chalk cliffs.
When we returned to the ship, we had lunch with Karen and Peter in the Horizon
Bistro buffet. After lunch we walked
over to the Le Havre cruise terminal to use the free Wi-Fi to catch up on any
emails and browse the little gift shop.
Later in the afternoon we used the last two coffee entries on our coffee
card for a fancy coffee and fancy iced coffee before going back to the
stateroom to check our stateroom account and to pack for the 6 p.m. luggage
pickup. We ventured back to deck 17 to
take some photos of Le Havre before going to dinner on deck 5. We are used to climbing many flights of
stairs daily, making a point of not using the ship’s elevators. We joined Trudy & Eisa and Ed & Linda
for dinner, since the others were on the day long tours. Appetizers were
lobster, shrimp, squid & avocado salad or a small portion of Fettuccini
Alfredo, then Philadelphia pepper pot soup or zucchini, eggplant & sun
dried tomatoes on Romaine lettuce. Entrées were New York Strip Steak with
roasted potatoes or Turkey with cranberry sauce, dressing and sweet potato. For
dessert there was French Vanilla Bean Creme Brulé or Baked Alaska with coffee
or tea. Ken and Evangeline came by to
say farewell since there would not be flying back to Canada with the group.
We wandered
around decks 5, 6 and 7 and watched some dancing in the Piazza and took a final
look at the photo gallery to see if we wanted to buy any of the photos taken of
us during the cruise. There was an
announcement to turn our clocks back to British time. Our ship was scheduled to leave Le Havre port
at 8, so we got our coats and went up to deck 17 for the sail away. It was sunny with a 14 mph wind and 10 C. Most sail always were around 6 when we were
already in the dining room. It was quite
windy and cool, but the ship finally cast off about 8:25 p.m. As we approached
the harbour breakwater the ship’s horn played a few bars of the theme song of
the TV show, Loveboat, at three different times. A crew member said that the theme playing
occurred at all of the sail-aways. The captain announced that he was expecting
Force 4 winds for the English Channel crossing to Southampton, England, during
the night. According to Sir Francis Beaufort’s Wind Scale developed in 1805,
force 4 winds are a moderate 11 to 16 knots causing meter high waves with white
caps. After the 40 minutes on the open deck we went inside to enjoy a hot
chocolate. Then returned to the
stateroom to journal the day’s activities, Larry went to the casino, which was
open until we reached English waters. Total steps for today 14,724.
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