2025 Norway and British Isles

We are in the Scottish Highlands and oil is a big thing here - along with whisky, but more on that later.  By the way, whiskey, spelled with the "e", is the Irish way of doing it. We've sailed past the oil rigs at work in the ocean, but now we've sailed past them here getting repaired or maintained.  On the left, you can see something suspended from the crane above.  There are people in there being hoisted onto the platform. The UK is committed to using only clean energy by 2050.  If that actually happens, these will be a thing of the past.  I believe our guide said that they already have enough solar and wind power (at full capacity) to power Scotland.  Invergordon is the port for Inverness and Loch Ness, but we have visited them both before, so we elected to do a different tour this time. The photos taken from a moving bus aren't great, but they give an idea of the beautiful countryside of the Highlands Here are some of "The Fields of Barley" that Stin...

 We anchored very early this morning.  The last time we were here on the Navigator we were able to get into the lock and dock right at the pier next to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is now a museum.  Unfortunately, this ship is too large for that, so we had to anchor and use the tenders to get in.  Anchoring was at 7:00 am and our tour was scheduled to meet at 7:20 am.  We dutifully set the alarm, but just before it was scheduled to go off, I had second thoughts.  We've been here a few times before and seen everything we wanted to.  This tour would have been a general bus tour with no stops and I decided that perhaps we didn't really need to do that. Michael agreed, so I sent a text to Jan/Tom who were on the same tour to say that we wouldn't be there.  We fully intended to return the tickets to the desk so they could pass them along if someone else wanted them.  But, we fell back asleep again and woke up at 7:30.  Ah well.  Jan ...

 We were a bit late getting in here to Tyne, which is the port for Newcastle.  We had a general Newcastle Highlights tour which meant we had a bus ride into Tyne for a look around.  Our tour left a little late at about 1:45 pm. Michael always has Tabasco sauce with his avocado toast and normally it's the small-sized bottle.  This morning, they brought the Costco size. Oops.  Looks like someone had a little trouble docking their ship. This is the view looking down the aft staircase from Deck 11. I didn't catch the name of this church, but it is beautiful.                                                             Some of the lovely old buildings in Newcastle along the river Tyne. The Tyne Bridge was opened in 1928 and was designed by the man who designed the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge...

We're baaaacckk.  And it hasn't changed a bit in 2 whole days!  Today's tour was very interesting.  We took a short bus ride to the north part of the city, which is across the waterway from where we're docked.  The first stop was at an attraction called This is Holland.  Visitors are escorted in pretty small groups into 3 rooms.  First was a little bit of information about how the land in the Netherlands has been reclaimed over the years and what an amazing engineering feat that was, and continues to be.  The next room was a little bit about the different parts of the Netherlands and what goes on there.  And then, the best part, where we entered a room with one of those semi-surround screens and chairs that feel like you're being suspended under a parasail.  We were asked to put our bags in the net sleeve under the seat and strap ourselves in.  Then the lights went out, the half wall in front of us folded down, and we were off.  The...

 Tilbury was the end of the first of our two cruises.  We have very dear friends (Peter and Carol) whom we met on a cruise around South America in 2015.  They live in a city called Southend-on-Sea which is an easy 33 minute train ride from Tilbury. There were a number of passengers staying over like we are so Regent offered a shuttle bus to a large shopping mall in the area with an optional dropoff at the train station.  Very convenient! After doing some research, we had the train schedule and Carol told us which station to get off, so we were set.  The train had a very convenient way of paying:  you put your credit card on the little yellow pad and the gate opens to let you in.  Then on the other end, you put the same credit card on the yellow pad there and the gates open and you are charged the appropriate fare.  When we got to Thorpe Bay, there were Peter and Carol waiting for us.  It was so good to see them again.  Besides that first...