ENGLAND

Well, we’re here!  Los Angeles to London. 121 days.  Hard to believe because it has gone so fast and we didn’t feel it was too long at all!  In fact, we wish we could have stayed one more month to the end.  The cruise was a 6 month excursion beginning in Fort Lauderdale and ending in New York City.  We did a 4 month leg.  At any rate, here we are in England and stopping twice before we disembark.  We ported in Dover for a day and then in London (Greenwich) as our final stop.

This map was hung in our room and Mark plotted our exact route adding a marker every day at noon when the captain announced our current location.  All markers are now in place!

This will be a short post because I’m anxious to “wrap it up” and because we didn’t do very much at either place.  Here we go:

DOVER, ENGLAND:  Most famously known for its dramatic white-chalk cliffs towering over the English Channel, Dover is the nearest city to France across the English Channel.  Its strategic location as a doorway into England has earned it the moniker “Key to England.”  As the port was under constant threat because of its location, the massive Dover Castle overlooking the channel grew over the centuries to become the nation’s largest edifice and remains so today, striking an imposing figure on a hillside.  William the Conqueror is said to have set it afire on his way to London after his battle of Hastings victory.  Dover also served as a bastion and command center during World War II.

Today was packing day so we didn’t sign up for any excursions.  Our intent was to walk around Dover on our own after we finished.  That didn’t happen!  Packing took longer than we thought and at the end of the day, I had no desire to leave the ship.  I enjoyed seeing the castle and white cliffs from our balcony!  Mark decided to take the complementary shuttle to the castle which was about 30 minutes each way.  When he got there the castle was closing for the day so he didn’t get to go inside.  Oh well, he did manage to get a few photos of the town center so I’ll add them here along with the pics from our balcony!

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LONDON (GREENWICH), ENGLAND:  Greenwich, a borough of London along the Thames River, has a cherished maritime history including the Maritime Greenwich UNESCO Site.  Here - precisely, at the Royal Observatory - the world’s longitude is measured from the prime meridian, and Greenwich Mean Time sorts the global Time standard.  At the port, the clipper ship, “Cutty Sark”, one of Greenwich’s most renown historic landmarks, is preserved as a fascinating museum.  Upriver, London is home to Buckingham Palace, the Parliament, Westminster Abbey and glamorous British royalty.  In addition, this major economic and cultural hub boasts a long tradition of arts and architectural innovation- from Shakespeare’s Globe Theater to West End musicals, from Tower Bridge to the London Eye.

The Viking Sky moored in the Thames River just off the shore of Greenwich.  We needed to take a short tender ride to shore.  We took the included tour which was “Royal Greenwich by Foot”. Mark and I met our guide and he took us around the area near the port and gave us a brief history of the area.  We saw the famous Clipper ship “Cutty Sark” and also the popular Trafalgar Tavern in Trafalgar Square with the statue of Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson in the front.  Nelson joined the Navy at age 12 and was a fleet commander at age 20.  He became a hero during the Napoleonic Wars in which Britain fought France.  Nelson was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.  He remains a hero in Britain today.

We admired all the buildings in the Old Royal Naval College. We saw the Maritime Museum and walked to the Queens House which was stately and beautiful and overlooked Greenwich park.  At the other end  of the park was the Royal Observatory which is the site of the Greenwich meridian line.  Our guide talked a lot about the meridian line.  The history of the area was very interesting, but it is too much to write about here. 

It started raining and I was bored, so we left the tour and headed to a tavern for a beer and some fish and chips!  Yum!  Saw some charming doors on the walk back to the ship and I stopped in a shoppe and bought my last postcard!  Perfect ending to a PERFECT ADVENTURE!

Most of the doors were double! I don’t know why we didn’t cross the street to get #7?