September 2018 - Three Days in Amsterdam Day 1

Three Days in Amsterdam - Day 1 - Rotterdam 

It was nearly 9:00 PM when my plane landed in Amsterdam and I still needed to claim my luggage and get through immigration, but when all that was done I walked out into the arrivals hall and there was Bernd, waiting (always, it seems) very patiently for me. He and Mieke had very graciously offered me to stay with them a few days before my ship was to depart from the Amsterdam port. We drove to their home and even Mieke was waiting up for us. By this time it was quite late so we said our goodnights and turned in. 

Bernd and I had emailed a bit before I visited about what I might like to see over the next couple of days. He likes museums, as do I, so several of these were on the short list. I was also interested in seeing Rotterdam and The Hague. Bernd also thought a jaunt up north one day would be something to enjoy. 

Day 1, after breakfast and catch-up conversation, Bernd and I headed out to spend the day in Rotterdam. We promised Mieke, who stayed home to continue her recovery from some recent surgery by taking it easy, that we’d be home by 6:00 PM. I don’t think we ever quite made it back home when we said we would, but we came close, I think......

Rotterdam is not too far from Blaricum, where Bernd and Mieke live. Maybe about an hour’s drive, or a little less. Rotterdam is the second largest city in the Netherlands, right behind Amsterdam.  Over 3 million live in the city and the surrounding metropolitan area. The port of Rotterdam is also the largest in Europe and the 4th largest in the world. Rotterdam is also known as the city of architecture. 

We parked down in the new city center area and walked a few blocks to check out the newly built central train station. Beautiful piece of architecture. After that we walked along the Westersingel and enjoyed looking at a bunch of modern sculptures that line the walkway. 

We visited the Sonneveld House, owned by a man who was a director of a tea company in the early part of the 20th Century. The house was built in the 1930’s and was renowned at the time for its open and futuristic design. It has been restored to its original condition. For me, it was like walking through this old exhibit at Disneyland from when I was a kid - I want to say it was the Sunbeam exhibit. 

After that we went to another museum - Het Nieuwe Instituut. It features contemporary architecture and design exhibits. Ever changing, the day we went there was a huge exhibit by Steve Bannon, of all people, attempting to show how art was used as social propaganda to further Bannon’s isolationist and religious right agenda. It was freaky weird and rather disturbing. 

Next, we saw the Rubens exhibit at the Boymans-Van Beuningen. It is the main museum in Rotterdam. I learned a lot about Rubens from Bernd and really developed an appreciation for this artist because of this. This museum is now closed for a number of years for restoration so we were lucky to get in there before it closed. We ate lunch in the garden there and then moved on to the Markthallen, a covered high-end marketplace where you can buy lots of fruits, cheeses, meats and other goods. We passed by a stall selling huge mangos - 3 for a very cheap price - I think one euro each - and since mangos are one of my favorite fruits, we bought three of them.  This purchase of large items was repeated the very next day when we visited Alkmaar, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Our final stop of the day was at the former HAL headquarters where we saw some great old posters and other building artifacts, including a peek into their boardroom!

We also crossed the bridge over the river and walked to the old Rotterdam ship, which is now a hotel and museum of sorts. It’s free to visit and it was very cool to see this elegant ship. She even has the day of the week carpets in her elevators! And we tasted bitter Allen because we crashed a cocktail party.....You can immediately see how HAL has continued the design and style of her ships, carrying through to today. 

It was a long but great day and once back to Blaricum, we went out for the de cream after dinner. 

San Blas Islands

The San Blas Islands are the indigenous territory of Panama. They’re also known as the Kuna Yala. It’s an archipelago of over 300 islands, and only 47 are inhabited. It has only been within the past few years that these islands have been opened for tourism. The Kuna people live today much as they have  for hundreds of years - fishing and collecting coconuts to sell on the mainland, and they still use wooden boats. The women are known for making beautiful molas - layers of colorful fabric stitched together and then pieces cut out to show parts of the layers beneath, then restitched. Kuna is a matriarchal society so women hold a powerful place.  These islands are truly a “last of its kind” place in the world, where daily life is much the same as it was before the Spanish explorers arrived in the 15th century.

I took a tender to shore after an early lunch on board. I walked through the village and admired the molas displayed at every grass-roofed home. I did find a wonderful unique piece of artwork - a painted feather - and memorialized the artist with my photograph. 

  

 

Santa Marta

Our first port of call on this voyage was Santa Marta, Colombia. Colombia can boast of being known as the only South American country that touches both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Of course, Colombia is known for other things, not all of which they can or should be boasting about.....

Santa Marta is a tiny port that seems to have a focus on exporting coal. There’s also a National Park called Taytona that has a number of hiking trails and some pretty beaches. I didn’t really relish the idea of going hiking in the hot and muggy weather, nor was I particularly interested in having a beach day. So, instead, I took the little port shuttle through this small working port and hopped off at the edge of town. I’d been here before in 2017, and done the same thing. Today I was with my friend Patty, who has never visited this city. Our goal was three-fold - visit the gold museum, see the cathedral, walk the malecon and then get out of the heat and back to the ship. 

We accomplished our goal! The gold museum contained a nice bit of history about how civilization developed in this area, seemingly being settled around 200 AD. There were some beautiful artifacts here, including one gorgeously carved burial urn and lid, that was found completely intact. There were some artifacts of gold, but truth be told, they should really call this the history museum. 

A couple of young tourists were taking turns posing in front of this cafe. 

Street art

Some of the gold pieces in the museum 

The cathedral

This is the burial urn

Man sleeping

Bats were considered powerful creatures

More street art

Cool sculpture along the malecon 

A typical street

Inside the cathedral

This is our itinerary for the 80 days

Beach

One of the town squares

I loved this shot

Street art

Another cool sculpture 

And more street art!

Two Sea Days To Settle In

If you follow me, you know how much I love sea days. Our journey this trip has a decent number, starting right out of the gate with two days, on our way to our first port of Santa Marta, Colombia. It’s a new port for me - last time I visited Colombia was a few years ago, in Cartagena. That makes two Cartagena for me so far. One in Colombia and one in Spain. I’ve posted our entire itinerary below. It’s going to be a great voyage!

Yesterday we had our Cruise Critic Meet and Greet - we had over 60 in attendance, a great turnout. I had volunteered to host it and I had requested some ship officers to attend but the events coordinator told me not to get my hopes up. So I was very happy when our cruise director, Linda Minnikin showed up and spoke, and our hotel director Rene also made an appearance. Both spoke for a few minutes and everyone seemed pleased at the special attention we received as a group. I saw Rene later in the evening and thanked him again for taking the time to show up and speak with us.

Today we had a cabin crawl. I’d say there were about 20 people that came through to visit about 10 cabins. We had a porthole, an outside, one with a shower only, an aft with a deep balcony (mine), a corner balcony,  solo cabin,  large inside, a side balcony, a junior suite and 2 Neptune suites (the really nice and big ones).  It was a lot of fun.

After that, there was a cocktail party hosted by our travel agency. It was great to meet up with old friends and our hosts were wonderful. Never mind that the invitations didn’t arrive until 90 minutes prior to the party.......

Then, lunch.  Then trivia at 1:00 PM. Then a ring toss game, followed by. Wine tasting. It’s nearly 3:30 PM and I’ve finally got some quiet time. I’m sitting on my balcony enjoying the warm breeze and the Caribbean Sea.

80-Day Grand South America and Antarctica Voyage Begins

So here we are. January 4 2019. Day 1 of this grand voyage to the bottom of the world.

I flew to Florida from home in California on the 2nd, arriving quite late at night. I checked in to the Embassy Suites for the next two nights. Tired from a long day of delayed flights, I sank into bed and relished the ability to stretch my legs and just relax. I slept well and woke the next morning feeling refreshed and ready for a day of errands and connecting with friends with whom I would be cruising.

I met up with Patty, a new friend who currently lives in Dublin, Ireland. She is retiring soon from a career in government service. Patty was staying at the same hotel and we had made plans to do our shopping together. We first walked the three blocks to Walgreens, where we picked up cold medicines, aspirin, and other health-related items that would cover most medical ailments and mishaps.

I was also on the hunt for a foam egg crate to put on my mattress on the ship. I’ve sailed on the Prinsendam before and I find their beds to be quite firm. I like a soft bed. So the egg crate helps. After checking a few stores I finally found a similar item at TJ Maxx. We were pretty limited in available stores without hiring a car to take us somewhere else.

Errands and shopping done, we went to a burger place and had a nice lunch out on the patio, before walking back to the hotel. We planned to meet up at the end of the day to walk to the Boatyard, a restaurant nearby where we were to meet up with 15 other roll call members for a nice dinner. We ended up with 14, a nice turnout.

Then this morning we checked out of the hotel and grabbed a Lyft to the port. Between the two of us we had about 7 pieces of luggage - 3 of which were large pieces. We managed to fit everything into the driver’s Honda Civic!!

Checking in was quick and painless. No lines. We waited about 30 minutes before we were allowed to board, and we had a nice surprise - Orlando Ashford, the head of Holland America, was there along with the corporate head of hotel operations. They posed for pictures with each of us as we got ready to walk into the ship. For a Grand Voyage I thought this was a very nice touch. He’s been very transparent and has visited a lot of the ships over the past couple of years, taking time to give talks about HAL’s direction and talking to passengers one on one. Just last month, while I was on the inaugural voyage of the Nieuw Statendam, I talked to him for close to ten minutes. He’s a great listener and answered my questions and appreciated my positive comments about the organization. Can’t ask for much more than that.

It took awhile to get my luggage delivered to my room but finally, after dinner, all the pieces had arrived so I got busy with unpacking and setting up my room. It took a couple of hours but it’s done!   I can go to sleep now.

We have two days at sea before we reach Santa Marta, Columbia, on Monday.

Europe in the Fall

I realize that I am writing this post in January of 2019, but I am woefully behind in chronicling my travels. Since I’m beginning a new, 80-day trip around South America, tomorrow, I thought the least I could do was to begin in the past. I’m going to try to do dual postings.

I am going to set up some separate posts for my Europe ports and then go back and add to them as we move along. The South America trip will have their own posts.

Confused? I am. Welcome to my world.

So back to Europe. My travels started September 11 to Amsterdam, where I spent 3 wonderful days with my friends Mieke and Bernd, who live there. Mieke was still taking it easy recovering from some surgery in the summer, so Bernd played tour guide during the day. We spent a great day in Rotterdam, another day we ventured north to some smaller towns, and another day we visited The Hague. Bernd is a pretty big museum fan so we visited a few of them. I love museums too so it was perfect. I will post later on in more detail about my time in Amsterdam with Mieke and Bernd.

On the 16th I boarded the Prinsendam, Holland America’s smallest ship (800 passengers) for a 14 day cruise around the rivers of France, Portugal, Gibraltar and Cartagena before finishing in Rome.

In Rome, I had booked an AirBnB for a week in the city center, right off the Piazza Navona. I spent the week walking all over Rome - over 100 kilometers! It was magical!

At the end of the week, I trained it back to the port and picked up another Holland ship for 34 days. The Koningsdam went all over the Mediterranean- Italy, France, Spain, Croatia, Greece, then headed  across the Atlantic on a repositioning cruise back to Florida.

Home for 3 weeks - then I flew back to Rome and picked up yet another Holland ship - the inaugural voyage of the Nieuw Statendam. It visited 2 ports in Spain and the Portuguese island of Madeira before sailing back across the Atlantic to Florida.

Home for 2 weeks and here I am again in Florida, ready to set sail around South America and Antarctica for 80 days. I’m crazy excited to return to the most awe inspiring place that is Antarctica. I’m also excited to see the Amazon and see Rio de Janeiro right before Carnival. Even though I’ve been in South America a few times already, there are a number of new ports this trip for me to discover.

My biggest worry is uploading photos. I’ve had gobs of trouble so don’t know how it’s going to go. In the meantime this is from my plane ride last night. Taken somewhere in the sky between Phoenix and Fort Lauderdale.