Cherbourg and the Normandy Countryside

Cherbourg, France, May 15, 2014

St. Malo in Brittany was originally listed as the last French port on our itinerary.  The big tourist attraction there is Mont St Michel, a famous monastery and commune that juts out into the English Channel.  Michael and I had not particularly planned to go to Mont St Michel because we had been warned that it is usually swarming with tourists (3 million a year) and wait times are hours to get in to see the medieval fortress/church/city.

When we embarked in Lisbon, we were told that the docks at St Malo had been damaged in a storm and the port of Cherbourg would be substituted.  The SilverSea tour operation did wonderful work setting up shore excursions on short notice to nearby points, even an all day trip to Bayeux to see the famous tapestry. They also offered a ten-hour tour to some of the famous WWII Allied landing sites on the coast of Normandy.  This was especially appropriate as this year marks the seventieth anniversary of the D-Day landings that lead to the eventual fall of Germany.  

As impressed as I was with the offering of an all-day trip to WWII landing sites, we were not willing to take this excursion.  This was the day we planned to pack for our return home the following day.  Michael and I were more interested in a half day tour; seeing the Normandy countryside of the Cotenin peninsula where Cherbourg is located.

We spent a pleasant four hours touring the Normandy countryside and listening to a very French centric version of English-French history from our tour guide. According to him, the Norman French were really Vikings who took over England and held large parts of France for centuries.  The French eventually intermarried and absorbed them; thus England was really ruled by Frenchmen. Our guide thought the hundred years war was just a family feud.  Anyway, the countryside was beautiful, the villages quaint and the ride entertaining.

The Normandy Countryside,  Stone Fences, Hedgerows and Stone Houses

Lighthouse at Pointe de Barfleur

Port of Barfleur

Seaside Village of Barfleur

No Need for Air Conditioning

The Day's Catch Has Been Unloaded,St Vaast la Houge

Poisson Shop (Fish Store)

The Tour Guide Directed Us to Tourist Land at St Vaast la Hogue

Back at the ship, we had a late lunch and began packing. The trusty scale we brought along let us balance our large suitcases at exactly fifty pounds each to avoid overweight luggage charges.  British Air has a fifty pound weight limit on carry-on luggage also so the only practical restriction on the carry-ons was how much weight we each could lift into the aircraft's overhead storage bins.  

 Silver Whisper stayed relatively late at Cherbourg as it is only a few hours sail across the English Channel to Southampton, our disembarkation point.  Michael and I had time after packing to take the shuttle bus the short distance into Cherbourg and to walk about and see the nearby sights.

Old Part of Cherbourg

Cherbourg was an important port during the Napoleonic Wars.  The harbor was heavily fortified against an attack by the English.  A French naval architect named Vauban started rebuilding the harbor in 1776.  The project was not completed until 1860.  When it was done, Cherbourg had the largest man-made harbor of its time.

This Gangway Looks Old Enough to Have Been Used on the Titanic

The Titanic called at Cherbourg as the last stop before it set out on its fateful journey across the Atlantic.  During World War II Cherbourg was an important German naval harbor until heavily damaged by the Allies and retaken at the end of June 1944.  Today it is an important ferry terminus serving Portsmouth and Poole, England, Rosslare, Ireland, and the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel. Otherwise, Cherbourg is a sleepy tourist town, a place for a relaxing vacation on the northern French coast.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Cherbourg is the extreme difference between high and low tide.  Michael and I were walking about at low tide in the afternoon.  Small boats moored at the local marina were almost aground.  The distance from the water to the top of the docks must have been about twenty feet.  By the time we departed in the evening, the boats were floating at a level almost even with the top of the pier. I had not realized the effect the English Channel has on magnifying high and low tides.

Michael and I fell asleep while the ship was docked at Cherbourg; we woke to see a familiar sight - the pier at Southampton.  All we saw of England that day was a view from the motor coach that took us from the pier to Heathrow Airport.

Our spring 2014 cruise was unique.  Almost all of the ports we visited were new to both Michael and me.  I feel as if I had an intensive look at various aspects of Spanish culture even if I only saw Spanish people out and about in the morning and early afternoon.  Neither Michael nor I can stay up late enough to experience a Spanish dinner and we totally missed the nightlife on the days Silver Whisper was in port late.  I have a better appreciation of Portugal and its Atlantic island territories.  Bermuda was deeply British even though it is fiercely independent. Visiting France is always a joy.  I’m looking forward to next March when we board Silver Wind for a journey from Singapore to Athens.  With that trip, I will have sailed completely around the world (over the course of six years) and I will finally see India.  The world is indeed filled with many wonders and I feel privileged to have seen as many of them as I have.

A Charming City and the Real Wine Country

Bordeaux, France, May 13 & 14, 2014

Silver Whisper’s visit to Bilbao was somewhat shortened because our next port, Bordeaux, France, was fifty miles up the Garonne River and our arrival had to be timed to the tides.  The ship entered the river sometime after midnight.  By the time we awoke shortly after 6 am, the Whisper was backing into a berth right in the center of the city.  Our floating luxury hotel was in a prime spot for exploring the streets of Bordeaux.

View from our Suite on Silver Whisper

Michael and I spent the first day exploring Bordeaux.  We made two separate forays into the city during which we rode the light rail through the city west to the suburb of Merignac Centre, in the Medoc Region, Southwest to Pessac Centre and north to the new development of Berges du Lac. We spent the rest of our time walking in the old center of Bordeaux and managed to see most of the sights highlighted on our tourist maps.

Cathedral St-Andre with The Hotel de Ville (city hall) in the Distance

  

Actual French Balconies

Michael giving his Impression of French Hauteur, The Statue has it Mastered 

The Place de la Comede, The Grand Theatre is on the Right

Monument to the Girondins, Example of Third Republic Excess

Detail: Freedom overcoming Oppression

Bordeaux is the largest city in southwest France and is synonymous with the wine trade.  Most of the tours offered by SilverSea involved wine tastings in the countryside at various chateaux.  On the second day of our visit, Michael and I went on a tour of the UNESCO World Heritage Site and famous wine country of St. Emelion, about fifteen miles from Bordeaux across both the Garonne and the Dordogne Rivers.  This was a walking tour; we did our wine tasting in the city at a wine museum several blocks from where Silver Whisper was moored.

Jardin Public

Bordeaux is a beautiful city, very French in a relaxed way.  Many of its eighteenth century buildings are well preserved.  Its monuments are, well, monumental and the back streets are quirky and fascinating.  The sky dripped rain on and off both days but it was easy to duck into a shop, a church or museum or even catch a tram to get out of the wet.  We walked through the Jardin Public (Public Garden) during a sunny interval and enjoyed the flowering plants and the many birds living there.  The Cathedral is undergoing restoration and I found the contrast between the cleaned stone exterior and the sooty black untouched part striking. 

We discovered a department store with free wi-fi.  Michael checked his e-mail and made a few Skype calls back to the U.S. while I looked over the up-scale merchandise in several of the stores. I even bought a Bordeaux dish towel.

The village of St Emelion is almost a Disneyland.  Its way too cute cobbled streets and pretty vistas are something right out of a tourist brochure.  There are numerous wine stores on every block.  There are ruins on almost every street and one can see vineyards in every direction.  Nonetheless, I really enjoyed poking around and taking loads of pictures.

View From The King's Tower, Upper St Emilion

Upper & Lower St Emilion,  King's Tower in Center

Street of Wine Shops

Ruin of a Church Now Housing a Restaurant

Vineyards Grow Right at Town's Edge

Nearby Wine Chateaux

The tour guide offered background information on the bus ride through the wine country but gave all of us the option to explore St Emelion on our own or go with her on a tour of a monks’ chapel built into the rock cliff.  Michael and I chose to pick up a detailed tourist map at the tourist center and wander about on our own.  St Emelion was relatively empty that day; there were only four other tour buses of people walking the streets in addition to our relatively small group of about twenty-five tourists. 

Just before it was time to return to our bus, the sky opened up and we had a serious rain shower.  Michael and I ducked into a macaroon shop and bought samples of the other edible for which St Emelion is famous.  We joined the other Silver Whisper tourists at the spot where the bus was supposed to appear.  The bus was late, we all got wet and the neighboring restaurant owner chased us all out of her establishment and collapsed the outside awning because we were not customers. Very mean.  Very French.  We did have a good time, though.

Leaving Bordeaux

The tides dictated that Silver Whisper leave Bordeaux promptly at six p.m.  We watched a glorious sunset as we made our way to the ocean.  The following day Silver Whisper sailed  from Southwest France, through the English Channel around Brittany toward Normandy and our final French port at Cherbourg.

An Old Transporter Bridge and a Strikingly Modern Art Museum

Bilbao, Spain, Sunday May 11

There were two reasons Michael wanted to see Bilbao, Spain: to see one of only three remaining transporter bridges in use is near the city and to visit the Guggenheim museum about which we had heard wonderful reports.  I was definitely interested in the modern art museum and I'm geeky enough to want to see the transporter bridge too.

Transporter bridges date from the late nineteenth century age of iron construction.  The Vizcaya bridge as it is called,  just downriver from Bilbao was the first one built.  It was built in 1893 and is still in use.  Transporter bridges are also called ferry bridges; the bridge has an elevated structure from which a gondola hangs.  The gondola, or ferry platform, moves back and forth across the river just above the water.  Transporter bridges were built in locations requiring a large height above the water to allow river traffic to pass under but where it was considered impractical to build long approach ramps for vehicles . They went out of favor as the automobile became the preferred mode of transportation.  It takes too long to move vehicles across rivers using gondolas and many of them are passenger only.  Michael has visited the other two bridges, both in the U.K., and has wanted for years to see this one.

View of the Transporter Bridge, the Gondola is Positioned at the Right End Just Above Water Level

Telephoto Picture of Gondola "Docked" at the Edge of the River 

We were in luck.  Silver Whisper docked at the port of Getxo (pronounced get-cho) at the mouth of the Nervion River.  We could see the transporter bridge from our suite on the ship.  Both Michael and I spent some time on our veranda taking pictures of the bridge before and after our excursion into Bilbao proper.  The day was rainy so our pictures show a lot of shadow and mist.

The ship was in port only a little more than half a day. There was not time enough to see more of Bilbao than we viewed from the shuttle bus to downtown. The highlight of our visit to Bilbao was the several hours we spent at the Guggenheim museum.  Bilbao is the largest city in the Basque Country of Spain.  Nearly half the Basque Country inhabitants live in this city of more than one million people and Bilbao is the fourth largest city in Spain.  The street signs are in both Spanish and Euskera, the Basque language.  Euskera bears little resemblance to Spanish or any other Romance language. 

Street Sign in Spanish and Euskera (Basque)

Michael and I visited some unique parts of Spain on this trip.  Depending on the city, we heard all four of the official Spanish dialects: Castillian Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque. In the future I won't think of Spain as a single monolithic culture. It is a country made up of seventeen "autonomous communities" that govern themselves within the overall "Kingdom of Spain." I'm not sure how well it works but it mostly suits the Spanish with the possible exception of Catalonia which keeps threatening to secede.  A few years ago some of the Basques were revolting but all seems quiet now.  Having an internationally famous museum and a revived economy helps.

Downtown Bilbao on a Sleepy Sunday Morning

We walked along a number of interesting streets between the large plaza where the shuttle bus let us off and the museum.  Michael and I arrived at the museum just before it opened and left shortly before the last shuttle bus back to Silver Whisper.  Four hours was not enough time to see everything but I don't think we could have absorbed any more in a single visit.

Plaza in Front of the Guggenheim, Scaffolding Surrounds a Huge Topiary Sculpture, "Puppy" by Jeff Koons

Ground Level Interior

Third Level Looking Across the Atrium

Third Level Looking Down

The Guggenheim Museum is a visual stunner.  Sheets of titanium form a free flowing “organic” fish-like structure that is as interesting inside as outside.  Michael and I enjoyed the exhibits but the real artistry is the building itself.  Frank Gehry’s masterpiece put Bilbao on the art world map and sparked an economic as well as a cultural renaissance in this part of northern Spain. 

Exhibit of Curved Metal Plates, Richard Serra "The Matter of Time"

Ernesto Neto Exhibit Occupied Gallery Space on Two Floors

View of the Museum From the Bridge Over the Ria  de Bilbao

There is certainly much more to see and do in Bilbao than we the time to persue. We will have to make a return visit since we spent our time in and around the museum and did not get to other interesting parts of the city..  It was time well spent.

As we Left the Port of Getxo the Sun Finally Came Out

An Old Mining Port Transforms Itself into a Party Town

Gijon, Spain

The Silver Whisper’s call at Gijon, Spain on Saturday, May 10 was perhaps the only stop on this cruise that was not a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  At first glimpse, the location was not promising.  We docked way out at the end of a mostly undeveloped new pier.   The European economic crisis apparently struck before the new facility was finished.  From the ship, we could see a town in the distance but a large sea wall and sand were in our immediate view.  Several tour buses drove up and waited on a strip of pavement near the Silver Whisper as Michael and I disembarked and looked for the promised shuttle to the center of town.

From the Old Town Silver Whisper was in the Far Distance

Gijon, the largest town in the Asturias region of Spain, had until relatively recently been an industrial port town whose main export was coal.  As we drove the several miles through the huge port area, we could see that coal was no longer Gijon’s main product.  We passed rusting conveyors running from the hillside to the piers.  Small piles of coal remained pier side awaiting shipment, presumably to somewhere outside the European Union where coal is an acceptable fuel.  Gijon's commercial port of El Musel has fallen on hard times.

The shuttle bus dropped us off at a busy marina right next to the old town.  It immediately became apparent that Gijon is trying to reinvent itself as a tourist destination.  The old town is much like all the other old towns and old cities we have seen on this trip, only smaller.   

Welcome Tourists

Monument to the First King of Asturias

Christmas Tree of Wine Bottles Overlooks the Marina

Gijon has several beautiful sandy beaches with amenities.  But, it is on the north coast of Spain!  The water is COLD.  From my reading about the local tourist attractions, partying all night seems to be the main draw.  During our mid morning visit, the town was very sleepy and nothing much was open.  Even the tourist office didn’t open until eleven am.

Climbing to the Old Town

Through the Open Door of a Small Chapel

Historic Mansion Now a Hotel

Michael and I took a long walk, following the tourist map and checked out most of the sights.  I think Michael spent more time searching for the elusive free wi-fi spots indicated on the map than looking at the scenery.  The Roman Baths, the oldest relics in town, were closed.  They are underneath a pretty park in front of a large church.  We took the shuttle bus back to the ship for a leisurely lunch before heading back to town to visit the  railway museum.

Modern Church, Ancient Roman Baths are Under the Plaza

Saturday Market Setting Up in Town Hall Square

The Museo del Ferrocarril, the train museum, was an unexpected gem.  The museum occupies the former main railway station and rail yard and has been beautifully curated.  Michael and I spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering among the locomotives and carriages.  The exhibits were a bit mixed: standard railway equipment was alongside narrow gauge mining equipment. The whole did present an interesting picture of Gjon’s mining past.  We both agreed this is one of the better rail museums we have seen.

Rail Platform Now Occupied by Antique Train

Former Rail Yard Filled With Displays

Asturias Rail History is Tied to Coal and Iron Mining

The Asturias region of Spain is a major producer of hard cider.  We had intended to stop at one of the “sidrerias” for an afternoon refreshment but the sidrerias  we looked at were not particularly inviting.  Patrons are served open liter bottles of cider; customers are expected to drink the whole bottle down quickly.   The atmosphere was somewhat rowdy; the tables messy. The partying would only get louder as the evening progressed.  Michael and I decided to go back to the ship and have another glass of port on our balcony. 

Afternoon Crowd at a Local Sideria

Silver Whisper stayed late, until 11 pm.  Michael and I enjoyed a leisurely dinner aboard ship and left the partying ashore to others.