Tag Archives: vacation

Cruise – South of France

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My husband and I took a cruise to the Mediterranean. What a wonderful trip. We started in Rome, sailed to Florence, to Marseille and Sete and ended in Barcelona.

What a beautiful part of the world!

aix

We had a coffee at a coffee shop in Aix en Provence. There are coffee shops everywhere. People eat outside even when the temperature is in the fifties.

Behind the coffee drinkers, one can see white huts. There was a Christmas fair going on, each hut a different vendor.

sete town

We went to Marseille but I took no pictures. WE weren’t allowed to leave the bus and had to take a different route because of the yellow jackets (or yellow vests). Outside of Marseille, however, we stopped at Sete, a small fishing village. It is called little Venice because of the number of canals.

sete coast

As the sun was setting, we walked along the coast of the town. A truly beautiful place.

We did see some of the protests and the protesters, not in Sete, but on excursions to the countryside. Traffic was frequently diverted and, in some cases, stopped, and smoke from burning tires filled the air. Graffitti criticizing Macros was scribbled at toll stops and on walls (my French is not up to the task of translation) and there were a lot of people wearing the yellow vests. I never felt unsafe and I thought the discussions added a depth to the visit it might not have otherwise had. It certainly made the visit memorable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Orkneys

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Our final stop, before sailing to London and flying out to home, was Kirkwall. It is in the Orkneys. We were told that the Orkneys do not want to separate from Great Britain but remain. That, of course, is not the common view in Scotland. The National Party just had a vote to leave and enter the EU as a separate country. The vote failed but who knows what will happen next time?

Anyway, ruins here make even the Iron Age farm seem relatively recent. There are standing stones, similar to Stonehenge.

standing stones

Like Stonehenge, they line up to the solar equinox. There are a lot of speculations about the purpose of the stones but no one really knows.

We also saw ruins that date to 3000 BC. (Is the US a young country or what?) Trash was used in the walls to insulate inside. Plus, just like the ruins in Crete, there were indoor toilets. What happened that this little luxury went extinct and had to be reinvented in modern times?

neolithic ruins

 

neo ruins two

It is thought that the sea was further away then; again no one is sure. But the water is coming in now and threatening the excavation. The people who lived here ate fish and other things from the sea. No one is sure what happened to these people although there is another settlement nearby and one of the theories is that they moved.

The land upon which these ruins were found has belonged to the same family for generations. Incredible.

It was very cold and windy. We did not hit warm weather until we reached London. And, as with the other places we visited, there were a lot of sheep.

 

 

orkney library two

For all my fellow librarians, here is the Orkney Library. I was told this is the oldest Carnegie in the world. Something that amazed me. I thought all the Carnegies were in the U. S. The Orkney Library looks like it has been added to several times.

orkney library

Next time: some random thoughts.

Scandinavia Cruise – Denmark

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I haven’t blogged for awhile. My husband and I went for a cruise in Scandinavia. (Disney cruise – we are all about Disney!) First up: Copenhagen.

I loved this city. It is old, with a lot of medieval remnants.

copenhagen building

medieval carving

They all seemed very old to me – until we saw neolithic ruins later in the trip. But more about that later.

One weird sight: old buildings with new things like a Macdonalds and an electric billboard.

copenhagen old and new

There are bike lanes everywhere and man, are the riders aggressive. If a pedestrian strays into their space, they will curse and sometimes try to push you out of their way. One of our bus drivers called them anarchists on wheels and they are. They don’t stop for red lights or anything!

copenhagen bike lane

A tiny lane for cars and a tiny lane for pedestrians and a wide lane for bikes. There are more bikes than people in Copenhagen – which means some people have two or three.

Disney World

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We spent a week at Disney World after Christmas and through New Years. I haven’t sorted all my pictures yet. But I have to say I love Disney. The weather was great. We went with kids so saw the parks through their eyes. Left on my own I don’t think I would attempt Mount Everest (AWESOME said the six year old), or Tower of Terror. I’m not crazy about Space Mountain although I love Animal Kingdom. To my adult eyes, the Magic Kingdom seems a little dated but the kids loved it.

 

The girls all went to dinner with Cinderella, Prince Charming, the wicked stepmother and stepsisters (by far the more interesting). The ten year old took autographs from everyone. Then we admired the enormous gingerbread house (700 pounds of confectioners sugar!) and the beautiful tree in the super fancy Grand Floridian.

 

All in all, I walked over 30 miles in four days. On the last day, my leg muscles were so tired I could barely make it up the steps to the villa.