Caryn H

Cornwall

Port Isaac

Starting out from Southampton, we rented a car and drove to our 1st stop, Port Isaac. The drive through the country was dotted with picturesque villages and farmlands. Port Isaac is a pretty fishing village. The central part of the village has buildings that date back to the 18th & 19th century. It has been the shooting location for the British television series Doc Martin. Since we are big Doc Martin fans, we were excited to be staying at the Old School Hotel, which is used for the schoolyard shots in Doc Martin. The accommodations were pleasing and the on site restaurant was a good place to start and end your day. The village has a few old pubs for your enjoyment and the shops were cozy and a good place to browse for gifts.

We took a trip to Tintagel, to see the Tintagel Castle and the Old Post Office. The scenic drive took us about 35 minutes. We parked in the public car park and walked to the Old Post Office. It was a beautiful house with a slate roof. The house was built in the 1300’s and was added on to in subsequent centuries. The house has period furniture and the garden out back was pleasant. We then walked over to St. Materiana Church which is set on a cliff. The churchyard is large and has different sections depending on when it was built.

From the church, we walked to Tintagel Castle, rich in history and linked to the legend of King Arthur. The walk to the ruins is strenuous, the stairs are steep but worth the trip. There is quite a bit to explore, with small huts, the great hall and kitchen ruins. The views are dazzling on the Cornish coast, I would recommend a visit.

Penzance

Penzance is the largest western town in Cornwall and faces southeast onto the English Channel. It is picturesque and rich in history. We drove from Port Isaac to Penzance, stopping at the Geevor Tin Mine on the way. Geevor is the largest preserved tin mine in England, and you can take a tour the tunnels and out buildings. If you are a fan of the Poldark book and tv series, I would suggest a trip here. It is quite interesting to see how the mines worked. We arrived at the Hotel Penance, a pretty hotel on a hill, our room looked out over St. Michaels Mount, the view was spectacular. Once settled, we walked into the town and found a place to eat. We chose The Turks Head, which is said to have first opened in 1233 (during the crusades). The food was very good and the decor was fun to mull over while waiting for your meal.

The next day we toured the southern coast of Cornwall, stopping in Mousehole and Lands End. Both villages were picturesque. The drive to reach Mousehole goes down one lane roadways that are tree covered and very pretty. Bob walked to St. Michaels Mount from the hotel in the afternoon and thought it to be fascinating. We walked into town for dinner, this time stopping at The Admiral Benbow, once again there was good food and drink. The restaurant is full of interesting artifacts to look over.

The next day we moved on to St. Austell. We visited Restormel Castle, and the St. Austell Brewery. The next morning we headed out to the Lost Gardens of Heligan and then on to Healys Cornish Cyder Farm. The gardens are beautiful and we enjoyed the leisurely walk through the woods and fields. Healys had a tasting room, a pretty outside area to sit and enjoy their cider as well as horses, goats and peacocks. It was a nice stop to end our day.

London

We left St. Austell the next morning for London with a stop at Stonehenge along the way. The drive on the A roads were easy. For anyone who has never traveled to Cornwall, be warned, the roads are narrow, one lane in many cases, and curvy. It can be tough to navigate and if another vehicle approaches from the other way, one of you may need to pull over to let the other through. Once you get to the highways the driving is easier. We stayed overnight at The Hide hotel, it was small but very nice and as we were staying overnight so that we could fly home the next day, it was convenient to Heathrow Airport. The next day we dropped off the rental car and flew home.

A few notes:

The hotels we booked did not have elevators. If you tend to pack heavy, you might want to remember that you will be carrying them up stairs at times.
With the exception of the A or B roads, many of the roads in Cornwall were old carriage roads, they are narrow with embankments on either side. If you drive these, take your time and realize that if you come upon another car, one of you will have to pull to the side to let the other through.
There are not many traffic lights on the secondary roads, there are many roundabouts. If you are trying to enter one, remember the traffic already in the roundabout has the right of way.

Trans-Atlantic

We set sail on the Caribbean Princess on April 20, 2016 for an 18 day trans-Atlantic cruise. We have sailed Princess before and were looking forward to sailing her again. A back story to this cruise:

In September 2014, we sailed on the Carnival Legend from Los Angeles to Sydney stopping in Puerta Vallerta, Papeete, Tahiti, Mo’orea Island,Bora Bora, Fiji & New Caledonia disembarking in Sydney. From Sydney we traveled to Cairns to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reed on a live-aboard dive ship for 3 days/2 nights. From Cairns we traveled to Brisbane to board the Sea Princess and circumnavigate New Zealand. While we were on the Carnival cruise, we received notice that the Sea Princess was having mechanical problems and all passengers disembarked in Freemantle while the ship went to Sydney for repairs. Ok, we thought, this shouldn’t be a problem, there should be time to repair the ship and we’ll be on our way. While we were in Brisbane, we received an e-mail from Princess stating that the repairs took longer than expected, the cruise would be shortened by 1 day and leave from Sydney instead of Brisbane; they would fly us down to Sydney and we would board the ship there. Cool, sounds like a plan. The day before we were to fly to Sydney, we get another e-mail, the sea trials did not go well, the cruise has been canceled. To its credit, Princess refunded all of the cruise fare, paid for our hotel room for the next day and gave us a credit in the amount of the cruise. That credit is paying for this trans-Atlantic on the Caribbean Princess and another cruise. We decided to fly to Perth and visit friends, so it all worked out in the end.

Bermuda

We have visited Bermuda before and decided to take the ferry into Hamilton and then a bus to the Bermuda Aquarium Museum & Zoo. It’s a nice day trip for all. They had many animals to see and it is a good place for kids. To see the entirety would probably take about 3 – 4 hours. In the past we went to St. George’s, the Swizzle Inn, Crystal Cave, Elbow Beach and Hartley’s Helmet Dive. We enjoyed the zoo and aquarium, the view on the coastal walkway is gorgeous.

The zoo was set up nicely with different areas for Australia/Asia, America, Caribbean and an interactive area for kids:

At Sea

After Bermuda we sailed the Atlantic for 7 days. During the day we would attend different activities. There were lectures planned that discussed geology and cars that were well attended. We usually would miss the lectures but catch them on the tv in our stateroom while getting ready for dinner or before going to bed. There were movies showing at no charge, in the Princess theater in the afternoon. We saw Room, Trumbo, A Walk in the Woods, The Martian, Bridge of Spies and The Revanent. The movies were free, they also showed movies on the Lido deck (Movies under the stars) at night, since it was outside, we watched early on in the cruise but not once we left Bermuda, it was too cold. There was also trivia. The trivia was always crowded, and sometimes hard to get a seat. Lunch was either in the dining room, the italian restaurant for pizza (not offered everyday), or the steakhouse for British pub fare (also not offered everyday).

Liverpool

Our day in Liverpool started with going through immigration. This was the low point of the cruise. Although Princess had organized staggered times to arrive at the Explorers Lounge, there was a back log of people. After waiting for approximately 1 hour to see the immigration officials, we were able to leave the ship. We were meeting our friends cousin Philip who lived in the area and had offered to show us around. We had a wonderful day visiting the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral which opened in 1967, the Anglican church, Speke Hall, the Walker Gallery, the Liverpool FC stadium with a stop for lunch.

We had a fun time and Philip was a great host. We didn’t stop to see the Beatles museum, but maybe next time.

Holyhead

We were supposed to stop in Holyhead, but the seas were too rough and the port was canceled. This is one of the drawbacks of cruising. We had planned to take a tour of northern Wales and visit Portmerion (the location of the British ’60s tv series The Prisoner). As much as we were looking forward to the tour, it was understandable that we couldn’t anchor there.

Hamburg

Due to the cancellation of the previous port, we arrived in Hamburg early. The trip up the Elbe River was superb, the sky was blue and the water was calm. One complication we discovered, due to environmental laws, the ship was not allowed to keep the laundry rooms open, they closed them with no warning. We had laundry in the dryer and when I went to take it out, I discovered the door was locked. After a few calls, a crew member was sent to open the door for us and a few others. This is an area that Princess cruises could have done differently. We understand the need to follow the laws but, if they had informed us earlier, we could have adjusted our schedule accordingly. Also, a note on the door of the laundry room would have helped. After we retrieved our laundry, we decided to get into a hot tub on the Lido deck. We enjoyed the scenery and anticipated the arrival later that day. After dinner we took the shuttle bus to the Reeperbahn. We enjoyed a beer at one of the bars and walked around the area. It is a lively, fun place to spend an evening. Since my German is very limited, we were pleased to find that the majority of the staff spoke English, all better than my German.

The next morning we headed off to explore Hamburg by way of a Hop-On/Hop-Off bus, river cruise and lake tour. We had purchased the tickets on Viator before leaving. The bus toured the city and the tour guide pointed out the different areas and attractions including the Kunsthalle Hamburg, Speicherstadt – the warehouse district (now museums and warehouses), the Hamburg Rathaus (city hall) to name a few highlights. During our day in Hamburg the city was celebrating the anniversary of the port. We headed that way to explore the festival, which had many food and drink vendors, games and rides. There were some beautiful ships tied up and more navigating the Elbe. We were scheduled to take a river cruise and met up with the Louisiana Star, a paddle wheeler for our trip. The river tour took us to see the cargo ships in port and explained the importance of the Speicherstadt. After the river cruise, we made our way back to the bus to meet up with the Lake Alster tour. The boat tour was fun and it’s a nice way to see the area. The only problem we had was that the guide only spoke German, but, we still enjoyed the sights on our own.

Le Havre (Paris)

After a sea day, we arrived at Le Havre, France. Le Havre is the port that serves Paris, it is 195 km from Le Havre to Paris and takes approximately 2.5 hrs by car. Our stop was 12 hours so we joined a tour group we found on our Cruise Critic roll call. The group was small, under 15 people. We had a tour of Paris and stopped at the Champs-Élysées for time to explore on our own. We chose to walk to the Arc de Triomphe. There was a long line to take a tour and we didn’t have the time needed. We walked both sides of the avenue starting at the bridge and ending at the bridge. We spent some time in the Petite Palais -Musée des Beaux Arts de le Ville de Paris. The architecture is in the beaux arts style and the gardens were wonderful. We visited the 1st floor, and viewed the sculptures and paintings. Wishing we had more time to explore this museum, we headed back to the mini-bus to meet our group. Next stop: the Eiffel Tower. It was nice to see the tower up close after seeing pictures of the structure. We did not however, have time to go up to the observation deck. After visiting the Eiffel Tower it was time for our 2.5 hour bus ride back. We will be back to Paris to spend more time and explore the city properly.

Southampton

Our cruise ended in Southampton, England. As we do every debarkation day, we ate breakfast in the dining room and then went to wait for our group in the lounge assigned to us. We were picking up a car for our drive to Cornwall. We got off the ship and walked to a hotel next to the rental car office, which didn’t open for another hour. After the rental car office opened, we picked up the car and we were on the road to Cornwall for the next chapter…

Sunshine Days

It has been a few years since I have been to the Caribbean, so I was looking forward to going there again. There were some islands on the itinerary that I had never been to before and I was excited to see them, first on the Carnival Triumph and then on the Carnival Sunshine.

Bonaire has become one of my favorite destinations. The diving here is wonderful. Unfortunately, the day I was here, I had a cold and couldn’t dive. We took a water taxi to No Name Beach and snorkeled on our own. The drift snorkel here is fantastic. The fish are plentiful and you don’t have to go very far to find them.

Martinique was beautiful both times I was there, it was also very quiet. Both times I have been here it was either a holiday or Sunday. I return in February on a Monday and I am hoping for the best. Fort-de-France is interesting with a beautiful library and a great beach for finding sea glass.

Library in Fort-de-France

Beautiful steps and interior – Martinique

In Antigua the first time we took and island tour and for our 2nd trip we found a beach to spend a few hours. You can catch a taxi from the pier area, but they can be a little pricey $25 per person. The more people you get the less the price per person. Instead we headed to the bus depot; it is a 15 minute walk and $3 each. You tell the driver where you want to go and they will stop there. The buses are not the city buses, they are vans with seats. Valley Church Beach has a bar/restaurant, bathrooms as well as chair and umbrella rentals. We found the bus easy to use and timely. No issues using them.

Grenada is the Spice Island, we took an island tour which was informative and gave you a good starting point for the next visit. There are some beautiful waterfalls there. Watch out for the monkeys!

Spices – Grenada

Waterfall – Grenada

St. Kitts and Nevis have lush landscapes and scenic vistas to enjoy. On St. Kitts we visited a Batik factory, Brimstone Hill and the Great Salt Pond. In Nevis we took an island tour, we stopped at the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, and a plantation that is now a hotel. Both islands have become favorites of mine.

Old sugar plantaion – Nevis

St. Kitts

Salt Bay – St. Kitts

Fishing village on St. Lucia

St. Lucia is another stunning Caribbean island. The views will take your breath away. We took an island tour with stops for a taste of local breakfast food and some fresh bread and cheese for a snack. The curvy roads up and down the hills will take some time, so sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Keyhole – St. Lucia

Sailboat – St. Lucia

Toraille Waterfall – St. Lucia

Dominica is still recovering from Hurricane Erica. On our tour of the island we saw bridges that we washed away and debris that has not yet been taken away. It is still a pretty drive and the people here are happy to show you their home.

Bridge damaged in Hurricane Erica – Dominica

Cannons at Cabritts National Park- Dominica

Indian River – Dominica

Outdoor market – Dominica

Cabritts National Park – Dominica

San Juan has many things to offer. We went to El Morro and then to the Barcardi rum factory for a tour. Old San Juan is easy to navigate, but it has steep hills and cobblestone streets. There is a free shuttle bus. To get to the Barcardi factory take the ferry and then catch a taxi.

El Morro – San Juan

Cobblestone streets – Old San Juan

St. Croix has gotten a bad reputation due to a rise in crime. We found it to be ok, but stay in a group and watch your surroundings. We toured the island with a stop at the Cruzan rum distillery. The distillery tour was very good, you get to see the process and at the end, sample some rums and have a drink. We also stopped in Christiansted, it was a nice town with shops and restaurants at the harbor.

Historic house, Cruzan rum, St. Croix

St. Thomas

Old sugar mill, Cruzan Rum, St. Croix

There are many more islands left for me to explore in the Caribbean and the world. I can’t wait to see them.

Around the Horn

I just recently took a cruise from Valparaiso, Chile to New York, New York. We went around Cape Horn, cruised the Beagle Channel and stopped in some wonderful ports. It was a fantastic trip and I took a lot of pictures. Here are a few. I will be adding more information soon, but I wanted to get these posted.

Welcome!

Writing a blog to share my love of traveling and exploring the world is something I have thought about for a while now. I decided to take the plunge and start. With this blog I hope to share my stories, photos and videos. Please let me know what you think!

Caryn