Brightly colored homes in Newfoundland, Canada
My theory regarding brightly colored homes seems to still hold true. European towns with long, cold winters have the most brightly painted houses. These brightly colored homes were a common sight in St. Johns NL, Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada. Most every home and business in this town followed this tradition. Islands seem to have more subtle pastels.
Nanortalik, Greenland Field of Dreams
Greenland villages are small by any standard. The largest town in Greenland, the largest island on earth, has less than 20,000 inhabitants. Nanortalik has about 1,100 people making it the eleventh largest town on the island. So I was wondering what is the eleventh largest city in the US? If you go strictly by incorporated city limits, it is Austin, Texas. If you include the primary statistical area it is the Miami, Fort Lauderdale area with over six million residents.
Cruising a Greenland fjord
An advantage to a small cruise ship is we could squeeze into smaller ports and fjords where larger ships dare not go. We had a leisurely day cruising up and down this Greenland fjord, launching Zodiac boats for a closer look.
Puffin swimming, presumably looking for fish.
I was excited to see my first ever puffins and photograph them while cruising the islands off the coast of Iceland. I knew my resultant travel photographs would never compete with professional nature photographers who sit on a hillside and wait for the perfect moment to capture a puffin. However, out of the many hundreds of photos taken from the moving, bouncing Zodiac boat, two photos were acceptable to show here.
For some reason, homes in coastal towns are often painted in colorful pastel colors. Weymouth, England is no exception.
Our method of exploration of these coastal towns generally consisted of shopping for something we apparently feel we needed or forgot to pack, like warmer clothes. We then search for a lunch spot in town to sample the local cuisine. Indian food is very good across the UK, so that was often at the top of our list. The local seafood was also good to find. However, please note there is no Dover sole to be found in Dover, England. No matter how good the food is on board, local cuisine away from the ship is a very welcome change.
Colorful Tobermory, Scotland
Colorful Tobermory, Scotland was a fun spot to explore after our failed bird watching expedition to the countryside. The photo above captures about one-third of the town. The arrival of our ship doubled the population of this quaint town for the day. We went into the Mishnish Hotel, the yellow building above, and had some local beverages and a half dozen oysters as part of our shore excursion. Then we ventured a few doors down for some Indian cuisine.
Thirty-two days on the Seabourn Quest, our longest cruise yet.
Our 32 day cruise began in Lisbon, Portugal. The Portuguese say Lisboa. Our cruise itinerary seemed to include every place that ended in “…land.” That would include England, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, many islands and finally Newfoundland. We accomplished our main goal. Get out of the August heat of Idaho. Greenland may have been my favorite.
Leaning Tower of Pisa
After seven months of travel in Europe, we head back to the States the same way we came, a Trans-Atlantic cruise. This cruise departed from Civitavecchia, Italy and landed in Ft. Lauderdale. I very much enjoy the days at sea. We can be as busy as we wish or simply relax.
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Norwegian Jade Cruise Boat, we boarded in Houston, Texas
Tenth day at sea, another week until we arrive at our final destination of Barcelona… My advice to anyone else looking to follow in our footsteps or those beginning world travelers is don’t fall for a bargain price on a l-o-n-g cruise.
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Sunset Trails
It may sound extravagant that we choose to take a 16 night cruise to Barcelona vs. flying to start our extended European visit. However, when home free, we must pay to live somewhere and the trans-Atlantic cruise takes care of our room and board for two plus weeks.
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