Buckingham Palace

It was great to be back in London again, especially for Dad who knows this city so well and loves it. We wandered around town and happened upon the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We went to St. Martin in the Fields church which Mom loves because they usually have a lunch time musical performance. This time it was a lovely rehearsal of sacred music sung by academy choir students rehearsing for a service.

We also happened upon an American high school band touring group performing in the park for the lunch time workers in town very close to the Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Tomorrow we fly home.

written by  rcodel on June 7, 2011 from Southampton, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: World Cruise - 2011
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Bordeaux is on the Gironde River and is located 70 kilometers up river from the Atlantic. We docked right downtown. Amazingly enough this river has a huge tide of 5 meters so every 6 hours our ship was going up and down vis-a-vis the land.

Most of the buildings in old Bordeaux were built in the 18th century and they all tend to look alike with 4 Story sandstone structures withr rectangular windows. It is a really inviting beautiful city which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Of course the Bordeaux area is known for its Vineyards and wineries. Anyone who has a House and produced approved appellation wine is called a Chateau. There are over 6,000 of them in the Bordeaux area. One day we traveled about 1 hour North of the city of Bordeaux to the Medoc area. We visited the famous Chateau Margaux and went to the Chateau Paloumey for a wine tasting presentation. It was a great learning experience. Franklin, you would have loved it here. By chance the head sommelier was with us and agreed with us that the wine of this small Chateau was mediocre to poor.

Chateau Margaux

In this area the best wines are gorwn in Sandy, gravel soil. The individual vines can live up to 50 -60 years. Once a new vine is a year or two old, irrigation is prohibited by law.

written by  rcodel on June 3, 2011 from Bordeaux, France
from the travel blog: World Cruise - 2011
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Cascais and Estoril

It was fun being back in Lisbon. We were here about 7 years ago on a round-the-world trip. We went to Sintra, Cascais and Estoril which are all on the Atlantic coast. Mom got homesick since we drove past Caxias where she lived as a teenager.

Belem Tower

Coffee in Sintra

The old town of Marseille is built in the shape of a U with a huge marina in the middle with literally thousands of sailboats and motor boats.

As we left the harbor the captain took us next to the fortress made famous by Alexandre Dumas' character, the Count of Monte Cristo, who was fictional and was actually never locked up here.

Count of Monte Cristo Castle

written by  rcodel on May 26, 2011 from Marseille, France
from the travel blog: World Cruise - 2011
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