Oct 2022 Cruise to Atlantic Spain and France

 

28th Sept at the crack of dawn we took a taxi to Ben Gurion Airport and with 2 hand luggage suitcases were able carry  on to  the plane.  The El Al Dream Liner jet has a very good TV and movie program so it kept most people busy during the flight. The guy next to me had been in Israel in the Irish junior soccer team that lost to Israel the night before. Astrid could look him up by the tattoos on his arms Aaron Connelly has played for Brighton/Hove for 7 years.

Through Booking.com Astrid arranged a taxi to Southampton as the coach was not running at a  suitable time. Just as we got onto the highway a truck hit the back side of our wheel which burst , the hippie looking driver stopped to show his papers. Our driver a Pole named Conrad  phoned his sister Viola to take up on the journey but she hardly spoke English.

Southampton

I walked through the old walled city of Southampton and visited the Tudor museum there, a building so old that it is all bucked and a fortune had to be spend to reinforce it to keep it up. The French raided  Southampton in 1338 with a fleet of 50 ships, this was part of the 100 years war.  One old city gates said in 1415 Henry V left from here to attack the French  at the Battle of Agincourt. Originally the walled city was right next to the beach but later the docks were build on a foreshore. There is a monument to the Pilgrim fathers who left from  here in 1620 on the Mayflower and another monument remembering the Basque children brought to Southampton from the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Another memorial for the Windrush immigrants from Jamaica who arrived in  1946.

Wool was the biggest commodity that the English economy was based on and a pub today called the Wool House was fixed up and preserved, it was also used as prison for French POWs  during the Napoleonic wars and has French graffiti carved into the wooden beams. 

I took a long stroll to see if we could walk to to Cruiser dock but the gate was closed and so walked through the whole industrial zone to the next port gate. The official told me to gate right next to our hotel is open on days that cruises come.  Then walked to see far the coach station was from the ports, and  into the new part of city center and parks but the pedestrian traffic lights don't work properly and had to cross the roads not knowing which side the traffic will come from.  There is a geothermal energy station distributes hot water to the big building in the area. Southampton was bombed in WW2 because  it was a busy port and had a Spitfire factory close by.

Most of the passengers on the Cruise were Brits as it can be cheaper to have a holiday that way than going to a hotel and restaurants in England. We met people who retired at 60 or even 50 and am not sure the British tax payer can afford this pension bill as we met people who are living to ripe old ages. There were some Americans and we heard 12 children were on the cruise.

La Rochelle, New Aquitaine, France

 We took a bus tour to the Ile d Re. This is a long island that shelters the harbor, it is very windy here and so most gardens have walls as wind shelters. Once you had to take a ferry to get here, then the  build a 3 km long toll bridge. At the same time they build bicycle paths so the island is a big attraction for touring cyclists. The island is covered with grape vines and at time the well water is salty so people prefer to drink wine. There are extensive salt mashes and salt making is a big industry in summer. You also see potato and wheat fields as well as hot houses for  tomatoes. There are big oyster breeding beds. There are pine forests but no fruit trees as it is too windy. There is a big castle and fortification that today is used a a long term prison. We saw woolly donkeys with their coats molting their wool. Donkey here are used for breeding mules.

La Rochelle had a German submarine base build of solid concrete to hide and repair 10 submarines and a concrete covered dry dock also. The submarines were build in Kiel harbor but were easy target getting out the Kiel canal. La Rochelle is a deep natural granite harbor, We saw the part used for bulk carriers with oil storage and silos for grain as well as building stone and sand and warehouses full of salt.

The ship stayed 2 nights in the port and the next day we took the shuttle into the city and walked passed the bourse from Louis XVIIIs time, the cathedral and then the market which had hundred of pink umbrellas hanging above it. We visited the Museum of La Bunker which was  a reinforced basement in the city center full of the paraphernalia, furniture, communication equipment and uniforms of WW2. occupation. This was the German headquarters of the city. The Atlantic coast was under direct German rules while the Mediterranean  provinces were under Vichy. We walked through the narrow roads and along the old harbor castle wall to get  to the shuttle back.

La Rochelle was a protestant religious center and Huguenots fled from here to New La Rochelle in NY as well as the Cape of S. Africa.

 Bilboa, Biscay, Spain

We were taken for a scenic tour of the city and shown the Hanging  Vizcaya Bridge completed in 1893 by engineering knowledge that came from the Eiffel Tower of 1889. This toll bridge had to be build so ships could pass through and is 2 towers with a high bridge from which hangs a planform that 6 cars and many people can fit on and moves across hanging on the wires.. Everything here is written in both Spanish and Basque which is the language here from before the Roman invasion. The whole city is surrounded by mountains including the Pyrenees of the French border.  The original city of 7 streets was build along the Ria Bilboa  but today the port is outside and several bridges have been build across it.  Because it had a good economy Franco moved workers into this industrial complex. However the dictatorship exploited the city and did not bring new investment, so by the time Franco died in 1975 the industrial area was a wreck. The Guggenheim museum is a big attraction here and receives many visitors. 

The Bilboa soccer team is made up only of Basques from this area, they are successful without bringing in foreign players. The Basque language straddles the Pyrenees  into France.  A massive fingerprint is memorial to the Euskadi (Basque) fighters who died fighting Franco.  The 6 Basque provinces are Cantabria , Castilla, Leon, La Rioja and Navarre and in France Novella - Aquitaine.         This area has wealthy houses used a a summer retreat and houses have bay windows for the cold weather. There is a tram running through the city on a single track in both directions but the track doubles at stops.  This region and Catalonia are the areas that they will tell you about the Civil war and suffering under the Dictator. The rest of Spain try to avoid dealing with the civil war.  While the ship was in traveling in the open sea of the Bay of Biscay it was very rough unlike the rest of the cruise.

La Caruna, Galicia Spain

We went for a walking tour of this city that is a peninsula. The original building had a place underneath that fishermen could drag their boats to and the façade of the building has glass and bay windows , so seen from far ships was called the City of Glass. On the other side of these building is their entrance on a open city square. All building are made of granite and their is the only Roman lighthouse in the world that still functions. We were taken through the old quarter that has  a Synagogue street but the synagogue became a monastery. People came this way to get to Santiago or Saint James as that is his burial place, a place of  pilgrimage. The Province here is Galicia and the people speak Gadiago which is similar to Portuguese. The end of the peninsula is called Cape Finesterra and the Romans considered this the end of the land.(furthest point west)

The Prime Minister of Germany happened to be visiting in Coruna that day and many roads were blocked and we saw a big military band followed by soldiers marching through the city and Astrid photographed them. 

Vigo, Galicia,  Spain

This city is probably the biggest fishing port in the world. It was from here that the first fish factory ships set worldwide in the 1960s. In the industrial zone of the port you see the inventory of thousands of  Citroen cars parked to be shipped abroad as well as massive blocks of granite to be exported and for construction. The harbor here is extensive and has 3 island sheltering it and we went to a viewing point on the Castro Castle.  The name Castro originates from here as do Fidel Castro's parents. The area is surrounded on all sides by mountains and is in  Bay of Biscay and receives the warm Gulf stream currents so has no extreme cold weather. This is a climate suitable for both grapes and kiwis grow very successfully.  

We went to the winery called Terras Gauda (Roman name =Land of Joy ) where only white wine is made. The grapes are grown here on trestles rather than the traditional pagoda. They could be machine picked but hand picking giving a better wine. From here we drove over the Menno river into Portugal to the town of Valenca (valiant or brave) and were taken to the Valenca Castle which has houses and shops inside that attract the tourists. We had coffee and Portuguese custard tart.

 The Spanish  area is full of forests and I was surprised to see so many eucalyptuses. These were brought in the 1960s as they grow faster than pine and the wood is sold to the paper industry. Eucalyptus are a fire hazard and they are no longer allowed to plant them and when they are matured have to be replaced by other tree species. We saw some solar water heaters and electricity collectors by most warehouse roofs were empty. Vigo's urban development has resulted in a population of people who work there during the week and go home to their farms for weekends. For years Vigo was a women's society with the men spending months on ships.

La Havre Normandy, France

This is in Normandy and last time we were here we took a trip to see the 1944 Normandy landings and Allied soldiers memorials and cemeteries. La Harve is not much of a tourist attraction as it was totally bombed out in WW2 it is on the Seine estuary of the river that runs through Paris. The bus tour took us inland along the Seine past the town of Harfleur which Henry V  conquered in 1415. This was later replaced as a port by La Havre. This area is very flat and has very large fields as it was swamplands once. La Harve is the second biggest port in France, Marseilles is the biggest but it is on the Mediterranean..

Rouen was an ancient city and Rollo the Norsemen  leader conquered and was destroying the villages and king Charles the fat offered him a peace accord so that he would not conquer Paris and made him Duke of  the area they called Normandy with Rouen the capital. The Rouen Cathedral is called Notre Dame de Rouen and started being build in 1145, with different turrets build at different periods. Inside are tombs of Rollo as well as Richard the Lion Heart who died here. It was Rollo's descendant William the Conqueror who became king of England in 1066. Part of  the cathedral was damaged by the British and American bombing when they tried to  to destroy the railways and bridges over the Seine. There is also a church on the spot where Joan or Arc was burned at the stake in 1431 and her ashes were thrown in the river.

There are old 4 story wooden houses the older ones have the upper floors bigger expanding out into the street but this was later stopped. Like Dover the area is made of limestone but grey stone which is used in construction.

We arrived early in Southampton and walked with our 2 bags to the coach station from where we took the Birmingham coach that went via our stop Oxford.

Entertainment in the ships theater included a variety of singers, musicals every evening with the ships 9 piece band. A magician who cut himself  or lady assistant in half and other slight of hand tricks as well as a standup comedian, as well as  trapeze artists and dancers and a band of Irish singers and and an Elton John type singer. At other venues on the ship there are singers and dance music till late at night.

There is always a big choice of food around the clock and we had to avoid eating too much.

We spent 3 days in Oxford and saw Brenda as well as Evan who entertained in a restaurant and we met Mike Stein, Frank Ledwidge and Sophie & Muir before returning on 12th Oct to Israel.