Random thoughts from the sea
Days 36-39, 2025 European Odyssey Sunday to Wednesday, Aug. 3-6, 2025; Wales and Inverness, Scotland, I am beginning to see why tourists might quip “ABC!” Another Bloody Castle! Estimates for the number of castles in the British Isles vary, but it’s in the thousands, depending on your definition. Generally, castles
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Day 35, 2025 European Odyssey Saturday, Aug. 2, 2025; Douglas, Isle of Man. My love affair with cars started in 2001, when on impulse one evening I bought a car that stole my heart. It was an Audi TT roadster in Amulet Red, fairly new on the market and pretty
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Days 32-34, 2025 European Odyssey Wednesday to Friday, July 30-Aug. 1, 2025; Killybegs, Galway and Cobh, Ireland. For travelers who like to check off lists, there are unlimited choices. One of my sisters is on a quest to visit the highest elevation point in each state. (She knows she will
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Days 30-31, 2025 European Odyssey Monday and Tuesday, July 28-29, 2025; At Sea and Stornoway, Scotland. What is it like to cruise on one of Holland America’s largest ships for the first time? Mind you, these are not large ships. The Nieuw Statendam is 975 feet long, just shy of
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Days 28-29, 2025 European Odyssey Saturday and Sunday, July 26-27, 2025; Dover, England, and Rotterdam, Netherlands. When I say there are only a few repeat ports on my summer back-to-back cruises in Northern Europe, I’m not counting Dover and Rotterdam. We visit each city four times because they are the
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Days 25-26, 2025 European Odyssey Wednesday and Thursday, July 23-24, 2025; Faroe Islands and Shetland Islands. For the past couple of years, I’ve flown the flag of each country we visit on my cabin door frame. It’s a fun ritual to change the flag when we head to a new
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Days 21-23, 2025 European Odyssey Saturday-Monday, July 19-21, 2025; Grundarfjørdur and Reykjavik, Iceland. The trope that Eskimos have many words for snow is debated among linguists, but it does illustrate the belief that those whose life is filled with snow probably understand its nuances better than people who’ve never seen
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Days 17-18, 2025 European Odyssey Tuesday and Wednesday, July 15-16, 2025; Paamiut and Qaqortoq, Greenland. For only the second time since cruising, I was glad I had brought my bug head net ashore. Our visit to the lovely fishing hamlet of Paamiut on the southwest coast of Greenland was marred
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Days 12-14, 2025 European Odyssey Saturday-Monday, July 12-14, 2025; At Sea (Greenland and Labrador Seas, Prins Christian Sund). Greenland is the world’s largest island, at 836,330 square miles. On most maps it looks much larger than it is, due to the distortion of Mercator maps. (If you want to go
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Days 11-13, 2025 European Odyssey Wednesday-Friday, July 9-11, 2025; Húsavík, Akureyri and Ísafjörður, Iceland. When Norse explorers established the first Icelandic settlement in what is now Húsavík in around 860, I’m sure they never would have dreamed that more than a millennium later, the town would be known for its
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