Voyage of the Vikings
July, August 2008
MS Maasdam
Cherbourg Dublin Liverpool Belfast Faroes Iceland Greenland Prince Christian sound St John/St Pierre Bar Harbor Misc (on the ship, midnight sun, other sunset, ships passing in the mist)
(click photos to enlarge - it takes about 10 seconds for the thumbnails on this page to load)
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Horses pulling carriage - Photos 1,2,3
Tourist vehicle in Cherbourg |
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Part of the Cherbourg port facilities
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View of the city from the docks
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Fountain in the city near the docks
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Part of the main square
(Cars unavoidable) |
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View over the channel ferry
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Cherbourg cruise terminal
(A three-man band played French tunes all day) |
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The three-man band
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The channel ferry
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What the horses thought of it all
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Dublin
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Looking down the street from where we had dinner.
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Looking up the same street
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Tavern sign
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Colorful houses across from the tavern
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A different angle on the same houses
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Ye Old Abbey - serving dinner and entertainment to tourists
Of course we know it's really "The Old Abbey", because somewhere along the line thorn = th was read as a y. |
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Ruins of a church behind a wall near the tavern.
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Liverpool
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Inscription honoring the dead of WW I and WW II
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St Nicholas Church, the parish church of Liverpool. The site has been a place of worship since 1257.
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Ditto
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Royal Liver bank, especially for Jack, who loves liver. It is said to have the largest clock in Britain.
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The Maasdam in the Albert Dock at Liverpool
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More Royal Liver
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Albion House, formerly home of the White Star Line, the company that owned the Titanic
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Phoenix on the Cunard Building near Albert Dock
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The Royal Liver and the Cunard Building constitute the Cunard Buildings. Photo is from Google Images.
Both of these buildings have a phoenix on top. I don't know the symbolism of that. |
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Belfast - For more about the crown, and some professional photos. go to www.crownbar.com
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The shipyard where the Titanic, Olympia, and other great ships were built. (1,2)
The large crane in the second photo is left from the ship-building days. Our ship was docked just across the water from these buildings. Our guide told us some people resent cruise ships because they think they take work away from longshoremen. |
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The Ulster Parliament building at Stormont.
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A statue of Sir Edward Carson, responsible for the partition of Ireland and one of the founding fathers of Northern Ireland/Ulster.
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The Queen's University of Belfast
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An old pub in Belfast, near the one where we had tea (or beer) and scones.
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Inside of The Crown
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The Crown pub is filled with old, lavish ceramic decoration,inside and out.
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More of the ceramics, on and behind the bar.
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Outside decoration.
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Looking down the high street in Belfast. The red and white building is the opera house.
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The Crown from across the street. It was built in 1826, when the first train ran from Belfast to Lisburn.
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Faroes / torshavn - everything here was expensive - $15 for a glass of beer
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Training ship Dragin moored in harbor near Maasdam
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Closeup of Dragin bow.
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A sailor at the Dragin
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An oddly moored boat.
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Many houses in the Faroes are grass-roofed.
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We arrived on St Olav's Day, which the Faroese celebrate as a national holiday.
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A couple in traditional dress, as were many of the citizens of Torshavn
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The Dragin at the foot of the main street.
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Boats in a harbor where we stopped for souvenirs and refreshments.
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Same boats.
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A town on a bay at the foot of hills.
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The rest of the photos are of the smooth green hills of the countryside.
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There are no trees. Supposedly there were millenia ago, but now, if one tries to grow, the thousands of sheep raised here eat it.
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ICELAND - One big volcano
Most of these photos are of boiling mud pots and fumaroles, resembling those in Yellowstone Park, except these smelled of sulphur, strongly enough to make one choke. Paths and wooden walkways wound among them, and looked too easy to fall from. The last row of photos was taken at a lake where we stopped for that purpose. Unfortunately, the bus didn't stop often enough for me to get photos of a "Martian landscape", bare red soil studded with stones. Other parts of the island are covered with palagonite tuff, also called "pillow lava". When this is covered with pale yellow moss, it looks like cake icing.
GreenLAND/Nanortalik - Largest Island in the World, and so far away.....
Nanortalik is inhabited almost entirely by Inuit, who live by hunting and fishing. They seem content, although prices in the general store are high, probably because everything has to be imported. The only European we saw was a Danish man in the gift shop. Greenland is governed by Denmark
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The first four photos are of Nanortalik from the ship.
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Wooden houses in town.
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Some are brightly painted.
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The main road in Nanortalik.
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Looking toward the church with people from the ship in the foreground.
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An Inuit baby who was being taken for a walk by his grand- mother. She kept saying, "Bye-bye."
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The next three photos show the harbor (with a small iceberg), and the desolate shore not far from the town.
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A dog - a Spitz? It was brought to the dock by its owners, but it wasn't friendly and backed away if you tried to touch it.
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GreenLAND/Prinzchristiansund (prince christian sound)
Southern greeland tapers off into a cluster of rocky islands, some of which support glaciers. Prince Christian Sound is the ship channel through this cluster. In places it is so narrow that from the deck it looks as if you might scrape the sides. These are photos I took as the Maasdam passed through it. It took an entire day. Some of the photos are also of the ship and people on it, which I think gives a sense of propotion.
St John/ Newfoundland & St Pierre
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The next four photos are of St John, Newfound- land, taken from my verandah on the ship. I know, some of them are crooked.
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A little trio of drummers who played for us at the dock, in the rain.
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View along the dock.
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Docked boats with Maadam in the distance.
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Looking across the harbor at St John's/
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I talked to the men on this boat. They said they brought back pieces of iceberg to make Glace bottled water.
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Same boat,
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From a distance.
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More boats.
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A local military band playing on the dock, photo from the verandah.
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The next few photos are of houses on the island of St Pierre, which still belongs to France.
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The harbor at St Pierre
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Bar Harbor, Maine
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Photos of Mary and Dima
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On the ship and miscellaneous
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Ivo, a member of the crew from Bulgaria, works in the security department. Here he is with a friend on St Pierre.
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Sunset at sea----
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Statue on the ship
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The ship, illuminated in port
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Parading the haggis
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Midnight at 64 degrees north latitude---
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The Prinsendam passes us between Iceland and Greenland
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Sunset in northern latitudes
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Tender at the ship
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