Brest, France

 Brest, France                       Day 143 of 196                               Thursday, May 12, 2022

 

Today and tomorrow we are in France.  We were in France for a day on the eastern coast sometime last week.  We’ve been in three other countries since then: Spain, Gibraltar(British), Portugal.  We’re trying to keep it all straight.

There was a shuttle from the boat today.  There were three different stops, but only one really interested us.  We went to the Naval Museum (below) and learned about the history of the area.  


This was a very important place and was one of the busiest ports in the world back in the 1600’s.  There is a huge chateau which is now offices and a fort which is where the museum is housed.  You can’t go to the chateau (below).  


This place built a lot of ships over 300 years since wooden wharves were established in 1631.  They had all the requisite types of industry for the purpose right along the river Penfeld.  It took many different skills to build a large sailing vessel.  They had factories for the wood work, the ironworks, the munitions, the sails, the ropes, and many bakeries to feed all the workers. 



Figureheads that go on the bow of the ships (wood figureheads are older)


Across the way from the chateau is the Tanguy Tower, a medieval tower that now hosts a city museum for Brest.  


They have one of the highest “lift” bridges in France.  A lift bridge is like an elevator which lifts the entire bridge platform so the larger boats can get through.  

It is a very pretty place.  We spent an enjoyable time in the museum which had an English-speaking self-guided tour that came with admission.  Lots of museums and sights have gone to this.  You get a small electronic box to hang around your neck and an earpiece and you punch in numbers on a keypad when you reach a point with a headphones picture with a number.  Punch in the number and you get a verbal commentary.  These are great when you are alone without a guide in a museum that doesn’t have English as their first language.  It tends to keep you in the museum longer than you might initially plan. 



We decided not to try to get to the aquarium which is supposed to be somewhat unique in Europe.  If you have been faithful followers you know that we visited another one not long ago as well as visiting Sea World before leaving the US.  We found our way back to the ship via the ship shuttle and played some bridge in the afternoon.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 Hello Friends,   We are busily preparing for our departure.  Four bags are shipped to our stateroom on board our ship Insignia and they leave on Thursday the 9th.  Jen has been working at this for months and as you can see from the picture we still have a ways to go.  Today I spent over an hour with the 7 page long Indian electronic visa application with little success.  I'll try again tomorrow.  We leave Le Claire for Miami on the 15th of this month.  We are excited to share our journey with you.  Thanks to our niece Nicole who has set this up to be shared in a way that is totally unique to the internet and computer age.  This first post is mostly about doing a trial run to make sure things are working and that we have some idea of what we are doing.   Wish us luck.
Read more

Church and Cathedral of Nuku Hiva

Image
·     Catholic Church near a river which has sweetwater shrimp and eels. The church opened 1995.   This is the Marquesan cross used throughout the French Polynesian Islands.   Musical instruments in church are a conga drum (using skin of cow now; long ago made from shark skin, stingray skin or human skin), guitar and ukulele.  St. Joseph (with baby Jesus near) holds an adz because he was a carpenter.  The pulpit with the face of Jesus is made from  terminalia glabrata, a type of tree. Madonna and child is made from hibiscus wood.  Jesus holds a breadfruit since he is the Bread of Life.  (breadfruit is a staple in their diet that, like a potato, can be mashed, fried, au gratin, etc. and lasts for months).  Driving back into the capital, we toured the Catholic cathedral, whose entrance was built in the 1850s and the outside of the cathedral, opened in 1975 with stones from all of the Marquesan islands.  In the back yard is a...
Read more

South Island to North Island

Image
We’ve completed about half of the West coast drive. Here’s what Wikipedia says about this drive: “The South Island West Coast of New Zealand is a beautiful and scenic drive that offers stunning views of the rugged coastline, green rainforests, and farming areas. The Great Coast Road between Westport and Greymouth has been named one of the Top 10 Coastal Drives in the world by Lonely Planet [guidebook and many other sources]. The drive is approximately 370 km long and takes around 5 hours to complete without stops.” This western area of NZ is sparsely populated (only 40,000 of the total 4.5 million). The elevation climbs so suddenly that it looks as though God swept God’s hand from left to right--as though sweeping crumbs from a table—and pushed the coast into the mountains. The day was heavily overcast, but we drove the Great Coast Road with optimism, taking photos at as many of the pull-outs as possible in the midst of looming rain forest. As per normal on the South Isla...
Read more