Jen and Jerry's Excellent Adventure

  Lisbon, Portugal                                                                               Tuesday, June 14, 2022             It’s official.   Today marks the beginning of the FINAL segment of our 6-month adventure.   We have been anticipating this day for various reasons:   we’ll be home soon, we’ll see family and friends soon, we will enjoy three very full days in NYC with Marcia and Ruth including 3 Broadway shows, and about 200 new people are boarding just for this “transitioning ride” from Europe to Newfoundland to New Yor...

  Oporto (Port), Portugal                                                                  Wednesday, June 15, 2022                Sadly, we found the Caringbridge announcement of Bob Roys’ death this morning.  We are so very sad yet we rejoice for the precious time we were able to share with Bob and Kathy in 2021.  Words fail.  Tears prevail.                And yet we had scheduled a private tour for today and had invited Mark and Nancy Heacox to join us.  We shared the news and shifted gears as best as we could.  Did you know that J.K. Rolling lived in   Port, Portugal?  That she was an English teacher, an...

Gijon, Spain                                                                                       Sunday, June 12, 2022             Supposed to be a rainy and low-60s day, and we had no tour scheduled, so we took the shuttle bus toward the old city to walk around for a couple hours.   Didn’t even take Jerry’s good camera; used my cell phone camera instead since it’s easier to keep dry.   Most shops and many museums are not open on Sundays, so we had low expectations.      ...

  Bordeaux, France                                                                June 9 & 10, 2022             Wine country!             Spring gardens country!             Luxury and color and taste and smells.   Does it get better than Bordeaux?   Probably not.             We arrived at the port in the late afternoon and dressed up for the 5:30 boarding of buses for the ATW event w#2 at Chateau Giscours which was about 40 minutes north o...

La Rochelle, France                                                            Wednesday, June 8, 2022             This is a new port for everyone, I think, so nobody quite knows what to expect.  The cruise ship offered a few tours for today, but we chose to go it on our own.  We caught the first shuttle bus for the 6-mile trip toward the city, winding through old houses that must have been fishing villages.  Had to make a tight hairpin turn which turned into a 16-point turn due to big bus, too many cars parked legally, and three layers of brick under a tree on the curb.  Driver got a deserving round of applause.  ...

  Honfleur, France                                                                             Monday, June 6, 2022 Today there were tours from the ship into Paris.   About 2.5 hours by bus one-way, some from the ship took the panoramic (look but don’t stop much) tour so they could at least say they’d seen some of the sites.             We didn’t want the bus trip, so we chose to stay on shore for the day.   What a great decision! Honfleur is an artist colony, AND, it was a festival day in Honfleur, a Pentecost event that had a parade to bless boat...