Short Break in Shrewsbury, 2021

Thursday 9 December 2021. We decided to have a short break in Shrewsbury. On the borders of England and Wales in Shropshire, the centre of the town is contained within a great loop of the River Severn, with a Welsh Bridge carrying the road to and from Wales and an English Bridge on the opposite side of town. The English Bridge leads the traveller past the remains of the once huge Abbey of St Peter and St Paul, featured in the Cadfael novels of Ellis Peters.

We were staying at The Lion Hotel, a hotel I had used extensively on many visits whilst working with the local college, running training workshops for their management structure. The hotel had some historical significance of its own, having been visited by kings and luminaries from the literary and entertainment worlds. Charles Dickens has a room named after him as he stayed there several times, writing portions of The Pickwick Papers there.

Our own room was very comfortable and contained this canopied bed. The curtains of a four poster were not necessary as there were no draughts noticeable and, as far as I know, no pigeons nor anything else were lurking to make even the canopy necessary to catch any droppings!

This was the view from our room, looking downhill down the street known as Wyle Cop that leads down towards the river and the English Bridge. I took all the photos on my phone, not having taken the camera with me. A mistake, as it wasn't up to coping with the Christmas lights that festooned areas of the town. We made a note to return the following year...

The main dining room had been moved up to the ground floor to what used to be a lounge on previous visits. The basement restaurant was used for breakfasts but evening meals were served here, with a log fire burning in the hearth.

The following morning we explored the town. Shrewsbury is full of old timbered buildings and is a delight to wander around. It has a Wimpy bar too - I made a beeline for that at lunchtime. You can keep your Big Macs, though I can be partial to a Burger King Whopper, but my favourite burger, once the small independent kiosks disappeared from most seaside promenades, has always been Wimpy with their quarter pounders. Mmm Hmmmm!

We spent the day doing touristy things and shoppingy things and having really enjoyed the evening dinner at the hotel on our first night, we ate there again on our second and final night.

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Two Night Stay in Lincoln, 2022

We take a two nights stay in Lincoln, staying at The Lincoln Hotel near the cathedral. Come with us to see the city centre, waterfront and cathedral.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the relevant article. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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Atlantic Islands Cruise, 2005

A series of articles about our holiday onboard the Sun Cruises ship, Carousel, 15-22 March 2005. We are cruising the Canary Islands and will visit Tenerife, Lanzarote, Madeira, La Palma and Gran Canaria. We also stopped off for a day in Morocco but stayed on the ship all day.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the articles for each day. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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Gran Canaria

Monday 21 March 2005. We dock into Gran Canaria for our last day of cruising and take a coach excursion out for the morning.

Mogan is a gorgeous colourful village set around a harbour. Buildings are whitewashed but with touches of colour, there is lots of purple bougainvillea draped over alleyways and buildings and plenty of palm trees.

In the harbour are colourful boats and tropical fish of various colours whilst every now and then you catch sight of a razor-toothed barracuda. It was hot and the signs for fresh strawberries with cream and ice cream along with a tall glass of something cold and refreshing was just too much and we succumbed thankfully, sinking into seats at a table and letting ourselves be pampered.

The afternoon was spent lazing on the Pool Deck with waiters waiting and more temptations to tempt us. Ah, it's a hard life, but someone has to do it... Once we had had afternoon tea, more ice creams and an evening meal though, I stirred myself, shook myself, added a twist of lemon and trotted back off the ship to take a few photos after dark.

Although dark, it was still very warm and we walked all the way back to the entrance to the port and the small shopping precinct. Admittedly we weren't rushing but it took us a good five or ten minutes good hard strolling...

This would be our last night onboard the Carousel. She had been built as the Nordic Prince in 1971 for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, sold to Sun Cruises and renamed Carousel in 1995 and spent ten years with them. Although she had been sold to Louis Cruise Lines in 2004, she had been chartered back to Sun Cruises, her last cruise for them being in the May of 2005. She underwent another five name changes until, as the Pacific, she was decommissioned in 2014 and sent to India for ship breaking in 2015.

She was our introduction to cruising and this was our second trip on her. At time of writing (March 2023) we have taken 27 cruise holidays and loved every single one. With a new place to see and explore every day, it's an experience hard to beat.

The pool deck is practically deserted at night apart from the odd person walking off their meal. It's around 10:00pm.

Miss Franny wants a final go on the slot machines in the casino. I buy a fiver's worth of tokens and mainly watch as she gets through them. She gives me a handful and I wait for a machine to become empty and almost immediately win 70 pounds causing the woman who had just vacated it to stare venomously at me as tokens tinkle down into the tray. I cash them in smartish...

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The Virgin of the Snows

Saturday 20 March 2005. We left El Caldera del Taburiente and set off on the last leg of our afternoon's excursion on the island of La Palma

First we stop at the Mirador de La Concepcion. This overlooks Santa Cruz to reveal that part of the town is built within the crater of a (hopefully) extinct volcano.

If it was once a perfectly round crater then it would appear that the sea has eroded one side of it considerably. The inland side is still steep and towering.

The scar that I took to be the point from which the lava and ash cloud emerged makes you wonder why people would build so close, but then I also scratch my head at the size of Naples around the base of Mount Vesuvius - a volcano still far from extinct.

From the mirador we set off for our last point of call: Santuario Virgen de Las Nieves - The Church of the Virgin of the Snows.

The church contains this statue of the patron saint of La Palma. Every five years the statue is taken down to Santa Cruz and paraded through the port in a celebration lasting two weeks. The locals in the parade wear costumes with eye holes near the top of the characters' hats, so it looks like they are dancing midgets, or enanos.

Someone has a job description that includes dressing and looking after the statue.

The village shop looked like (and may have been for all I know, though I doubt it, especially given the cross on the roof) a bawdy house from a western movie with its veranda. Anyway there were no beguiling maidens or otherwise showing off any shockingly exposed ankle.

A last look at the surrounding countryside and then it's back to the coach to be returned to the ship.

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El Caldera del Taburiente

Sunday 20 March 2005. We are on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. Having spent the morning wandering around the streets of Santa Cruz, we take a coach after lunch for an excursion to sites nearby.

El Caldera del Taburiente is the world's largest volcanic crater. Its circumference is almost 17 miles around and the crater reaches depths of 3500 feet. However it merely started life as a volcano and then the crater was enlarged greatly by the erosion of the much more modest original volcanic crater.

It is a national park, protecting the unique vegetation. The air is so clear here that an internationally famous astronomy station is on top of one of the mountains that ring the crater.

I find time to do a bit of scratching with the pencil. A pencil that I had had to borrow from the Purser's desk - I'd forgotten to bring one with me!

Steep gullies plunge down from the path, climbing equally as steeply on the other side of the path. I use the word steep with deliberation. We kept well away from the edge, as to slip down one of these would mean a long fall and a painful halt by banging into a tree or an even greater drop to the bottom!

Only rarely along our walk do the trees and bush clear to give breath-taking views of the crater. It is gob-smackingly impressive!

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La Palma

Sunday 20 March 2005. The good ship Carousel docks in Santa Cruz on the island of La Palma.

It's a beautiful day and we are booked on an excursion for the afternoon. So for the morning we will get off the ship and wander independantly around the town of Santa Cruz.

We have a little map of the town centre from the ship and follow other passengers as they seem to know where they are going. Mind you, people have followed us in the past, making the same mistake...

However in this case we arrive safely into Santa Cruz. There's a full size galleon standing on the dockside. Not in the sea but on the dockside. It makes more sense when it is pointed out to us that it is made of concrete!

Santa Cruz is a gorgeous town. Extremely pretty, with streets and narrow alleys requiring houses with very narrow ends that widen as they get further from the junction. Houses are rendered and painted in bright colours and there is plenty of public seating provided.

The statue of a group of musicians takes pride of place in this little square with a view between the houses out to the Atlantic Ocean. It's Sunday and we presume the locals must all be in church - this being a mainly Catholic community.

In fact it's not just any Sunday, but it's Palm Sunday and we hear music and singing approaching us down the hillside of the street. The locals are parading, waving long palm fronds in a smiling procession that is delightful to watch pass by.

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Funchal, Madeira

Saturday 19 March 2005. We have gone up a mountain on a coach and come down halfway on a toboggan with gondoliers. As you do.

We are now on the way back to the ship on the coach, but wanting to stretch our legs we ask the courier to drop us off in town and from there we will walk back to the ship.

As we arrive at Funchal, it starts to rain... Just our luck! However, we are made of hardy stuff (and soggy stuff too...) so we get off anyway and trust that it's just a passing shower.

It is. But unfortunately it doesn't pass until we are back at the ship... Funchal is quite beautiful. Marble pavements, close-cobbled streets. Around this time in the UK town centres were also being repaved with coloured brick, but within months - weeks sometimes - they were sinking or standing proud, or were dug up entirely for utility firms to do something that should have been done beforehand and then left with unsightly tarmac patches.

Our walk brings us to the harbour. In front of our ship, the Carousel, is this Costa ship: Costa Fortuna. A name guaranteed to make any English speaker chuckle for a moment.

Our ship is the modest little ship behind. Carousel has just six decks, but it introduced us to the world of cruising opportunities and was in its last year of operation for Sun Cruises as it was being sold off or leased to a French cruise line the following year. We met up with staff we recognised in later years on both Thomson and Ocean Village ships.

We had some lunch and probably a bit of afternoon tea also and the weather brightened up a bit and this replica of Christopher Colombus's ship, the Santa Maria, chugged past once or twice with a crowd of happy passengers. I'm not sure how accurate a replica it was, as I'm fairly sure the original Santa Maria didn't "chug" all that much...

Every night we sat at the same table with the same group of people and it was always a happy gathering. Today was my birthday and the waiters added to the hilarity of the table by bringing a cream cake, and insisting on feeding me a spoonful, which somehow went more into my nose than my mouth...

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