Join us for a nine-day cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Lines' ship NCL Pearl, starting at Trieste and ending at Athens, sailing down the Adriatic Sea. After five years of not cruising because of Covid and cancer we at last manage to catch up with entertainer friends Tomas and Maris!
Each day is shown on its own separate entry, reached by clicking/tapping the seven photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.
It's Tuesday 27 August 2024. The ship anchors off Mykonos and the sore leg that has been plaguing me all week is inflamed and angry (angry? It's livid!) and we decide reluctantly not to go ashore. Seldom have we spent so many days on a ship with so few days' outings but we have to fly home tomorrow and then it will be off to the doctor's for me to have it looked at.
At least we have a good view of the town from where we are anchored. NCL Pearl is sending people ashore via tender boat and with other ships sending their boats to the more central pier, it would leave us having to walk that bit further to get into town.
Sadly the prospect of a drink sitting outside Zorbas bar will have to wait for a future visit. But there's an opportunity for the sketchpad to come out again, though the scene with the many white flat-roofed buildings presents its own challenges. There's the row of "mop-haired" windmills and the slope that goes up past Zorbas into the shopping streets. And further towards the left, off the side of this view, the beach area with its line of other bars, at one of which I learned my Greek word for "thank you". And there's the street where my mate walked in the middle of the road oblivious to the delivery van behind him trying to get past... Illnesses and injuries willing, we'll be back!
Then a last night for this cruise with Tom and Maris, lots of hugs and kisses as we say goodbye. The bar staff shouted out their goodbyes too - we had become known to them as "the coffee couple" due to our daily visits to the Starbucks counter in the atrium!
And so the cruise ends on Wednesday 28 August as we board a coach at Piraeus, the port for Athens and are taken to the airport. The photo shows us with Tom and Maris one night as we had a meal together.
The journey to the airport is easy and efficient but as we get our boarding passes we are told that our second flight from Munich to Manchester is overbooked and we are on standby and not guaranteed to be on it. "Once you get there, go to the gate as soon as possible and they will be able to tell you if they can give you seats." Otherwise it will be a case of waiting for a later flight.
So we get to Munich and bearing in mind the nightmare of the outward journey when we found ourselves having gone the wrong way and had to go through security a second time, we asked for and followed directions which involved going on a train between terminals. Thankfully we were in the right place. Despite breakfast having been at the UK equivalent of 4:00am we had to dash past all of the main food outlets to get to the departure gate where we were subject to the added stress of the chap's computer taking forever to log him in. Then with relief we were allocated seats. I would be on the emergency door row and Fran seated behind me.
By now there wasn't time to go back to the food outlets but there was a W H Smiths nearby so feasting on a tub of Pringles, we got on the plane where I was told that because I used a walking stick I couldn't sit on the emergency door row and ended up sitting next to Fran instead. This meant someone else came along thinking I'd nicked their seat of course but the stewardess had stayed nearby to sort this out and there was another single passenger willing to move so the other couple got to sit together as well.
The year is 2002 and we are staying at a B&B in Great Yarmouth, using it as a base for touring around various places in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the relevant article. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Thursday 22 August 2002. We visit Sandringham, the royal house in the year of the Queen's Golden Jubilee.
After the last few days the sun has decided to make a welcome appearance and as there may be a spot of walking through the grounds we thought it might be the ideal day to do it.
We start with a tour round the house though. The estate of almost 8000 acres and a house were bought in 1862 for the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, later to be King Edward VII. This was to be a country home for the soon to be married prince and his bride, Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The house was rebuilt almost in entirety from 1870 - 1900 and has both a West Front and East Front, but no back.
Many of the rooms that are open to the Public are regularly used by the Royal Family who have all, since Edward VII thought of Sandringham as one of their favourite places to be. It was the scene of the first ever Royal Christmas radio broadcast by King George V in 1932 and the first televised Christmas broadcast by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957.
The first ever Royal car. The 1900 Daimler Phaeton was bought by King Edward VII. As you might expect there are some beautiful collections in the house and garages.
Works of art that you recognise, having seen them in print or on TV give you a lift, but the sheer number of tiger skins just makes you wonder at an age that thought animal populations could withstand such wholescale slaughter, or that it was acceptable to just go out with the intention of killing such beautiful animals for a moment's perverse pleasure.
But despite the views of today's younger generations, you should not judge today's older generations by the actions of their ancestors. And whilst we can shake our heads at and regret the actions of our ancestors (virtually everyone regardless of race or religion has some reason to do this), no one should be expected to apologise because their great-great-grandad, however many greats, was an arrogant twonk with better than average sword skills or a bigger army to fight for him or a belief that their deity-in-the-sky was better than anyone else's.
The State Coach in the Carriage House. The delicate hangings are protected by plastic sheeting. In this case it's ok - it's not just single use...
Some of the early shooting brakes - the ancestors of today's estate cars or SUVs - are marvellous concoctions of wood and leather. Just the thing when you are out reducing the bird or small mammal population...
We visited the cafeteria for a spot of lunch. I had a Pepsi in the cardboard cup with the Royal Crest and in the plastic carton is the remains of Miss Franny's sandwich with the Royal Crust...
Lunch partaken of, we headed out into the grounds, worriedly squinting at an unusual glowing ball in the sky... Sixty acres of gardens were transformed from the formal planting of Edwardian days into huge glades and sweeping lawns with specimen trees. Parterres - water gardens - were dug up and lakes created with more natural lines and surroundings.
The horse chestnuts - not yet roasting by an open fire - were heavily laden, promising plentiful conkers for the royal children.
The lake gives a wonderful view of the West Front of the house. We admired the lily pads, the clarity of water, the large fish chasing the ducks about in case they dropped something tasty into the water...
The Nest is a summer house, built in 1913 for Queen Alexandra who used to enjoy sitting by the lake,
Several properties sit within the grounds. This Gatehouse was one that we came upon during our walk.
Tuesday 20 August 2002. We were in Norfolk today and had actually been trying to find a mechanical music museum. Which we did. It was closed on Tuesdays. So then we looked at my Tourist Map of Norfolk and Suffolk and saw that there was a working windmill nearby.
This is Billingford Windmill. It wasn't working that day. But the miller saw us drive into the empty parking spaces and came out to talk to us. As there were no particularly dangerous moving parts actually moving in the mill, he gave us the key and told us to go in and explore but not to fiddle with anything.
A windmill is full of tight-fitting solid iron cogs that would happly reduce an inquisitive finger to a smudge, so this was a bit of instruction we took to heart. We decided that rather than mess about examining each floor then climbing up some fairly steep stairs - let's call them "ladders" as we near the top floor... we would climb all the way up and then do all the puffing and panting before coming down again by easy stages.
Right at the top of a brick tower mill (which is what Billingford was) there is an iron ring on top of the brickwork on which the "cap" of the mill sits. The cap is usually if not always made of wood and resembles an upside down boat. At one end of the boat are the sails that catch the wind and work the mill.
At the other end is a "fantail", a smaller set of sails set at right-angles to the main set and which act in the same way as a weather cock on a church. They turn until the wind is coming directly at them from over the top of the cap. Attached to cogs, they continually turn the main sails directly into the wind. Hence the iron ring around the top of the brickwork and some pretty hefty wheels able to turn the whole weight of the cap.
Unless the sails are facing the wind they won't turn fast enough. Unless the wind comes from the opposite direction in which case they will turn the wrong way and cause a fire - the fate of many mills. That's what the fantail is meant to avoid. Only patented in 1745 (by Edmund Lee in Wigan) the fantail ended the task of having to continually keep watch on the wind direction and then manhandle the cap round via a pulley system or on earlier post-mills (which were totally wooden structures resting on a huge sturdy pole) by having to drag the mill around by man or horse power via a second pole sticking out at the rear.
Once the sails are turning the motion is carried into the mill itself via the axle of the sails. The pointing finger shows the shaft of the axle coming in through the cap to the topmost level of the mill.
Then the (hopefully) gentle turning of the sails is transferred by cog to a vertical shaft and the speed of rotation is stepped up quite a bit. In gales this would quickly generate far too much heat and with it the risk of fire so the sails would have some form of locking mechanism to prevent them them turning.
Still at a high level are the hoppers in which grain would be stored ready to drop down to the grinding stones. The black shaft is the main drive shaft from the cogs seen above.
The grain as seen in the right-hand hopper above. This would be delivered to the mill in sacks, hoisted up to the top levels by a crane and pulley system worked either manually or by hand. In the old days of medieval times mills were operated on behalf of the rich landowners who would charge for each sack of grain they milled. The payment was mostly by a tithe - a percentage of the resulting flour. During times of bad harvest, peasant farmers were lucky to take away enough flour to feed themselves and families.
Once the grain was released down to the mill stones, the flow had to be carefully controlled. The stones would be large flat stones with one rotating over a stationary lower stone. Grooves radiating outwards from the centre of the stone would direct the ground flour and any chunks of unground grain or bits of stone from the grinding wheels that had broken off. Literally: millstone grit.
If the grain was fed too fast between the stones this would result in the flour containing unground grain. If not enough grain was fed in, there was a danger that the stones might touch and strike sparks.
The view from the next-to-top floor level windows. The sails remained still, but when working the view would be obscured every few seconds...
Billingford Mill. It is 36 feet high (10.97 metres) and has five storeys. It dates from 1860 and cost £1,300. It replaced an earlier post mill which blew down in 1859. It can be found on the road from Harleston to Diss.
Monday 19 August 2002. Having left Lowestoft, we travelled round about two miles to Oulton Broad where our first job was to have a spot of lunch.
Oulton Broad is one of the famous Norfolk Broads - though really it is more correct to call it a Suffolk Broad. The Broads (a neat way of getting around the county problem) were thought to be natural features until the 1960s when it was proved that they were the result of peat workings in medieval times. Local monasteries had excavated them, selling the peat for fuel - for burning on fires basically - to local communities. Norwich Cathedral alone took 320,000 tonnes a year.
At some point sea levels rose and flooded the excavations. Bad news for Pete and Doug, who were shovelling in the pit that day, but at least their names were and will be remembered... Windpumps, often mistaken by visitors as windmills and dykes were hastily constructed but the flooding continued until the area looked like that of today with broad lakes, reed beds, marshes and groups of young men falling overboard from boats whilst totally bladdered.
The area became known for boating holidays quite early. Small yachts were available for hire from 1878, Harry Blake opened an agency for yachting holidays in 1908 and the familiar firm Hoseasons made an appearance shortly after World War II. Boats on the Broads these days vary from preserved old trading wherries, to small day-hire boats like those pictured in the foreground, all the way to modern electric cruisers as the Broads Authority is continually adding charging points at mooring places.
At the east end of Oulton Broad is Mutford Lock which links the freshwater Broad to the saltwater Lake Lothing. The lake stretches through Lowestoft and then opens to the sea.
Looking across the lock gates to the Wherry Inn, named after the large sailed trading vessels. All other boats on the Broads must give way to sailing vessels as they don't have accelerators or brakes and whether they can dodge you depends almost exclusively on the whims of the wind and your skill or stupidity whichever applies.
Depending on the direction the wind is blowing it is often the case that sailing boats can only progress along the rivers by tacking to zig-zag across the width of the river. We had booked a boat ourselves, but not for this day - that joy was still to come. For now we sat and relaxed waiting for the afternoon opening of a nearby transport museum. Which we will see in the next article!
