Portsmouth - Our last port of call before we will reach Hamburg

We reached Portsmouth in the early morning hours.  The sun was shining again out of a blue sky, and so it was not really necessary to wear our nice blue HURTGRUTEN jackets, it would have been to warm. As soon as the customers have given the ship free, passengers left to learn the city of Portsmouth.

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand

Some guests went to the mysterious standing stones of Stonehenge, by-passing the city of Southampton and Salisbury with its impressive Cathedral.

Tomasz Zadrozny

Tomasz Zadrozny

The art historians went to the historic city of Winchester and took their time to study the famous and extraordinary Cathedral.

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand

All passengers came back on board full of new impressions, but all a little bit sad, that Portsmouth should have been our last port of call before we will reach Hamburg on the 5^th of May. But at least we could say good bye to Great Britain in sunshine.

Steffi Wiegand

A misty day in the Scilly Isles

What a surprise! When we got up this morning we knew we were close to land – but it was completely obscured by heavy mist. Indeed the authorities, who clearly had experienced this before, told us that under such conditions their regulations were that we could not use our PolarCircleBoats to ferry people ashore. They wanted to have a minimum of traffic. Instead we had to use their tender boats – the largest of which took 90 passengers.

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand

Gradually the mist lifted, and we could see that we were anchored in quiet water with low-lying islands of various sizes all around us. Most of us went ashore either on Tresco Island with its remarkable botanical gardens or took the Garrison walking tour on St. Mary’s Island. Both islands were very charming, and we realized from the number of places to sleep that tourism is the major source of income. The number of persons staying overnight is many times larger than the permanent population of around 2000 persons.

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

Tresco Island is owned by a single family, who decided to establish the gardens many decades ago, by importing plants and trees from all over the world. It now took seven gardeners working full time to look after this enormous number of exotic plants. But it was not only the flora that was colourful; we were surprised to meet quite tame-appearing Golden Pheasants, originally imported from China.

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

Whether returning from this island or from St. Mary’s, we were surprised to see intense rowing in boats manned by eight oarsmen. These relatively wide boats are called “gigs”, and they were warming up for the world Gig rowing championship, held annually always at the Scilly Islands. Competitors came from all over the world, this year there were more than 100 participants. Unfortunately the racing did not start until earnest the next day, so we had to leave without experiencing that particular event.

Steffi Wiegand

Steffi Wiegand

A welcome by dolphins and a farewell by a tenor and a town’s band

We spent our last day in Ireland in Cobh and its wonderful surroundings. On our way to the city we have been accompanied by a huge group of dolphins.

Steffie Wiegand

Cobh is after Sydney the second largest natural harbour of the world. The harbour was first named Cove, what means bay.

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From 1850 to 1920 it was renamed in Queenstown, after Queen Victoria had visit the city. After the foundation of the republic of Ireland it was renamed again into Cobh, that’s nothing else than a Gaelicisation of the English name Cove. Today Cobh is well-known as the harbour of Cork.

Steffi Wiegand

Cobh gained notoriety between 1848 and 1950 when 2.5 million persons of only 6million Irish people left Ireland to emigrate to North America as there was a huge famine in Ireland, especially on the countryside. Some monuments in Cobh are built to memories this terrible time.

Steffi Wiegand

At the 11^th of April 1912 Cobh, at this time still called Queenstown, has been the last port of call for the RMS Titanic.

Steffi Wiegand

An 8 hour excursion drove passengers through the wonderful surroundings of the county of Munster. The first stop has been in Blarney Castle, a medieval stronghold near Cork at the river Martin. Here passengers had the time to enjoy the castle and the nice garden around it.

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

After a nice homemade Irish lunch in Blarney city passengers left for Kinsale, a little picturesque harbour city nearby Cork. In former times Kinsale has been an important harbour town. Today the economy of the city is based on tourism.

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Another excursion went to Cork city and a whiskey distillery. What would be Ireland without its famous and tasty whiskey?

The city of Cobh offered us a special musical treat before we left. The tenor Ryan Morgan gave us an impressive performance in the Observation Lounge and the Cobh Brass and Reed Band was playing at the pier when we had to leave Cobh and Ireland. That has been a magnificent farewell.

Steffi Wiegand

 The day ended with MV FRAM’s famous crew show. 

Steffi Wiegand

For the first time – a little bit of rain!

This morning we arrived in the very pleasant town of Galway, having sailed southwards half-way along the west coast of Ireland in a very quiet sea. A happy situation for any passengers who doubted their sea legs, given that there was no land to shield us from the force of the Atlantic Ocean.

Fram could not enter the inner harbour, so transport ashore was with our PolarCircle tenderboats. For some that proved a wet experience, either from freak waves or from the occasional rain shower. But getting into the city of 70000 inhabitants was well worth the tendering, with its colourful streets and  – as usual in Ireland – an impressive cathedral.

Some of us also took a tour to the Burren and the Aillwee Caves. The Burren is the name of an expanse of limestone rocks, pleasant for walking and with special vegetation. It is one of Europe’s largest regions of karst phenomena. The cave itself was formed during the past 2 million years, at the end of ice age periods when huge amounts of meltwater dissolved the limestone underground. The underground river dried up 10 000 years ago which means that the caves are young, and there has not yet been time to develop spectacular stalactities and stalagmites of the kind seen in many other karst regions.

Wild Donegal under a mild sun

Around 8:00 we reached Killybegs, the largest and most important fishing port in Ireland. Killybegs is located next to Donegal town in the County Donegal. The weather was more than perfect again to start with our excursions to Killybegs and its surroundings.

FriedaPhoto

One excursion started directly after our arrival and was called “Wild Donegal and Glencolmcille”. It was an impressive bus drive along the coastal road and we have been impressed how our bus driver could manage this more than small and twisting road.

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

FriedaPhoto

We reached the open air museum “Glencolmcille Folk Village” after some spectacular photo stops next to the steep cliffs of the “wild” Donegal. The museum itself gave us a good impression of the live in Ireland in the 18^th and 19^th century. 

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After the historical part of our visit we could have a nice rest with scones and Irish tea and the typical Irish live music.

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Before we stepped in our bus again we went for shopping in the very small but extraordinary good museums shop. Nearly everything has been handmade from people and products out of the region nearby. Here we could get the typical souvenirs from the “Green Island”.

The other excursion stayed in the bay of Donegal. They explored the region by water bus and have been even able to watch some seals enjoying themselves on the sunny sandy beach.  

Tomasz Zadrozny

Tomasz Zadrozny

Killybegs is a very nice and small city. On our way from the pier to the city we had to pass the fish factories and the fishing fleet of this nice harbour town.

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During the afternoon we have been invited into the “Harbour Bar” where we were greeted with Irish Live Music and where we had the opportunity to taste the Irish Beer and Whiskeys.

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The day ended on board with a Scottish evening – even we have been in Ireland now – with our Scottish couple Bernie and Beasty. We had another whisky tasting, this time without the “e”, and Scottish folk songs which are very similar to the Irish ones.

A very pleasant day in Northern Ireland.

Our morning arrival at Londonderry was during high tide, which meant that we could travel well into the mouth of Foyle River and dock close to the city center. 

We were greeted by bag pipes, Irish dancing, and the major himself who gave us a warm welcome in the Observation lounge on 7^th deck.

Grey skies today, but still another day of pleasant weather, with no wind or rain in this city which the locals prefer to call Derry. The prefix was added 400 years ago when London merchants invested heavily and carved up much of the land between them as plantations. 

Many from the ship visited the Guild hall which had an excellent exhibition of the development of Kerry all the way up to the present. The modern strife with the bombing IRA on one side and heavy-handed authorities on the other had as its worst event Bloody Sunday, 13 January 1972, when 13 persons in a civilian demonstration were killed by the police – some of them shot in the back. This was in many ways a turning point, with many non-involved taking the lead to reduce the violence and build understanding between the opposing groups of Protestants and Catholics. 

These positive developments are symbolized by the Peace Bridge opened just a few years ago, uniting both sides of the river. It is a beautiful multi-curved structure – giving rise to the local joke that we Irish always screw up – we could not even build a strait bridge!

The original part of the city is confined by a 1, 5 km long city wall which we could walk on all the way around. Apparently Derry is now the only remaining walled city in the whole of the UK.

The longer excursion of the day went to the Giant’s Causeway, a natural phenomenon resulting from solidifying lava, and which is Northern Island’s most famous landmark, and its only World Heritage Site. So the bus brought us through the coastal landscape to the visitor’s center where we could start our walk. 

We had two hours to explore the steep cliffs and to walk on the regular shaped column-bases at the shoreline, where the power of the waves had eroded the pillars over the ages to flat stepping-stones. Later we stopped at the well-known ruins of Dunluce Castle, also located directly at the cliffs of the Antrim coast.