Week One of Our Cruise!

We have now returned from our 18 day cruise from Copenhagen to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I was unable to load pictures with slow internet on the cruise which we had to pay for per minute.
I was able to share a few pictures in the Top Giveaway Portion of the Blog.

I thought I would prepare one or two posts with highlights and pictures from the trip. Our cruise started in Copenhagen where we arrived by plane, road the metro and spent one night. Here is a shot of downtown Copenhagen - I love the skinny red house between the big ones. In the river canal there is a passing tour boat.

We boarded the boat on Sunday and had a busy first week.
Our first stop on Monday September 12 was Oslo, Norway - The Akershus Fortress greeted us at the port:

We had bad weather the next day and had to cancel the second Norway port of Kristiansand.
Instead we continued two days through these rough waters:

The next port on Thursday September 15 was Greenock, Scotland where we picked up the metro to Glasgow.
The people were very nice to us - one man walked us all the way to find the Greenock train station.
Here are the Greenock train station (small) and the Glasgow station (huge):

There were many beautiful buildings in Glasgow.

This is one of the University near downtown - the students were protesting something!

We visited the Botanical Gardens in Glasgow. The tablet reads:

Our dreams are as bright as your lions; those golden beasts in tapestries of thought.

Friday September16th we visited Dublin, Ireland.
The guide stressed the important contributions by the Guinness family. Here is an old Guinness Stonehouse.

You may notice on the Scotland and Ireland buildings there is wonderful ornamentation!

Look at this gorgeous church in Dublin:

I had to include this picture of The Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin

Then on Saturday September 17th we visited Belfast, Ireland - the history of conflict is very sad.

There were remarkable murals on the wall that divided the communities - note the barbed wire on top.The good news is that they are now involved in talks to take down the dividing walls.

We happened upon a parade in downtown Belfast - the police were out, some even with tommy guns although we didn't get that picture.

Here is a shot of the countryside, wharf to mountains, as we were leaving Belfast. No wonder they describe Ireland as "green"!

Sunday September 19 was a sea day as we headed out to Iceland.
To Be Continued!