Wordless Wednesday - Early Morning Arrival, New York

 

Early morning arrival in New York after Transatlantic crossing from Southampton, England.

I am joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for the blog hop.

Transatlantic Cruise April 2013 Dublin and Falmouth.

After several sea days we reached Dublin.

Halfpenny Bridge over the River Liffey.

O' Connell Bridge.

Samuel Beckett Bridge

Statue of  John Gogarty and James Joyce outside one of the many Dublin bars.

The Aviva football stadium.

Anyone for Guinness?
I only took a few photos in Dublin as we have been here a few times before. More photos can be seen on our British Isles cruise in 2012 here.
We should have gone to Cork next but storms made us stay overnight in Dublin. We stayed until midday the following day before heading for our final port of Falmouth Cornwall.

Falmouth is a tender port and this is Pendennis Castle taken from the ship. At this point we were actually only about 60 miles from home.

The Fal estuary.
After an enjoyable day there we headed back to Southampton and the end of another cruise.

Transatlantic cruise April 2013 The Azores cont.

We left the smell of the sulphur behind us and went to higher ground where the road was bordered with a lovely azalea hedge.

From here we could look down on Lake Furnas.

Below is the car park we had been in when we went to the boiling mud pots.

You can see them in the top right corner.

A last look at Lake Furnas from above before we made our way to our next stop.

More of the azaleas bordering the road.

This is a tea plantation.

The Azores is not a place we had associated with tea growing before.

Afterwards we went inside where the black and green tea could be sampled. I cannot drink tea, but Ivor assured me it tasted good.

 Tea leaf sorting machinery.

From there we headed back along the cliffs towards Ponta Delgada.
We asked the driver to drop us in the town so we could have a look around on the short walk back to the ship.

The Town Hall.
We left the Azores for several sea days as we headed for Dublin.

Transatlantic cruise April 2013 - The Azores.

We had several sea days after leaving Fort Lauderdale before our first stop at San Miguel, The Azores.

Eight of us had got together and hired a minibus for a private island tour.

We started off going up to the top of the cliffs near Lagoa and a rainbow made a good excuse for a photo.

From there we went to one of the old typical towns and had time for a stroll on our own.

From there we went on to the Lady of Peace Chapel at Vila Franca Do Campo.

Then we went back down to sea level.The roads were all cobbled around here.

Furnas Lake.

Looking out over the caldera at Furnas.

And back down to the lake.

From there we went to see the boiling mud pots.

That is boiling volcanic mud at the bottom of the hole. Local people and several restaurants prepare a pot with various meat and vegetables and put them in the hole and cover them and leave them for several hours to cook.

The covered pots.

We then went a little further to the Fumarolas (hot springs)

The smell of sulphur was very overpowering. We left there and headed up to the high ground again. That will follow in the next post.