Today dawned bright and sunny again; hopefully we’ll see no more rain until we’re back in Blighty. 🙂 In the shopping arcade on the ship there was a shop selling merchandise with the Cunard and Queen Elizabeth logos on them. A lot of the QE stuff had “Maiden Season 2010-11” etched onto it. Today though,…
Author: bollingerbabe
Washed out in Madeira
Today we woke up in Funchal, Madeira. We had been here twice before; the last visit was a couple of years ago. Madeira is a beautiful island, and is sometimes known as the garden of the Atlantic, as its flora is so green and lush. But today we opened our curtains to grey skies and mist. …
Santa Cruz de La Palma
The Queen Elizabeth arrived in La Palma at 8.00am. This is the only port of call that we hadn’t been to previously, so we were looking forward to exploring this island. La Palma is the fifth largest of the seven Canary Islands. We had booked an excursion this afternoon to see some volcanoes and also…
Wine Sampling in Tenerife
This morning we woke up in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the largest of the seven main Canary Islands. We had been here last two years ago, on the Black Prince. Interestingly, whilst most British people pronounce it ‘ten-er-reef’ its actual pronunciation is four syllables long, i.e. ‘ten-er-reef-ay’. We spent the morning just doing our own…
Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
This morning saw the Queen Elizabeth dock in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. The last time we had been here was in 2004, on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary 2, when the red carpet was out for us and we were treated like movie stars! No such welcome for us this time though. We…
En Route to the Canaries
Today was another long, leisurely day at sea. Once we leave the cold British shores for warmer climes, we tend to leave our balcony door propped open overnight, as I hate the artificial air-conditioning – it’s so drying for the skin. So it’s lovely to wake up in the morning to the “ssssshhhhhhhh” sounds of…
Cadiz, Spain
This morning the Queen Elizabeth docked in Cadiz, a well-known port and city in south-western Spain. It was a warm day (22 degrees) but a brisk breeze blew in from the Atlantic, which made it feel fairly cool in the shade. As we had been to Cadiz before, 11 years ago, we decided against doing…
Welcome to Lisbon
Today was our 22nd wedding anniversary, so it was quite a treat to be spending it in Lisbon, the historic capital of Portugal. There is so much to see and do in Lisbon, and the beauty of it is that you can explore quite a large area of it on foot from the port, as everything…
Vigo – First Port of Call
This morning the Queen Elizabeth docked in her maiden port of call, Vigo in Spain. It is pronounced as vee-go, rather than Vigo, the town about seven miles away from us in Tyne & Wear called vy-go. We had been here once before, 11 years ago, so we were looking forward to exploring this beautiful…
All At Sea
After our first comfortable night on board Queen Elizabeth in which we both slept very well, our first day was spent, as is often the case, at sea en route to our first port of call, which would be Vigo in Spain. You will notice how may times I have said the word “first” but…