Chez Mumtaj

Early Bird special at Chez Mumtaj - superb Lamb Rogan Josh matched with enthralling Stellenrust Pinotage 2021

John Bunyan with Jacqui & Alberto

To the John Bunyan pub for lunch with Jacqui and Alberto, and afterwards we crossed the lane to the ruins of John Bunyan's cottage.

Alberto, Jacqui and Joan

Beating the Bounds

 

To the Jolly Sailor for Beating of the Bounds with Mayor Antony Rowlands.

Joan gave Mace Bearer, John Hills, a brief rest from holding the heavy symbol.

I walked the entire route last year: see here

Kimpton Walk

Warm sunny day after a week of heavy rain, so opportunity for our first Kimpton walk this year, staying on the road to avoid mud 

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 10 Homeward Bound

 Day 10 - Friday 5 April 2024

Our bags must be outside the cabin at 06:30 and the coach leaves for the airport at 07:45.

Our flight is not scheduled to depart until 11:40 and as the journey takes less than 20 minutes there is plenty of time.

Two Viking staff meet the coach and take two groups to the respective check-ins.

Check-in is quick, and although security in this terminal is closed and we must walk to another terminal to pass security it is relatively painless. So we hunt for the business lounge partner, take a lift and it all goes wrong. There are about 50 people waiting to get in, it's at capacity they say, and when there is a space they give priority to members of their own. They say we must clear the area or they'll call security. So we go down to the main public lounge. We're no longer in Viking's World.

A 65 minute flight delay shrinks to 10 minutes and at last we are in the air with a glass of Champagne.

Good views of London as we descend. We landed at 12:50 UK time  and Andy whisks us home from Heathrow. We arrived  home at 15:15

Comfort food is needed, so Joan gets fish, chips and mushy peas which we have with a bottle of Villa Maria NZ Savvie.

Now we have to wait patiently for the next cruise in June.

To go to the beginning, click here

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 9 Amsterdam

Day 9 - Thursday 4 April 2024 

The last full day of the cruise, with a well anticipated included excursion at 08:30 to Keukenhof Gardens and its tulip display.

But when we awake it's pouring. The rain is coming down in a fury, and it doesn't let up. We decide not to join the excursion. About 30 minutes after coaches depart the rain stops and the sun shines, but ten minutes later the rain in all its fury returns.

The rain stops at lunchtime.

I enjoyed the Fettucine Bolognaise with a green salad and dry Wiener Gemischter Satz, Nussberg, 2020.

So many excursions had taken place on mornings while it was raining while the afternoons had been sunny. Today was no different. After lunch we set off for the Tulip Museum, passing the war memorial in Dam Square (above). 

The museum entrance is at the rear of a shop that appear to be the main purpose of the venture and there's a long queue of people buying bulbs and tulip related paraphernalia. One thing I took away is the word 'tulip' come from the Turkish word for a turban, because of the similarity of their shape.

We might not have seen Keukenhof but we saw plenty of tulips. These were in one of many large pots on bridges.

In all my many stays in Amsterdam I never saw use being made of the hoist at the top of buildings, but today I saw two being used. This chap is lowering wood panels out the window to another on the pavement.

Our last dinner of the cruise was accompanied by this rather pleasant Chianti Classico.

To go to the final day click here

Viking - Tulips and Windmills - Day 8 Bruinisse

 Day 8 - Wednesday 3 April 2024

The morning included excursion started with a walk through the attractive small city of Zierikzee.

Access to the old town and harbour was via pull-up bridges and a gatehouse.

Four coaches had set off from the boat, but to avoid crowding only two visited the same site at the same time. 

We drove first to the Delta Works. Local fishermen objected to the enclosing of the Zuiderzee as the enclosed water would become salt-free and wouldn't support the fish they caught and oysters they farmed.

So either side of a man-made island were constructed a line of gates which would let sea tides ebb and flow, but be shut during exceptional high tides to protect land and dikes.

All week we'd been hearing about land reclaimed from the sea and how much of the Netherlands is below sea level protected by dikes.

Our last visit was to Watersnood (Flood) Museum. This is at the site of a dike break on 1 February 1953. A storm surge and gale caused wide spread flooding and drowned 2,500 people in Netherlands, Belgium, England, and Scotland. Netherlands suffered the most because it had so much land under sea level.

Engineers repaired breached dikes but all attempts at closing the dike at Ouwerkerk were washed away by the force of the currents. On the night of 6/7 November 1953 they carefully manoeuvred a line of four huge floating concrete caissons into the breach, filling then with boulders and sand to sink them. Even so, the currents moved one out of line but the engineers were able to fill gaps and repair the dike.

The caissons - codenamed Phoenix -  had been constructed to make the artificial 'Mulberry' harbours and breakwaters of the Normandy coast after D-Day in 1944 but these were surplus to requirements then and were towed by tug to Netherlands in 1953. They stick up above the earthen dike and now house the museum.

The caissons are gigantic, 62.5x19x19 metres (205x62.3x62.3 feet), and the museum is housed in the upper part, above the rock and sand filling.

And back to the boat for lunch. The boat cast off heading for Rotterdam. There was on 'Open Wheelhouse' session and then 'Teatime'.

Plates of dainty sandwiches and cakes were on lounge tables, with jam and cream for scones. We were supposed to enjoy a selection of specialist loose-leaf black and green teas with them, but actuality was the same wooden box of tea-bags we had a breakfast was brought around by waitrons. Dunking a tea bag into a cup of hot water doesn't make tea as any fule kno.

And where were the scones? The restaurant manger said they'd run out, but perhaps because I took him to task the previous day for running out of the diet cokes our lunch companions wanted, he rustled up one each for those at our table. They were stale, more like small biscuits.

We had the misfortune to sit through the Programme Director's disembarkation talk in which, with the aid of a projector, he droned on into minute detail about every aspect even explaining what each column of the Departure Information sheet meant, perhaps because  a column headed 'time to place your luggage outside your stateroom door' would cause of confusion.

We arrived in Rotterdam during dinner. A pre-dinner glass of Champagne and a bottle of dry red restored equilibrium.

We left Rotterdam for Amsterdam at 22:00. Tomorrow would be the last full day of our cruise, and highlighted by the included excursion to Keukenhof Gardens.

To go to Day 9 click here