Haarlem - Amsterdam

Haarlem in the Netherlands is about one hour by bus from the Cruise port at Ijmuiden.  It is a lot closer than Amsterdam, and was quick and easy to visit using local transport.  The bus stop was a short walk from the ship and there were several people working there, selling day tickets and giving information in English.  The bus driver was exceptionally patient with the many disorganized travellers.

Some lucky people, out for a nice day of sailing!

This is the transit terminal.  Trains, buses and bicycles all converge here in Haarlem.

Like the vast majority of the Netherlands, Haarlem too, has very low lying land and has a lot of canals and little bridges.  It is very quaint.

The architecture has this quality about it:  it is built on right angles, overlapping geometric shapes and is exceptionally distinctive.  It is unlike any other European architecture I have seen.  I just went to wikipedia and discovered that the majority of these buildings, constructed in the Dutch Golden Age (17th century), relied on Dutch architects trying to interpret plans from Italy, written in Italian or Latin, and which they often misunderstood which resulted in creating their own style. I have to say, I am a big fan of the ornate, squarish Dutch style.

We came upon a lovely antique fair and happy looking people enjoying cafe culture.

Many of the views were breathtaking.  It didn't hurt that the weather was spectacular!

A postcard.  That's what this place looked like.  A postcard.

Some of these boats are homes.  Some are available for rent on AirBNB!

Bicycle parking lot outside Haarlem Train Station.  That is green travel, people!

Dover - England

This mural is both amusing and sad.  It shows a painted figure removing one of the stars from the flag of the European Union...Brexit

Imagine our dismay when we arrived in the morning at the Port of Dover, only to see this....a grey, foggy, drab scene.  Thankfully, the mist cleared away and we had one of the loveliest days on the trip so far!

The famous "White Cliffs of Dover" immediately behind these row houses.  This picture does not do justice to the scale of the cliffs which tower above.

The famous British telephone booth.

The Port is huge business for this town.  Check out the size of the ferry and the transport trucks rolling out of its belly!

Unquestionably a seriously picturesque place. This house was located atop the cliffs and aside from one or two neighbours, was all alone.  Just after this pic was taken, the lady inside waved to me from her window.  My guess is pretty much only tourists come up this way.

In the distance atop the hill is Dover Castle.  By this point we had walked up to the cliffs and later we would make our way up to the castle on foot through a crazy, overgrown path in the middle of this forest.  We relied heavily on Cassio's gps feature in his tablet to orient us.

The narrow, cliffside pathway, with a view to the cliffs beyond and the unmistakable evidence of wind, as seen in the shape of the bush.

It is hard to truly appreciate the scale of this place from photos, but I have to say, it was absolutely majestic.  The other thing that stood out for me was the quiet.  We heard birdsong and breeze.  We saw almost no one.  The air was fresh and cool.  The earth smelled of grass and wildflowers. I will treasure this memory in a special place in my heart.

Here is a close up detail of the rock face, which is actually composed of chalk.  You could easily carve this dusty cliff.

Happily, we saw animals on our journey.  The cliffside has many gates to prevent horses and sheep from straying,

The turret is rather outsized for the attached building! The stone construction is similar to what we have also seen in Fecamp, France and other coastal towns of the region: it is flintstone broken in half placed in the mortar in such a way as to expose the glassy centre.  Beware! These rocks may be pretty, but also can be razor sharp!

View of Dover Castle from town.

St. Mary's Church in the centre of town was built on the site of Roman baths and earlier constructions of the church on this spot date back to the 1200's.  Unfortunately it was closed but we visited the small cemetery and garden around it.

Above and below you can see the pretty, tightly spaced, row houses on the main street.

Just before our ship set sail again, the sun came out and gave us this glorious view of the cliffs.  See that white spot up on top? That's a big lighthouse.

Le Havre - France

Much of the city of Le Havre, located in the Normandy region of France, was destroyed by bombing in the second world war.  As a result, most of the buildings are of much newer construction and this reconstruction gained the recognition of UNESCO in 2005, deeming it a world heritage site, for the plan and the formed concrete construction of the buildings in a 133 hectare area of downtown.

Here above, you can see the ladders leading down to the boats.  Early in the day, this was low tide.  By the end of the afternoon, the boats were basically level with the road.  This was not something we expected, and it turns out Le Havre has a pretty big daily tide fluctuation.

Evidence of WWII mortar fire riddled all over the side of this church.

Le Havre Cathedral (Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Havre) dates back to the early 1500's.

This distinctive sculpture, made with cargo shipping containers, is well visible from the port.  Le Havre boasts the 2nd largest port in France and 50th in the world.

Here is some of the noted formed concrete construction that Le Havre is famous for.

St. Joseph's Church is by far the tallest building in Le Havre.  It was built during the 1950's and commemorates the loss of soldiers in the war.  I, personally, appreciate the design, but I find it looks far too industrial and almost menacing and is incongruous with its being a church.

The church's interior has this strange, red sculptural element, that perhaps is meant to resemble fire or the energy of the spirit of God or something like that, but to me, it just looked like a bunch of the kind of netting they put around buildings when doing restoration.

Famous Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, designed the cultural centre here, affectionately known as "Le Volcan", The Volcano, due to its shape.  It reminded me a bit of the distinctive look of nuclear power plants.

Inside the central Market

St. Joseph's Church in the background and Le Volcan.  You can really see how the height of the buildings in the city are really quite low.

When we left the ship in the morning, the gangplank was level with the ground.  Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, you can see it was quite steep!

Cherbourg - France

Cherbourg

We had another grey day in Cherbourg and it was super quiet.  We walked through the older part of town.  The houses are mainly attached row house stone construction with narrow side walks.

This is the Basilique Sainte-Trinite which was finished in the mid 1800's, but was the site of other churches as far back as the year 841.

I am used to seeing the iconic clam shell with holy water at the entrance of churches, but usually, they are carved from marble.  This church had the real deal.

We happened upon Parc Emmanuel Liais which was a lovely surprise! Lately, our style of travel is not to research too much about a place in advance of seeing it, so that the travel can unfold naturally and spontaneously, rather than always being held to a strict agenda.  Part of the rationale for this is to avoid the feeling of being rushed, because there is always more to see and therefore miss out on, but also, it adds to the sense of discovery. The cat pictured above is high up in the tower, pictured below, and he looks a great deal like our Kika, back home.

The park had winding paths, trees, shrubs and flowers of all kinds, a pond, an ancient tower (with a cat!). All this, coupled with the freshness of the air and the ever present cheerful bird song made this place a truly wonderful find!

See how I am dwarfed by the size of the plants in the park's exceptional greenhouse!

As mentioned before, the houses are all joined together.  The style is plain and simple...nothing too ornate.

Cassio has perfected the art of pulling the camera out of his pocket, turning it on and capturing a fleeting moment with a great deal of success.  This rare mini Cooper wagon was speeding around the corner and it was gone in a flash.  Lucky!

Note the chimney style...it appears there is a separate shaft for each fireplace.

This was another, smaller park, that we happened upon.

And finally, this was a nice surprise.  The access back to our ship had to be through this really interesting deep diving equipment museum/exposition.  Really impressive how deep people ventured inside really small and fragile apparatus.