Today is my last day at sea and tomorrow morning the Eurodam docks in Copenhagen, where I disembark and spend the night before flying home on Thursday. So many passengers are continuing for ten more days to St Petersburg and other Baltic ports and then back to Copenhagen. I should have convinced Will to fly to Copenhagen and we could have done the Baltic cruise together. Oh well, maybe next year (or sooner).
Sunday Morning and Afternoon
The forecast was for rain this morning, but the day started out bright and sunny with a brilliant blue sky—and continued that way all day.
The coach to London leaves promptly at 9 am and we get to London at 11: not much traffic on Sunday and the coach driver has a heavy foot. We pass through “Constable Country,” fields of bright golden rape and several working windmills, and then zip up the motorway into the eastern docks area through the East End and the City. There are lots of empress trees in bloom and the countryside rolls in deep English green. The coach drops us on Lower Regent Street, two minutes from Piccadilly Circus, where I meet Deb Stroud for coffee and conversation.
After coffee, I head off on my chores: a shopping visit to Dress Circle Music Shop, where I load up on original cast CDs that are difficult and expensive to find in the States; and a haircut on Tottenham Court Road. London is just as dirty and crowded as it’s always been and the building boom seems unabated, with a new cross-London underground line under construction. Four hours is just enough time to get the bug for a return visit. The coach leaves London at 3:40 pm and we are back on board the Eurodam at 6. A Scottish bagpipe band on the dock serenades the ship as we sail for Rotterdam.
I had a lucky day because one of the London coaches broke down en route and passengers had to wait 90 minutes for a substitute to arrive (and no free drinks on the bus, either).
Sunday Evening
Sunday Evening
A glass of champagne was the perfect accompaniment for carpaccio of beef tenderloin with whole-grain mustard. The beef and Parmigiano-Reggiano didn’t have much flavor, even after I added more olive oil and lots of fresh black pepper—a small complaint given the superb quality of most of the food (the kitchen prepares 11,000 meals per day times 18 days = 198,000 meals; and that doesn’t count all the extra snacks and munchies available everywhere all day and night). It stayed light until well after 10 pm and the Eurodam kept close to the estuary shoreline as we left Harwich. The lights on shore began to flicker on just as we sailed out of their reach and into the Channel.
Rotterdam and Amsterdam on Monday—and I’ll put that in another posting: Tuesday, 12 May 2009 (2)
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