Famille Du Pentium

Our second port of call was Cork, Ireland by way of Cobh (pronounced Cove or Cobe).  This was our first “on our own” tour, of course Princess offered plenty of tours but they are quite expensive so we saved money and went on our own.  This involved taking a commuter train from Cobh, where we docked, to Cork.  That part wasn’t so hard, but the journey from the Cork train station to central Cork (where all the walking and bus tours are located) was quite difficult for our group.  By the time we got to the tourist information shop, everyone was already exhausted.  We had planned to take a walking tour, the “Monks, Vikings and Normans Tour”, however the tour guide appeared in front of the visitors center, and then disappeared too quickly.  We ended up taking a hop-on, hop-off bus tour.  After the HoHo tour, we met up with my friend and former co-worker Peter Cox for lunch and great conversation.  Then, we made our way back to the train station (by cab, this time) and eventually to the ship.  Pictures HERE.

So for those of you keeping track, this is vacation day 7, cruise day 1 (or two, if you count boarding day).  Yesterday, we took a bus (private hire) from our hotel (well, almost – more on that later) to our ship’s port at Southampton.  Won’t cover it in detail because it’s pretty boring, but I did post the pictures we took on our way there.

Our ship’s first port was Guernsey, namesake of the famous cow, and one of the channel islands.  On Guernsey, we visited St. Peter’s Port, which was famously occupied by the Germans during WWII.  We also saw another castle, Castle Coronet.  This one is more complete, technically lived-in, and has more era-appropriate furnishings and appointments.  Which makes it seem kinda fake in comparison, but hey – a little content in castles at this point is a good thing, given than our last one (Berkhamsted) was a grassy field with some piles of old rocks.

We took a Princess-provided walking tour of St. Peters Port and Castle Coronet.  We probably wouldn’t take a Princess walking tour again; while their normal tours are lead pretty well, the walking tour guide could not enunciate well and the tour mostly consisted of everyone jockying for front position every time she stopped, so that we could hear her.  If you weren’t standing right in front of her when she stopped walking and started talking, you missed what she was saying.  Anyway, pics of  St. Peters Port and Castle Coronet are HERE.

Today was our tour of the Tower of London.  This is an interesting tour, because our family (Clan Maxwell) has a family member who was imprisoned in the Tower.

William, Fifth Earl of Nithsdale and grandson of the third earl, still supported the British Crown during the Jacobite Uprising, and fought  to restore the previously deposed House of Stuart.  He was also a Roman Catholic, as was most of the Maxwell Clan, and was often persecuted by local Presbyterians.  He was taken prisoner at the Battle of Preston, and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

With the help of his wife, he escaped, fled to Rome, and died a pauper in 1744.  Pictures of his last official residence is HERE.  Note that we also took a hop-on, hop-off bus this day, so you’ll see some pictures of general London variety too.

After swimming and the Harry Potter tour, we all got back together and went to Covent Gardens to visit the London Transport Museum.  This museum is a relatively hands-on, climb-on museum of old coaches, busses, horse-drawn carraiges, and of course underground trains that have served London over the years.  Great fun for the kids.  After our tour, Lisa and the kids hung out at the hotel while Mike and Marla met up with some old friends from work.  Sorry to disappoint you, but no pictures of the London bar scene – only the London Transport Museum.

During our trip, my cousin Lisa booked a black taxi Harry Potter tour.  This tour ostensibly goes to various sites around London where Harry Potter was filmed.  I say ostensibly, because I didn’t go (daddy’s special time with Ethan – we went swimming and to the arcade instead.)  However, Marla and Aaron both took pictures (although having seen Aaron’s, I can’t vouch for their story-telling value) and you can follow along the path of Harry Potter through London HERE.

Later, I’ll post pictures from the 2nd half of our fourth day – a trip to the London Transport museum.

As I said previously, at some ports I took pictures with my 35mm SLR manual camera.  Although they are lower resolution, I used different lenses (long and wide) and different settings to take these pictures… sometimes for better, sometimes for worse (I’m still re-learning how to use all the manual settings.)  So there might be some interesting shots here, different from the vanilla pictures produced by the Sony point-and-shoot I used for the previous pictures.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded new pictures for Caerlaverock and Newark – the Clan Maxwell castles we visited – and will also publish them for the other sites we visited (to be posted later.)  Enjoy Caerlaverock HERE, and don’t say I didn’t warn you!

This is Day 3 of our London visit.  We went out to Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, England.  The purpose of the visit was really twofold: visit one of Lisa’s old friends, and to see the castle.  After taking the tube to Victoria Station, we boarded the National Rail service to Berkhamsted.  The train ride took about an hour.  Upon arriving, a short walk later we were at our guest’s flat.  From there, we walked all around Berkhamsted, a beautiful little hamlet with small shops and cafes, parks, and a river with longboats on it.  Toward the end of our town walk, we visited Berkhamsted Castle, which was the last stand for the English against the Normans… William the Conquerer accepted his victory at Berkhamsted Castle.

Then we went to Lisa’s friend’s daughter’s house where we were treated to pasta, Pimms Fizzes, and great conversation.

Pictures of the town and castle are here.

First off, I’m going to try to post about 1-2 stories per day about our trip, to try to spread them out a bit and make it a little easier to keep up.  We started a little out of order – so that the Renewal of Vows and Maxwell Family / Caerlaverock Castle visit would be up first, but those were actually days six and seven of the cruise, 11 and 12 of the vacation.  So now we’re back to the beginning.

Day one in the UK was London – we actually spent five days in London before our cruise from Southampton.  This is actually day 1 and 2, because that’s how I organized the pictures.  By the way, if you see a little drawn paper figure in some pictures, that’s Flat Stanley and it was a school project for Ethan to take pictures of Flat Stanley visiting as many sites during our trip as possible.

So on day one, we mainly tried to stay awake until UK bedtime, in order to avoid jetlag.  So first we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum at, of course, 221b Baker Street.  The museum building is laid out roughly how it is in the stories, with authentic era furniture and settings etc.  After that, we met up with Lisa, Jerry and Rory at the hotel and proceeded to our Duck Tours on the Thames river.  One more duck tour under our belt!  We’ve now taken Duck tours in California, Washington, Texas, Wisconsin, Missouri, and now London.  There are probably a few more I’m forgetting.  Anyway, after Duck tours, dinner and bedtime.

Day two, Lisa and company went to Stonehenge while we took the Hop-On, Hop-off bus tour of London… so you’ll see lots of pictures of London sites.  The pictures didn’t organize well, so it’s sort of a mix of Sherlock Holmes, the duck ride, and various sites around London.  Pictures, again, are HERE.

Next up, London Day 3 – Berkhampsted!

OK first some family history – my grandmother’s mother’s maiden name was Maxwell.  From our records, we’ve determined that her family goes back to David Maxwell, who was born in Glasgow in the 19th century and moved to Champagne, Illinois sometime later.  David was one of the sons of the Honorable Joseph Maxwell, who was in turn the son of the 11th Baron of Herries, Marmaduke Constable Maxwell.   The lineage from Marmaduke Constable Maxwell traces back somewhat directly to Maccus, a Norse chief, and his son John Maxwell, who was Chamberlain of Scotland in the 13th century.

These Maxwells built and lived in several castles in lowland Scotland until the 17th century, two of which we visited during our British Isles cruise: Caerlaverock Castle in Dumfries and Newark Castle near Glasgow.  We, of course, took lots of pictures and I’ll walk you through them now.  If you open that link in a new tab or separate window, you can refer to this guide while viewing the pictures.

The first 16 pictures, through DSC03396, are from our trip from Glasgow to Dumfries, which is about 3 hours.  From there, you have the old Caerlaverock castle gate, and at DSC03400 your first view of the castle itself.  The rest are pictures from inside and around the castle, and of course the kids, up to about DSC03440 where we start making our way from Dumfries back to Glasgow to visit Newark Castle.  Mostly what you see is the countryside between Dumfries and Glasgow.

At DSC03453, we arrive at Newark Castle and start making our way around it.

The “DSCxxxxx” series pictures are from my point-and-shoot Sony; the following pictures starting with IMAG0001 are from Marla’s camera and so they repeat starting back at Caerlaverock and then moving forward to Newark.  I also took 35MM pictures with film and some long and wide lenses; I’ll post those once they are processed.

Our excursion was arranged in advance with a private tour guide and coach company, and everything was great.  The staff at Caerlaverock had been alerted to our arrival by our tour guide and treated us like royalty.  The tea room had a great lunch menu, and I even tried the haggis sandwich.  Then, we had to make our way back through Glasgow to Greenock, where our boat was docked.

First things first, on our first day at sea we (Marla and Mike) renewed our wedding vows.  This year marks our 18th anniversary.  My (Mike’s) plan was to schedule a cruise for the two of us on our 20th anniversary (something we intended to do back when we got married) and do the renewal of vows thing then.  However, since this cruise was scheduled for this year, and there’s very little chance we’re going to be able to take another cruise in 2012, we decided to do it now.

Princess Cruises offers a renewal of vows package that includes the ceremony, officiated by the captain (Andrew Proctor in our case), flowers, champagne, and some memorial items like keepsake glasses and a certificate.  The ceremony was coordinated by passenger services rep. Liz, who did an outstanding job.  It was well worth the cost.

Ethan served as ring bearer, and Justin wanted to carry flowers so he was the flower boy.  Aaron was Mike’s best man, and Lisa was Marla’s matron of honor.  The standing party consisted of everyone in our party.

After the ceremony, we retired to the Crown Princess dining room called Crown Grill, which is basically a steak house.  There, our champagne was served and we enjoyed an excellent meal with even better service by Camilla, who basically hand fed Justin his trout and didn’t take any guff from our party about “Oh, I don’t want to eat desert!”

As far as pictures go, we’re a bit out of order here – the renewal of vows was on the first sea day, which was actually about 10 days into the cruise.  But I felt that this post deserved top billing, and I’ll post more later.  Pictures from our day at sea and renewal of vows is here.  The pictures of the rocks are the islands we passed at sea while passing over northern Scotland from Glasgow to Invergordon.