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| Fort Lauderdale to Lisbon…3,869 nautical miles! |
To enjoy Europe, you gotta get there first. Planes are nice, but with plenty of time on our hands, we prefer to go by sea. Our ship of choice for this trans-Atlantic crossing is the Celebrity Equinox. The Equinox was launched in 2009 and has a capacity of 2,850 passengers. Size wise I would say that would make it a mid-size ship. Although it was “sold out”, without many children and teenagers, and some solo travelers it doesn’t seem overcrowded or busy. The ship itself is quite nice with plenty of public spaces, two pools, six hot tubs (we go at night and they are mostly empty) nice food choices, great service, and on this particular cruise outstanding entertainment and the best cruise director we’ve ever had (Angela Clark from the UK). Angela’s husband (Dave) is the activities director. They’re great individually, and even more hilarious together.
After two days at sea, we reached our first port which was Bermuda. We had been to this island playground of the rich and famous once before. When I looked back, it was 364 days before this visit. We’re not rich or famous, but it’s been a nice place to visit twice recently.
The island is approximately 21 miles long and a little less than two miles wide at its widest point. The water was a beautiful blue and looked inviting, but at around 70 degrees it was too chilly for these native Floridians to dive in.
We docked at the Royal Navy Dockyard, which offers convenient bus and ferry service to other parts of the island. On our last visit we enjoyed strolling the beach at Horseshoe Bay (by taxi) and roaming around the town of St. George (reached by a free ferry compliments of Norwegian Cruise Line). This time we purchased round trip transportation to Hamilton, which is Bermuda’s largest city. We had the option of taking a ferry or bus, so we did both. We took the twenty minute ferry ride to the city and the 60 minute bus ride back to the ship after wandering around the town a bit. It was a Sunday and most of the shops and restaurants were closed, but it wouldn’t have mattered to us either way. Bermuda is incredibly expensive. Thankfully the impeccably clean and garden like city is free to enjoy. The buses and ferries run frequently and round trip was $18 a person. By taking the ferry one way and the bus back we had two very different but nice experiences. The ferry took us past houses and yachts owned by folks who have a bunch of zeros on the end of their portfolios. The bus made its way through the residential areas of those we can more easily identify with. Both are extremely well maintained and worth seeing. We hopped off the bus one stop before getting back to the Royal Navy Dockyard and did a short hike to the Glass Beach. At some point back in time this was an area where trash was dumped into the sea. Thankfully, like many places they figured out there are more environmentally friendly ways to dispose of trash. Ironically the glass that was dumped years ago has been smoothed by the waves and water. Nowadays the small beach is a popular destination for both locals and tourists.
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| Downtown Hamilton was pretty sleepy on a Sunday morning! |
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| Hamilton City Hall |
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| Sculpture in the Marina recognizing Bermuda’s aggressive role in ending slavery. |
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| The short hike to Glass Beach was well marked. |
Trans-Atlantic cruises are going to have a lot of sea days. Once we left Bermuda we had four sea days in a row. We love sea days. What’s not to love about someone preparing all the meals, keeping your room clean and providing entertainment from morning till night? These four sea days were made even better by smooth seas and temperatures in the 60’s.
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| Smooth seas will put a smile on your face! |
Our second stop on the crossing was Ponta Delgado on the island of San Miguel, Azores. The Azores are an autonomous region of Portugal made up of nine islands. The islands were formed by volcanos and lie in the Atlantic Ocean roughly between New York and Lisbon. San Miguel is the capital and most populated of the nine islands. About 50,000 people live in Porto Delgado, making it the largest city in the Azores.
We booked a three hour tour that took us around a small section of the island including Sete Cidades, a village of around 3,000 people, which is located in the crater of a dormant volcano. We also visited a black lava sand beach and a pineapple plantation. After the tour we took some time to wander around the small, but busy and colorful downtown.
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| Me, Beth, Steve and Marilyn on the bridge that leads to the Sete Cidades village. It’s the only way in and out of the village. |
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| The tree lined walkway leads to the Catholic Church in the village. |
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| Beef, dairy and pineapples are the main agricultural products of the Azores. Pineapples are grown in greenhouses due to the chilly winters. It takes around 2 years for a pineapple to mature. Not too bad….I’m sixty six and still working on maturing. |
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| Black Sand beach courtesy of a volcanic explosion and time. |
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| A little browsing in Porto Delgado. Our favorite store was Prince of Cheese which was located a short distance from the King of Cheese! |
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| Downtown Porto Delgado |
Like Bermuda, we were in Ponta Delgado last year and enjoyed our return visit……
On Monday, April 22 we officially made it across the pond! We arrived in Porto, Portugal at around 7:00 a.m. The weather for the entire crossing was absolutely incredible. Daily high temperatures were in the 60’s and the seas were exceptionally calm. We feel very fortunate to be here in Porto again (we were here around 5 years ago).
Porto is Portugal’s second largest city and is located a few miles inland from where the Douro River flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The city itself has a population of around 250,000, but with the metropolitan area included, the population is close to 2 million. It’s famous for it’s Port Wine, which is a fortified wine (with all due respect, not my favorite)..
The Equinox docked at the Leixoes cruise terminal which is about 10 miles from the Porto city center. We were very pleased that they offered a complimentary shuttle that took us to a location near the Ponte Luis I Bridge. This gave us easy access to Porto’s historic city center. We were off the ship early and on one of, if not the first, shuttles to leave the port.
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| Arriving at the new and very modern Leixoes Cruise terminal. |
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| The shuttle took us to Gaia….. |
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| The Ponte Luis I bridge connects Gaia to Porto…. |
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| From the Gaia side looking across the Douro River to Porto. |
We had no real plans other than roaming around, which is something we’re pretty good at doing. There’s plenty to see and do around Porto for several days. I’ve attached a link to previous blogs below. Our day was full of simply enjoying the sights and sounds of this magnificent city. Below are a few photos from around Porto…..
By all means if you end up in Porto try to take in a few of its numerous churches, visit a wine cave (we did this on a previous visit),, enjoy the beautiful blue and white tile murals inside the Sao Benito Train Station, spend some time along the riverfront, walk across the Ponte Luis I Bridge and check out what has been voted as one of the world’s fanciest McDonalds!
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| Inside the Sao Benito train station….. |
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| …..the architecture and tile murals are stunning….. |
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| …..equally stunning is the stained glass and chandeliers inside the worlds fanciest McDonalds…… |
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| ……you can have your Big Mac in style….. |
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| …..or opt for a Francesinha, which originated in Porto. It’s two slices of toasted white bread, beef, sausage, ham, and cheese. It’s topped with a fried egg, smothered with gravy and surrounded by French fries! Not the healthiest of sandwiches! If you get one definitely split it and call your cardiologist! |
From Porto it was a short cruise to our final port, Lisbon. We arrived before sunrise and were off the ship by 8:00. We’ll be here roaming and wandering about this amazingly gorgeous city for the next four days…….but that’s for the next blog!
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| This is Bridget and Robbie from Idaho. We loved meeting them and hearing their amazing travel stories. They taught us a thing or two along the way that may be helpful in our future travels. We look forward to staying in touch with them! |
