Wanderung 15

Volksmarching through Germany and a Cruise to get back.

September-November 2007

Tuesday, October 30th - Embarkation in Southampton.

Noon Position: Southampton, England, 50 degrees, 53.986' North Latitude, 001 degree, 24.895' West Longitude


 

Bob:

The day dawned clear and sunny, so it was with some regret that we packed up to take the train down to Southampton and our ship. I would have loved to have walked one of the other Permanent Trails offered in London, especially the Maritime Heritage Walk that led downstream along the Thames to Greenwich. Instead, I spent the morning manhandling the biggest suitcase and my carryon through the Tube system and onto the train to Southampton. Having scouted out the best route the night before helped a lot; I only had to carry them down for 3 flights of stairs and all of the "uphill" transitions were handled by escalators, for which my back was very thankful.

The train to Southampton was fast, clean and very comfortable. We were traveling at quite a clip, so the roadbed must have been very even to give such a smooth ride. We had large picture windows on all sides of our carriage and the glass was sparkling clean and unscratched so we had great views of the passing countryside. Curiously, once we had left the vicinity of London and were rumbling through the countryside, the small towns reminded me of rural Germany in that we saw clusters of brown brick houses and townhouses with steeply pitched roofs arrayed along narrow, crooked streets. The main difference was that the houses in rural England had dark gray slate roofs or dark brown shingles of some kind, whereas the most common roofing material for German homes seems to be a reddish ceramic tile with noticeable ridges. I saw some houses being constructed and for those new houses, at least, they were using the "W" truss also common in the roofs of houses in the U.S. rather than the post-and-beam plus wooden lattice construction that I have seen supporting the roofs of small German houses.

After an hour and fifteen minutes we arrived at the central Southampton station. The green shuttle bus that we had expected based on our Internet information did not, however, materialize, so we were faced with the choice of taking a taxi or walking. Well, a bus driver told us that the "Jewel of the Seas" was moored at the dock just down the hill past the Ibis hotel, so we and at least two other couples decided to hoof it. We weren't sure exactly where the entrance really was, however, so we made a couple of wrong turns as we zigzagged our way down to the cruise ship terminal. Even with those detours, however, the walk didn't take more 15-20 minutes and then we were in line for processing onto the ship. All the personnel from the guard at the gate right on through to the baggage screeners, passport checkers, and ticketing people were friendly, cheerful, and efficient. The farther we went through this experience of "consistent niceness", the more relaxed I began to feel about our trip back to the States. Something about being in the warm, friendly arms of Royal Caribbean International just made me feel very relaxed and calm, which after the rather hectic morning hauling our luggage around on mass transportation was a very pleasant feeling.

After dumping my carryon in our room and emptying my pockets into our room's safe, I was ready to search for some lunch so we repaired to the Windjammer Lounge where we knew we would find a nice lunch buffet. We knew that because the "Jewel of the Seas" is an exact sister ship to the "Brilliance of the Seas" that we had come across the Atlantic on last April during Wanderung 14. That meant that all of that ancillary knowledge like "where do you get a quick lunch" was already in our heads and even such details as which sections of the buffet had what types of grub. The completely identical layout and furnishings of the "Jewel of the Seas" gave me a feeling, as Joe DiMaggio put it, "It's like Deja Vu all over again". Learning a new ship is always fun for us, but having a sense of familiarity with a ship makes it feel more like "home" and that was also a great thing, particularly since we were coming off of several very pleasant but also very active weeks of touring Germany.

Monika:

The sky again was blue and sunny. It was really a shame that we could not take the last Volksmarch. But the Jewel of the Seas beckoned, but leisurely since boarding did not commence until 1. So we ate up all our leftover food, finished bringing the journal up to date and packed. We finally left around 9:30 and got to Waterloo by about 10:15. The next train to Waterloo was supposed to leave at 10:35 but no platform had yet been announced. So we kept our eyes peeled on the board announcing the platforms and when platform 9 was announced we went over and boarded the train. The train had in the middle of the compartment four seats facing each other with a table in between. Just perfect for us and our luggage. The train we caught happened to be an express with only 4 stops before we had to get off at Southampton Central. The drive through the countryside was beautiful with trees changing colors, fields either fallow or with winter wheat, and small villages nestled between trees.

At Southampton Central there was supposed to be a free bus to take us to the quay. It did not seem to operate, but the operator of the regular city bus told us to walk just past the hotels and there would be the ship. So we and another couple started trundling our luggage along the paths. It was, after all, a beautiful day, just made for a walk. The most difficult part was finding the official entry to the port area, but after that we saw the ship big as life, towering over everything else. Check-in was quick, and our cabin was ready. So less than an hour after we had gotten to Southampton we were in our cabin. After dropping off our carry on and coats we headed up to the Windjammer Cafe. The Jewel of the Sea is identical to the Brilliance of the Sea that we took over to Barcelona, so everything was familiar.

Bob:

After lunch we walked around the top decks to get views of Southampton both on the city side (unremarkable) and on the seaport side, where we saw tugboats, ferries, and container ships. Clearly the port is a busy one and I would have liked to have walked around the town to get a better feel for it, but the thought of having to reprocess to get back onboard damped down my enthusiasm for that. Instead we returned to our cabin where Monika unpacked and I brought my journal up to date. Our cabin was, by the way, number 3002 which was low down in the ship and way, way forward up in the bow. We were, in fact, almost the last stateroom going forward and we could see the inward curve of the bow in our window frame, which was a kick even if it restricted our view a bit.

We had the required lifeboat drill at 4:30 and set sail at 5 for Le Havre, France. Dusk was falling as we glided almost noiselessly out of the harbor and down to the open sea. We saw the lights of Southampton come on as well as the lights of what looked like an oil refinery or some such thing across the harbor from it. Many of the ships were also illuminated, and the water of the harbor was so still that the lights reflected off the surface in shimmering shafts of brilliance. Very pretty.

We had dinner with our new table mates, by the name of Pam, Anne, Audrey, and Dawn. All were women in the 50-70 range, so I was the lone male. That may not sound important, but it ruled out many "guy" topics of conversation like cars, airplanes, motorcycles and things like that, and since science, statistics and computers seemed to be equally untenable topics, I found that I had little to contribute to keep the conversational ball rolling. Fortunately they were all experienced travelers and had either children or grandchildren, so we were at least able to converse about that.

Monika:

After lunch we headed up to take pictures of Southampton. When we came back to our cabin, our luggage had arrived, and I started unpacking while Bob brought the journal up to date. On the TV, we had the channel that showed the view from the bridge, and maps London, Europe, the Earth while playing classical music. Altogether very relaxing.

Copyright 2008 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Prolog Germany Map Cruise Map Epilog

September 2007
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November 2007
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