Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas Miami to Southampton 2017
True story: They change the day of the week elevator mats daily. We met an elderly woman on the ship searching for the elevator named “Saturday” because it was the one closest to her room. She last found it on Saturday.
The Windjammer Cafe greeter had a lot of personality.
It was a cold and windy cruise but the stars were great.
Every night we found a surprise waiting for us (but not chocolates on the pillow!)
Me.
My husband, Kerr.
New hairdo! They had a great hairdresser onboard from Zimbabwe.
The Azores
Punta Delgada, Azores
Two lakes inside a volcano. One used to be green and the other blue but pollution from dairy farms ruined it. They are making headway to reverse that.
A McDonald’s ad
Lisbon
The most profound memory of Lisbon was when I entered the St Jerónimos Monastary’s chapel to view the remains of Vasco de Gama. The church was lit only by light through stained glass windows. The mass was being said in Latin which echoed off the walls. Seeing all this made me feel as if I had stepped back into the Middle Ages. It was like a portal in time.
Valenca do Minho, Portugal
Paris, France
Hotel Regina a splendid old hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower and the back of the Louvre.
London, U.K.
The great little Italian breakfast cafe next to our hotel.
At the gates of Buckinham Palace
The Tower of London
The Tower of London including the orginal fortress William the Conqueror’s White Tower. William was an ancestor of my husband’s.
London as seen fron inside the moat at the Tower of London. The moat used to be 15′ deeper. The moat held mostly human waste and garbage which was occasionally washed away by the river Thames. It stunk and so was drained and filled. Plans are to excavate down and refill it, but archeological finds are slowing things down. Another form of defense at the tower used to be lions kept near the gates.
The Tower Green. Queen Victoria wanted to know the exact spot where the scaffolds were built when beheadings were done. A momument to those victims rests there today. The blue doors mark the houses of the Beefeater guards and their families. They live in the tower to guard the Crown Jewels.
The monument to those who were beheaded or hung on the Tower Green. Including William Hastings by order of Richard, Duke of Gloucester in 1483, Queen Anne Boleyn 19 May 1536 by order of her husband King Henry VIII, Margaret Countess of Salisbury the last of the Plantagenet dynasty on 27 May 1541, Queen Catherine Howard by order of her husband King Henry VIII in 13 Feburary 1542, Jane Boleyn by order of King Henry VIII on 13 February 1542, Lady Jane Grey the “Nine Day Queen” wife of Lord Dudley charged with High Treason and died 12 February 1554, Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex on 25 February 1601.
It looks like one of the Princes who were inprisoned in the tower of London during Richard’s or Henry’s reign. They were Yorks in the reign of Tudors and stood to inherit the crown. Their bodies were discovered buried under the stairs. They were 9 and 12.
Traitor’s Gate. This is where prisoners including Ann Boelyn and others were rowed and disembarked for their stay, or their end, at the Bloody Tower.
Flying Home via Iceland
Icebergs breaking off from the coast of Greenland
The artic circle
Laurelicious 