Showing posts with label Azores. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Azores. Show all posts

Wednesday 8 May 2013

Cruising like a Norwegian

We flew in New Orleans a few days in advance to visit this interresting city. It's a very popular destination for young adults that play jazz music. It is dotted with bars that have live music playing from 7 PM to late at night. We really enjoyed the feeling of having a snack of homemade chips accompanied with a nice beer while watching an unknown band playing at the "Maison", a small local bar on the famous Frenchmen street.

New Orleans also offer really nice architechture with French and Spanish inspiration. The French Quarter is a must see. You can walk and get lost for hours just for fun enjoying the architecture.

There is also the Bourbon street. A party street in the French quarter that offers tons of bars and beer "take away" kiosk. That street is filling up really quick at night.

French Quarter
Norwegian Star
This is the boat that took us for our transatlantic journey. It was our first time on a cruiseship and it was great. We decided to travel by boat to Europe as we have all the time in the world and we were thinking it would be the best way to relax and cut ourself from our old work life and it really worked. We didn't think much about anything but the present and the fact we are leaving for a round the world trip. This is really hard to realise. We have to remind us often what we are doing. We also didn't have internet access during our cruise so this really helped cutting ourself from the outside world.

Room 10538
Room 10538
Our Private Balcony
Miami
Miami
Ponta Delgada
Ponta Delgada
Portas da Citade
Sunset
The "freestyle" idea for cruising is great. You just put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and sleep until you wake up, eat when you're hungry and enjoy the balcony as you wish. We had a nice balcony room which had a good view on all the stops we did. We were lucky enough to be on the good side for all the stops so we could have a view of the cities. We also had 9 days at see so we enjoyed the view of the ocean a lot.
Dover
Dover Castle
Dover Castle
Dover was really interesting. We did a tour of the old tunnels. They were built right in the rock, underground. They were used a lot during World War II to plan the evacuation of the troops from France to England. There was also another level used as an underground hospital. The tour helped us learn more about some history we didn't know. We also visited the castle. A nice example of a medieval castle with a great view from the top.
View of Ponta Delgada
Ponta Delgada is a small town on an Island in the middle of the Atlantic. It belongs to Portugual and Portuguese is the language they speak. This was the first time we had a problem with an unknown language. People we talk to didn't speak English or French. We know it's not the first time this happens but it made us realize how it's going to be. We took a few hours to walk around and then went back to the boat. It would have been nice to explore the rest of this island, not only the city, but we had just the one day. 
Helsingborg
Kärnan, the medieval tower of Helsingborg
Seb's Bank
Since most people are calling me Seb, I thought this was an interesting bank :).