Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

August 20 (and in case you are interested, Day 44 of the cruise)

We anchored off of Saint-Jean-de-Luz around noon today, and it is a lovely day – high should be 85 and there is a wonderful breeze. In this port, we need to take a tender to shore, there is not a big enough port for ships.

Saint-Jean-de-Luz is in Basque country in southwest France on the coast near the border with Spain, and immediately you can see the difference from the Bordeaux architecture.  The homes are in the Basque style and even new ones must be in the whitewashed style with red roofs and red but mostly  green accents.

The name of the town means St. John of the marshland.  There was the need to use boats in the town in the past, now the land has been reclaimed.  The Pyranees mountains are close and so are the beaches, so this is a very popular resort area and the beaches were packed (and topless). The population is about 12,000 but it quadruples in July and August.  40% of the homes here are second homes.  Louis XIV came here to be married.

This mountain in the Pyranees is said to look like Napoleon sleeping! He vacationed here.

Much of the 17th and 18th century architecture has been preserved. It is an important point on the costal pilgrimage route from France to Santiago de Compostela.

We took an excursion to the town of Bayonne, about a 30 minute drive.  The name of this town means lovely river and it is the capital of the province.  80% of the medieval walls are still intact.  They use small electric buses for transportation around the town.  

The signs are in three languages, French, Basque and Gascon.

One of the little known facts is that Bayonne’s oldest gourmet traditions in chocolate making.  The Portuguese Jews introduced the technique in the 16th century and it was the first town in France to introduce what was then referred to as the “devil’s drink”.  Of course we had to try and buy some!

We visited a church with a ring outside, which was for anyone in need of help, if they reached the ring, they had to be taken in and cared for.  If they didn’t there was a statue outside with rings that they would be taken to and left. I imagine there was a great rush for that ring.  At the church cloisters there was a craft market and I bought a lovely necklace.

We returned to Saint-Jean-de-Luz and explored the town, the Maison Adam for its famous macarons, then returned to the ship for another dinner on the terrace.  That night a bottle of Bordeaux was in our room with a lovely note as yet another gift for the world cruise travelers.

Couldn’t resist this one, Adam!

Or this one either! Delicious macarons

August 13

We have never been to Germany, aside from several plane changes in Frankfurt, which doesn’t count, and a sail in the Kiel canal.  So it was a pleasure to sail into Bremerhaven.   First of all, along the way, the Danish and German coastlines are lined with hundreds, perhaps thousands of offshore windmills.  At night you can see red lights on them.  We learned that Germany has a goal of 50% renewable energy and has 6 huge offshore windmill parks, some onshore as well but not as many.

We had to get up very early for our trip to Hamburg, it is a 2 hour trip and with some traffic, it took us 2 1/2.  On the way we stopped at a highway station for a restroom break.  This was unlike any toilet I have ever seen.  It cost 70 euros, about 77 cents US.  After you flush, the entire toilet seat rotates around through a washing system.  Definitely worth 70 euros!  I didn’t take a video though!

The trip on the autobahn was interesting, there are no speed limits so cars can go up to 130 mph.  Interestingly, there are no more accidents there than any other European country.  They do look in their rear view mirrors a lot, though, as the Porsches come up fast!

We had a city tour and a river boat trip in Hamburg.  It is the 7th biggest harbor in the world and many container ships come in there.

The river boat was on the Alster river and the Alster lake.  Beautiful mansions line the river and there are many sailing clubs along the lake.  We saw sailing lessons in many place, standup paddleboards, crew rowing and day sail boats.  There are no motorboats allowed in the lake except the riverboats.

Our boat route

There are beautiful art nouveau buildings and many brick buildings, some from the 17th century that survived bombing and fires.

The city hall is a wonderful building, the courtyard in the middle has a lovely fountain and there is a restaurant in there too.

St Michael’s church has an interesting story. For many years, a trumpeter played in all 4 directions from the clock tower twice a day. Then the church ran out of money to pay and they stopped it.  Years ago, a young boy from a poor family didn’t have a confirmation suit, and the church provided one.  He went on to America and became rich, when he died, he left a great deal of money to this church, remembering what they did for him.  The church used it to re-start the trumpet tradition.

There are 4 organs in the church and the pulpit is a work of art!

St. Michaels Church, from the 1680s

We had two wonderful guides and it was a lovely, warm summer day.  A few more things we learned about Germany:  Both mothers and fathers get 18 months of leave when they have a child, the mother takes the first 18 months and the father the second.

We did ask Lars about how the German people feel about the holocaust – do they feel guilty?  He is a young man, and here is how he answered: When I would feel guilty is if I didn’t do my best to tell people about it so it will never happen again. About 1% of the people do believe in the Nazi way and he fears it is getting a bit stronger.

We ended the day sailing out of Bremerhaven where a tall ship festival was taking place.  About 20 ships sailed right by us as we left and many more were tied up at the harbor.