Journey's end - Basel to Cardiff

Packed cases left outside cabin doors for collection were swiftly removed from the MV Emily Bronte while we ate breakfast this morning. After correct identification they were loaded on to the coach as their owners climbed on board for the half hour drive across from the quay on the German side of the Dreieck to Basel-Mulhouse-Freibourg airport, across the river on the French side of the Dreieck - the land is leased to the Swiss, who run the place. We had to wait ten minutes for group booking check-in desks to be opened, but were diverted by the sight of several young Asian travellers, struggling to re-close huge suitcases they had to open in order to retrieve some essential item, their scattered goods and chattels seemingly resistant to being rounded up and contained. 

We were through check-in and security two hours before flight departure, and our our way back to Heathrow just after midday. British Airways has now moved over exclusively to card payments for on-board, evidently convenient for flight staff, but maybe not so convenient for those reluctant to adopt new technology, who prefer cash. Currency has long been a symbol of sovereignty. It seems we are surrendering this to the international banking network, in the name of improved efficiency, cost and convenience. Fine, until the next catastrophic system hack, financial melt-down, or collapse of the global electronic network due to an unprecedented huge solar flare. I'm happier to put my faith in God, than I am in the latest electronic/economic fad, however brilliantly designed there are hidden flaws in everything that the Bible calls 'the work of human hands'. This is ignored at our peril.

We had booked on a later coach, two hours after arrival, in case there was a flight delay. We landed on time, however, and were shocked to discover that instead of paying a £5 fee to change our National Express booking we'd have to pay £24 to ride on an earlier coach. I was furious about this as we had not been correctly informed when booking the tickets at Sophia Gardens Coach Station in Cardiff, but Clare insisted that we pay up, so after another four hours coach riding and a local bus we were back home by six o'clock. Thankfully, there as no need to go out and buy food, as we had enough veg to cook an evening meal, remaining from last week. Now there's a big pile of washing to be done, mail to open, grass to be mown and early bed, after ten hours travel time. It's such a relief to return to reliable decent speed internet again. And finally tidy up the mess made to this blog by such an inadequate on-board wi-fi system. 

Apart from this hassle, the cruise itself was an enriching experience, thanks to the professionalism and care of all those who were involved in making it work. A fine example of euro-co-operation, at the domestic consumer level. I wonder what impact brexit will have on this, apart from higher prices?

  

  

Alpine excursion

We had another early start for an excursion to Luzern this morning. Clare decided not to come along, and took herself off across Basel on public transport to visit Colette, a colleague from Geneva days who lives in the southern suburbs. As we drove along the eastern ring road past the vast industrial estate of pharmaceutical factories, I remembered how we'd first driven this way in 1976, with the children in a Citroen Dyane, towards the Gottard pass on our way to a group holiday in Palazzola, Rome. Indeed, we stopped overnight in a small hotel in a village near Luzern, to get some rest, after having driven all day from Bristol. The place names along the route are still familiar to me, as I'd rehearsed the route with a map several times before this first experience of driving on the continent.

We made good time to Luzern and the coaches dropped our party conveniently in the town centre and then went to park elsewhere. Each tour group is allowed to do this, booking a drop off time to suit themselves, and a return pick up time. All is expertly marshalled by a man wearing a Securitas branded luminous vest. I enjoyed an hour of brisk walking around taking photos, before returning early to observe the comings and goings at the coach stop. There seemed to be mostly selfie stick wielding Chinese and Japanese visitors in town at the same time as us. Many of our group were toting cameras or smartphones, but not one had a selfie stick that I noticed. From Luzern, we drove on into the Bernese Oberland,  past Lake Brienz, then turning into an climbing up a valley on a narrow winding road, to Lauterbrunnen. 

There, we boarded a mountain railway train cremaillere, similar in design to the one that ascends from Yverdon les bains to Ste Croix in the Jura. It offers great views of spectacular scenery as we climbed to 2060m to stop off for half an hour at the busy station of Kleine Scheidegg, passing Wengen on the way. The station serves two different railway lines that link the pass with Grindlewald in the valley 1500m below. This is a hub for winter sports, skiing, hiking and mountain climbing, situated at the top of a pass from where the still snow clad slopes of the Jungfrau, Moench and Eiger peaks can be seen towering above. At station level, most of the snow had gone, though only recently, we were told. The higher mountain passes are only now starting to open for the summer season.

After our brief look around and photo opportunity, a different kind of train took us down the eastern side of the pass to Grindlewald, where we were met by our four coaches punctually. From there it was a a two hour return drive past Interlaken, alongside the Thunersee towards Bern, then back to Basel. Despite rush hour traffic, we were back at the ship by six. It can sometimes take an extra hour if there's any  traffic problem.

Then, a final supper, and bag packing, ready for a nine o'clock departure for the Dreieck Flughafen, and our flight back to Heathrow. Four and a half hours in a coach today, and tomorrow another five hours in a coach plus an hour's flight, to get us home. An inevitable surfeit of sitting, I'm afraid, but with delighful memories and photos of all the places we've seen this past week. It will be good to get back to decent speed internet again. Doing anything apart from emailing this week has been a nightmare of delays and dropped links. And this on a new ship. I think the travel industry that caters for 'silver surfers' greatly underestimates their need for connectivity at least as good as at home.

Speyer to Breisach

After passing through a sequence of five locks during the evening and early hours of the morning, the MV Emily Bronte moored outside the historic town of Breisach, in the so called Kaiserstuhl region of the German Rhineland plain which has the mountains of the Black Forest to the east and the Swiss Jura to the south. At the centre of the region is the ancient university city of Freiburg im Breisgau.  It's a highly fertile region with volcanic soil, renowned for its wine and brandy production.

Then, after breakfast, we were taken by coach on a tour through some villages of the Kaiserstuhl, and up into the mountains to visit Titisee, a small lake fed by glacial waters, with the holiday resort town of Neustadt wrapped around its eastern end. The journey took an hour and a half, and we were subjected to a well informed running commentary throughout, delivered by someone whose accent and English grammar were characteristic of someone for whom English was probably their third or fourth language, and wasn't as accurate as it needed to be for a British English only audience. As it was still early in the day, a few pauses to look at the scenery without interruption would have helped data digestion.

Titisee was busy with visitors from all around the world, and our scheduled stay was just an hour and ten minutes. Not just to get us back in time for lunch, I suspect, but because there would be a flow of other scheduled coach parties to maintain in the relatively small car park, throughout sensible visiting hours. We walked around the eastern edge of the lake in two directions, observed the boat traffic on the lake, and then followed the sound of an open air band to the place where it was performing Strauss waltzes in an open air concert arena several hundred metres away. We also briefly visited the Christkoenigkirche, and said a few prayers, mindful of the fact that it's the sixth Sunday of Easter. 

Disappointingly Riviera Travel scheduling does not take into account the worship needs of its clients. There's no information provided about the possibility of attending a Sunday service at any destination. Some opted not to go on the bus trip, but to stay and attend Mass in Breisach. I had a personal reason to visit a place where my mother had been before she had her stroke, and hoped there might be a mid morning service to drop in on, but there wasn't. At least the church was open. Given the number of people we've met on this trip who are churchgoers, and with so many of the travellers senior citizens, more likely to attend church than any other demographic group, I think there's room for improvement here.

Our return trip was half an hour shorter, by a faster route. Two and a half hours in a bus with a one hour stay didn't to me seem the right balance for an outing. Anyway we were back at the ship just after one, and after a couple of short travel briefings about tomorrow's Swiss Alps trip and homegoing, the rest of the afternoon was free for us to spend exploring Breisach.

The town has a fine Minister church on top of a promontory overlooking the Rhine. For centuries this rocky outcrop was an obstacle dividing the river, and most of the area where the present town stands was flood prone meadow or wetland. In the nineteenth century a major engineering project established a huge long barrage covering the main river channels and islands, containing two separate lock systems. The river banks were stabilised, land was drained, and the town built around and on the promontory could then be extended over the reclaimed land.

The Minster church originated in the 11th century but was enlarged in the 14-15 centuries. One tower is Romenesque, the other later one has a Gothic spire. The west end interior walls are covered with frescoes from the expansion period, much faded but well conserved nevertheless. There's a carved stone chancel screen of this period, also in a north aisle side chapel a niche elaborately carved with images of Christ's burial, at one time used as part of the ritual of the Paschal Triduum. The modern nave altar is a glass box, showcasing a reliquary chest to hold the bones of local saints. Amazingly, this fine piece of craftsmanship dates from the 1970s.

The territory on which Breisach stands has been fought over by French and Germans for centuries. The Minster was reduced to ruins towards the end of the second world war, but rebuilt and restored thanks to the leadership of the Parish Priest and an eminent local academic historian. Both had been against the war and nazism, and were imprisoned for their witness in a concentration camp, yet survived to carry out a great work of love and peacemaking.

The Rhine is the Franco German frontier. Because of 19th century alterations in the course of the river, Breisach although a German town is in France, and the frontier line is now just outside the town boundary. In the 1950s, the town took advantage of this unusual situation, declaring itself to be a truly 'european' town where borders no longer matter, a first grassroots step towards building a European Community of nations. What lovely stories to arise from the tragedy of what will hopefully be the last European war, to matter what English nationalists may do to disassociate the UK from this reconciliation project.

Supper this evening was preceded by another Captain's reception to thank the staff and the crew for their work during the cruise, and was followed by a seven course meal. We sat at table with a couple from Telford, we'd not met before. Both are active in their local church, one a church warden, the other an ex-church warden. married in 1966, like us. I think we've met about ten people who are churchgoers during this week. It rather proves my point about the neglected churchgoing demographic among cruise clients.

As we were getting ready for bed, we went through the last of the ten locks on our 500km journey up river. We will dock in Switzerland at Basel Hafen, according to the itinerary, just after midnight. It'll be our first return visit to the country in five years. This time at the opposite northern corner from where we arrived to live and work back in November 1992, just after a Swiss referendum declined participation in the Schengen agreement, like the Brits. Neither country has suffered, and both have prospered since. But Switzerland has the Rhine as its main industrial artery, and a different economic story altogether.

Speyer to Strasbourg

Having cruised through the night, the MV Emily Bronte arrived and was mooring at a river crossing near Plittersdorf by the time I woke up at six thirty this morning. It's hard to find on the map, but the place is about 10km north of the first river lock we encounter on this journey to Switzerland, near a village called Iffezheim. This place is the nearest a long cruise ship like ours can moor and deposit passengers for collection by coach, for visits to Strasbourg, which is three quarters of an hour's drive south, and west across the Rhine in France. It's a demanding exercise in logistic punctuality, as the aim is to give visitors three hours in the city, and get them all back on board in time for a departure during lunch, to meet the Iffezheim lock schedule. 

So, we were obliged to breakfast half an hour early and be on board the coaches - all four of them for 130+ people - by eight thirty. Needless to say, some of us dozed on the coach, there and back. Each coach load had its own guide for a walking tour of Strasbourg's historic World Heritage Site old town centre, ending up with a visit to the amazing Cathedral of our Lady, with its vast exquisite array of huge stained glass windows, its highly ornate and detailed late Gothic west front and 169m high spire, one of Europe's tallest. The array of well preserved houses from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century from the times of both German and French rule, is truly impressive.

By a quarter to twelve, I'd had enough visual amazement for a morning and photos to prove it, so we wandered for a while around street vegetable and flea market stalls, then drank a local beer in a pub, before returning to meet the rest of our party, to be escorted to the coach parking lot in a different place on the edge of the city centre. The city was very busy and crowded with tourists. Managing throughput through narrow streets with millions of visitors a year must be headache for the authorities. I imagine the regulations for handling coach parties has to be very strict, if chaos is to be avoided.

We were both ready for a hearty lunch by two, when we got back, after an earlier than usual breakfast. By quarter past, the ship was under way again, and an hour later we passed through the first and largest lock on the ascent to Basle. There are several more to come, and for this reason we'll be cruising from this afternoon until early tomorrow morning, when we will disembark once more for an excursion into the Black Forest town of Breisach and a visit to the Titisee. 

We last visited the Black Forest region as young back packing hitch-hikers in 1965, for a brief meeting with my parents who were staying at Lahr im Schwarzwald on their first ever and only package holiday. After this brief encounter, we travelled on to Taize for the first time and stayed the weekend. As we were getting ready to depart we received a message to say that my mother was in hospital with a serious stroke, which for her was the end of fully active and hardworking life, and five years of infirmity until her death. It has never occurred to us to return there since then.

From Ruedesheim to Speyer

There were no fewer than eight cruise ships parked along a kilometer of river bank at Ruedesheim, some of them side by side. Ours was fortunate enough to be moored on its own. I woke up as it started to move away from the shore just after four and drifted off to sleep until half past five. The first two mornings, it was first light by half past four, but this morning, it stayed dark until I finally woke up, as the sky was heavily overcast with cloud, and it was raining. Such a contrast. To judge by the buildings, we were passing through an industrial zone. I checked the Blackberry's GPS mapping device and learned that we were close to Mainz, just over 300km from our final destination with two more overnight stops to come.

We sailed south for seven hours in continued rain, until we docked outside Speyer just after lunch. It was too wet to go out on deck, and difficult to take photos from the relative shelter of our little cabin balcony. Nevertheless, Stuart treated us to an interesting and highly appropriate commentary about the history of the Reformation over the tannoy, as we travelled past Worms to reach Speyer. Both cities are key places of pilgrimage for protestant Christianity due to the story of controversy awakened by Martin Luther's publication of the 95 Theses, and how this was dealt with by Church and State. Speyer was the place where German princes signalled support for church reform to the Holy Roman Emperor, and won the freedom for each to determine the state religion of the populace they rule. It was where the term 'protestant' was adopted for advocates of church reform. 

Speyer is quite an appropriate tour destination given this year's 500th anniversary of the publication of the 95 theses, and Stuart's account of the social and economic background of the Rhineland contributing to this major paradigm shift in European religious and social thinking was most helpful in reminding me of church history I once covered in theological college for exam purposes, but had never properly absorbed. It more than made up for a very rainy day spent indoors. As for the city, it was a place of royal importance, in mediaeval times, and several kings are buried in a Cathedral crypt dating back to the eleventh century.

The rain slowed to a drizzle and then stopped and started intermittently after we disembarked. A twenty minute walk took us through an extensive park to the Cathedral, a huge Romanesque building with four tall towers and a dome covering the crossing. It's a very tall building internally with massive rounded arches, constructed in pale coloured, durable Old Red Sandstone. It seems sparsely furnished, although it contains all the liturgical essentials, simply because of the vast spaces enclosed. It has probably benefited from twentieth century reforms in terms of its layout for contemporary usage, and its very simplicity would make it acceptable as a house of prayer for Catholics and Protestants alike as long as they don't mind worshipping in such a huge building, with few intimate spaces.

Curiously enough, the neighbouring Protestant church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity is a seventeenth century baroque edifice. We couldn't visit, however, as it was closed for renovation. At the end of the main high street is the last remaining mediaeval town gateway. Walls and towers of the old fortified city long ago disappeared. The city has been reduced to ruin several times in the wars between French and German, Catholic and Protestant over the centuries. The original town gateway and walls would have been 5-6 metres high, but the remaining one acquired a very tall ornate superstructure containing suits of rooms and a tall steep pitched roof, perhaps as a civic status symbol of sorts. 

There is in the city, a large and very ornate early twentieth century Protestant church in the Florissant Gothic style, with coloured tiled roof and a spire whose ring of bells were visible through the stone tracery at the base of its conical section. This was built to commemorate the fourth centenary of the reformation. Sadly, it too was closed by the time I reached it. Not so, another large Catholic parish church the opposite side of the road, constructed in 14-15th century Gothic style. I was unable to determine its age, but as it was almost a kilometre away from the Cathedral, so could well have been built to serve population expansion as the town grew in the nineteenth century.

We also found a small Jewish quarter with the remains of a mediaeval synagogue with a mikvah, ritual bath next to it. The seventeenth century house adjacent is the town's Jewish museum. It's a reminder that Speyer, like so many other big towns had substantial Jewish communities, since ancient times. There wasn't enough time to visit the large and popular museum of transport, but we did have tea and cheese cake in a conditorei, and Clare visited some clothes shops while I went church crawling. All in all despite the damp weather, it was an interesting afternoon, involving quite a lot of walking, so we were glad to return to the ship for supper, and a guitar recital before turning in, tired out, aware that just after midnight, the ship would slip her moorings and continue heading up-river overnight. 

  

Koblenz to Ruedesheim

I woke up in time to see the sunrise at twenty to six. The MV Emily Bronte was still moored, but three ships along the quay behind us had already left. By six we reversed away from our mooring in the river Mosel, all the way into the Rhine, about a kilometer away. As there was no other river traffic about at the time, I presume this was safer to do than blocking the mouth of the Mosel by turning full circle.

We progressed up-river at just over talking pace through a broad landscape of rising hills, forested ar first, but then increasingly covered with a patchwork of vineyards. Here and there there was evidence that new patches of forest were being cleared to develop terrain as new vineyards.. This is no doubt more profitable than forest, but one has to wonder about the long term impact of the loss of trees.

The river bank on both sides contains a succession of beautiful villages, almost all overlooked from the south by castles, only occasionally castle ruins. Many Rhineland castles had originally been taken out of military use in late mediaeval efforts at law enforcement against robber barons, and fallen into ruin, and been only partly occupied. The nineteenth German Romantic movement, on the back of industrially created wealth, saw many of these restored and developed as stately homes, very much in the same way that Cardiff Castle was redeveloped and greatly enhanced. Some are still home to wealthy people who want an apartment with ancient character, but most serve as hotels or conference centres.

During the morning we were accompanied on deck and in the main lounge by the voice of Stuart, our tour guide, who spoke, often with historical anecdotes, not only about the towns and villages we were approaching, but also about the history of the river itself as Western Europe's main industrial artery. The story of how it has become one of the world's largest commercial waterways since Napoleonic times, is quite fascinating, and is still unfolding as work continues on improving river channels and managing traffic flow. Hundred metre long barges carrying fuel and raw materials are a frequent sight, and amazingly now there are even larger vessels carrying fifty to a hundred standard containers to and from Switzerland to Rotterdam, one of the world's largest ports. An impressive amount of homework will have gone into making such an interesting presentation over a four hour period.

The highlight of the morning was passing the legendary Loreley rock outcrop, the narrowest and most dangerous point in the Rhine, with legends of its own, and much photgraphed bronze statue of a siren maiden whose voice was once said to lure sailors to their room. Just as interesting to me was to learn how millions of tons of hard quarzite rock outcropping from the river bed had to be excavated to make it deeper and safer for navigation, achieved in the second half of the twentieth century.

One through the gorge that distinguishes the Mddle Rhine region, the river widens and opens up into a flatter more rolling rural landscape. As we were finishing lunch, we arrived for on overnight stay at the small wine producing town of Ruedesheim, home to the famous Ansbach Uralt brandy distillery, with a beautiful 15th-18th century heart to it, with shops guest houses and bars, with Weinstuben, showcasing local winemakers' offerings as well as meals.

It's a delightful place. We spent much of the afternoon wandering the streets among crowds of elderly tourists like ourselves, German as well as English. It was inevitable we should end up in a Weinstube, enjoying glasses of Herr Philipp's Trocken Reisling and Spatburgunder, not to mention delicious white and red Traubensaft.  Equally pleasurable was to hear German spoken all around us, and enjoy using the language again. It's been quite a while since we spent proper time in Germany.

After supper on board, we were both tired enough for another early night, so we missed the evening's music quiz in the main lounge, and settled in our cabin. Unfortunately the free on-board internet link is under-powered and over-used, often taking five minutes to log on, as the evening is peak usage demand for many wanting to stay in touch with home. I'm glad to have my trusty Blackberry to fall back on once more. I can't believe I've taken over 200 photos again today. Processing and uploading them all will have to wait until we return home, however.

   

Cologne to Koblenz

I was awakened by the sound of the ship's engines starting up just after four this morning. By twenty past four the MV Emily Bronte was heading south, travelling up river towards Switzerland, 500km and five days journey away. Bearing in mind that this would be half past three in the morning at home, I was surprised there was enough light to take photographs of places we passed through, well before sunrise at twenty to six. Each side of the Rhine, motorways and railways run. There are also paths along which cyclists ride and pedestrians walk their dogs. By five I watched cyclists, presumably headed for work, or fitness training overtaking the boat. I estimate the boat speed to be eight to ten kilometres an hour, so this is not surprising. What is surprising is how many people were out and about purposefully at five in the morning, four in UK time. We are a nation of late risers.

I couldn't get back to sleep, so I sat outside on our little balcony taking photographs until the top deck was opened up for the day. We went for breakfast at eight and lunched at one, and as we were finishing this meal, we moored in Koblenz, at a quay which is on the river Mosel. It joins the Rhine here. Clare was a teenager when she last took a trip up the river which took her from Cologne to Bonn. Place names were familiar if nothing else. There's been so much development in the past fifty years, but there are many riverside resorts of long standing with fine hotel buildings, either along the shore or perched on neighbouring hilltops. 

Passing Konigswinter and the Siebengebirge range of hills, brought to mind the story of Seigrfrid slaying the dragon at the beginning of Wagner's 'Das Rheingold'. It would have been nice to have some opera over the tannoy at that stage. We were treated to a little martial music, however, as we passed by Remagen, one of the epic battle sites of the Second World War. Our tour manager Leslie told us over the tannoy about how the Allied victory was achieved on the back of German incompetence over the supply of explosives to destroy the bridge before the allied advance. The bridge entrance portals on either side are all that remain today. The one on the Remagen side now serves as a Peace museum.

This them re-emerged in Koblenz. Before the borders changed it was a French town. Kaiser Wilhelm built a huge monument in 1897 to celebrate the political unification of German speaking people and territories in 1853. It's on the town river bank shared by the Mosel and the Rhine. It's known as 'die Deutsche Ecke', the German Corner. It was the place where in 1953 Chancellor Adenauer pledged to work for the post war re-unification of Germany, achieved finally after the surprise fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. The monument is huge, dark and triumphalistic, and in its shadow three concrete slabs, relics of the Wall have been erected, each bearing in bronze letters, one of these dates. It is such a simple statement covering 130 years of European history, and very moving to someone who travelled to East Germany, as I did, just before the last political division of Germany ended.

There are some fine mediaeval churches in the town centre. The oldest site had a late Roman empire municipal building on it which was converted for church use in the fourth century, and rebuilt several times since. Clare reckons this is where Charlemagne's sons met to divide up the Holy Roman Empire in the ninth century. The point of interest for me is a liturgical one. Koblenz is in the Catholic diocese of Trier, which played an  important role in the scholarship and practice of reforming worship and introducing German into the liturgy a generation before Vatican II. I remembered this from my studies at St Mike's, which happened just after Vatican II happened. 

The old mediaeval town centre has many beautiful 15th to 18th century buildings, mostly in a pedestrianised zone. Beyond this to the south is the modern city and shopping centre, with all the usual global retail brands in attendance, and some large recently built stores whose modern design is utterly unappealing. The riverside promenades and the old town provide more than enough for passing visitors, unless one is desperate for fashionable consumer goods to add to on-board luggage.

Before supper there was a drinks reception, during which key members of crew and hospitality team were introduced to travellers. By the end of the meal we were both very tired and headed for our cabin immediately, rather than socialise. I'd been on my feet for the best part of seventeen hours apart from meal times, and there's this posting to make and Due Lingo practice to complete before sliding under the duvet for a long night's slumber, hopefully.

Journey to the Rhineland

Finally, a day free of duties, except packing for tomorrow's flight to Cologne to join the Rhine cruise. Both Clare and I visited our hairdressers, checked our belongings several times, and used up all the fresh food in meals for the day and breakfast sandwich packs. I'm taking the HX30 and HX300 cameras again, plus the Chromebook, and two phones. I have my Blackberry work phone operational again, as I've been asked to continue in an advisory role to the CBS Ltd directors for a while longer. I am happy to do this and take my time doing so. I'm not attuned to the pressures of office life these days. Besides, dealing with people pastorally as much as I do these days is what I do best, and seems most needed. 

With a taxi booked to take us for the six o'clock Heathrow coach, early bed seemed obligatory. We were both up and about before five, and at the coach station by twenty to six. The coach delivered us to Heathrow terminal five twenty minutes early for check-in and security clearance. The Dusseldorf flight was full, with a mix of business and domestic travellers, and couple of dozen people like ourselves from all over the country, headed for the Rhine cruise ship in Cologne. Our coach from airport to ship had to weave its way through 50km of rush hour traffic, nearly doubling our transit time.

On a quay one kilometer south and over the Rhine from Cologne's majestic mediaeval cathedral, the MV Emily Bronte our ship for the week, was moored. It's the newest of the Riviera line. Soon we met several of the team who looked after us on the Danube cruise last May, experienced staff transferred, presumably to help train a new team for a new ship.

Interesting to me, the ship has new generation hotel security technology to keep track of passengers comings and goings. The RFID room key card is registered with a photo of the key-holder, taken in situ, matching everyone on the passengers and crew database. A contactless scanner, like those used for card payments, is located on the reception desk, and everyone is required to scan themselves off and on the ship. Reception staff can check against misuse as the network displays a photo of the keyholder scanned. Passwordless WiFi logs one in to a web page which displays a custom QR code giving the device MAC address, presumably. Scanning the code clears it for internet attachment. Clever!

Our upper deck cabin is one of a handful of one room bed-sits with a small external balcony, so it's possible to sit outside during the day. We must have been among the last to book. There's a full complement of passengers, and this was the only one left. So luxurious, and more than I'd usually want to pay, but we both felt we didn't want to wait another year, after quite a busy and demanding six months of autumn and winter.

The standard of cuisine on these ships is very high and we enjoyed an excellent supper, chatting with a couple from Southampton, a retired mathematician who spent two years at CERN and his wife, a retired teacher. Clare was ready for bed after this, so I attended the safety briefing on my own. Being less tired, after dozing fitfully throughout much of the day's travel, I have time to collect my thoughts and ponder a little before turning in, delighted for a respite from British electioneering for a week.