AFT VIEW
A French, Spanish and VERY British Sojourn
Our cruise ‘insider’ and
ship lecturer Peter Rushton highlights the classic cruise experience aboard Voyages of Discovery
of that Very Special Wedding just two days ago. It is also just one day after our return from a delightful ‘French & Spanish Sojourn’ on Voyages of Discovery’s Discovery. More about the wedding later, but first something of the cruise. We sailed from the new Cruise & Ferry
I
Terminal, Portsmouth, on April 23, just a month since it officially opened. It is a pleasant building, with check-in and information points in the spacious ground floor hall, a bar/cafeteria and seating area upstairs, from where there is a good view over the Naval Dockyard. The berth itself is a short shuttle
drive from the terminal building but the boarding operation was handled smoothly
pen these words on a glorious 1st
of
May with the sun beating down from a cloudless sky and the Sunday papers packed to the gunwales with photos
by a shoreside team that had got its act together seamlessly. The sailaway must be one of the most interesting, with a large part of the Fleet but a stone’s throw distant. The masts of Victory dominated the
skyline almost immediately behind Ark Royal – at the time of our sailing probably the largest item to be featured on e-Bay. An impeccably uniformed military band bade us farewell, and the whole occasion had more pomp and circumstance than the usual departure, especially for naval buffs aboard. We were to have more pomp and circumstance later. The Spanish part of the cruise included
Ferrol and Bilbao; the French, Bordeaux and Nantes. Guernsey was added at the
end for good measure. Southbound there was scarcely a ripple in the Bay and the sea-day aboard Discovery saw the lecture programme swing into gear with a Port Lecture and two Enrichment Lectures, underscoring the company’s recent award for Best Lecture Programme afloat. Bright sunshine in Ferrol encouraged
many to head off for the Galician delights of Santiago de Compostela and Betanzos,
Summer 2011 I WORLD OF CRUISING 95
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100