May 13 to June 6, 2011 Prinsendam Cruise

Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Next to St. John's, a rainy day.

View from Top of the Rock; Empire State Bldg in the fog.

Rebuilding at the 9/11 site

The Prisendam as we left on the tender for Martha's Vineyard; very rough water over and back!!

Martha's Vineyard was very scenic.

The cruise had five "formal" dinners.

The Azores: Terceira Island, we saw Angra do Heroismo & Praia Da Vitoria.

Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Guia in Angra do Heroismo. The island was very clean.

House next to the church.

View of Praia da Vitoria where we had docked.

The Prinsendam's maître d' and Linda. The ship is at left.

In Lisbon, Queluz palace was influenced by Versailles.

The palace gardens.

Sintra was charming.

The Cascais, Estoril area.

Lisbon view from the ship. The Spanish Armada sailed from Lisbon.

Portuguese folk dancing was the ship's entertainment one night in Lisbon.

Porto was a place we'd like to see again. We did some wine tasting on the Ferreira winery tour.

Interesting tile on this church.

A view of Porto. Leixoes is its port.

The "Stock Exchange" in Porto.

The four of us enjoyed the Crow's Nest.

The Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in western Galicia, Spain was one of the trip's highlights.

Another view of the cathedral built between 1060 and 1211.

A pilgrim's passport to the cathedral. Pilgrims come from all over the world to visit this cathedral.

A mime in Santiago de Compostela.

Thought to be St. James' remains.

The cathedral's magnificent organ.

Another inside view.

After the cathedral visit, we had wine, snacks and music at the nearby parador.

"Koko" was an excellent dining steward. Rif was his assistant.

The church at Saint Emilion. The ship docked at Bordeaux.

Racing ahead to get this picture, snapped something in my leg.

Docked at Brest, we went to "Quaint Quimper."

Quimper, pronounced "kem PAIR," was really quaint. The bus had a hard time getting us to city center.

More Quimper. Hundreds of kids did bicycle tours in age group teams as part of a holiday.

Inside the Quimper church.

More of the church.

Mont Saint Michel was a very, very busy place. The ship docked (tendered) at St. Malo.

Where the omelette was invented.

The Saint Michel Abbey, a real highlight.

One of only a couple very old buildings that survived a fire that destroyed St. Malo.

Some drinks after we got back to St. Malo, Brittany. A local beer, Carole got a free glass.

A tender from the Prinsendam.

We docked at Cherbourg, Normandy. A REAL trip highlight was the Bayeaux Tapestry, an 11th century, 224 ft embroidery describing the Norman Conquest.

The Bayeaux Cathedral was started in the 11th century.

Inside the cathedral.

Neat looking dog spotted in front of the cathedral.

A rainy day in Bruges. The Holy Savior Cathedral was started in the 12th century.

The Church of Our Lady was built during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.

An example of the wooden buildings that used to be allowed in Bruges.

The Belfry of Bruges in the distance was built in 1240 and rebuilt in 1280 after a fire. Top added in 1487.

Another view during our Bruge canal cruise.

Harry, Linda and Carole with our Flemish guide.

A rainy day in Amsterdam, too. Houseboats pay heavily to use canal space. They dump sewage into the canals.

A pedal-powered craft is approaching our cruise boat.

A diamond "factory" tour was included in our Amsterdam tour.

Fast food at Schiphol Airport. “Vlaamse Frites” translates to Flemish Fries. Some say french fries should be called "belgian fries."

We stayed at the citizenM hotel at Schiphol. A good price, uber-modern and AT the airport.

A view from the bed of a citizenM hotel room. I thought it was a real treat, Linda didn't. Shower was hard to use.

On Aer Lingus leaving Amsterdam. Changed planes in Dublin and went thru security three times!! Fine flight to Orlando!!