A Night at Faulty Towers

July 29 2015

Aboard Brilliance of the Seas off Harwich, England

A Night at Faulty Towers

Imagine an English hotel-apartment that was built along the seashore in the 19^th Century and had all the appearance of a classic inn.  Now imagine that after entering this place with a skeleton-type key you noticed a random collection of furnishings from IKEA and other odd sources that looked dreadfully out of place. 

Upon entering the kitchen, you noticed a strange amalgam of appliances, a few utensils and other items that you could not figure out.

Notice how tub fills from ceiling.

Our recent visit to this Essex “hotel” brought the British sit-com Faulty Towers to mind.  Our first impression upon entering the hallway that doubled as an office was “Is this really a hotel?”  Upon check-out the following morning, the question remained.  If there was an academy award for disorganization, this place would win, hands down.

The bedroom was located on the second story, accessible via a narrow, winding staircase that lacked even rudimentary safety rails.
The upstairs bath had “design” features that must have come from a mental patient.  The proprietor, a senior lady, pointed out that, in order to use the modern bathtub, you had to turn on two wall faucets, whereby the water would fill from a nozzle located in the ceiling eight feet above the tub!  The apartment also had a stall shower, complete with crumbling tiles and an odd array of horizontal spray nozzles, but no conventional overhead shower head, just a round grille in the ceiling with holes in it.  Upon using this novel shower the next morning, we would realize that the overhead shower had inadequate pressure to rinse Donna’s hair.  Furthermore, possibly due to some loose shower tiles, water dripped down the staircase when the shower was being used.

The ponds in the garden were covered with what appeared to be, green slime.  It was obvious that no outside maintenance had taken place this year.  I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

a beautiful morning stroll along the Harwich promenade

The breakfast, which was included, consisted of an odd array of items served by a young woman, who obviously never worked in a restaurant.  The food, while decent, was an strange selection of items.

classic Tudor-style homes

After breakfast, we took a wonderful morning walk along Harwich’s picturesque beachfront for about an hour.  Quite a few dog-walkers were enjoying the brisk, sunny day and we marveled at the variety of architecture from the ocean-view homes.  A few reminded us of Toad Hall.  Many had as many as 26 chimneys. 

We finally packed our bags and our taxi picked us up and transported us to the cruise port.  We were surprised by the efficiency and courtesy shown to us by the port staff and we were able to board right away, without any delay. 

We were pleased by our stateroom on the Brilliance of the Seas, located at the very bow of the ship, right behind the bridge and on the starboard side.  It was an inside room, but it seemed larger than those we were used to.

We met with our contact with the cruise staff and found out that we had been scheduled for two presentations on the next day, something that rarely happens.

This is really a multinational cruise, with 1000 Brits and about half as many American passengers.  We also had large contingents of Canadians, Germans,Asians and Israelis.

Now off to bed and ready for work the next day.

Holland to England

July 28, 2015

Leaving the Continent

Today would be an interesting day of travel for us.  We checked out of our wonderful Amsterdam hotel early in this blustery morning to catch the ferry to England.  Our Dutch taxi moved effortlessly through the morning traffic to the station where were scheduled to take the train to Rotterdam and then make connections  Our timetable showed this as a 30 minute trip, while the same trip four days before and taken us 90 minutes. Little we realize that we were booked on the high-speed Thalys for the first leg.  Unlike Brussels, Amsterdam has elevators that make train travel a pleasure.

We had ridden the same train from Paris to Brussels and marveled at the speed and comfort.  We even found a place to stow our large suitcase!  The helpfulness of the train passengers all over this part of Europe is amazing, since trains in this area don’t check luggage or have porters.

We were soon in Rotterdam and waited a short time for the local train to Hook of Holland, where we would board our ferry. The train ride was a run of less than 20 miles and stopped every mile or two, a real “milk run.”

The Hollandia, our ferry

Our stop in Hook of Holland was at a vacant station in an industrial port area.  We spotted our ferry about a block away.  We found the nearly-empty passenger terminal, checked our baggage and waited to board the ship.  When we hear the word “ferry,” we visualize a rather small craft.  The Stena Line’s Hollandia, by contrast, is an oceangoing ship, complete with staterooms and the ability to carry hundreds of cars and trucks. Kari had reserved us space in a first-class passenger lounge and we enjoyed the six hour crossing from Holland, across the English Channel and North Sea, to Harwich, in Essex.

The weather was not pleasant, but the crossing was uneventful.  Although the vehicle decks were packed, there were very few walk-ons, like us. 
We eventually reached the terminal, went through a rather awkward disembarking and unorganized, but we caught a British taxi which brought us to our quirky hotel. 

An Emotional Dutch Day

Monday was our last full day in Amsterdam before we leave the continent and our "vacation" part of the trip. Today, Tuesday we depart for England and our working part of the month's adventures. We have experienced so many extraordinary sights and things during our first 13 days abroad and now look forward to our days on the cruise.  We will board the ship from Harwich England tomorrow and cruise for another 12 days. (Our email probably may not be very reliable so we may not have the ability to blog each day but we will catcch up when we have a connection).

As the title of this day suggests, it was an emotional day for us. Not only was it the finish of our exploring on our own in Europe but it was the day of a tour that we had planned for a long time. Since the first day that we started to work with Kari, we knew that when we were in Amsterdam we would want to spend some time walking in the footsteps of the numerous people who had sadly lived and died during WWII suffering the atrocities brought forth by Nazi Germany when they marched into Amsterdam. We both were very familiar with Anne Frank's life and knew that many other Jews had been torn from their homes in Amsterdam and sent to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis when they invaded this and other cities. But we had not realized the great amount of Jews that had lived in this beautiful city prior to and after the war. There were  over 100,000 Jewish citizens in this city prior to 1940 and fewer than 10% were left after the war. A very small number had left prior to the invasion but most were sent to the concentration camps when they were herded, like animals just because of their religion.

interior of the Portuguese synagogue

As Jews ourselves, we wanted to see everything we could, not just the obligatory Anne Frank that everyone visits while in Amsterdam. Kari pre-booked us into a 5 hour tour of Jewish Amsterdam which included the late 15th century Portuguese Synagogue. This lovely building is still as it was when built in the 16th century and has a lovely history that proves the strength of the souls that withstood the wars. It is still used for special occasions in much the same matter as early days with no electricy for lights or heat. We learned that it was called Portuguese because the Spanish Jews were not being permitted to emigrate into Amsterdam in the 15th century during the Inquisition in Spain by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ,so the immigrants said they were from Portugal and not Spain where many of them had actually fled from.
This emotionally interesting tour also included the collections of items in the basement of the synagogue and also the Jewish Historical Museum. These two buildings house hundreds of artifacts including the largest library of books and scholarly Jewish writings in current use in the world.
Our tour included a diamond factory owned by Jews for hundreds of years and it was interesting. We had expected a more high pressure tour trying to sell us diamonds but we were pleasantly surprised that it was not that kind of tour. Very interesting.

Anne Frank remembered

The day ended with a tour through the Anne Frank house. Since we had purchased the package tour, we did not have to stand in the rain for 3 hours waiting to get into this place that the Frank family spent their final days in Amsterdam before being rounded up and taken to Auschwitz where all but the father, Otto died. Anne wrote this touching story of her family's days in hiding and then died in thee camp just a month before liberation. I think everyone has read this book sometime during their lives.

Entrance to the hideout

 I also acted in the play and was the student director of, "The Dairy of Anne Frank" while I was in drama in high school, so I was very familiar with the story but visiting house was so much more emotional to me. Walking the very floors and stairs that this family so secretly walked for so long gave me a much better understanding of just how cramped this space was for the eight people in hiding.  It took almost 2 hours to meander through the house, along with the hundreds of other silent people reading everything written and trying to understand what a difficult emotional time this must have been for all involved in this and other similar families. A time of uncertainty, not knowing who might be sabotaging them with the Nazis, who were intent on capturing all of the Jews for eventual extermination in the camps.
We somberly returned to our hotel after walking for over ten hours and found that we had added another 7.5 miles on our pedometer. After a stop for dinner at an Argentinian steak house,  we spent the rest of the evening packing and resting up the the next part of our adventure, two more train trips and a 6 hour ferry from the Netherlands to England.
Our new adventures begin tomorrow...on to England and Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas.  

Amsterdam - Sunday - continuation

Continuation from previous post--
Note to reader:  This tablet sometimes takes off and adds weird characteristics to postings.  This is not due to the incompetence of the operator (85% of the time), but is due to cyber-pixies and compu-trolls embedded deep within the CPU. -JM

We thoroughly enjoyed the spirit and life in Amsterdam's Jordaan district.  The love for life of the many residents on this beautiful Sunday afternoon was inspiring. Young families with their children in tow, countless, bicycles, motor scooters, trams with bells ringing and pedestrian traffic made the sidèwalks and crossings risky, although we never saw any actual accidents.  If you dislike positive, but frenetic activity, avoid Amsterdam.

We had planned to takè a tram back to our hotel, but the activity on the the streets just pulled us along, like a giant magnet.  As we approached Dam Square, the site of the city's origin, the crowds thickened, at times, reminding us of Disneyland's Main Street.  Unlike many city's central business districts, which are silent on Sundays, Amsterdam was running full tilt, in party mode.

Working our way through the teeming crowds and the twisting canals and streets, we were soon back at the Carlton.  After slipping out of our shoes off, we checked our smart phone and discovered we had logged over six miles so far today.

Turning on our tablet to check our messages, we received a note from Heidi Hoas, a distant cousin of John's, who had driven down from Norway and was in the city.  We had corresponded with her many times online, but had never met her in person.  She is a charming woman in her early 20s who was traveling with her boyfriend. A few years ago, she was an exchange student in the United States.  Her English was flawless. We had drinks in the hotel's bar and learned many things about life in Norway. This was certainly a high point of our trip.

Returning to our room, too tired for dinner, we snacked on a few items we had stashed in our fridge and turned in at about 10:30, after watching "Funniest Videos" on TV, in German, a language neither of us speak.

He have drinks with John's Norwegian cousin, Heidi, who is also in Amsterdam

a view form our Amsterdam hotel room on a quiet day.

A day on the Dam town

John at drawbridge

Sunday, July 26, Amsterdam
Since our last posting, we have seen much and done even more.
Last night, we went out looking for a nearby restaurant with local flavor.  Wandering through our neighborhood, we found many steakhouses (We seldom eat beef) a few pizzerias, Burger King, McDonald's (why even leave home if that's all you decide on?) a Mexican joint or two, and a number of high-end places.  Finally, we spotted a place that offered tapas and burgers.  Since we like Spanish food, stepped inside.
Although the restaurant was too dark to read the menu, with the aid of a flashlight, wè finally spotted one of our favorite dishes in the menu, paella con mariscos, that tasty concoction the we had learned to love during our trip to Spain over 20 years ago!  The savory dish lived up to its reputation and we retired to our hotel room full and smiling.
Sunday morning brought sunshine with a few broken clouds, a contrast to the gale-force winds and rains of the previous day.   After a buffet breakfast in the dining room, we decided to take the Hop-on-hop-off boat for a trip to our next destination.  Walking along canal-side on this beautiful morning, we noticed many downed limbs and several downed trees, a result of Saturday's storm.  Some had fallen into the canals, a few hitting houseboats and other watercraft tied up to pilings.

Canal dwellers taking their morning dip.

We reached the boat landing after about a 20 minute walk from the hotel and were surprised to see a couple who lived on one of the boats, jumping into the canal for a morning swim.  Although we didn't check the water temperature out ourselves, we can't imagine that it was anything but brisk.
We were soon on the boat.  The experience was much more pleasant than the previous day, due to the pleasant weather.  It looked so nice that John decided to open the sliding window next to our seats.  As soon as he grabbed the handlè the window glass disintegrated.into hundreds of of pieces.  Fortunately, it was tempered glass and no harm was done to anyone near us.  Wè all had a good laugh, even the crèwman, who commented on John's strength.

Vincent Van Gogh, self portrait

The Kitchen Maid, Vermeer's most famous work 

The Rijksmuseum is the nationl art museum of the Netherlands and was number one on our list of museums to visit since we were in the Louvre, earlier in our trip.  Upon reaching the second floor, we astounded to see a series of stained glass windows.  Upon inspection, we noticed that they were images of great artists, and not saints. We finally had the opportunityy to view, in person, many painting by the Great Masters that we had only read about.  Rembrandt was #1 on our list and were not disappointed.  I had never realized the enoumous size of some of the paintings, where some of the

Amsterdam's last windmill

figures were, literally, larger than life.  Night Watch, originally painted under another title, took an an entire will and was as good as its reputation.
We are certainly not art history experts, but fully appreciated other artists of the 17th Century including Vermeer and Van Dyke. On a lower floor were many of the impressionist paintings, including the famous self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh, a Dutchman who was not recognized in his home country during his own lifetime.
After departing. The museum, we ate a picnic lunch in the square that faces the building's rear entrance.  We had planned to take a tram to the Jordaan, a historic neighborhood that has been revitalized, according to recent publications.  We decided to walk there, with the aid of a number of maps and our trusty Garmin GPS. 

This was also the neighborhood where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis after the country was invaded and occupied by Germany during World War II

(to be. Continued)

Donna relaxes after five miles of walking (3 more to go!)

A Blustery Day in Amsterdam

Saturday, July 25
Our first night in Amsterdam was a lovely one and we quickly learned that we are located in an excellent part of one of the largest tourist areas of the city called Rembrandt Square. It is a bustling area of tourist shops, hotels, cafes and coffee shops. We had read that coffee shops aren't noted for their coffee but are instead marijuana shops, so we decided to not try to and buy our lattees there. We saw lots of people in all of the places and lots sitting outside around the square and park who had chosen to purchase some non-coffee products in those shops.  The smell in the air was indicitive of a 1970's rock concert.
We found a nice little place for dinner that was listed as a great local sandwich shop. We ordered some local Dutch food and enjoyed it very much. The food was not only good, but the prices were the best that we have seen since arriving in Europe. After dinner we strolled through the area with a thousand or so of our closest new "friends" as it was very crowded.

A bicycle parking lot

We had heard that bicycles dominate here so we watched the streets and sidewalks both directions as we meandered through the area. We were surprised to not only see such a dominance of thousands of bikes but not a one was fancy or even something that an average America would consider riding. They are all one style, single speed and mostly flat black in color. A few have hand brakes and most have racks or attached grocery or children carts but none are even new looking by our standards. With Amsterdam being so flat, there seems to be no need for anything more than the simpliest in design as they probably never see a hill or a need to change gears. We also hear that bike theft is the most common crime in the city so no one probably wants a bike that would stand out in the crowd. The bikes are everywhere and there are even parking garages and barges solely devoted for parking bicycles. Our only question is how in the world do the owners find theirs after work or shopping when they all are so similar?
This morning we awoke to a cloudy morning but the temps were warm. We went down for a lovely buffet breakfast in this newest hotel and then decided to venture out to see the city. We decided that it would be best to purchase a hot-on-hop-off bus ticket for 24 hrs so we could get a good overview of where all of the sights are located. With so many canals cutting through the city, that seemed to be a way to get our bearings. We did that in Paris and it helped us navigate much easier on our own for the next days. We wanted to hear the narration and learn some interesting history of the city. We even saw the last windmill in Amsterdam.
We also wanted to take a canal trip as that is listed in all of the tour books as a "must do" so we purchased the combination boat and bus pass and walked across one the many canal bridges to the boat dock and realized that the weather was starting to get worse the farther we got from the hotel. John was smarter than me as he took his anarack and wore jeans and tennis shoes. I only wore capris, sandals and left my anarack in the suitcase thinking that the light weight warm up jacket and an umbrella would surfice...WRONG!
With the rain starting to come down heavier,  we stayed on the barge boat for the whole loop which took over an hour and then got off and grabbed the bus for that loop tour of the city. We were glad that both were covered and that there were enough seats so we didn't have to wait for another bus.
The city of Amsterdam is filled with gorgeous canals and homes and buildings that line each canal. It looks like something out of a tour book everywhere we went :) We didn't get off the bus until we had made the full circle and got off as close to our hotel as we could figure from the map. Luckily, John had again marked our hotel spot onour walking GPS or we would have wandered around for a long time in the wind and pouring rain.
We found our hotel after about 15 minutes of walking. I chose not to use the umbrella as it was blowing so hard that the umbrella would have turned inside out, much the same as many of the others we spotted had done so we quickly returned to the hotel. 
It was nice to reeturn and take off some wet things and make some lunch and just stay inside watching the city down below from our excellent vantage point right over one of the main squares, canals and lovely huge flower market areas. We were much happier to be up in our 4th story room than down in the blustery streets dodging wet tourists, passengers on numerous trams going every direction and thousands of crazy bicyclists trying to make their ways to their hotels or homes to also escape the July storm.

Rijksmuseum

Life on the canals

Brussels to Amsterdam

A new day, a new country.  After four nights in Belgium's capital, we headed out to a new country for us, the Netherlands.  We enjoyed Brussels, which does not attract many tourists, but it was time to say good-by and move on to a new country.
Brussels' Nord station is a perfect example of how not to do something right.  While dozens of trains come and go each hour, the signage and information is very difficult.  To top that off, it is often necessary to haul your luggage (and we had more than enough) up and down staircases and onto trains, since there is no checked baggage service on the trains.
Donna made sure we got to the station in plenty of time and we eventually made it to the correct platform for our 10:55 departure.  We were able to heft our 50 pound bag and two others onto the passenger car, only to discover that nearly all the overhead luggage racks and seats were taken.  We never saw any of the railroad personnel and finally found an empty seat to handle our heaviest bag.
We weren't aware that this was not an express train, and many stops were made along the way including two airports, Antwerp and several stops too obscure to mention.  At many of these stops, some passengers would exit and others would enter, finally giving us a chance to sit together.
We passed through numerous Belgian towns and some scenic countryside and soon found ourself in the Netherlands.  The only way we knew this is that the license plates on the automobiles had changed. 
Many people use the words "Holland" and "the Netherlands" interchangeably, but this is not correct.  Holland is part of the country of the Netherlands.  True, it is the most heavily populated part and the most famous.  To further complicate matters, we refer to these people as Dutch.  Traveling across the flat lands of Holland, we saw many scenes that remind us of the stories of our chilldhood; wonderfully flat fields drained by canals, neat houses, and even windmills.  To be fair the windmills are not the picturesque type of the story books, but are modern, three-bladed wind generators.  We did not see any stout, rosy-cheeked farmers wearing wooden clogs, but that is reality.
Soon we came to the industrial heartland of the country.  Rotterdam, Europe's chief port as well as other cities showed the savvy of the modern Dutch people, as factories, warehouses, barges and tank farms sprouted on both sides of us.
Three hours after the start of our train trip, we pulled into Amsterdam's central terminal, a modern and efficient facility, complete with elevators and easier access.  Under no circumstances would I recomment rail travel in Eupore to anyone with mobility challenges.  It appears that those individuals are simply forgotten by the system
A short taxi ride brought us to the Hotel Carlton, in the heart of Amsterdam.  The view from our room was incredible and we were soon off in search of adventure.
Details will follow in our next blog entry.
Oh, by the way, our rail tickets were never checked..

Donn a inspects the Flower Market

Dutch countryside