Passing Naval Battles
We were continually passing the locations of famous naval battles. Mostly, where the British gave the French or in later times, the Germans a good kicking.
As we passed through the Bay of Biscay, we passed Quiberon Bay, St. Nazaire and Aix Roads, although we were well offshore.
And then after Corunna, we passed Cape Finisterre, where two battles were fought in 1747 and one in 1805.
Later of course we passed Trafalgar and actually went into Cadiz, where Drake famously singed the King of Spain’s beard.
Corunna
I took these pictures, as the ship was arriving and leaving Corunna.
The tower at the entrance to the harbour is the Tower of Hercules.
Looking at Corunna, it would seem to be one of those places worth visiting.
The Oldest Parador In Spain
The parador by the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela is the oldest parador in Spain.
Part of our tour included coffee, tea and cakes in the hotel. Our tour guide even rustled up a delicious gluten-free muffin for myself. It was labelled sin gluten, with a crossed grain symbol, so coeliacs won’t have difficulty with the language. In fact my Italian pronunciation of celiachai worked well enough in Spain, as the words are similar sounding.
Before we had our snack, I had actually retreated into the hotel to get a coffee because of the cold, which cost me the princely sum of €2.50.
The Galician Gaita
I hadn’t realised that there are bagpipes in Spain, but I saw this guy in Santiago de Compostela.
The Galician Gaita
They are called the Galician gaita and they seemed to my untutored ear to be less harsh that those of our friends in the North.
Local Food At Santiago de Compostela
There was a cafe by the bus station and they did give us tastes of the local food.
The almond biscuits, which are from that area of Spain were delicious and gluten-free. I’ve never seen them before, but why are they not in gluten-free selections in shops and on-line?
Uncommercialised Santiago de Compostela
The first port of call on the cruise was Corunna, where I went on an organised trip to Santiago de Compostela.
The trip across the Bay of Biscay had been a bit choppy, but that didn’t bother me, as I haven’t ever suffered seasickness since I went gluten-free. Before that, a couple of times, I had real problems, especially in small boats.
I took these pictures at Santiago de Compostela.
You will note that it wasn’t raining, but the weather couldn’t be described as anything but freezing. I was starting to regret, that I hadn’t brought more cold weather clothing.
What surprised me was how uncommerialised the city was. There was perhaps one stall selling trinkets outside the parador, but compared to some famous places, I’ve been it was refreshing to see so little junk on sale.
Admittedly, it was cold and March, so perhaps it had kept the vendors inside.
The main cathedral is magnificent and it is true to say that I like Romanesque and Norman churches, like St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield. They seem to have a certain dignity of a very old age. The London church is on my list of must see places in London.
I Don’t Know My Port From My Starboard
Although, I was a private pilot for many years, if you ask me quickly I always had to think, if port is left or right.
You can do it by remembering that port has the same number of letters as left or by noting that POSH could stand for port out starboard home, which meant that passengers going to and from India and the Far East from the UK, got the northern or cool side of the boat.
There’s a discussion on the explanation of posh here.
My next door neighbour, at one time, had been a British Army colonel, who’d served in India and he told me the standard explanation many years ago. He also told me, how on the voyage back to the UK, they used to throw their pith helmets into the sea with great gusto after they had passed through the Suez canal.
I have no evidence to the origin of the word, but having heard many tales of life in the Army many years ago, the word could have been cooked up as a friendly term of abuse, by a group of very hot squaddies. I bet today, those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, have developed some words of their own. After all, the word Blighty for the home country, was very much a word developed by those stationed overseas, that has entered the English language.
P&O Cruises Wi-Fi
I can accept that wi-fi on my P&O cruise was expensive, but quite frankly it wasn’t the best.
They did put in a disclaimer that it was slow and again that I will agree with, as satellites aren’t the best way to connect to the Internet. I’ve used it myself in the past and even that with a dish fixed to the ground had problems.
But I will take issue with the login and the account, which I highlighted here, as it wasn’t the easiest one to connect to, if you accepted the speed. Typing the password on a small Samsung tab device is not easy, especially when it has to use a name it doesn’t usually use. It could have been a lot better, if I compare it with the systems on some of the train companies, which surely have a similar connection to the Internet problem, although they can use the mobile phone network.
I also found a couple of times, that the system didn’t disconnect properly and consequently, I lost some of the wi-fi minutes I’d bought. It didn’t worry me too much, but some will get angry.
If I went on a P&O cruise again, I wouldn’t use the wi-fi, but rely on the normal 3G coverage, I got in the ports, which was generally excellent.
The Same Name Problem
The two names I habitually use aren’t the most uncommon and I’ve met more than a few individuals, who use the same pair of names. I also own the .com domain for the names, which must give me a certain precedence.
But at registration for my P&O cruise, I found that I was not alone and because of this my account was changed to the first name that only my mother, my passport, HMRC and the DWP use. It worked after a fashion, although some staff seemed confused that I was travelling under a different name. But checking my statement after the cruise, there doesn’t seem to be any charges that I hadn’t made.
It did give me a bit of a problem with the wi-fi, as my Samsung tablet computer has my used name in its memory and always used that, which meant, there was a lot of typing at each login.
I have a feeling, that their system hasn’t had the requisite amount of testing.
You can always rely that when you program a computer, there will always be a set of obscure circumstances, that you feel will never happen.
But of course they will!
In this case of course they did, but no financial harm was done to any party involved. I just suffered the login inconvenience.
The Anonymous Widower 