Portugal Cruise Strictly speaking, it's a Spain, Portugal and France cruise. And we didn't book it until the day before it left (saving ourselves a handy £300 each).
Britannia Friday - Boarded Azura early in the afternoon and set sail at about 4:30pm. Shortly after departing we passed P&O's Britannia (seen here), docked at the Ocean Terminal, where we would be returning to in a week.
Channel Out in the Channel it was a) dark, and b) stormy as we were on the southern edge of the passing Storm Callum.
Swimming Pool This swimming pool was in the middle of the ship, which is supposed to be the most stable bit in a storm! Handily they'd put a net over it to ensure that no imbeciles tried to go for a swim while the water was trying to escape.
Stormy Saturday - Well the sun was almost out, but we were still in the grip of Storm Callum. Although the sea looks relatively calm, I took this photo from our balcony on deck 14, which was probably over a hundred feet above sea level.All of the outside decks on the ship were closed due to the weather.
Spray! The bow of the ship was creating some impressive spray explosions as it hit the oncoming waves. Here's one just going off.
Spray! And a couple of seconds later the spray explosion has reached as high as our balcony on deck 14!You can see the video here.
Boat Still, in this weather I'd much rather be on our massive cruise ship than one of the tiny boats that we passed from time to time.
Port Presentation There was plenty to do on the ship to pass the time. Here's one of the excursions team giving a presentation about one of our destinations.
Britannia Early in the evening, Brtiannia caught us up.
Britannia I was hoping to get a photo of Britannia like the one I got from our balcony earlier in the day. Unfortunately, Britannia pulled level with us just before dinner, so I only got to pop out to take photos for a few minutes, during which time it hit no particularly large waves. Doh!
To Vigo or not to Vigo? Sunday - Finally, the weather had improved and it was both sunny and warm out. Unfortunately, Azura had made such slow progress through Storm Callum and across the Bay of Biscay that we were too late to make it to our first port of call, Vigo in northern Spain. Doh! So we were treated to another full day at sea.
Balcony View The view from our balcony. Vigo is over there somewhere :o(
Funnel P&O ships used to have yellow funnels. They presumably think these blue ones are more classy?
Sunset At least there was a nice sunset.
Sunset
Railing Entertaining myself while I waited for the sunset to get on with it.
Sunset Seconds after the sun disappeared into the clouds on the horizon.
Ponte 25 de Abril Monday - I was up early and out on deck well before sunrise (along with a lot of other people) to watch Azura pass under the Ponte 25 de Abril (25 April bridge), which is at the entrance to Lisbon harbour and barely visible in the darkness ahead.
Ponte 25 de Abril When large cruise ships go under bridges, it always looks like there's only going to be inches to spare, but I reckon there must have been a good 20-30 feet of clearance.
Ponte 25 de Abril Still looks close though.
Ponte 25 de Abril Looking back at the bridge, you can see the ship's wake in the water.
Torre de Belem We hadn't booked a shore excursion in Lisbon, so we jumped onto one of the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing buses that was parked next to the ship.This is the Torre de Belem. It was tough getting a photo without too many people in it as there were a lot of people here.
Torre de Belem You can go into the tower for a look about, but on this day it appeared to be shut (as there was a gate across the end of the little bridge that you can see in the photo).
Padrao dos Descobrimentos A short walk from Torre de Belem is the monument built in 1940 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry the Navigator. He must have been a really good navigator.
Jeronimos Monastery And a short walk from Padrao dos Descobrimentos is the Jeronimos Monastery. This is a World Heritage listed Gothic monastery. Very impressive.
Jeronimos Monastery
Jeronimos Monastery There were also a lot of people around here, so I was lucky to get this largely people-free photo.
Pasteis de Belem An inexplicably busy shop/cafe that sells traditional Portuguese tarts.
I Don't Know What This Is This impressive building doesn't appear to have a name or appear on any maps.
Ponte 25 de Abril and National Sanctuary of Christ the King There's a massive Jesus statue on the other side of the river, near the end of the bridge. I didn't get a photo of it earlier as it was a) dark, and b) hidden in cloud.You can go to the top of the plinth. Unfortunately our tour bus didn't go over there and it was too far to walk (not that you can walk across the bridge anyway).
Ponte 25 de Abril and National Sanctuary of Christ the King There were nice views of the bridge walking back along the waterfront.
Ponte 25 de Abril Standing almost directly underneath the bridge, you can see the open roadway on the middle two (of six) lanes, which is just made of a metal grating.
Arco da Rua Augusta Back in town we walked through the Arco da Rua Augusta into the Comercio Plaza.
Arco da Rua Augusta The Arco da Rua Augusta is even impressice from underneath.
Leaving The other cruise ship, which had been moored just ahead of us, left a short while before we did.
Panteao Nacional Church converted into a mausoleum for the tombs of national celebrities, as seen from our balcony.
Alfama District The view across the Alfama district, also as seen from our balcony.
Ponte 25 de Abril As we left, the weather ahead was looking decidedly "challenging".
Comercio Plaza Passing the Comercio Plaza, which we walked through earlier.
Ponte 25 de Abril Heading under the Ponte 25 de Abril again.
National Sanctuary of Christ the King Although I could now see the Jesus statue, visibility was still far from good. You can just about make out the fence around the observation platform on top of the plinth.
Matosinhos Tuesday - Although we're visiting Porto (or Oporto as it seems to appear on some maps), the cruise ship terminal is a few miles away in the pretty seaside town of Matosinhos.This is the view of the Matosinhos seafront through the early morning mist from Azura's deck 19.
Harbour We were parked near the entrance to a busy harbour.
Ashore There was a nice view down the side of Azura as we were going ashore. You only really get a feel for the size of a cruise ship when you're standing right next to one.
Estadio do Dragao Although much of the centre of Porto (or Oporto) is a World Heritage site, for some strange reason, Judith had booked us onto a tour of the Porto football stadium, the Estadio do Dragao, and the associated museum.
Estadio do Dragao The statium from pitch level.
Estadio do Dragao The stadium from the president's box, which was very nice indeed.
Estadio do Dragao They've even got a sort of art gallery in a car park underneath the stadium!
Estadio do Dragao In the museum. For some reason there were hardly any people here.
Estadio do Dragao Apparently Judith is as tall as some famous Porto player or other. Although he looks like he's wearing a waistcoat, I think it's just the stripes on his shirt that are creating that effect.
Town Hall After the statium and museum tour, the tour bus stopped for 20 minutes in the middle of Porto to taunt us with what we could have been looking at if we hadn't wasted most of the day walking around a football stadium.
Lunch We were going to pop back onto Azura for some lunch, but our tour bus managed to synchronise its arrival with several other tour buses, so there was a bit of a queue at the security checkpoint (which is essentially the same as going through airport security, except they've only got one x-ray machine). So we headed into the port area of Matosinhos, where there were very many fine (and cheap) seafood restaurants.It seemed rude not to try the locally brewed beer.
Jardim Senhor do Padrao A monument thing just outside the port.
Anemona (She Changes) From a distance this looks like a massive satelite dish. However, on closer inspection it turned out to be a really massive net, reflecting Matosinhos' seafaring history.
Cruise Terminal and Azura A view of the cruise terminal and Azura from Matosinhos' impressive beach.
Cruise Terminal A view of the cruise terminal from Azura. It was good of those two people to hang about on the top of the building to provide scale.
Cruise Terminal
Tiles on the Cruise Terminal The cruise terminal is covered with these small hexagonal tiles, which are all mounted at different angles to create an interesting lighting effect.
Harbour There was a nice view of the cruise terminal and harbour as we were leaving.
Ponte da Arrabida We also got a nice view of the Ponte da Arrabida as we headed out to sea.
Sunset Lovely sunset.
Harvey's Malt Brown This was really nice, but this small can of Harvey's Malt Brown cost £4!!!
Sea Day Wednesday - Another sea day as we headed back across the Bay of Biscay. It was a bit choppy out, but nowhere near as choppy as it was going the other way a few days ago.
Playhouse I entertained myself by taking a few photos around Azura. Here's the Playhouse theatre in the front of the ship.
Planet Bar And the Planet Bar on deck 18 at the back. This is a nice place to have a pre-dinner drink.
Cherbourg Thursday - Arriving in Cherbourg. The building on the right is the old railway station and cruise terminal, which now houses the Cite de la Mer (City of the Sea) museum.I didn't know that the Titanic had stopped in Cherbourg to pick up passengers before heading for Cobh in Ireland (its last stop). This is the terminal they departed from.
Azura Nice view of Azura as we went ashore.
Cherbourg We spent a bit of time walking around the centre of Cherbourg...
La Cite de la Mer (City of the Sea) ...before heading to La Cite de la Mer. This is their very impressive entrance, which is full of all manner of submersible vehicles.
Azura In La Cite de la Mer there's an aquarium, which was closed (doh!), and a Titanic exhibition. There was a great view of Azura from the entrance to the exhibition.
Diagram This diagram shows how cruise ships have grown since the days of the Titanic.
Departure Hall This is the departure hall that passengers boarding the Titanic would have passed through.
La Redoubtable There's also this awesome decommissioned nuclear submarine, which is 128m (420 feet) long!
La Redoubtable Inside the submarine. This is the engine room, where the electric motors that spin the propeller are located.
La Redoubtable In the torpedo room. The submarine was very interesting indeed.
Cruise Terminal Back onboard, here's a view of the cruise terminal from the top of Azura.
Little Boats As it was still rather windy out, these little sailing boats were being towed to one side of the harbour so that they could sail back to the other side.
Marina Cherbourg marina.
Mural This massive mural was painted on the dock next to Azura. If you look at the bottom of the photo you can see the side of the ship.
Deck 19 View of Cherbourg When I took this photo there were two women standing near me. One said "Look at the massive submarine". The other one said "Where?". "There. Right there" said the first. "Where? Where are you looking?". Good grief.
Leaving Cherbourg This photo was taken with a 30 second shutter to try to blur the scenery, but Azura was moving so slowly at this point that the scenery is hardly blurred at all.
Sightseers Lots of people had turned up to watch us leave.
Pilot Here's the pilot boat come to pick up the pilot that's guided us out of the harbour.
Southampton Friday - Arriving at the Ocean Terminal back in Southampton. This is the clearest morning sky that we've seen all week.All things considered, the weather has been a bit disappointing and it was a shame to miss out on our visit to Vigo. But it's been very relaxing and we've eaten a ton of really nice food.