33 - Reunited and it feels so good!!!!!

So, we needed to head back to the US for some catching up.  When we started looking at flights from Portugal, they all went through either Paris or London.  Well, if we were going to fly through such fun places, why not spend a couple of days and then we'd have a direct flight to Orlando.  Brilliant idea!!!!!  We got a deal on a jet2.com flight from Faro, Portugal to Edinburgh, Scotland so we could spend a long weekend exploring that area of the world.  We rented an Airbnb in Leith which was just northeast of downtown Edinburgh.  They have great public buses so we were able to move around pretty easily.  Our Airbnb was on the 4^th floor of a building just down from the square of Leith.  On the ground floor, was a cool restaurant called the Lioness of Leith which boasted great burgers and beer.  While MaryAnn wasn’t at first excited about burger and beers, once she saw that dogs were allowed within the restaurant, she was pushing Gary out of the way to get inside.  Sitting down for a late lunch we had a medium size dog behind us and a large Newfoundland dog taking up most of the floor in front of us.  The burgers where good and the beer was cold.  A great first impression of Edinburgh.  Across the street from our AirB&B was a large grocery store so, we were able to stock up the refrigerator with breakfast food and a small collection of beer and wines.  We also had a great view of the full moon rising over town that set the stage perfectly!

  

 We spent the 4 days exploring everything we could find in Edinburgh and the surrounding areas.  Some of the places we saw and visited included the Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Yacht Britannia, Queensferry, Calton Hill which included Nelson Monument and the Old Observatory House, Holyrood Park, Princes Street Gardens and St. Andrew Square. We also enjoyed just walking around  both old town and new town.  Old Town - founded in the 7th century- is the original town that was built around the castle.  New Town - built 1767 - 1850 and touted as a masterpiece in city planning - was a planned development to help the common people utilize space more effectively.  We walked all around Grass Market Square which was loaded with restaurants, a great farmer's market and brew houses.  In the old days, the square was where the public executions were held.  Of course you can’t throw a stone without  hitting an old church or cathedral so we checked out a bunch of them too.







Again, we took so many pictures that I've attached an album if you want to look at more.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Fktkauws5ggJaPUA6

Finally, our time in Edinburgh was over.  We booked a first class 4-hour train ride south to London to meet back up with our boat buddies D&A (Dan and Alison).  Follow them at www.sailmates.org or they've also started a video blog  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoWlRF2iuCXPNG8AkiYW-aA - check it out.

The train ride was great.  Gary packed some beer into his carry-on bag but soon realized that beer was free in the first-class cabin.   As this was a daytime train ride and our great weather continued, we had wonderful views of the countryside in both Scotland and England.  D&A were an hour ahead of us so they camped out at the London train station until we got there.  We were so excited to see our boat buddies.  We hadn't seen them since we bid goodbye in the Azores as they headed north to Ireland and we chose the southern route to Portugal.

Together again, we headed off to another Airbnb.  This one was just outside London city limits but again with amazing public transportation that made it so easy to move around the area.  First up, dinner and beer!  Across from our flat was a bar (The Bow Bells) that served beer and food.  Okay, maybe it was just pizza and wings but again the beer was cold and we had our boat buddies back.  All was good in the world!

So, for the next several days we explored and saw all of the sights one might see in London.  Big Ben (though he was under construction and therefore covered with scaffolding), Tower Bridge, Tower of London, London Bridge, HMS Belfast, House of Parliament, House of Commons, House of Lords, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and Gardens and St. James Park. Can you believe they wouldn’t let MaryAnn in either palace?  No matter how much her friends in Cocoa Beach consider her the Queen, everyone in London simply said "no!"   Formal complaints are yet to be launched.

We found MI5 The Security Service,  amazing farmer's markets in both Notting Hill and Marylebone, the adorable canal boats in Little Venice, Cutty Sark, the National Maritime Museum (they even had boats you could take across the Atlantic - sadly no sailboats) and the British Museum (we wanted to see the Rosetta Stone), the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, Greenwich Foot Tunnel, Emirates cable car, The London Eye and Abby Road Recording Studio.

We walked, took the tube or rode the double decker buses everywhere.  Alison tracked our steps and most days we walked over 5 miles (one day we clocked 7 and another was 10 miles).  We saw everything we could think of and a few things that we'd not even know to see.  We found several breweries, many pubs and some great restaurants.  D&A had never had Dim Sum so we found a fun restaurant in Chinatown.  Of course, we had some amazing Indian food and, per instructions from our dear friend Angie, found a great place that sold "take away" fish and chips so we could enjoy them on a bench along the Thames river.  Yummy!

Again, here is a link to more pictures if you want to look at them:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/F7Yyoks5ERcsoQGfA

For a day trip, we all hoped on a train to see the town of Canterbury.   Canterbury is straight out of a storybook!  Gorgeous buildings, an amazing cathedral and adorable little shops everywhere.   We even found a great brewery for lunch too.

From Canterbury, it was a short bus ride over to Dover to see the famous white cliffs of Dover.  Again, a quaint little town with cute shops and a great view of the English Channel.  We met several people who were swimming and spoke to one man with a pretty pronounced physical handicap who told us that he had recently swam the 21 miles across the very cold water of the channel to France.   We were totally impressed!

We didn't plan well and arrived at the Dover castle as they were closing for the day but we did get to walk all around it and found some great blackberry bushes.  If we'd had enough time, I'm sure we could have gotten enough for Alison to make us a great pie.  Maybe next time!

 Well, the fun filled week with our boat buddies came to an end and D&A caught a train back to their boat in Ireland and we prepared for our flight back across the ocean.  As most of you who know us know, we're not big on watching television and we'd filled almost every minute of our days, so we didn't hear much if any current events.  You can imagine our surprise when 24 hours prior to our departure, we were unable to check in on-line for our flight.  We called Condor Airlines to see if we needed to do anything else to check-in and were told that the airline we were flying on, Thomas Cook, had declared bankruptcy - quite literally 24 hours prior to our call.   Bottom line, we were on our own.  Luckily, we were able to get another flight booked for the same day just into Miami rather than Orlando and we were able to contest the charges with our credit card company.  Thankfully, all ends well!

Well, it took us 7 days to Bermuda (we detoured to the Caribbean so I won't count that time), then 16.5 days to the Azores, then 5.5 days to Portugal.  That's a grand total of 29 sailing days to get from the US to Europe.  It feels crazy that we can fly back in only 9 hours. 

We're now back in the states getting caught up with family, friends and work so we'll fill you in on that next time.

Until next post!