Tag Archives: boats

Monday, June 8

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After a somewhat restless sleep due to my sore throat, I very lazily got moving. Dan was reading, so I dozed on and off and we didn’t actually leave the room until after 9:00. By that time my throat felt so much better — it seems it bothers me only at night.

We walked a short bit to find some coffee and health food. Oh. Oops! I mean unhealthy food.

From there we continued to walk, just investigating the area.

When we looked across the street at one point we saw the California sign and had to check that out. It’s a wine shop and no, we didn’t bother to go in. We figure we can easily find California wines in California.

We continued to walk, crossing the England Bridge, with the Abbey in the distance.

Then we went into the Shrewsbury Abbey. I just love it when there is an organist practicing. (I haven’t taken photos of the children’s area in other cathedrals, but I finally did this one: they seem to be in each one, though.)

Leaving the Abbey I saw the other side of the sign that I posted prior to our Abbey visit.

Back across the England Bridge, I wisely suggested we walk along the Severn River rather than on busy streets. After all, our 12:00 scheduled Sabrina Boat Tour was on the Severn. So downstairs we went to continue our walk. Sadly I took no photos.

But then Dan said something implying he hoped we were actually going the right way. Um. Well. Maybe not! Had we continued we most certainly would have missed the boat. So we turned around and went up some stairs, and past the prison where they clearly would love us to live. We really felt very welcomed. But again, we’d miss the boat. So never mind. So on we marched.

And there we were … at the boat tour. And we were even early! I had reserved tickets, so when we went on we were seating up toward the front. I think, in fact, we may have made the first reservations since we were at the first table. It was a fun ride!

After our boat ride we walked along the park area, crossed the rocking bridge and turned back again. We saw Hercules who, at some point, had a bit of him pulled off (you can guess what) and has since been replaced by a fig leaf. Hah! We passed a spot where the Zippo Circus was setting up (no pix — I’m not much of a circus fan), and went in to “The Dingle” (a garden area). Not much there yet, as they were putting in the summer plants today.

From there we walked up to the Georgian circular church, St. Chad’s.

When we went back out we saw that it rained again. Go figure!

For lunch (we can hardly call it not lunch.) we had tomato basil soup, and I bravely tried the non-alcoholic red wine. It was better than others I’ve had, but still didn’t have the taste I’d like. But I guess one has to have alcohol to get that taste, eh?

Then more walking and more fascination with the crazy off-kilter buildings. We had walked by the Kings Head yesterday, but took another look today.

I find it interesting to run across signs of Covid in every place we’ve visited. Memories ….

We had seen Rowley’s House and Mansion yesterday, but today got a closer look. I would love to see the buildings all fixed up.

We’d talked about doing the afternoon tea thing so we finally got to it today. (And yes, we are eating too much.) I had tea and a fruit scone and Dan had espresso and a raspberry scone. The place suggested they had the world’s best scones (in their opinion, they did admit) but I’d say Dan’s are better. I also suspect a better place wouldn’t serve the clotted cream in a plastic container like that, nor would the butter be in foil wrappers. In a short while we’ll be in another village where we had wonderful scones in the past so we’ll compare then. At this point I was overly stuffed (and I couldn’t finish my scone.)

From there it was back to Cromwell’s Tap House to have a short break. Or maybe a longer than short break. (I believe our two windows are the ones you see on the far left in the photo below.)

Now because we hadn’t had nearly enough to eat today (hah!), we went out to find dinner. Dan had read about a place called The Coach & Horses so we went that direction. I had seen it on Google and it said that it was busy, but we figured we’d give it a go in any case. When we went outside it was quite bright with a blue sky. A miracle!

Entering The Coach & Horses we saw a few people in the pub area, and the man at the bar asked if we wanted to see the menu. He asked where we were from and after we told him Dan asked where he was from and he said Nevada! Turned out he was a military kiddo and, fortunately for him, was born in the UK so he had dual citizenship and was now living in Shrewsbury with his wife (she will have to take a test in something like four years to try and gain citizenship). Am I jealous? You bet!

We said we’d like to dine there so he told us where the restaurant area was. Well, Google may have thought they were busy, but we had the entire place to ourselves! I’m guessing Monday evening isn’t quite a busy time there. I ordered salmon cakes and Dan had cottage pit PIE (yeah, I typed pit first and I think it’s too funny to remove!). Prices were quite good and food was yummy. I really loved the greens with my meal. Then we ended with the extremely healthy sticky toffee pudding. It came with ice cream so we appreciated all that calcium. Or something. You can see the very nice man from Nevada that we spoke to in the final photo.

Anyway, if you are ever in Shrewsbury, go there. It was great!

Then we ambled back to our room, taking a few photos as we walked. At one point I saw some sort of plaque on a building and it said “Shropshire” and below that “North Wales”. As I read online, it was the “Welsh Kingdom of Powys in the 5th and 6th centuries” so I guess it was in Wales and perhaps some wish that were still the case. Dunno!

Back in our room I, as always, set out tomorrow’s clothes after I put my pjs on. Then it was time to finish up this blog.

Tomorrow is moving day. I’ve enjoyed Shrewsbury, but on we go!

13,493 steps, 5.4 miles, 4 flights climbed

Tuesday in Boston (9/23/25)

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We had a typical lazy start to the day. I get rather antsy, but Dan has things he wants and probably needs to do on his iPad (photo things, maybe?) so I busy myself by playing a few games (Wordl, Sudoku, along with a few others) just to kill time) and starting today’s blog.

The weather outside looks lovely, despite the rain forecasts we’d seen earlier, and that forecast has, thankfully, changed. We can deal with rain, of course, but if we don’t have to were are just fine with that!

So here I am, at 9:12AM, dressed, things put away, and ready to go. Now I wait …

At 10:00 we did make our way to the very slow elevator. Of course the elevator that looks to be the one we should be using is out of order. I seem to recall a review criticized that which makes me think it will never be repaired. But what I assume might be the service elevator works: it’s just extremely slow.

We went to a different — and much better — place for coffee and food: Dan had a rather small muffin, and I had yogurt and fruit. I have missed our yogurt and while what I got was fine, our home made yogurt is much better and I look forward to making it when we get home!

We decided we should do the remainder of the Freedom Trail, which meant heading again past the park.

We continued to walk, and we passed a restaurant whose signs just crack me up. I thought they should at least have on item that is second best or maybe even third. But nope!


Then it was over the bridge.

And then we were in Charlestown.

With a short walk we made our way to the Bunker Hill Monument.

We could have taken the 429 stairs up to the top, but we both agreed we weren’t up for that, so we enjoyed the view from below. It’s been so interesting reading about the Revolutionary war: it’s been eons since I learned about it and I never did pay much attention to history back then.

From Bunker Hill we went to the USS Constitution. Sadly we couldn’t board the boat as it is being worked on. We’d rather counted on spending a good amount of time on that. Another more modern ship was there as well but it, too, was closed. So much for that! But we walked around and I took some record shots so I could put them up here.

Then it was lunch time. We had said it was to be a two meal day, but so much for that! I ordered a cup of corn and clam chowder so that was fairly small. Dan ordered a club sandwich and that was huge so I was a very helpful wife and ate a fourth of it.

We could have walked back over the bridge but instead we opted for taking a ferry. It took us a bit of time, along with some help from another ferry rider, to figure out how to buy tickets on my phone, and for some reason I couldn’t find the senior price there so we ended up paying full price, but I suppose we can afford the slightly over $7 it cost us.

Then it was a random ramble. We really had nothing more planned until dinner. I did tell Dan I think we could have done one less day here as we are running out of things we want to do. Maybe tomorrow we’ll investigate some museums, though.

After growing weary of walking we stopped in at a beer garden and had a beer. Mostly it was just to kill time, to be honest.

Getting near 5:00 we walked past a the City Hall (I think!).

And then over to La Famiglia Giorgio for dinner. I’m glad we went so early because by the time we left people were waiting to get in. The food was good, but oh my do they fill the plate. My dish could easily have fed a family of four and I think Dan’s could have as well. I could barely put a dent in the dish, and we both asked to have things boxed up.

We had originally thought we’d get a car home, having walked about eight miles so far, but with the food we decided we’d walk and hand the (very heavy) bag to someone who looked like they needed it. Sure enough, while on our walk, a couple who appeared to be living on the streets were sitting on the sidewalk and Dan asked if they were hungry and handed the bag to them. I do hope they enjoyed the feast.

It was a lovely evening walk!

We reached our hotel and I checked my watch: 10.18 miles today. Not bad! Of course, as I reminded Dan, if we were ever to do the Camino de Santiago we’d have about seven miles to go on some days. Hm. Can we really manage that walk? I wonder!

Oh, and about shoes: I am wearing some All Birds which I really do like, but clearly my Altra shoes are better for lengthy walks when my feet tend to swell a bit. I think I will save the All Birds for hanging out in and shorter than six mile neighborhood walks. I realize that is incredibly exciting information you couldn’t live without!

Tomorrow might be rainy. But then today was originally going to be rainy and it was a lovely, albeit somewhat humid, day. We shall see!

Final Full Day in Bruges

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After our typical slow start we went in search of breakfast. We found a table for four at the Verdi Restaurant … or maybe we were in the Tea Room. Who knows? I had a simple breakfast of two rather sad slices of toast (I thought they would be a bit nicer than they were, but whatever) and a cappuccino. While we ate we heard (no surprise) snippets from Verdi operas. Outside were what appeared to be very musical frogs.

From there we opted to go in search of the loading spot for a boat tour on the canal.

We bought our 15€ each boat tickets and waited for our “ship” to come in. The tour guide spoke several languages, but I must confess I could barely understand him even when he spoke in English between my bad ear, the mic, and the general noises nearby. So it goes. It was a pretty ride, and we saw a few things we wanted to later check out.

After the ride we were planning on finding a place to sit and enjoy a beer (it’s’ Belgium, after all), but first we saw a church so we opted to go in. We soon found out it was a church-turned-museum. We looked around a small amount, but then opted not to pay the fee to see more and went back outside.

Walking more, we ended up at a place we had seen from the boat tour. Beers and Padron peppers were ordered and enjoyed. We had hoped for fries, but it didn’t appear that they had them. This meant we would “have” to take another stop somewhere later to get those. As we sat there the sun would come and go, but no rain! The people sitting in the next table over offered to take photos for us (on Greg’s camera: mine are from Dan and his nice long arm that can manage to get us all into the frame). Then “we” (primarily Greg and Dan) chatted with them for a while. My bad ear was aimed toward them, so I missed some things, but I believe the woman was from the Netherlands and the man from Germany. I could very well have gotten that wrong, though.

More walking transpired, and of course more photos were taken.

We entered one area where we were instructed to be quiet. It was a place where, in the 13th century, emancipated women who dedicated themselves to God resided. It is still a place for nuns and single women. It was so very quiet there, and quite peaceful.

Now, keeping in mind that we had not gotten our much deserved fries, we found a place that would serve them. You’d think it would be easy, but some places didn’t have them, so we walked until we found a place. It was … um … interesting: bras were hanging from the ceiling and many coasters were signed and on the walls. I suspect some women offer up their bras and maybe it’s for a free beer or something. Who knows? No beer for Jan and me this time: the one from earlier seemed stronger than we expected, so sparkling water was our drink of choice! I should have taken a photo of the bathroom area out back but neglected to do so. (I wasn’t interested in the ceiling with bras, nor was I willing to sacrifice mine. Breathe a sigh of relief if you’d like!) But back to the bathrooms — one sign pointed to the right and read, “Women are always right,” while the other pointed left and read, “Men to the left.” Yep! Truth.

More walking, and then we entered the Sint-Salvatorskathedraal. I had seen it on the map and it showed a few photos that made it seem rather interesting. And it was. We saw a few things there that were in yesterday’s parade, a few organs, and of course lots of stained glass.

By that time it was nearing 16:00, so we decided it was back to our hotel for a bit of rest. I even managed to sleep a bit. And suddenly it was time to leave for our dinner at Curiosa. I had booked dinners for both nights here because of the festivities yesterday and the warning from our hotel that restaurants fill quickly on weekends. Sure enough, we we got to the restaurant it said it had no openings, so I’m really glad I had made reservations. The place was, as far as I’m concerned, quite special. It was down some steep stairs, very quiet, and not all that many tables were there (and some never did fill up). As far as we could tell the server was the only person working. Was he also the cook? We wondered! The food was delicious and the ambience lovely. And the huge thing? I didn’t have to struggle to hear conversation! I’m just sorry I didn’t take a photo of the place itself, as it was really fun.

Before going back to the hotel we picked up a few pieces of chocolate. I decided to hang on to mine — I’m too stuffed to eat another bite! We also took some final photos.

Tomorrow we sadly must say goodbye to Jan and Greg. This has been a whirlwind of a visit, but I’m so very glad they drove here to meet up with us!

Goodnight … and tuned for tomorrow’s city!

A Day On The Douro

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We began on the early side, because we had an 8:30 appointment with a boat. Our week with Green Walks meant a breakfast at the hotel, so we packed our bags and went down to the restaurant where breakfast was being served. Now I normally don’t even eat until after my walk, so eating that early doesn’t bode well for my weight, but how can I turn down a “free” (hah!) breakfast? After that we took a few photos out front of the hotel and went back to our room to get all of our stuff together and head downstairs.

Our driver arrived soon after, and we went to the boat. My voucher said a particular name, and we immediately saw that sign, so we went there. Um. Nope! The men there pointed to the pointed to the boat next to theirs and so we walked there. I went to the woman holding a list of names and asked if we were in the right place. She looked through three pages and didn’t see our names. Oh dear! But she looked again and, sure enough, we were actually on the first page at or near the top of the page, so on board we went as soon as they were letting people on. Oh, and when she saw our name on the list she told us we were on table number 12 … for breakfast and lunch. Heh. Who knew? We were directed to our table and sat down next to a nice couple. The breakfast consisted of two kinds of bread, coffee, and juice. We both barely touched the bread after our first breakfast, but it was nice to converse with our neighboring couple. They were from Canada, lucky people! (Sadly I didn’t get a photo of them. I just wasn’t thinking!)

After breakfast we went up to the deck and sat next to a couple from the UK. They, too, were very nice and easy to chat with. The boat got started and off we went. The scenery was lovely.

When we got to the first lock music started blasting through the speakers and the crew handed out little glasses of port. It was quite the festive time!

We continued on the journey. Slowly, as boats go. I can’t say I’m a boat person: I much prefer going more quickly to my destination. Or walking. I really do prefer that!


Eventually it was lunch time. When we went back down a server suggested I had asked for fish. I really couldn’t remember if I’d told the walking company that, but of course fish is fine by me. It was a bit confusing, but eventually we did realize that what I ordered was served to both Dan and me: it was lone HUGE dish, like a fish casserole, really. And it was quite tasty. But no way could we eat even half of it. We share it with our new Canadian friends (and they shared their pork with Dan), but still there was much that didn’t get eaten. They also provided a full bottle of wine for just the two of us, and later brought dessert which I simply couldn’t finish.

Oh … and yes, I DID get a photo of our new found friends!

Suddenly we noticed we were off to the side and not moving at all. Apparently something was up. An announcement (in multiple languages) came over the loudspeaker but I really couldn’t hear it clearly. I just knew something was awry. Our Canadian friends Paul, who also speaks Portuguese, went to ask what was up. He said mostly they were blaming the Spaniards, and said either we eventually will go on our have to turn around. Crazy, but there you go.

Fortunately for us, the boat did eventually move forward. We reached the second lock — no port on this lock, though. And moved on.

We were to have reached Requa by 4:00, but didn’t arrive until after 5:00. Fortunately I had sent a message to the walking company via WhatsApp and they took care of things. It took a moment, but we found our driver and he drove us the thirty minutes or thereabouts to our town for the night, Pinhão.

And then we checked in and went to our hotel room. I thought last night would be the nicest place, but THIS place is huge, with the largest bathroom we’ve ever had. I was sorry to realize that we’d only be here for this one night. But so it goes.

When we walked to dinner (about a fifteen minute walk downhill to the actually town) it began to rain. We had a list of places to eat, one of which was supposed to be next to the train station you see below, but we never found it.

We found the restaurant, which is related to our hotel (we are at the LBV House Hotel), and spent a bit more than we’d hoped, but there really was very little choice in town. The food was delicious — I do hope we burn it off on tomorrow’s walk: we’ve been told it’s the most difficult day when it comes to the climb.

The restaurant called a cab for us since we really weren’t up for hiking back to our place in the dark. I’m thankful that Dan was watching the driver: he didn’t turn on the meter! The ride took maybe five minutes and the driver said it was 10€. Dan wasn’t having it and offered the guy 4€, but then gave him 5€ (at least I think that’s how it all went! In any case, I was glad he didn’t fall for the 10€ bit because that’s way more than we’ve paid anywhere else on this trip. We’ve been told cabs/Ubers/Bolts are all very low. I don’t wish to be seen as the ugly American, but I also don’t want to be taken for a ride (figuratively speaking!) by someone who thinks we are stupid.

Getting into our room we had to rearrange our luggage for the walk which begins tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to getting out, although apprehensive about the difficult climb. We also know we might be in for a wet day, but I’m rather hoping the rain holds off while we are out and about. Time will tell.

Ciao for now!