Sydney, Australia

 March 10, 2026

We were scheduled to dock in Sydney this morning at 10:30.  Tim set his alarm for 8:00 hoping to be up to see us sail by the Sydney Opera House before docking at our pier. We were awakeneed at 7:00 with the Captain on the speaker announcing that do to a medical emergency on board the ship had increased its speed and would be arriving early. Tim hopped out of bed and went to our balconey and got his first sighting of the Opera House. Tim spent 20 minutes on our balcony taking pictures and admiring the beauty of the building. Like the Guggenhiem Museum we saw in Bilboa, Spain last fall, great architecture can be a work of art  to be savored. After showering and dressing Tim discovered we were docked and our bacony  looked out over the Opera House. Tim is in seventh heaven.

Our excursion this morning was a leisurely  bus tour of Sydney. The first half hour or so the bus drove around Sydney's  city centre. Sydney  was built on land that was primarily sandstone, thus most of the buildings were made of sandstone.  In the mid 1900's as the city grew many of these original buildings were torn down to make way for larger more contemporary buildings. By the 1980's a few visionary politicians realized the historical significance of the destruction of these old builldings and passed laws preserving  these old buildings.  As a result Sydney is a clean, vibrant city with a pleasant mix of the old and the new. The bus continued east into the suburbs where the homes became larger and more expensive with the views over the ocean more impressive. Along the way we stopped at a lookout on Watson's Bay where we had a photo op of particularly spectacular views. Our last stop of the tour was Bondi Beach, a beautiful and popular beach on the eastern coast of Australia. Unfortunately, Bondi Beach was also the site last December 14 of an antisemitic attack of a large gathering of Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah that resulted in at least 16 Jewish deaths. Our drive back to our ship was through a decidedly more middle class area of Sydney that still remained clean and vibrant.

Wednesday  morning's excursion was one we were really looking forward to, a tour of the Sydney Opera House.  Unfortunately,  bus parking near the Opera House is impossible so we ended up with a long walk to the venue. We were unable to keep up so Lynda told Tim to go ahead and we would meet after Tim did the tour. When Tim's tour group entered the Opera House, it was a zoo. It took a while, but our tour guide got us hooked up with the Opera House tour guide. From there everything went well. First, a brief history lesson. In the mid to late 1950's several movers and shakers decided that for Sydney to grow as a world class city, a world class concert hall was needed. With a friend in government offering help, a call was made for archetectural drawings to be submitted. Over 200 drawings were submitted with the winner, a Danish archetech, Jorn Utzon being named. With land for the facility acquired progress was slow in the building of the Opera House. While the design was spectacular actually realizing the concept was problematic.  It did not help that government interference not only slowed down progess but also led to changes in the plans. Also, a change in the party in control of the government  not only led to further delays but ultimately the firing of Utzon. Three Australian archetechs who had been working with Utzon were given control of the project. They secretly continued to confer with the Dane and the project was finally completed. Queen Elizabeth II attended the first concert in 1973 but Jorn Utzon was not invited.  Sadly, he never saw the finished building in person. Ultimately the venue consisted of two performance halls under the outer skin of the building. The sail like outer skin is supported by concrete and cable. The two concert halls are built with wood that is indigenous to Australia and provide excellent acoustic properties. The Concert Hall is the largest of the two with a capcity of 2000 people. The Opera House holds 1500. Tim's tour group visited both performance facitities but was unable to take pictures as there were workers setting up the Concert Hall for a performance and there was a rehearsal for an upcoming opera going on in the Opera Hall. The two halls are very different.  The Opera Theater has a Percenium stage. That means there is an arch that defines the stage while the front of the stage curves out into the audience. This provides a more intimate setting for both performers and audience. The Concert Hall stage is much more open and provides greater flexibility for more diverse preforming groups. It was a fascinating tour with Tim being mesmerized the entire time. Pictures will be posted on Tim's Facebook page.

We have just left Sydney. Tomorrow will be another day at sea. Our next port of call is Mooloolaba where we will take a bus into Brisbane. We'll post again on Friday.

Our trip to New Zealand begins in chaos.

 Tuesday,  March 3, 2026

For the first time in recent memory we had problems at the airport, Detroit Metro specifically.  We walked up to the check in counter and presented our passports. As we watched the agent checking us in, we noticed a questioning expression on her face. She finally told us that she could not find our flight from Detroit to Los Angeles in the system. Tim showed her our paper work from our long time travel agent, Lora Helfer, that had us scheduled to fly from Detroit to LA at 5:50 p.m and then fly on to Auckland, New Zealand to 10:50 p.m.  She looked again at her computer and finally told us we were scheduled on an earlier 12:30 p.m. flight to LA. We asked if she could schedule us another flight to LA that would get us there in time for our flight to Auckland.  She then asked if we had made our reservations through Delta or a third party.  We responded that we had scheduled through a third party. That elicited her reponse that she was unable to alter third party bookings. We needed to call our agent to have her rearrange our flights.  Tim immediately called Lora.  She didn't understand how the change in flights had been made. Lora's fault. She asked if we had checked in 24 hours ahead of time where we would have caught the change and been there on time. Our fault.  She said she would try to change our booking but we were under time restrains in regard to how early before a flight we can book the flight. Our Delta agent asked us to step aside so she could check in other customers but would check us in as soon as we heard from our  agent. Lynda went to sit down as Tim waited impatiently for Lora's call.  When Lora finally called she had bad news. She could only rebook our flight at what we considered a prohibitive cost. The only other choice was for Tim to beg with the Delta agent to get us rebooked.  Bottom line, after much respectful begging on Tim's part and with the help of the Delta agent confering with her supervisor, we were booked on a flight to LA that got us there in time for our flight to Auckland.  When we finally settled into our seats, cocktail in hand, on the Detroit to Los Angeles flight it was like the weight of the world had been lifted off our shoulders. The total flight time of our two flights was 18 hours but we made it to Auckland with us back on schedule.

Enough drama. It's Thursday and we are in New Zealand wondering where Wednesday went. The islands that make up New Zealand were all created by volcanoes.  There are thirty one volcanoes in the Auckland area, thirty of which are extinct.  The other one is dormant and has not erupted in 600 years. We like are chances of not being affected by this volcano.  Because of this the only animals in New Zealand were brought here by immigrants.  Thus, there are no dangerous animals or poisionous reptiles and snakes.  The  result is a very strenuous customs process coming into the country. Lynda brought a box of protein bars that she had to declare thinking they would be confiscated. She must have smiled sweetly at the customs agent because he gave the box back to her. We found it refreshing to be in a country that takes protecting its environment so seriously.

Having arrived at our hotel around 10:30 a.m. we were not surprised that our room was not ready. Regent Seven Seas had a welcoming area where we were able to hang out untl we finally got into our room around 1:30.  After our long flights we were more then happy to spend the afternoon napping and resting in bed.  We hate to admit that after much discussion about dinner, Tim ended up going across the street to a Pizza Hut and bringing a small pizza back to the room. He should have gotten a medium size pizza but the measurement chart was in centimeters. Another bad on Tim. After a quick dinner we were both back in bed by 8:00 and asleep shortly after.

Friday morning we had booked a half day tour around Auckland through a tour company named Viator that serves tourists worldwide. The brochure advertised this as a small tour of 8 to 10 people on a minibus.  In fact, our tour ended up being a private tour in a very comfortable Tesla.  Our first stop was one of the extinct volcanoes named Maungauika which is Maorian for North Head. More about North Head in a moment. To get to this site we had to cross the Auckland Bay Harbor bridge. The original bridge was built in the 1850's and was two lanes in each direction.   It was the shortest connection to the City Center from the other side of the bay.  Once cars became common place, it saved travel time by 40 minutes each way.  This resulted in a housing explosion on the north side of the harbor.  By 1950 the bridge could not handle the amount of traffic occuring and a plan was made to expand the size of the current bridge.  New Zealand reached out to Japan for help with financing the expansion.  Japan agreed to help in exchange for preferred treatment in the exporting of Japanese cars to New Zealand,  Read no tariffs. Two lanes were attached to the existing bridge and eventually were called the "Nippon Clip ons."  Because of this nickname older New Zealand drivers did not trust these clip ons to remain in place and refused to drive across the bridge. The other result of the bridges expansion was Japanese cars being the predominant cars seen on the streets of Auckland. Now, back to North Head. After WW II, Auckland, watching Russia's expansion into new territories,  worried about a Russian military invasion.  They installed seven large canons into the side of the small mountain in a way that they could not be seen. In case of an invasion they were mechanically lifted out of the ground .  Of course, they were never needed so that North Head now is a wonderful place to hike, have a picnic and enjoy the fabulous views of the Auckland skyline across the harbor.  Another example of New Zealand's protection of its environment is that all houses over 100 years old go onto a historical registry and are protected from being torn down or drastically physically being altered.  A small rod that looks like a small steeple is attached to the front peak of the roof as a designation of Historical status.  We saw many of these lovely, well preserved houses on our way to and back from North Head.  Our next stop on the tour was actually a drive through Cromwell Park, the largest of the many green spaces that Auckland maintains throughout the city.  We asked if the park was named after Oliver Cromwell, the famous British General. Our tour guide, who was of Indian (the country) decent, had not heard of Cromwell so we have no answer for you. About half of the park is made up of well maintained fields for rugby and football (soccer). The other half is alive with an abundance of trees and flowering plants designed as, again, a nice place to walk and picnic.  What a concept.  From Cromwell Park we drove to Maungaeton Mountain. Mount Eton is the tallest and largest of the extinct volvanoes. There is a visitors center at this mountain that shows how the volcanoes erupted eons ago to create theseis mountains that dominated the landscape of Auckland.  Finally, on our way to board our ship our guide drove us by the Auckland Grammer School which leads to a short discussion of schools in New Zealand.  Primary schools are similar to our elementary schools. Intermediate schools are similar to our middle schools/junior high schools.  Secondary and Grammer schools are similar to our high schools. The difference is that Secondary schools are a combination of our high schools and Junior/Community  Colleges.  Grammer Schools are solely prep schools for University.  It is a highly competitive admission process to get into a Grammer School.  The more prestigious the Grammer School the more competitive the admission process. The campus of the Auckland Grammer School was very much like the campus of a small college in the states.

The afternoon was spent going through the whole boarding the ship process, unpacking, and reconnoitering our way around the ship.  We have sailed on Regent Seven Seas SS Mariner before, however, after booking this cruise we discovered that Mariner would be in dry dock during January and February for a complete refurbishment. That refurbishment resulted in various venues on board were in different places.

Overnight Friday we sailed to the Bay of the Islands, still part of New Zealand.  We had not booked an excusion at this port of call thinking Tim might take the tender from the ship to the island explore on his own.  When we discovered that there was a craft market at the villiage where our tender docked, Lynda decided to join the trip. We landed in a small village named Paitia where Tim went to the information point to ask directions to the market.  Tim discovered that the craft market moved from village to village each day and this day was located in Russell. This was not a problem as there was a ferry leaving in the next ten minutes for the 20 minute trip across the bay to Russell.  We enjoyed watching a parasailor and a group of sailboats as we made the short trip. Upon arrival there was a small cafe at the end of the dock that had outdoor seating overlooking the bay.  We had a delightful lunch in a picturesque setting making us consider why we would ever want to leave Russell, New Zealand. The craft market was in the town hall.  There were  5 or 6 local artisans displaying their crafts. We saw many lovely pieces of jewelry and beautiful crafted bowls.  After leaving the craft show Lynda was quickly tiring  and we still had about 20 minutes before the next ferry back to Paitia so Tim found a bench in the shade for Lynda and continued exploring. Russell, even with just 700 inhabitants, was bigger then Paitia and had much more shopping opportunities that Lynda would have enjoyed wandering through. Guess we will have to come back. Saturday night we attended a concert in the ship's theater presented by a talented trio of Irish musicians. They were backed by 4 members of the ship's house band. It was a good ending to a good day.

As we create this blog post, it is Sunday and we are sailing across the Tasmanian Sea towards Sydney, Australia. We dock in Sydney tomorrow morning and will be docked there overnight. We have two shore excursions that we are looking forward to including a visit to the Sydney Opera House which we will report on in a couple of days.

G'day for now.

Florida, January 2026

 Florida   November 23-31, 2026

November 23rd we flew from Detroit to Tampa, Florida.  We left Detroit in cold,   snowy conditions and arrived in Tampa to abundant sunshine and 70 degree weather. We rented a trailor in Gerry and Cathy's park in Palmetto, Florida south of Tampa. The next two days were spent with Gerry and Cathy.  On Friday we spent some time shopping in a mall in Sarasota.  After the shopping we drove out on Anna Marie island where we found a park on the ocean and played cribbage and munched on cheese and crackers and sipped wine. We dined that evening at a nice ocean side restaurant overlooking the Gulf. Saturday  we slept in and met Gerry and Cathy at their trailor for a light lunch.  After lunch, Gerry and Tim went to a sports bar to watch the second half of the Michigan State basketball game.  After the game the four of us took a short drive to Ryan and Anna's house where we played a raucous game of 6 handed euchre, boys against the girls.  After the boys thorough drubbing of the girls we all went out to another oceanside restaurant for dinner. Ryan and Anna's children, Olivia and Austin, joined us for dinner and were as well behaved as 6 and 4 years can be.

A great find in Palmetto was a local restuarant called Poppi's that served a wonderful breakfast.  We ate there both Friday and Sunday morning.  After breakfast Sunday we drove to Kissimmee, a suburb of Orlando. Friends we have traveled with in the past, Lyn and Don Johnson invited us to join them in their time share. We spent the week with them. There were two relatively brief shopping trips but otherwise we chatted, played cards, napped and drank. We also participated in two activites the resort offered. Notably, we won the trivia contest. The weather was ok.  Temps in the 60's and two days in the 50's, but compared to what we were hearing about Michigan weather it was great. We flew home late Saturday afternoon. We arrived home shortly before midnight. The outside temperature was -6.  We questioned why we left Florida.

Last day; again more wine

 Saturday, November 15, 2025

When we left you yesterday we were headed out to find a nice french restaurant.  We ended up eating Italian. Let us explain.  As you all know Lynda is having some mobility and fatigue issues.  We ended up having to walk farther then Tim thought to find a restaurant.  We went by several nice looking bars and a pizza shop before finding a restautant.  Lynda said enough walking, lets eat here. It turned out to be reasonably busy, always a good sign, and it had a nice local restaurant feel.  The final plus was the food was good and it was nice to eat off the ship anyway.

Saturday morning was our last excusion.  It was another vineyard but in a totally different area southeast of Bordeaux. This wine maker was famous for his sweet white wines, mostly sauternes, French dessert wines. There was one unusual  discovery we made from all the other vineyards we visited.  This appellation was located near the confluence of two rivers, one of which was consistently cool water and the other warm water.  The result of this was that in August, as the grapes were finishing ripening, there was fog over the vineyards every morning.  This resulted in a good fungus that damaged part of the grapes on each vine. These damaged grapes remained on each bunch of grapes harvested and resulted in a characteristic taste that made sauternes distinct from other white wines It also added more sugar to the wine.  We tasted three different vintages from the same grapes. The nose (smell), color and taste was different in each.  The youngest wine was a pale yellow, the next oldest almost orange and the oldest almost brown.  They were also sweeter the older they were.

Saturday evening we enjoyed a bittersweet meal with two other couples we had become friends with on the cruise. In an unusual coincidence, one of the other wives was also named Lynda Carol, causing some confusion all week.  And, fittingly, our final meal featured Coq au vin, a very traditional dish of whole chicken cooked slowly for hours in red wine. It was delicious.by 

Sunday  was a long day of travel.  We flew from Bordeaux to Paris to London to Detroit. We had a 6:00 reservation on the Michigan Flyer bus from Detroit Metro to East Lansing. We arrived early enough in Detroit we thought we might be able to catch the 5:00 bus. Then disaster struck. The plane pulled up to the gate but neither of the jetways worked. After setting at the gate for an hour our plane moved to a new gate. Now we were scrambling to make our 6:00 bus. Fortunately we made it. It's Monday as we write this blog posting.  We are both tired after a strenuous day of travel but still have great memories of our time in Spain and France.

More Wine

 Friday, November 14, 2025

We have discovered over our many ocean and river cruises that there were ports of call that had little to offer but provided a place to land between point A and point B that did have interesting sights.  Blaye (pronounced Bligh as in Captain Bligh) was one of those ports. It's only site of interest was a massive citidel built by the "Sun King", Louis XIV.  This citidel gaurded the entrance to one of the largest estuaries in Europe. It served two purposes. It protected Bordeaux's burgeoning wine industry that was shipping more and more wine aboad and  it also protected this area of France from those pesky British that always seemed to want to take over France.  About the only thing of interest in the citidel was an 11th century castle that the citidel was bult around.  Even in the 18th century there was little interest in the castle and there is no interest today.  The castle is pretty much collapsing upon itself.

Thursday was a different story.  We were docked in Pauillac on the left bank of the estuary.  Pauillac is situated in the middle of the Medoc region of Bordeaux wine production.  There are 8 appellations in the Medoc each with a different name. For wine connoisseurs, the appellation name indicates specifically where the wine is made.  The wine from each appeellation will be slightly different in both taste and quality.  The Margaux appellation produces some of the finest wines in the Medoc region.  The more famous wineries, think Lafitte Rothschild, will have imposing Chateu's  on their property. We spent almost two hours driving throughout this region seeing nothing but vineyards with the occasional magnificent Chateu. We finally stopped at one of the best, the Pieure Lichine winery, for a lesson in wine making and a wine tasting.  Grape vines typically last for 80 years. Many last longer but after about 80 years the vines produce fewer grapes and the quality of the grapes begins to deteriorate. Vines between 50 and 80 years old produce the best grapes and the wine produced from these grapes is bottled as a "Chateu" wine.  In this case, the label on the bottle says "Chateu Pieure Lichime". These wine's are usually aged for 10 years before selling and will continue to age well for another 10 to 15 years. The 20 to 50 year old vines produce a less complex wine and are bottled under a different name, in this case, Confidences de Pieure Lichine. The younger grapes are sent to cosmetic companies. 

After this tour we drove to the Kerwin estate where we were served a sumptuous four course diner with a different wine pairing for each course. The meal began with Lobster Bisque. This was followed by a plate with pork pate, chicken turine and a vegatarian quiche. The main course was fillet of beef with a porcini mushroom sauce, potato gratin and asparagus and carrots. Finally, chocolate sponge cake with chocolate sauce and a pear was the dessert course. When the kitchen staff was introducted after the meal they received a standing ovation, and rightly so.

While we are talking about food, we have had several memorable meals on our Viking ship.  All the meals have been excellent, but these two stood out. One started with onion soup, followed by quiche Loraine and a Parisian flan.  The second was a goat cheese souffle, followed by duck confit and crepe suzzane.

It's Friday afternoon as we write this post. This morning Lynda decided to sleep in so Tim went solo on the excursion; a tour of Marche des Capucins guided by one of our ships chefs. This is a historical market that has long provided fresh meats, seafood, and produce to the restaurants of Bordeaux as well as cruise ships happeining by.  Our chef took us to the vendors that he frequents where we were able to sample cheeses, ham, 18 month aged prosciutto,  fresh pear, and delectable pastries. He explained that he talked with each vendor about what he was looking for and the vendor would direct him to his freshest options which were then delivered in a day or two to the ship. Tonight we are docked overnight in Bordeaux.  We  have been told there are several nice restaurants within a couple of blocks of our ship.  We are going to try to find one of them.

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Last night we docked in Libourne, pronounced Leebourne. The city is named after an English Lord who founded the city during the 300 years that England controlled this part of France before they were driven out of France at the end of the 100 years war.  Libourne has a population of about 25,000 people and is a typical french city.  At one time Libourne was a major river port for shipping wine to Bordeaux. There was not much to see other then the Market in the city center plaza.

The star of the day was St. Emilion which is situated about 35 minutes from Libourne. It sits among some of the most famous wine producers in the Bordeaux region. Petrus has produced wines that have sold for as much as $6000.  In the wine shops we saw several different bottles of Petrus bordeaux's priced at $650. Tim went into a wine shop where the wine merchant helped him pick out a very nice 2016 bottle of bordeaux priced considerably less.

At one time St. Emilion was home to around 1000 people. Only 200 live there now.  The church dominates the city.  It was built in two sections.  The first section was built during the 11th century.  It has a fairly plain design and a lowish ceiling that is rounded in shape.  When the second part was built in the 14th century flying buttresses were in vogue allowing a higher roof. The interior was more ornate. Our guide said there was a quirk to one of the stain class windows. This window featured a bishop wearing eye glasses that had not been invented yet. The older section of the church featured a small mural most likely from the 11th century that had been discovered in 1890. She had no explanation for how it was discovered.  There is a beautiful cloisters off of the church with a lovely courtyard in the middle. In 2018 a french artist was commissioned to paint a mural on one of the walls facing the courtyard.  It is said to represent the Book of Revelations and is very contempary in design. The finished mural received mixed reviews when first revealed. 

We thoroughly enjoyed St. Emilion and thought it might be a wonderful place to rent an apartment for several weeks of quiet contemplaction and wine tasting.

 Monday, November 10, 2025

Bon Jour from aboard the Viking Forseti. There are two rivers that converge in Bordeaux, neither of which we can pronounce or spell.  We know that's been said before and it will probably we said again.  We will sail up and down each, visiting all sorts of interesting sites.  We have just left Bordeaux, sailing upstream on one of those rivers.

An interesting story from our last night in Bilbao.  Saturday afternoon Tim attempted to make a dinner reservation at a nearby steakhouse that both our tour director and fellow passengers had recommended.  The restaurant was fully booked for Saturday night so we decided to stay in the hotel and eat at its restaurant. Tim made a reservation. When we arrived at our appointed time we discovered: 1. there were only maybe 10 tables in the restuarant and 2. the only person in the restaurant was the waitress.  We were the only diners the entire time we were there.  It was a fun and unique experience dining in a private room with the one waitress. A plus was the excellent meal.

Sunday we left Bidbao by bus and were transported to San Sebastian, Spain. We had a two hour walking tour that took us along the Bay of Biscay and then on into the old town area of San Sebastian.   San Sebastian was the finish line this day for a marathon run that started just inside the border of France, hence, San Sebastian was crowded and in a festive mood. While we enjoyed our time in Bilbao, we found San Sebastian to be, architecturally, a more beautiful city.  Lynda sat in a cafe enjoying a coffee as Tim took the two hour walk. He particularly enjoyed watching the runners being greet, ed by family and friends at the end of the race.

We reboarded our bus and continued on to Bordeaux where we boarded our ship. That turned out to be an adventure.  We had been informed a couple of days before our cruise that our ship would be docked in a different place then was published in our itinerary.  Our tour director and bus driver, despite having GPS, had trouble finding where our ship was docked. Once there we were blocked by barriers to our pier. Hilarity ensued among the passengers as we watched our director and bus driver try to get us past this barrier.  They were both a bit embarrassed but also saw the humor in the situation.

Monday, November 11, 2025

This morning our tour was entitled "A Panoramic Tour of Bordeaux".  It started with a bus tour around the city. The bus would stop in  front of some important  site and our guide would explain its inportance. We finally arrived at the central plaza in Bordeaux. There we began a 45 minute walk about the central shopping area and then were given some free time to explore (shop) on our own. Again, Lynda was not up to the 45 minute walk and when Tim returned from it we found a delighteful little cafe where we enjoyed coffee and Tim told Lynda about his walking tour. Both of our tour guides were long time residents of Bordeaux and were enthusiastic in their praise of the city.   We could not match their enthusiasm.  We look forward to seeing what tomorrow brings.