London

Greetings From London

Crystal has allowed us to sail all seven continents of the world, and circumnavigate the globe.  We have visited 310 or more ports of call on our Crystal sailings and 72 countries.  We have sailed Oceans, Bays, Seas, and Rivers.  On our just concluded cruise we visited the countries of the Netherlands and Belgium for the first time. We also visited ports Oban, Isles of Man, Amsterdam, and Zeebrugge for the very first time.

All our Crystal cruises have allowed us to enjoy pre and/or post cruise cities/towns as we have done on this cruise. This was our second pre-cruise visit to Reykjavik in addition to transiting this port on three other occasions.We have also enjoyed countless pre and post cruise visits to London on several Crystal Cruises as we are doing now.

Crystal has also allowed us to enrich our knowledge of places and cultures around the world through lectures covering destinations, geography and geopolitics, politics, and history and through many group and private shore excursions they offer. Our lives have also been enriched by learning from the crew about their home countries including customs.

We have to say our two completed voyages on-board Symphony had for us what we consider to be great ports. We think this says a lot because of the challenges of securing ports later in the process due to the restart of Crystal. For us, we enjoy a combination of visiting ports for the first time as well as visiting ports multiple times. We find when we revisit ports we can go back to certain sites and also visit new sites and we recognize there is so much to see in certain areas of the world  that one can not possibly see on one, two or more visits.

Today was our final day in London for this trip and we visited many sites by foot.

From the Rosewood Hotel we headed towards the Victoria Embankment on the River Thames.  We walked along the river over to Westminster and viewed Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and other landmarks.  We walked on Horse Guards Rd passing by the beautiful St. Jame's Park and other landmarks on our way towards Soho on a mission to find a particular French Bakery with a pastry in mind for Anne Marie.  We also visited Chinatown, Piccadilly Circus, the Theater District, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Covent Gardens. We walked up and down various side-streets often finding places of interest.

Although overcast and a bit cool, we had a great time covering this area by foot and stopping at several different sites. 

The history that London offers is amazing and as we walk areas we think back to al the history of this great city from the good and bad times including peace and war.  

We look forward to our next adventure with Crystal and the next set of places we will visit.

Photos follow.


With one set after these collages.

Photos from a nearby park and area surrounding it on our final walk of London.

Cheers,

​Anne Marie & Keith