Sintra

 I traveled by train to Sintra on the Monday. There were huge crowds partly because museums in Lisbon are closed on mondays. When you get to Sintra you have to take an official public bus transport. There are many separate places to visit in Sintra. I chose just to go to the Pena Palace and gardens.

Piña Palace. This magical hilltop palace sits high above Sintra above the Moorish Castle ruins. In the 19th century, Portugal had a very romantic prince, German born prince Ferdinand. A contemporary of cousin of Bavaria’s “mad” King Ludwick , he was also a cousin of England’s Prince Albert (Queen Victoria‘s husband). Flamboyant Ferdinand hired a German architect to build a fantasy castle, mixing elements of German and Portuguese style. He ended up with a crazy Neo fortified castle of Gothic Towers, Renaissance domes, Moorish minarets, Manueline carvings, Disneyland playfulness, and an azulejo (tile) toilet for his wife. 

My wallet pickpocketed

 The third day I was here I planned to go to Cascais. I was carrying my small wallet with the three credit cards, my drivers license and care card and a small amount of cash in a secure bag. I pulled the wallet out in order to take out a prepaid card which is used to go on the Metro and proceeded until I got down to the Metro, then I suddenly realize that my wallet had gone. The centre of Lisbon is very well known for pickpockets.  Of course it completely disrupted the day. I got help from a policeman to take a Uber to the tourist police station. I spent an hour giving a report to extremely dimwitted police officer. Within half an hour, funds had been withdrawn from two credit cards and my Wise account. At the police station there was no Wi-Fi so I couldn’t do anything about it but as soon as I got Wi-Fi, I froze all the accounts and then I proceeded to contact the Royal Bank and cancel my credit cards and report some unauthorized spending on them and new credit cards will be delivered home and will be there before I arrive home. I also froze the Wise account. But then I had a problem because I had a very small amount of cash to last for the next three days and also I needed cash to pay for the tube from Heathrow to St Pancras. Anyhow, the following day, I unfroze the Wise card for a short time was able to withdraw extra cash and so my anxiety was solved. I’m so lucky that this happened on a spare day when I had time to deal with it. If it had happened, for example of that was on the way to the airport it would’ve been extra difficult to deal with it. The biggest hastle now will be getting a new drivers license and care card when I get home. I’m sure this has happened to other people so I thought I’d report it here. The police report may help with any insurance claim. I think that the banks may cover the claims on the credit cards as I was able to give them details of the police report. You can’t be too careful in storing your valuables. Luckily my passport was still in my pack in my room so that was not an issue.

An evening walk

 One of the joys of staying close to downtown in a city is that you can easily walk around the middle of the city at all times a day. An evening stroll just before dinner is a great time to observe the population, the tourists etc. In downtown Lisbon there are a vast number of restaurants, most of them with their premises permanently outside on the wide pavements. Many different menus claim to be Portuguese but others, Indian or mixture of Indian and Portuguese. There is also fine dining. It is interesting to see the throngs of different people that are wandering around in the centre of Lisbon at about 7 o’clock at night.

 I’ve been eating fairly simply. For dessert one evening I had a Portuguese special cream tart. The people who live in Lisbon and work downtown seem to be a mixture of black Africans and people with Indian appearance but as well there are brown people from Brazil, who are have different facial forms. 

The Reform Club

 I spent three nights at the Reform club. This was the second time I had stayed there. It is one of the London clubs that is reciprocal with the Union Club of British Columbia situated on Pall Mall.  A huge benefit is you can walk everywhere in central London. The ambiance is great. The service is great. The small single room adequate. My friend Tom, was at Cambridge at the same time as me. He was at Caius College. We were both at the London hospital together. He came down from Cambridge where he lives and we had a great lunch together. Tom at one time managed the UKs national cancer registry. We’ve always had a lot of common interest in epidemiology. 

Lisbon

 I took the tube to Heathrow ( one hour). There was a 2 1/2 of flight delay due to thick fog at Heathrow Airport. Luckily, I was flying on points and business class so I was able to get breakfast in the lounge there. On day one I decided to have a relatively light day because I was still suffering from a bug which I had picked up on the Queen Mary 2 and also, it was a fairly tiring travel day the day before. I greatly enjoy the public transit in European cities. In Lisbon there is a Metro system, a trolly system a bus system and a ferry system All to be explored as part of the travelling pleasure. The centre of Lisbon is made up of many squares and it’s very very easy to get lost but thanks to Google maps or when that doesn’t work the Apple maps  it’s easy to navigate around as long as you remember the address of where you’re staying. I’m staying at a hostel which is very reasonably priced about $100 Canadian a night.  It has a very adequate bedroom. It is clean, there’s an adjacent kitchen and bathroom, etc. Mostly young people staying here, but it’s it’s fun to interact with some of them. As a single traveller you have occasional very enjoyable interactions with people. One evening I talked for about half an hour to a 30-year-old German woman who was a management consultant. I was impressed with her English, but also how we were able to compare organizational behaviour from my days as a administrator to today’s organizational culture, and in particular in how it works in Germany, compared with other countries. Another evening, I met a stockbroker from Florida who is pro Trump and had an MBA from Harvard. He was very bullheaded, but I was able to interject some very critical issues about the United States compared with other countries. It was a very dynamic and enjoyable interaction which lasted about 15 minutes.

The Real Thing

 I went to a matinee performance of the Tom Stoppart play The Real Thing. There was a group of teenage girls there who probably must’ve been doing the play for school studies because they were wearing school uniforms. There is a lot of risky dialogue in this play about two couples who are to put it mildly polyamorous. Anyhow, whenever there was a risky bit that came up there was huge laughs from this group of teenagers. It was at the National Theatre from which we sometimes are able to watch plays at the local at our cinemas.

St Mary le Strand concert

 On the second full day in London I attended a superb solo piano concert titled “ Bach by candlelight” at the Church of St Mary Le Strand - about a 20 minute walk along the Stand from the Reform Club. Christina Lawrie played almost the whole concert off book. It always amazes me how talented musicians can have such complex music in their memories. 

London and Phantom of the opera

 Phillip dropped me off at the local railway station for an hour long train ride to Waterloo Station in London. I then took the Bakerloo tube to Piccadilly Circus and walked to the Reform Club 104 Pall Mall. What to do that evening? 

Five minutes walk away from the Reform club was His Majesty‘s Theatre, on the Haymarket, which was performing the Phantom of the Opera. It was a sold out performance, but I managed to get a last-minute ticket. I also had time to spare and walked to Piccadilly Circus along to Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square (Where the Canadian Embassy is located). One of the joys of staying at these reciprocal clubs on Pall Mall is that you can walk everywhere in the middle of London. 

The Phantom of the Opera has been performed in the West End for 37 years. It was originally developed by the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron McIntosh the theatre manager. The present  performance was revised in 2022 and moved to this theatre, which was renamed His Majesty‘s Theatre, rather than Her Majesty’s Theatre. As many people know the Phantom of the Opera has been made into a film and has travelled to the major cities in the world. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a live  performance. Of course many of the tunes are familiar to many people. 

Southampton

 My nephew Phillip met me at the Southampton docks. He is a very successful TV personality and hosts a show called “location, location, location,”as well as other programs. He and  his wife Fiona live in converted farm buildings house that 20 years ago was made into a large house with originally six bedrooms but now four. I had a very enjoyable two days with them. We went for a short walk to the local pub for lunch and Phillip and I spent the second day visiting the Portsmouth historic dockyard including the Victory and the Mary Rose. The Mary Rose was a stunning exhibit. The ship sunk in 1545 and then half of it was discovered buried in silt in the Solent and was raised a few years ago, with many of the artifacts, which of all being most beautifully displayed in the exhibit. Much enjoyed.

On board QM2

As with the previous trip two years ago on the Queen Mary II I had an intermediate bridge lesson and played duplicate bridge every afternoon for the seven day crossing from Boston to Southampton. The weather was calm. One does meet some interesting people. I met a couple of US citizens who have lived in Ecuador for 15 years. I met at an antique dealer who lived in Alabama previously from New York. There was a lot of anxiety on board because of hurricane Milton, which was affecting Florida. There were many Americans from Florida on board. Several people lived in “The villages” a 150,000 planned community in central Florida. The hurricane petered out fairly quickly and I don’t think there was a lot of damage. There are many things to do on the ship - talks, concerts, several eating places, the food selection is great. The service on Cunard is excellent. I think there were about 2200 passengers but about 1200 staff. I felt sorry for the staff. They spend nine months on the ship. I talked to one young Filipino woman who had been on cruise ships for 14 years. She spends nine months on a ship and three months at home and she had a six year-old daughter who is looked after by her grandparents. From a passenger point of view crossing the Atlantic is like a luxury ferry trip because you arrive with no jet lag and you get all sorts of entertainment and comforts during the crossing. Would I do it again? I think I prefer shorter cruises if any. As an  independent traveler, it’s more fun to be in a city and make things up as you go along. I have enjoyed spending time in European cities several times in the past.

Boston

 When I found that the Queen Mary II was going to be docking in Boston for the day, I made contact with an old friend Heather Palmer, who with whom I had been at Cambridge and the London hospital with between 1958 and 1963. We have kept in contact over the years because Heather went into paediatrics and then taught at the Harvard school of public health. We had met a few times at the American public health association meetings, and we always caught up with Christmas letters. For the first time in my life, I went by Uber to Heather‘s house in Newton a very nice suburb of Boston. We spent a few hours chatting, went to lovely fresh fish restaurant and then I got another Uber back to the Queen Mary II . A great reunion.

Newport

 I met up with David and Jacquie Collins who happened to have been booked on this voyage at the same time as myself. We met to go ashore at Newport. Luckily I was able to get my laundry done beforehand on board. Very modern laundry machines you can use yourself. Endless places to have breakfast and endless choices of food on the ship. Anyhow Newport is a very interesting historic city, but also an amazing centre for sailing. We visited the Trinity Episcopalian church. It was founded in about 1698 by the Newport church community that already included Quakers, Baptist and Jews. The new church was built by the Society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts,an Anglican missionary organization. The earliest parish membership included several French Hugonots. The first church was built in 1700 north of the present structure that was built in 1724 to 1726  by an American master builder Richard Monday based on Georgian designs of Christopher Christopher Wren the architect of St Pauls Cathedral in London. 

The second church we visited was a Catholic Church. On April 8 th 1828 Rhode Island‘s first permanent Roman Catholic Parish was established in Newport. The land was purchased on Barney Street. 

I then visited the sailing museum. A very well designed museum that shows a great deal of history of ocean racing particular of course the Newport Bermuda race but also they talked about the trans pacific race and the America’s Cup and also some illustrations of the modern design of sailboats with with all sorts of types of foils. It reminded me of the 9 years I spent Ocean Racing in the 1960’s. On the way back to the ship, there was a lot of dinghy racing going on in the Harbour showing that there’s still people racing in simple, not so expensive types of racing dingys and other cruising boats. It was a wonderful sunny day overlooking Newport Harbour and much enjoyed.  

(I am composing this on my IPhone and do not know how to cut and paste this next bit to the comments about the Catholic church). There is historic interest in this church. Jack Kennedy and was married here. A most famous and poignant wedding took place on September 12, 1953 at Saint Mary’s church when Jocyln Lee Bouvier married the Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy (later the 35th president). The marriage was performed by Archbishop Richard Cushing a Cardinal of  Boston. When president he and Mrs. Kennedy spent weekends in Newport. They attended mass at the church and were always seated in pew number 10.