We were the luckiest people on the expedition having our own private local tour of the Shetlands. Our friend Leah worked for us at Coral Bay and as she left to go home to the Shetland Islands, we jokingly said, one day we'll come and visit. When planning this trip, we saw that the G Adventures tour included the Shetlands and contacted Leah for a catch up. We only had 3 & 1/2 hours shore time but Leah was ready and waiting for us to make the most of it.We we...

Edinburgh always shines as a destination.Easily walkable, the central area is full of interesting historic buildings, and the magnificent castle overlooks it all. This visit was very short, arriving quite late by train the night before, then some exploring time until late afternoon, before joining our fellow passengers at a pre-arranged meeting place to be taken by bus to our ship. The MS Expedition is the same vessel we travelled on in 2010 to Antarctica. It is...

Seven glorious days catching up with 3 lots of different friends - how we have looked forward to this!Our " friends week" began with Phil and Linda picking us up at Heathrow and whisking us away to their beautiful home in the little village of Badlesmere Lees near Faversham in Kent. We enjoyed exploring Kent with Linda, and Philip's Yorkshire pudding was legendary. Loved dinner table lively conversations, with now adult daughters Inken and Issie and their pa...

We are sitting outside on the pavement, in the very French way, enjoying our first taste for this trip of the gastronomic delights of food and wine that is France.  We have the set 3 course menu of delicate terrine for starters, a main course of very tender beef bourgeon, and picture perfect fruit tart for desert.The wine is superb and we feel the ambiance, even though in French terms this is not an ambient place, being opposite the railway station, (very orna...

Our last place to visit in Wales was a rather vague UNESCO listing of the "Blaenavon Industrial Landscape" and we were not sure what to expect other than we understood it to be about coal mining and that maybe we would have a quick look and go. Not so.At Blaenavon a unique situation existed where all the raw materials existed for ironworks. Later in the 1850's it was here that the process of producing cheap steel was invented and the town became the centre of...