Lighthouses of Europe- England July 2006

Esther and I took a trip to Europe in July of this year.

We were taking a 14 day cruise that would wend it's way from Dover, England stopping in Le Havre, France ,Cork (Cobh) Ireland, Dublin Ireland, Greenock (Glasgow) Scotland, Belfast Northern Ireland, Geringer/Olden/Bergen Norway and Copenhagen Denmark and then returning to Dover, England.

We also spent 3 days in the London area and 1 day in Brighton, England before the cruise.

We saw 51 Lighthouses, Lightships and other aids to navigation on this trip. I have some good photos and some not so good- it's hard to get good photos from 2 miles away.

I did some research before the trip but not much on the lighthouses we might see. I promised Esther this trip would focus on other things. We made only one excursion on the cruise with lighthouses in mind- in northern Ireland the excursion description for the Aryds Peninsular specifically mentioned a lighthouse so I booked that one.

I did extensive research for a London hotel- my one criteria that was a must was air conditioning. I learned the hard way in the past that when people say something like- "You don't need air conditioning- it never gets that hot there" that I definitely need air conditioning. It's a good thing I did- it was in the high 80's and low 90's in London- and everywhere else we went except for Scotland. We kept hearing things like- it's never this hot. you picked the right time to come, etc

We had high temperatures, blue skies almost no clouds and almost no rain everywhere. I actually did the unheard of- I went on a 2 week cruise and I lost 6 pounds.

We got to many of the attractions in London but not all we wanted to get to- (Tower Of London, Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, Ben Franklin's House, Covent Garden, Abbey Road, Greenwich Observatory, British Museum).

We spent one day in Brighton visitng with a lady, Mari, and her husband, Ray. Esther and I had met Mari along with another English lady (Jude) in Feb when they came over to NY and NJ to see two Al Stewart concerts.

Mari took us on a tour of Brighton- the Lanes and the surrounding countryside. She said she had a special treat for me but woudln't tell me what it was. I suspected what it was as I knew there were at least 2 lighthouses not far from Brighton.

We pulled up to the Kingston Buci Lighthouse- also known as Shoreham Lighthouse- which is located on the side of the main road in the riverfront district of shoreham. there is a Lightsaving Station right next to it.

Here's a photo of the lighthouse.



The next morning we were off for Dover to catch our cruise ship- Celebrity Constellation- one of their biggest and newest ships.

We got to see several lighthouses in Dover Harbour right next to the ship.

Here's the Prince of Wales Pier Lighthouse-



This one seemed to have a number of people visitng it at the time.


There are also two other lights in the harbour-

Dover Breakwater West End-



Dover Breakwater Knuckle with one of the many ferries that go back and forth from Dover to France-



Here's a shot of both. I think you might be able to walk out to both of these lights but I'm not positive.



I also got a very distant shot of the South Foreland (High) Lighthouse. This is located in a national park that is part of the White Cliffs Of Dover historical area. You can see those White Cliffs in the photo. We were hoping to get a chance to see this area a bit more detail on our return at the end of the cruise but that was not to be.(Details later).



Continued in post 2 due to photo limitations

Dennis

Here's the rest of the lighthouses of England.

I got a nice shot of the Dover Castle. There are actually the ruins of a Roman Lighthouse there- unfortunately it doesn't show up in this photo and we missed our chance to see it as well.



There was only one other English Lighthouse that I got to see. This one was purely by accident.

We left Dover that evening and cruised over to Le Havre France. We spent the next day Sunday7-16 doing what the songwriter Ellis Paul said only an american would do- Paris in a day and not even a full one at that.

We left Le Havre that evening for Cork (Cobh Harbour) Ireland. I was just looking out the window in our cabin and saw what I thought might be a lighthouse.

I got some fair photos of it and then when I got home I tracked it down. It was Wolf Rock Lighthouse located about 4 miles off of Land's End, England. It has a helipad on it that was added in 1972. It's listed as the first of it's kind installed.

This photo was the best of the lot- I estimate I was about 2-3 miles away from the lighthouse. I did some work on this shot on the computer. This looks very much like the photo in the Lighthouse Directory listing, though.



This completes my lighthouse sightings in England. The next topic will be for those few I saw while in France.

Dennis

Thanks for sharing those, Dennis. We all thoroughly enjoyed your daily postings while on the trip. It's super when travel pictures and reports are sent for the rest of the group to enjoy.

Like the shot of the cliffs of Dover. I saw them from an airplane when we went to Germany (since we changed planes in the London area).

Eric,

I had planned to get up on those Cliffs on the last day of the cruise.

We got into port almost 2 hours late and that kept us from leaving on our excursion/ transfer which was supposed to take us to the cliffs and to the town of Canterbury on our way to Heathrow.

We did not stop at the Castle but we did get to visit Canterbury. Win some, lose some. Esther loved the Cathedral there.

Dennis

Once again, thank you for taking us along on your incredible adventure!

Bob