April 24, 2024 Portland, England

As the ship approached Portland, England at 7 a.m., the temperature was 7°C under a cloudy sky. The clocks were set back an hour overnight. The ship docked just before 9 a.m.

U.K. Immigration and customs boarded the ship and set up in the World Stage to check everyone’s passports. The people going on the ship’s excursions at 9:30 a.m. or so theoretically were given priority. That did not seem to happen. Then the schedule was by deck. We were in line for 25 minutes after Nick announced that only the people on excursions should report to the World Stage. The line on Deck 2 extended past the midship Elevator/stairs lobby. At dinner Lynn said that they were in line from midship, too, at 10:30 a.m. since they were not on an excursion and by 11 a.m. staff were requesting almost 50 people to report to Immigration as everyone had to be processed whether they were going ashore or not.

We proceeded to the B.B. King’s Blues Club to collect our excursion sticker and wait for our tour number to be called, about 15 minutes. The bus was loaded and underway by its scheduled 10 a.m. departure. The temperature had climbed to 11°C and there were a few small patches of blue sky.

Our guide was Gaby and the Dutch driver was Irvin for our 4.5 hour excursion. The drive to our first location was about 50 minutes. Portland is an island, just four and a half miles long and one and three-quarter miles wide. The area is situated in the heart of the Jurassic Coast in Dorset. World famous for its quarrying of Portland Stone, a limestone, renowned for its hardness and durability. It was used in rebuild of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and other buildings after the1666 Great Fire of London. Portland stone was also used for the large balcony on Buckingham Palace facing The Mall and the United Nations building in New York City. Six tons of Portland stone was used to build the Portland sea wall in Victorian times.

Portland is hilly and streets of houses raise away from the water. The price of gas in the area ranged from £1.469 to £1.499 per litre. Across the causeway from Portland on the main land is Weymouth which was the site of a Roman outpost in 43 AD. There are three castles on Portland Island. We glimpsed Portland Castle this afternoon, on the way back to the ship. It was built by Henry VIII, between 1539 and 1541, to defend the harbour on one side. To combine with the defences of Sandsfoot Castle on the opposite shoreline of Weymouth.

On the way to Athlehampton House, we travelled around the city of Dorchester and past the Roman wall, which looked like a long mound, near the town of Maiden Castle.

Once off the bus the group was ushered into a thatched cottage, past the gift shop, into the Athlehampton House tea room ,where we were served delicious Dorset tea and shortbread biscuits. There were maps of the grounds on the table too. Then we had the better part of two hours to explore the house and its many gardens. The regular admission fee is £20. A box of 80 tea bags was only £4. Now we can have nice tea if we have hot water.

The original Athlehampton House was built in 1485 with several addition before 1595. It deteriorated into more of a farmhouse until, in 1848, George Woods purchased the 280 property and started renovations to restore it to a manor house. His nephew continued the work. In 1890 Alfred Cart de Lafontaine bought it and transformed back to a Tudor manor house with formal gardens and a one acre kitchen garden. The author Thomas Hardy was a frequent visitor until 1922. Hardy wrote the poem The Dame of Athlehampton. George Cochrane bought the house in 1919 and built the North Wing. No major additions have been made since.

There were not as many stairs as yesterday at Brest Castle. Some staircases were at least two people wide, while the older curving stone steps were only one person wide. There were many reception rooms on the main floor including a dining room, kitchen, bedrooms & 20th century bathroom, library/billiard room and a Great Hall. There was a Food Hutch from the 17th century that was used to store breads, pies, cooked meats and cheese in the coolest place in the house. The second level had large bedrooms with fireplaces, but the beds were only double sized canopy beds known as test beds. The third floor had a large room containing a billiard table.

We followed the map starting with the Great Garden then the Corona garden with black tulips, the Lions Mouth garden with an arch entry, a pond and fountain on the way to the walled Kitchen Garden with a large greenhouse and several dozen apple trees in bloom. The path took us along the shallow bubbling Piddle River only about three meters wide containing vines with small white flowers. There was a Magnolia tree in the Green Garden and then to the White Garden with flowers and the back of the house from the West Lawn and thatched coach house.

Everyone was back on the bus on time for the drive for a photo stop at the viewpoint for the Cerne Giant near the town of Cerne Abbos. It is about a 55 meters long by 51 meters wide chalk outline of a male figure, possibly from between 1,000 to 1,300 years old. There is no mention of it until the 17th century. It was covered in World War 2 to prevent enemy aircraft from using it as a landmark. We passed canola fields and a town with a Norman Church on the way back to Portland Port.

Back at the ship we went to the Lido pool Gelato station for “lunch”.

This evening is Orange Night. The ship’s shops had a good selection of orange clothing - shirts, hats, scarfs etc. We had brought orange shirts. The official colour of the Netherlands is orange. Every Holland America sailing has an Orange Night at some time during the voyage.

Everyone at our table was wearing something orange. The menu had a Dutch cuisine theme. The comedian Leland Klassen was performing in the World Stage. We skipped it in favour of the Bar Hop starting in the Crow’s Nest on Deck 12 that was supposed go down to the bars on decks 2 and 3. However, 35 people were needed but less than 20 registered so the event was cancelled. Everyone was given a complimentary Long Island Iced Tea for showing up.

We went back to the stateroom the compose today’s blog.

Steps today 9,449