Cobh, Ireland

We'd also been to Cobh in 2013, so see what we did then.

It's always good to begin the day with a nice sunrise.

A picturesque sail-in.

 
17-year-old Annie Moore and her two younger brothers left from Cobh and were the very first immigrants to pass through Ellis Island in New York on December 31. 1891. Cobh native, Sonia O'Sullivan, competed in three Olympic games and won the silver medal in the Woman's 5,000 meter in Sydney Australia in 2000. She still holds one world record and several Irish records for various distances.

 
This is probably a Carrion Crow (Corvus corone) sitting on the fence. Also, this may have been the original headquarters building for Cunard Cruise Line, which is now under the Carnival group (like Holland America) and is headquartered in England.

This iconic building with a dolphin weather vane on the waterfront is now a Chinese restaurant.

We walked up along the streets overlooking the waterfront.

Women's march for freedom in 1921 was memorialized on the wall here.

 
We talked to this lovely gentleman who provided us with some local information and more.

This wall was its own garden habitat full of life.

 
This rotary at the top of the hill at the edge of town had an interesting metal sculpture of cattails and birds ready to take off.

A large cemetery was across from that bird sculpture rotary. Note the water tower in the background.

This was our destination for the day, a nature reserve that was about a half mile further down the road from the rotary.

It was a bit less impressive when you see the long view of the reserve sign at this intersection.

We walked along the road looking over the reserve's ivy-covered wall.

There was only one walkway out to the edge of the pond. It was a nice preserve for the wildlife, but not so much for the people who wished to observe it. Still, we walked around the whole reserve, which would take us to the row of trees above the fields on the other side of the pond.

 
We did enjoy watching these ducklings, even if they are just Mallard Ducks (Anas platyrhynchos).

A type of birds nest fern with its fronds unfurling.

Looking back over the valley, we saw the same water tower that was next to the cemetery. It shows just how far we'd come.

 
We did not meet very many other walkers out there, but we did strike up a nice conversation with this local who walks every day in her day-glow vest.

Some of the entry gates to the estates out here were impressive.

 
As we turned the corner to head back toward the port, the trees were much taller.

There were some fine old houses along this section of the road.

An impressive greenhouse/sunroom on this house probably made it a more livable space.

An abandoned stone house next to the beach.

Here's the other side of that abandoned house. I looks like there was a boathouse as well.

 
It was time to sit. We'd been walking for hours.

Our lunchtime entertainment...

As we were leaving, these two guys walked across the stony beach for a swim.

Back in town, along the waterfront road.

From the ship, some cute sailboats raced in the harbor.

There were about nine miles on the pedometer. We put our feet up. We had a few much-needed sea days until our next port in the Azores, Ponta Delgada. We decided not to do our early-morning 3-mile walks on the ship to give our old bodies time to recover from all our adventures.

Ponta Delgada, Azores

We'd been to this port twice before in 2015 and 2016, so check out those adventures because this became a very short port day for us this time around.

We were off the ship early. This dock includes various stores and restaurants below this parking lot/walkway.

St. Peter's Church is the typical of The Azores: white with dark stone trim.

Our first stop was a market.

They were selling pineapple starts for people to grow their own. This fruit is known as ananas in most of the world, which means beautiful fruit in the South American Tupi language where it's native.

It started raining hard, so we returned to the ship early and enjoyed a recovery day. The rest of these photos are from the ship.

 
The next day was our last port, Praia da Vitoria on Terceira Island, which is also in the Azores.

Praia da Vitoria, Azores

This was new port for us.

Our goal for the day was to climb this hill to the monument.

An interesting building on our way.

A garden of scents, but we did not stop.

 
A daunting stone stairway to the monument.

As we gained altitude, we looked back at the town.

 
We finally reached the top. The monument of the patron Saint of Praia da Victoria (Imaculado Coracao de Maria) serves as a reminder of a significant battle that took place here in 1829.

 
A manual signal tower that served as communications between towns on the island before radio and other modern devices.

Looking out from the hill.

There was farmland behind the monument.

We decided to walk back along the roads.

There were several abandoned structures out here, but the land was still being worked.

Note our ship in the background on the right side of this photo.

A herd of cats soaking up the sun.

A spring crop looks good in its carefully arranged rows.

Two guys had moved a herd of cows to this field and they were now erecting an electric fence around it so the cattle would not fall onto the road or escape in other directions.

This guy was locating whales so our shipmates who'd signed up for a whale watching excursion would have something to see. He was on the phone with the people running the boats.

Looking down from that overlook, it's a steep drop to the ocean.

In the distance on the other side of town, a mountain divided into fields.

 
A fisherman sculpture and a whimsical one.

Looking back across the beach and to the monument we'd visited.

We were happy that the weather was pleasant. All in all on the whole 128-day voyage, we'd been extremely lucky with the weather. By the end of this day there were only about six miles on the pedometer, but over the whole trip we'd walked 840 miles both on the ship and in all in the 30 countries and 57 ports. It was a great trip, but we were happy to get home. It took us a couple of weeks to adjust to having to cook all our own meals! We think this will be our last world cruise, but certainly not our last cruise, because it's a great way to travel.