Cruise 2012 Pictures Day 10


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Photos Monday 23rd July 2012 - Day 10

Homebound

At 4AM I was woken up as expected by the docking at Citavecchia. Renée somehow slept through it. I fell back to sleep soon after, until the alarm went off at 6:30AM. It was cloudy with light rain outside. We gathered our last things up and went to the Oceanview Café at 7:10AM for our last cruise breakfast. We took our stuff with us. Then we went directly to Silhouette Deck 4 Fwd at 8:20AM and soon disembarked. We found our luggage in the terminal which we took to the transfer bus. It was a smooth transfer to the airport in light rain and a lovely fresh 17C. Along the way the guide explained that the flowers we had been seeing along the autostrada are Oleander plants. (I believe their poisonous nature also helps control mosquitos as well as their flowers adding splashes of colour.)

It took just 1 hour to get to the airport at 9:40AM. The rain got heavier the closer we got to the airport. There was a big traffic jam in the airport but we reached the set down point in another 10 minutes. It was bucketing down when we got off the coach! 22C on a nearby sign. Luckily we got off under cover so stayed dry. We walked to the checkin desk at the far end. It was still too early so we had a little wait for checkin to open. Checkin soon opened however and we had a smooth progression through to duty free. Nothing got confiscated this time! After a while in duty free we caught a monorail train to another part of the terminal where we had to go to get on the plane. After another wait we went down to a boarding bus. The bus to board the plane seemed to give us a scenic tour of the airport before we arrived at the plane. But no problem as we set off almost on time.

The flight was smooth after early turbulence. We had a great view over the Alps and France, and all the way home with no clouds. As you can see I got as far as the Maidstone area before I was ordered to put my camera away by a stewardess. Shame that as I wanted to get some aerial pictures of London and in particular the Olympic Stadium, all of which we had a great view of. But never mind. Rules are rules I suppose.


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Enhanced panorama of the Alps as we crossed northbound. The French countryside. Intense agriculture creating a vast patchwork quilt. Amiens in Northern France from the West.

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Heading into the English Channel just south of the town of Berck and Le Touquet. The Lydd peninsula with Folkstone and Dover in the background. Ashford, Kent from the Southwest. Maidstone, Kent from the South.

Surprisingly we didn't have to wait too long after touchdown to get to Terminal 4. We got through customs and claimed our baggage surprisingly quickly for Heathrow. And there ends the cruise! We got picked up by my parents who saw us home for supper and the long float back to reality with a bump.


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