Advent day 14 and I have left it late for a port visit

Hello everyone,

I may have got a bit distracted by doing some more Euro Truck Sim 2 and left it a little late :-D. What’s behind door number 14 ?

Picture. We're looking at our advent collection, with the dwagon on the right. The new model is a small square grey fighter craft with short wings at the back.

Apparently the latest one is a Mandalorian Fighter spaceship. See earlier comments about not having seen any of the latest Star Wars output on the telly :-D. I’ve been missing a few other things as well, like the various new Star Trek (to be honest I was put off that a little by Picard season 1) and I’d like to see For All Mankind at some point.

Port visit ?

Thursday saw us come in to …

Picture. We're looking at a sign, with Gijon written in a fancy script in red letters, held up by a rectangular red frame. In the background is a marina with calm water and an array of boats.

Gijon ! This was about the point where I was starting to call the trip Dwagon On Tour and I picked up from ideas from not quite sure where else to sneak the little fellow into pictures wherever I could.

Slightly awkward start because there was unexpected traffic slowing down the buses that were taking us from the ship to the city centre (some ports don’t allow people to wander around in them) but it was really good getting ashore for a wander after being a bit wobbly during the Bay of Biscay crossing the day before.

First order of business was to find somewhere with a good vantage point. Gijon is built on the north coast of Spain, so because the world is how it is, it has coastal fortifications to defend it. Definite wake up call for my level of unfitness to leg it up to the top of that hill :-D. But I did get my first good picture of the outsides of Borealis.

Picture. We're looking out over a slightly choppy watered stretch of water towards the port on the other side. Our white upper, blue lower ship is visible behind the port buildings. There is a hill behind, with sphere buildings dotted around at the top.

Wonder what those spheres were on top of the hill.

Picture. It's a bit of a grey day but we can clearly see a castle gatehouse style building opposite with sandy coloured brick. Two large square towers flank a 5 arched gateway below a 2 storey building joining the towers. To the right, a statue of a fellow holding up a cross. Far right, a modern grey tower building with blue windows. There is a road in front of us.

This saw our first taste of the architecture style as well, with those old castle style roofed buildings there in the older style, with the modern look creeping in there to the right too. And a statued person giving a greeting. I think that’s a greeting.

Also the England in New Zealand test match cricket just swapped over to England batting and I’m struggling to shift my “yay he’s out!” over to “yay our guy just hit a boundary”.

Picture. We're looking at buildings in an L forming two sides of a paved square. There are arches below and two storeys of windows above. The arches are sandy, the buildings above are red. — You could have a game of cricket in that space

They do like their open areas with the pedestrians well isolated from the traffic. Possibly because the Spanish drivers didn’t seem too averse to adding a little blood red to their car paint, although I don’t think they’re quite as bad as Bristol drivers who will back up to make sure after running you over.

I like my city, honest. (No I don’t 😀 )

I was still feeling a little delicate so I didn’t stay out that long but it was good finding the marina again after having a little walk through the city shopping area.

Picture. We're looking out over a very crowded marina at all of the boats. Motorboats are closer, with a large cluster of masts at the back and left. In front, a sea wall with the red dwagon on it.

There we go. Little Red Dwagon enjoying me enjoying see all the boats. It was a good city for boats. And it was a lot more sheltered in that marina than it was outside …

Picture. We're looking out over the area of the city where it meets the sea. Tall buildings are crammed in beyond a short dark wall holding the sea back. We can see white waves battering the wall.

Bit wild and I wouldn’t have been wanting to be leaning over that wall without a raincoat :-D.

I also hadn’t eaten anything for almost all of the day before so it was good to get back on board for a bit to eat. I hadn’t been actually sick with my sea sickness, just wanting to completely avoid food so that I could stay fairly horizontal and eating isn’t exactly compatible with that.

Back to the port ? It would have been good to explore for a little bit longer but …

Picture. It's dark night time and we're looking out over the water towards the bright white lights of the port. Alongside, we can see a red tanker being loaded by a yellow crane.

Back to the ship and preparing for a night time departure. And incidentally, a first really good chance to play with my new 50mm large aperture lens … the one I bought for looking at stars, where it’s been continual cloud since !

Picture. It's dark, we're looking out over the water towards the port. However close in there is a long breakwater made of stone and brick.

It was doing super well at picking out the detail too. I could barely see any of that breakwater there with Mk1 Eyeball.

(looks at time) I better hit post ! More tomorrow.

Have a lovely day everyone.

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