{"id":12254,"date":"2017-08-25T17:22:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T21:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=12254"},"modified":"2017-11-27T18:56:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T23:56:47","slug":"douglas-isle-of-man-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=12254","title":{"rendered":"Douglas, Isle of Man, UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday – August 25, 2017<\/p>\n

Today was our day to visit the Isle of Man. \u00a0This is the small independent island off the coast of Great Britain that boasts its own flag, government, currency, and Manx cats.<\/p>\n

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The Rotterdam left Liverpool late last night and sailed the short distance to the Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland. \u00a0We arrived early this morning and set anchor off the crescent-shaped harbor of Douglas (locally pronounced \u201cDoo -lish\u201d), the capital of The Isle of Man. \u00a0The weather was 59 degrees, overcast and windy. \u00a0We joined hundreds of other passengers in the theater to take a tender to go ashore for our excursion.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, there was a delay in departure because they could only use the port tender door due to a strong wind, so we waited for about an hour in the theater. \u00a0We had an interesting conversation with a man who had retired from Bell Labs in New Jersey. \u00a0Finally they called our tour, we went ashore and boarded a bus to take us to the vintage Electric Railway tram on the opposite side of Douglas harbor.<\/p>\n

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We rode along the lovely promenade which reminded me of Nice, France. \u00a0We, along with 38 other passengers, squeezed into a narrow gauge two-car tram built in 1893. \u00a0We left Douglas behind and climbed up away from the sea and turned into the beautiful green farmlands of the Isle of Man. \u00a0It was a lot of fun; like an amusement park ride.<\/p>\n

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The Isle is thirty miles long and ten miles wide and we thought this would be a good way to see some more of the island. \u00a0Beyond Douglas there were vast stretches of farmland. \u00a0Sheep dotted the beautiful green fields and distant hills were purple with heather. \u00a0From the train we could see The Great Laxey Wheel in the distance. \u00a0It was built in 1854 to pump water from Laxey\u2019s lead and zinc mines. \u00a0The giant wheel is the largest working water wheeling the world, measuring over 72 feet in diameter.<\/p>\n

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We stopped in a village called Laxey to change trains to another narrow gauge tram which was built in 1893. \u00a0This train went inland and climbed up Snaefell Mountain, the highest peak on the island at approximately 2000 feet.<\/p>\n

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As the train continued to climb, we saw the remains of the mines in the valley below. \u00a0It was windy, rainy, and cloudy when we reached the end of the line at Snaefell. The train stopped and everyone went into the little hotel\/restaurant located at the summit. \u00a0I bought some Snaefell postcards and warmed up a bit.<\/p>\n

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We took the train back to Laxey but because the tour began late, we had to take a bus back to Douglas. \u00a0This weekend there was a motorcycle race around the island and we saw some of the participants on the highway. \u00a0The bus route ran through more populated areas and it was interesting to see the islander\u2019s houses, schools, and etc.<\/p>\n

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We still had some time when we returned to Douglas, so Jeff and I walked along the Promenade and took photos and looked around at the Victorian style houses. \u00a0Our guide said they had been private houses but recently were converted to apartments or hotels for visitors.<\/p>\n

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Just off the harbor was the Tower of Refuge which looked like a small medieval castle. \u00a0It was built as a sanctuary for shipwrecked sailors. \u00a0We returned to the ship about 2:30 and had lunch by the Lido pool at the Dive In snack bar.<\/p>\n

We attempted to go to the eight o\u2019clock show in the theater because it was a British comedian and we thought it might be fun. \u00a0We got to the theater at 7:25 and it was completely full. \u00a0We sat on hard chairs along the starboard side with poor visibility which were the last available seats. \u00a0People who arrived later had to stand or return for the 9:30 show. \u00a0At 8:00 we watched Paul Adams\u2019 stand-up comedy routine. \u00a0He was okay. \u00a0Jeff enjoyed the show more than I did.<\/p>\n

Tonight, the ship is going from Douglas northward 334 nautical miles, to the Hebrides Islands of Scotland and the town of Portree on the Isle of Skye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday – August 25, 2017 Today was our day to visit the Isle of Man. \u00a0This is the small independent island off the coast of Great Britain that boasts its own flag, government, currency, and Manx cats. The Rotterdam left Liverpool late last night and sailed the short distance to the Isle of Man, located […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruising","category-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13377,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12254\/revisions\/13377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}