Stonehenge, Titanic Museum, and a Whiskey Distillery Excursions

While on the Emerald Princess, Phillip and I took three excursions, all towards the end of the cruise. The Stonehenge tour, taken while we were docked the first time in Southampton, was my favorite. Visiting Stonehenge was on the bucket list that I created in 2009, right after I retired and we decided to travel. Stonehenge has always fascinated me and seeing it in person did not disappoint! I am even more impressed with the ancient people who built it. At the site, we went thru a display museum before riding a tram to the actual stones.

Archeology and modern science have answered some questions about Stonehenge. It was not built by the Druids, as some believed, but is much older. The first Stonehenge was constructed about 5000 years ago during the Neolithic Age, a temple that consisted of a circular ditch and bank with a few stones.

By about 2500 BC, more and larger stones were brought to the site, including the bluestones from 150 miles away and the huge sarsen (a type of sandstone) stones from about 50 miles away. Engineering was done by these early people to transport and raise the 25-ton sarsen stones and place the top (lintel) stone to create the trilithons.

The alignment of the stones is significant. On the summer solstice, the sun rises behind a stone called the Heel Stone and shines directly into the center of Stonehenge. The alignment also worked for the winter solstice, with the sun falling directly between the two upright stones of what is called the Great Trilithon, in line with the center of Stonehenge.

Once the huge sarsen stones were in place, they were not moved. Archeologists have determined that for about 800 to 1000 years, until about 1500 BC, the bluestones were rearranged at times. This was during the Bronze Age and evidence indicates that Stonehenge was the greatest temple in Britain. Hundreds of burial mounds from this time have been discovered on the surrounding hills.

I arranged our second excursion before we went on the cruise. I researched Cobh and found the Titanic Museum Experience there, so I ordered tickets and reserved a time for us. As I noted in my previous post, Cobh was the last stop of the Titanic before it sank during its Atlantic crossing. The museum had recreations of the cabins on the ship and lots of photographs and artifacts. Around 2,200 people were on board when the Titanic sank in 1912, but her maximum capacity was around 3,500. There were 908 crew members, 324 passengers in First Class, 284 in Second, and 709 in Third. The third class cabins had bunk beds and no private bathrooms.

The first class passengers had much nicer cabins.

Our tickets to the Experience were recreations of actual tickets so we could identify if our ticketed person survived or perished. I had the ticket of a first class passenger who, with her young son, survived. Phillip, however, was 3^rd class passenger Patrick Dooley who did not make it.

The third excursion was a ship-arranged tour in Dublin of the Jameson Bow Street Distillery. Our daughter Robin’s significant other, Tom, likes Jameson whiskey, so we visited the historic distillery for him. Bow Street is not currently distilling. It operated from 1780 to 1972.

The distillery is now a museum and educational location, providing a tasting with our tour. They had a great set-up where we had hands-on stations to smell and feel the ingredients that go into Jameson.

We were given three different Jamesons to taste. Jameson is a Scotch whiskey, not my favorite, but I was game to taste it. And to finish Phillip’s tasting! We were served a much more appealing Jameson cocktail, made with Jameson, ginger ale and lime at the conclusion of the tour. After our cocktail, we bought a bottle of a specific variety of Jameson, only available from the distillery, and had it personalized for Tom.

We enjoyed our excursions. Even though Phillip kept talking about touring a "pile of rocks" at Stonehenge, he was impressed. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and I am so glad to be able to cross it off my bucket list.