“Cruise the British Isles”—July 2005

Take a vicarious trip to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and England, with these photos from the Penn State Alumni Association’s “Cruise the British Isles” trip from July 1–11, 2005. A group of Penn State alumni and friends joined other travelers from Alumni Holidays International on the trip, which began with two days exploring Edinburgh, Stirling, and Bannockburn. After that, we headed west to the port town of Greenock, where we boarded the cruise ship Minerva II and cruised to Belfast, Northern Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; and coastal England. We disembarked the Minerva II in Dover and traveled to London for another two days before heading home.

The photos are divided into sections, as listed below. (By the way, there are 250 photos here! If that’s more than you had in mind, you can see a much more manageable sampling of 35 photos here.)

• Edinburgh, from its lovely castle to its funky taxis
• Stirling Castle and Bannockburn, two sites of medieval battles that were crucial in Scotland’s history (can you say “Braveheart”?)
• Belfast, with its gorgeous City Hall and botanic gardens
• Dublin
• The lovely town of St. Ives, in southern England (and a shot or two of Falmouth)
• Dartmouth, a gorgeous coastal English town
• Dartmoor National Park, where we hiked on the moor
• Corfe Castle
• Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, and Dover, with its famous white cliffs
• London
• More London photos (there are so many, I’ve broken them into two sets)
• Flowers (as one of my coworkers put it, gardening is a national pasttime in the U.K.)
• Some of the more interesting or humorous signs we saw

Photos are by Tina Hay and were shot with a Nikon D-70. Comments, corrections, and suggestions can be sent to tinahay@psu.edu.

There also is a blog from the trip, with one or more entries from each day, at http://psaatravel.blogspot.com.

If you’d like to know more about travel opportunities offered through the Penn State Alumni Association, the place to go is http://www.alumni.psu.edu/travel.