Wild & Ancient Britain

with Ireland

May 2019, Part 1 of 2

This was the first of two, two-week, back-to-back expedition cruises in the Ocean Adventurer with Zegrahm Expeditions.  This was our sixth trip in the Adventurer, the first having been to Antarctica in 2004.  For this trip we were 100 passengers and a 15-person expedition staff consisting of naturalists, geologists, archeologists, historians, cultural experts, marine biologists, and ornithologists.

We had a direct flight from Pittsburgh to Heathrow and then took the Heathrow Express (train) to Paddington Station where our hotel, the Hilton, was located.  That evening the Expedition Staff hosted a reception and presented a briefing. In the morning we traveled by coach to Portsmouth to board the Adventurer but along the way we made a “surprise” stop at Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral.

It was a spectacular journey: some of Europe’s largest seabird colonies packing dramatic cliffs and rocky islands; Giant’s Causeway with more than 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns; Neolithic monuments (Stonehenge, the Ring of Brodgar, Skara Brae, a Stone-age village); architectural wonders from Mousa’s Iron-age Broch, to the 12th century Iona Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral and St. Magnus Cathedral.