La France en Mer, á bord de BLEU DE FRANCE - a swan song. I have made a wonderful cruise in spring 2009 on board BLEU DE FRANCE, which started her life as HAPAG-LLOYD´s EUROPA in 1981. by Earl of Cruise BLEU DE FRANCE in Barcelona - own photography © Earl of Cruise Deep rain clouds hang over Marseille. The radiant white city, the gateway of France to the south, shows itself grey. The roads, trotoires and buildings still are wet from the last rainshower. Our car turns into the entrance of the Gare Maritime in the new port. And there she is, the BLEU DE FRANCE. Darkblue hull, white, wet glistening superstructure. The ship seemed to be covered with a layer of laquer. We are unloading the luggage at the check-in and have the boarding, we're early. A steward leads our small group of travellers to the final formalities at the reception in the cabins. that friendly "Bon voyage" from the reception is still echoing in the ears, and the steward opens the door to our Ri...
While on research for an article published in print in Jan/Feb 2017 eventually, about the CAP Express steamers of HAMBURG-SÜD (Wikipedia) HAMBURG SÜDAMERIKANISCHEDAMPFSCHIFFFAHRTSGESELLSCHAFT I had to look into the competitors and took advantage of creating seperate articles about. by Earl of Cruises ROYAL MAIL LINE cruise broshure of 1959 - own collection The first of these South America or Rio de la Plata route related articles is about the ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY which was a British shipping company founded in London in 1839 by the Scottisch business entrepreneur James MacQueen. The line's motto was ` Per Mare Ubique´ (everywhere by sea) - nobody ever should argue about the motto of Albert Ballin `Mein Feld ist die Welt´, both mottos are not ostentatious they express the same: I don´t want to be hindered by frontiers and my limit is the other shore or the sky. After good and bad times ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY became the largest shipping group in...