May 30 - Windmills and Delft

Yesterday we stopped in the last port of this cruise, Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  This was my very first visit to this country.  I don’t know how that happened but when I thought back I realized it was so.

Unfortunately it was during the night that we sailed into Amsterdam so I didn’t see it, but we had to go through a lock in order to get there. Like about one third of the country that city is below sea level so we went through what is apparently the world’s largest sea lock, the Ijmuiden lock, to make the transition. I had to get up very early (for me) because I had booked a tour recommended by my Dutch friends who disembarked a couple of weeks ago.

I set out with 14 of my fellow passengers to visit Delft and The Hague.  The tour was interesting and I’ll get to it in a moment, but first I want to talk about my guide, Peter Sandberg.  He is an 87-year-old Dutch man.  He looked that old, a small man with a lined and wrinkled face and hands, eyes that looked a little rheumy and as if they had seen all sorts of things in their time. I had a few moments to talk to him along the way and that’s when I asked how old he was.  I didn’t want to ask too much but his answers to what I did ask raised more questions than answers.  He was  born in 1939 in Holland and he said he was raised in the countryside with his grandparents.  He had some memories of the war (WW II), some of which he said were good, others not so much.  I know that Sandberg can be a Jewish surname and I have heard of families who sent their small children into the country to live with non-Jewish families willing to hide and adopt them as their own to keep them safe. I have no basis for knowing if that was the case with Peter, and maybe I’m being influenced by the thought of Amsterdam being the place from which Anne Frank was discovered after being in hiding for so long.  Anyway, I didn’t ask any further questions because I didn’t want to pry, but the unfulfilled author in me will always wonder what his full story is.  Regardless I was amazed that a man of his age is still working.  He said that he works a couple of days a week and I applauded him for doing that.  He must be one of those people who would wither away if he didn’t have a reason to get up in the morning.

We drove out of the city on our way to Delft and I think Peter decided that irrespective of what the itinerary said we were to do, there were some things he wanted us to see.  I say that because I was sitting just behind our driver Margot and based on the conversation she was having with Peter, she didn’t know where he was directing her.  We drove through some narrow byways and little villages surrounded by small canals and large green fields in which happy cows were grazing.  This country is famous for its cheeses and butter and based on how lush the pastures looked and how contented the animals looked, it’s no wonder.  As we drove Peter told us to look at the magnificent landscapes with the beautiful green of the fields and blue skies dotted with puffy clouds.  I did ask him later if he was an artist because of the way he talked about the scenery, but he said only that he had studied art but wasn’t an artist.  We made a stop at an old windmill and he explained about the pumping system that keeps the Netherlands dry. I won’t go into detail (I can’t remember it all anyway), but it is a complex system of pumps (those were the windmills function), dikes and sand dunes along the coast to dissipate wave energy.  

This was a typical street we passed in Amsterdam and some of the little towns we drove through with a canal and little boats tied up in it.

Lots of bicyclists everywhere.  I think having a bicycle business must be a real money maker here.

The peaceful looking countryside.  Hard to see but there are a couple of windmills on the left and the black dots were happy cows.

An old windmill up close

Eventually our uncharted detour ended and we headed to Delft where our first stop was the Royal Delft Pottery Factory.  Delft makes the distinctive blue and white pottery that most of us have seen.  I think perhaps the fact that just a few weeks ago I visited the tile factory in Portugal detracted from my visit to this place.  Delft has been making pottery since 1653 and at one time had more than 30 factories around the country.  Now there’s just this one.  Their wares are beautiful and most are still handmade, but unlike what I saw at the tile factory where each piece was painted by hand without being stenciled and so from tile to tile there could be slight variations.  Here at Delft the designs are stenciled on so they are much more uniform,  still very pretty but to my mind less personal and quirky.

The entrance to the Royal Delft Factory and below are some of their products

This is a replica of Rembrandt's famous "The Night Watch" in delft tiles.  It is quite spectacular and beautiful

From the factory we drove a little out of town to have lunch which was nice but nothing extraordinary and then we drove back into Delft for a very short walk around the town.  It was extremely warm (in the mid 80°s, which is hot for here this time of year), it looked like it might rain at any moment, and I didn’t feel like trotting through the old town so I stayed with Margot and had an interesting chat with her about life for a middle-aged single mother with a grown daughter.  I know it sounds lame that I didn’t go and take photos of another church or some more Dutch red brick houses, but I did what I like best – talk to local people about what their lives are like.

The old church in Delft courtesy of one of my tour mates

The group came back after just about 20 minutes and we headed to The Hague for a driving tour through there.  I don’t think any of us realized it would just be a drive-by but that was what we did and since it was sprinkling it was probably a good thing. Now I’m going to go off on a tangent again and try to get straight in my head the Netherland’s odd (at least to me) set-up.  Amsterdam is the capital of the country but The Hague is where the seat of government is.  The Parliament meets there, all the government offices and embassies are there and that seems strange to me.  It’s as if Washington DC was our capital but all government was operated out of Philadelphia.  I asked Peter about this and he gave me a long explanation going back to the 13th century when a Count of Holland liked to go hunting in a forest where the present-day Hague sits.  He eventually built a castle there and at some point three or four centuries later when the Netherlands split from the rule of Spain and the Habsburgs and when Amsterdam was the most important financial place in the country, an arrangement was made that created the present division.  I’m not sure I really got an answer to the question, but if this works for them so be it.

The city is quite pretty with lots of green spaces and some grand looking buildings.  Once again Peter waxed almost poetically about the colors and curves of the things we were seeing and again I wondered about his past about which he had been a little elusive.  We saw a circle in which there was a grand statue of King William I who after the Napoleonic wars headed the modern state of the Netherlands.  We passed the International Court of Justice building which houses the principal court of justice of the United Nations.  It was there that the Serbian dictator Milošević was tried. It is also that court that has condemned Israel for genocide.  I won’t comment about that.  It was a quick drive through, which I think was meant to be longer, but our detour into the countryside precluded that.  I think I liked what we did better so that was okay.

A street in The Hague.  There are electric street cars running everywhere

The grand statue of William I

The clock tower of the International Court of Justice building

These are what typical 19th century Dutch row houses look like - red brick with white tile accents. They are made that way because there wasn't that much timber available while with all the canals around there was lots of clay to make bricks and tile.

We got back to Amsterdam under a black sky with very threatening clouds.  As I walked across the all-metal gangway to reboard the ship there was an ear-splitting-louder-booming thunderclap and I hustled off onto the ship.  The skies opened then and I was glad to be back onboard.  Our departure was somewhat delayed because evidently there was a problem in the big lock.  As a result I didn’t see us traverse that again because by the time we did I was having dinner with friends, my English friend Hilary among them.  She disembarked today in Dover so we said our farewells when the evening ended.  I’m sure we’ll sail together again sometime in the future.  It was nice and interesting day.  If I were an author I could probably make up a nice story about Peter.  I realized after I got back that I didn’t get a photo of him.  I kind of wish I had, but on the other hand, as I said he was a little vague about his history and I didn’t want to pry.

That was my visit to Holland.  Perhaps I should have stayed in the city and gone to the museum there to see Rembrandts and taken a canal ride.  There will probably be a next time so I’ll save that for then.   

May 27 - Bergen, well sort of

We’re docked in Bergen where we’ve been next to a couple of different ferries and nearby is a cruise ship named MS Artania.  I’d never heard of that one and when I googled I discovered she was launched originally as the Royal Princess in 1984 and christened by Princess Diana.  It made me a little sad to see her now.  She was the first cruise ship to have no inside cabins and most of the ones she had were veranda cabins.  She was also the ship that Al and I took around Cape Horn from Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires.  On that cruise Princess offered for the first time ever a shore excursion in which we flew on a 38-seat prop plane and landed at a Chilean AFB in Antarctica and spent the day visiting a nearby penguin colony and visiting several  science stations there.  The people planning the excursion had badly misjudged the time it would take.  As a result we arrived back more than four hours late.  Rumors were flying around the ship that our plane had gone down in the Drake Passage and all lives were lost.  We had a marvelous time and saw penguins up close and personal for the first time. I remember on our return flight we were served a gourmet lunch of bologna sandwiches, a bag of chips and some champagne to wash it down. Those were the days!

The Royal Princess as she looked on her maiden voyage

Perhaps you’ve surmised that I didn’t get off the ship today.  I woke up after 10:30 AM and looked out and it was rainy and cold.  I made the executive decision to declare a sea day, especially since I’d been here a couple of times already.  On previous visits I’d seen the sights, ridden the Fløiban funicular to the top of Mount Fløyen, and even gone shopping with the chef on one visit.  I determined that in the rain my view from the top would be kind of like the views yesterday. Instead I’ve been here talking to friends, catching up on what’s happening in the world and loafing around.  It has cleared off this afternoon, but it’s too late to do much now so here I am catching up on writing.

We have a real sea day tomorrow so I won’t have to make up excuses for lounging around. On Saturday we’ll end another segment of my cruise and almost all the people on now will be leaving including my friend from the UK. I think I mentioned that she’s had a problem with the care of her 98-year-old mother. She’s finally gotten that sorted out so she hasn’t had to leave early.  A few other friends are getting off in Amsterdam, a day early, because they have friends or family there.

Okay, I’ve blathered on enough for today.  I’m going to include a couple of photos from past visits here just so there’s something to look at besides my ramblings.  Ha det bra (I’ll let you figure out what that means)!

The waterfront in old downtown Bergen

The view on a clear day from Mount Fløyen

May 26 - A rainy day in the fjords

Today we anchored off the little village of Loen, a tiny place at the easternmost end of Nordfjorden.  It wasn’t a very promising looking day.  It was cloudy and spitting rain.  I’ve been here twice before and the last time Seabourn offered many more tours and Al and I took a great one that brought us very high up in the mountains and then down to Geiranger Fjord, which I think is probably the one most often seen in travel magazines and cruise brochures about Norway.  This time around they only offered one that didn’t involve hiking, a three-hour driving tour around the fjord and to a nearby lake, so that was what I booked. 

I'll confess up front that I'm going to include some photos from the last times I was here because I want to remember how very pretty it can be when it's not a rainy day.

As I tendered ashore and walked to the bus it was cold and raining, not an auspicious start at all. We took off with our Italian guide whose name I never caught because I couldn’t hear him over the PA system on the bus. As we drove along the fjord’s shoreline off in the rainy mist I could see two more ships, both much larger than ours.  It turned out one was a German ship from the Aida company and the other a British P&O, both carrying somewhere around 4000 passengers so perhaps that’s why we had such limited tours offered.  All the tour operators may have been otherwise occupied.

Pretty gloomy, wouldn't you agree?

By contrast, this is how it looked last time.

The scenery is pretty even in the rain.  There are waterfalls cascading down the very green steep slopes of the surrounding mountains.  There was still a little snow at the peaks. We went through several tunnels (Norway has many including the world’s longest car tunnel at more then 15 miles long). When we came out we began driving around the shoreline of Lake Hornindalsvanet, Europe’s deepest lake with a depth of 514 meters.  We stopped at an overlook where we could take some photos in the drizzle.  Our ride took us through a couple more tunnels and we came to the town of Nordfjordeid where we stopped at a hotel for a bathroom break and a cup of coffee and some very delicious cake.  On the way back to Loen we stopped once more at what was supposed to be the highlight, a scenic overlook atop a cliff with a 1600 foot drop down to the fjord.  Unfortunately when we got there we were engulfed in mist and clouds and there wasn’t much to see except for ghostly shapes in the distance.  

I took this from the bus when for a brief moment it looked like it might clear off.

But at the first scenic overlook it was misty again

The church in the town where we had coffee and cake

A waterfall up close and personal

Nordfjord

This is another cheat photo. This is one Katie took when were were here nearly 18 years ago.  I didn't see any rainbows today.

We got back to the tender dock and it was raining a little more seriously than before.  I was glad that I had a rain jacket with me to provide some protection.  Ours was the last tender and after the boats were secure we sailed away through the fjords.  There was supposed to be a sailaway party on deck, but of course that didn’t happen.  It had to be moved into the Grand Salon. 

I had arranged for a German dinner for four of us in the restaurant so after predinner cocktails we went down and had a delicious meal of wiener schnitzel, red cabbage and warm German potato salad.  That’s one of many things I like about Seabourn – with 24 hours notice you can request a special meal.  After my friends and I went to a dance party in the Club and didn’t leave until nearly 12:30.  Despite the weather it was another lovely day here on the Ovation.

May 25 - Two lazy sea days

 I’m not joking when I say that they are lazy sea days.  If it were not for Trivia at 11:15 I might have actually stayed in bed half the day.  It felt so good with both sets of drapes closed tightly so none of that midnight sun could creep in to disturb me. But, I got up and played (we didn’t win – I guess all the smart folks got off last time we were in Dover).

This leg of the cruise has been somewhat stressful I must confess. My dear English friend is going through a crisis for the care of her 98-year-old mother who lives with her.  She had arrangements made for someone very competent to look after her while she was away. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.  There’s been a glitch and so she spends her days making phone calls and texts to make sure her “mum” is being cared for.  I empathize with her, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do.  In fact while we were at sea there’s nothing she can do either.  Oh, getting old is a trial!

We’ve had some pretty good entertainment on this leg of the cruise.  There was a British comedian the other night that I thought was quite funny.  Humor doesn’t always translate well between countries even when they speak the same language, but this guy was good.  I’m still enjoying listening to the band and occasionally dancing despite the fact that my hip is giving me some trouble.  If the ship is moving around at all, you can kind of get on the dance floor and move your feet just a little and between the ship’s movement and that you can look like a great dancer.

Two nights ago the Seabourn Club party for returning passengers was held.  Much to my surprise I’m the most traveled passenger on this cruise.  When they informed me I was, you could have knocked me over with a feather.  I’ve seen many of the passengers on here on previous cruises so I thought for sure one of them would be.  Anyway, I got a huge and beautiful bouquet of flowers and a nice bottle of champagne.  I’ll save that for a girls’ luncheon that I’ll try to arrange for one of our upcoming sea days.

A friend took this and sent it to me.

Well, I’ve rambled on about pretty much nothing for today, so I’ll close.  In Olden tomorrow I’m going to take an easy driving tour to see the scenery.  It’s supposed to rain so I don’t know how good that will be, but I really should get off the ship for a while.  Ciao for now.

May 23 - 71°10’21” N, 25°47’04” E or as close as I’ll ever get to the North Pole

We docked today in Honnigsvåg on the island of Magerøya, Norway. This place is part of Finnmark, one of Norway’s counties, and the island is connected to the mainland by a subsea tunnel that is about 4 ¼ miles long and reaches a depth of nearly 700 feet below sea level.  Honnigsvåg is the principal town with a population of about 2250. (The population of the whole island is only about 3000.)  The principal industries are fishing (what else!) and a port for transshipment of liquified natural gas.  In the summer there is also significant tourism here.

This is downtown Honnigsvåg

I took a tour to Nordkapp, the most northern place on the European continent that can be reached by road.  The actual furthest north spot is about one mile away at a place called Knivskjelloden (how’s that for a name?), but it can only be accessed by hiking.  I’ll write more about NordKapp below but first I want to write so I’ll remember  some things  I learned about this place and its people.  

The island is a bleak and barren place with the terrain being basically tundra covered with lichens and mosses.  There is little flat land; instead there are rolling mountains with the highest only 1370 feet and at the northern edge of the island steep cliffs that drop down to the Barents Sea.  During the Ice Age the place was covered with glaciers and as they receded the mountains which are volcanic became rounded with sometimes sharp ravines through which streams flow down into little lakes and fjords.  It’s beautiful in a way, but I wouldn’t want to live here.  In the summer there is never darkness, with 20 hours of sunlight and perhaps 4 hours of twilight. In the winter the opposite is true with 20 hours of darkness and four of twilight.

Little houses outside the town. I can't imagine being there in winter.

This last photo with what looks like a horn sticking out of the cliff is the actual North Cape

This part of Norway along with portions of northern Sweden and Finland, along with a very small area of Russia, is the traditional home of the Sámi people.  They are an indigenous people who inhabit a region known as Sámpi.  We English speakers have known them as Lapps or Lapplanders but the Sámi consider that name to be offensive.  The Sámi have been fishermen, fur trappers, and sheep herders but they are best known for being reindeer herders.  In April the Sámi in this part of the world bring their reindeer herd to this island because reindeer evidently like to feed on lichens and moss.  The Sámi bring them from the mainland primarily by boat and allow the animals to roam freely on the island until late September when they round them up and take them back to the mainland.  The animals can’t stay here over the winter because the snow and ice are too thick and hard for the deer to break through to feed.  I found it interesting that when the reindeer are brought over in the spring they have their winter coat on which is white or off-white, not brown.  The males have antlers in the summer but lose them in the winter.  Instead it’s the females who have antlers in the winter.  I guess that means that all of Santa’s reindeer must have been females.  Go girls!!  That’s probably more than I need to know about reindeer, but I thought it was interesting.

During WW II all of Norway was occupied by the Germans and this place was no exception.  In fact, it was considered very strategic because it was  close to the route that Allied ships took to bring supplies to the USSR which was our ally at the time.  When the Germans eventually had to withdraw they burned every building on the island except for the little church.  Many of the residents were evacuated to the mainland and those that stayed had to take refuge in traditional Sámi houses made of sod and thatch until the 1950s when reconstruction was well underway.  Today there is still a NATO outpost on the island because it still occupies a strategic place, maybe even more so now that there is more focus on the Arctic and the resources there.

A traditional Sámi house of sod and thatch

So, I took a ride to Nordkapp which I’ve already said is as far north as you can drive.  Along the way we passed some reindeer grazing and I tried to get photos, but they aren’t great.  We saw a few isolated houses along the way which I assume belong to fishermen.  In the winter the road can be closed for long periods because the snow and ice can reach 15 or 20 feet.  I don’t know what people living outside of Honnigsvåg do then.  I’m guessing that if they can afford it they go to the south of Spain for a few weeks.  We passed a few fish racks for cod to dry out, but they didn’t look very full here either.

These are reindeer but they don't look like Santa's

Not many cod heads drying on tese racks

At NordKapp (the North Cape) there is a large visitor center.  Out at the very point  above the cliff there’s a steel globe sculpture marking the northernmost point of mainland Europe. As I looked in both directions the island ended in sheer cliffs with the very cold sea below crashing into rocks at the cliff bases. It's a very dramatic coastline. We were fortunate with our visit because when we first arrived there were broken clouds with little wind.  Apparently it can be quite windy there.  I don’t like photos with me in them, so I took one of the globe alone.  In the visitor center there is a theater which shows a short film about the birds in the area and shows scenes of the four seasons there.  There are also a chapel and the northernmost post office.  There was also a nice café and, of course, a gift shop.  After I’d seen the sights and bought a few touristy things I went into the café and got myself a Norwegian version of a stroopwafel.  As usual I didn’t get up in time for breakfast and I missed lunch because of when I had to meet for my tour, so I was hungry.  I slathered it with homemade strawberry jam and it was wonderful! Our timing for the visit was perfect because by the time we had to board the bus to go back to the ship, the sky had become quite angry looking and the wind had picked up.

These are pictures of the land at the NordKapp Visitor Center

Look at these rock cliffs and crevasses

A pair of friendly trolls in the visitor center

Back on board I had a lovely evening dining with my friend Hilary and John Baron who was a cruise director on several of my cruises and who now has some corporate position with Seabourn.  He is lot of fun to be with so we laughed a lot as we ate.  And of course I ended my day by going to the show performed by a very entertaining British comedian and dancing a few dances in the Club afterwards.  It was a lovely day and now I have two sea days to look forward to.  They are my favorites!

The day before we got to Honnigsvåg we spent in Tromsø.  I'd been there before but here are a couple of photos I took from the ship while docked and of the fjord as we sailed away.  It's a pretty place.