Cruising on the Norwegian Sun

This is the fifth day of our cruise which began in Copenhagen, Denmark, and will end at Port Canaveral, Florida.  During the first week, we have scheduled stops at several ports before we sail across the Atlantic.  We first sailed north from Copenhagen to the North Sea, where we turned south.  I was surprised that this part of the voyage was so smooth.  I always thought of the North Sea as very turbulent.  I guess it is sometimes, but it was calm as we sailed over wavelets of only .5 to 1.5 feet.

We have gone through the English Channel to the Atlantic.  Here’s a map of where we were this morning…off the coast of France.

Since entering the Atlantic, the waves have gotten higher.  You can see the effect by looking at this wave in the aft deck pool.

Amsterdam and Environs—September 22, 2011

Our first port of call after a day and two nights of cruising was Amsterdam.  I had chosen to go on a full day excursion which included a walking tour of an outside museum of wind mills in Zaanse Schans, a typical tourist visit to a wooden shoe maker, a walking tour of Edam, a stop and lunch in Vollendam, and then a combined driving tour and walking tour of Amsterdam.

What a great day!  We had picture perfect weather (literally)—sunny with temperatures in the low 60’s.  More importantly, we had a fantastic guide whose love of his country and city was evident as he described history, buildings, culture of the various places we visited.

Zaanse Shans

Zaanse Shans is a delightful old hamlet a few miles outside of Amsterdam on the banks of the River Zaan.  It is now an outside museum which gives the feeling of  stepping back in time.  Over the centuries, more than a 1,000 little windmill factories flourished along the River Zaan.  The windmills were used to saw wood, mill grain, crush oilseeds for linseed oil, and many other uses.  Here are three that served the purposes just listed:

Others, like the smaller windmill below, were used to pump water out of the lowlands to provide drain the land.

While at Zaanse Shans, we watched a demonstration of how wooden shoes were made, not by hand, but by using power lathes that follow models to carve shoes.  The one on the right carves the outer shoe from a block of wood, then the one on the left cuts out the interior wood.  It took only five minutes to make a shoe.  Of course they sell these shoes and other souvenirs.  Plus they charge 50 Euro cents to use the bathroom. The money from all of these ventures is used to maintain the outdoor museum and to preserve wind mills.

Edam

Edam was the next stop.  For most people, Edam is synonymous with cheese, as the popular round cheeses have been exported to all corners of the world for centuries.

But this town has much more to offer than just cheese.  It is a town with a rich history, lovely facades, squares, bridges, canals, and dogs.  Here’s a sample:

Vollendam

A few short miles away was Vollendam where we went mainly for lunch.  It has a place to park buses, many restaurants, and souvenir shops. None of which Edam had.  Some people just have to shop these junk shops.

I didn’t buy any lunch or junk.  I had brought my lunch, so I walked out on the dike and had a picnic.

I share my lunch with several little birds like this one.  I’ve never seen a bird with a polk-dotted breast.  Can anyone identify this bird?

While there, several boats came and went in the little port, some of which moored right in front of me.  Some were ferries that were going back and forth to Marken Island, just off the coast from here.

This cute little dog was being walked (yanked) along the dike. 

Just so you can picture how small he was, here he is next to his owners’ legs.

Amsterdam

After a refreshing break on the dike, we then drove back to Amsterdam to tour the city.
Of course we saw the ubiquitous bicycles everywhere, and beware if you get in their way.  Cars will stop; bikes won’t if you are in the bike path.

We also crossed over the canals with their tour boats, house boats, and lovely bridges.

We passed by Dam Square where street entertainers were gathering a crowd.

We passed by elegant shops and stores…and not so elegant ones like this one:

.

We also passed by apartments that have been taken over by squatters. These abodes are distinguished by colorful graffiti.

We also went by crazy sexy district…or red light district where there are red lights and girls in the windows.  If their curtains are drawn, they may be busy entertaining/working.

We passed many coffee shops. Our guide told use that coffee shops are really places where you can buy and smoke pot. The signs are always green and yellow. And, even though illegal, they are licensed by the city and are given a green city seal for coffee houses to show that they are legally illegal

We then did a walking tour through the University district to go to a surprising place called, “The Begijnhof”.  Under the guidance of an unmarried woman, other unmarried women came together to live in community. They were a quasi-religious community, vowing chastity and obedience to the head woman, but not poverty.  They lived in these magnificent apartments, and if they should take a lover or decide to get married, they had to leave.  They were not officially recognized by the Catholic church (I learned about a similar community in Bruges [that’s for tomorrow]).

We wandered through interesting streets, through inside passages where courtyards appeared, like this one, which was once part of an orphanage, but now is part of a museum.

One person on the tour who had worn her pedometer informed me that we had walked 6 miles today.  I can’t believe I did that!! Over coble stones, no less. But it is easier to do when it isn’t 90+ degrees souped up with 90+ humidity.

Since we have a sea day tomorrow before we arrive in Lisbon, I will catch up with a description of the visit to Bruges.

Scandinavian Capitals Land Tour

September 12 – 21, 2011

I was not able to post anything during the land part of the trip because I could not charge the battery on my computer.  I had brought my transformer and proper plugs that work in the countries that I was visiting, but I hadn’t noticed before I left that the transformer accepts only 2- bladed American plugs, and my computer has the third ground wire prong, so it wouldn’t fit.  Fortunately, I could charge my camera’s batteries and the cell phone because those have the two-pronged plugs.
I became sort of a charging service for several people who didn’t bring transformers or European plugs.  Although I was frustrated, I was glad that the equipment I brought benefited someone.  Now that I am on the ship, it is equipped with 110 volt sockets that accept three-pronged plugs.  So…I am back in business.

I will not attempt to recount each day of the land tour (aren’t you thankful?).  Even so, this is a long post because it would have been 10 instead of one. 

 Suffice it to say, I was in the bus for 7 of those 10 days; they were long travel days.  We drove approximately 2000 miles, from Copenhagen, Denmark to Bergen, Norway, and back again.  By the end of the trip, here’s what several of us looked like. 

Stockholm

First stop was Stockholm.  Beautiful city.  Probably the most interesting in Sweden.  Here are a few photos of it.

                                  Bird's Eye View

           Is this Lisbeth Salander?

That night we went to an elegant dinner at a beautiful restaurant in old town that was established in 1722.

Oslo

Next was Oslo. Not as beautiful as Stockholm, but interesting none the less. Very modern buildings. Lots of construction going on. We visited the Vigeland Sculphure Gardens.

Next went up to the ski jump.

From the ski jump, you get a grand view of the Oslo fjord. 

In the afternoon, I took a boat ride on the Oslo fjord. Each of the islands in the innermost part of the fjord has its own identity. Some are privately owned. 

We could get a good look at Oslo's Opera House and the interesting sculpure in front of it from the boat.

 

The college student who narrated this boat tour makes $30/hour.  This was a 2 hour tour, one of several that day, so she made a nice amount for talking maybe a total of 20 minutes during the tour.

 As you may know, college students here do not pay tuition.  Plus they are given a study stipend of about $1,000 per month.  If they take a student loan, they don’t have to pay interest.  Plus they make good wages doing this kind of work in the summer.  Not bad, huh?

We got back at evening as the late afternoon sun illuminated the Oslo waterfront.

And just in time to catch the next ferry....but we decided to have dinner instead.  This is where I paid $40 for a pizza and a beer.

Drive to Bergen

  I will say that the 8 hour transfer from Oslo to Bergen was the best.  It was a spectacular drive through the mountains and fjordlands.  We saw many beautiful farms, rushing rivers, waterfalls, and mountains along the way.  We were lucky to have a sunny day which illuminated the scenes beautifully.  We retracked this same drive back to Copenhagen in the rain.  The difference was amazing.

Norway in a Nutshell

Probably the most outstanding excursion I took was “Norway in a Nutshell” . We drove in our tour bus from Bergen to Vos (home of Knute Rockney).  This is a 2 hour drive.  Then we boarded a local sight-seeing bus which took us down Naero Valley via a twisting road that looked like the one in San Francisco called Stalheim Road.  On our way, we passed the Kjosfossen waterfall, one of the most visited travel destinations in Norway. 

 

Arriving at a dock, we embarked on a 2 hour sail through the Naeroyfjord. In 2005, this fjord was included on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. It is Norway’s longest and deepest fjord. It then joins the Aurlandsfjord which is a 17 km arm of the world’s second longest fjord, the Sognefjord (204 km). The surrounding mountains reach approximately 3000 feet, often sheer rock face that reminded me of El Capitan in Yosemite.

There were small farms on the edge of the water.

And a rare stave church.

Our cruise ended in Flam where we took the Flam Railway from Flam to Myrdal.  This railway took 20 years to build and is one the steepest of its kind in the world.  It is often compared to the White Pass Railway in Alaska that I rode on recently.  It passes by many waterfalls, through tunnels, above valleys. 

 

Off that train onto another that took us back to Vos where we picked up our bus to return to Bergen.  Nine hours of riding on six modes of transportation. It was well worth it.

Bergen

However, because we were on this all day optional tour, I missed the half-day tour of Bergen.  The little I did see made me think that this was probably the most interesting city on the tour, despite the architectural beauties of Stockholm and Copenhagen.

By far, Norway is the most beautiful of the three countries.  It is considered the National Park of Europe, at least that’s what the guides say.  I enjoyed my visit in the land of the Trolls and would like to explore it some more.



Back to Copenhagen

It took us two days to get back from Bergen to Copenhagen, a total of 20 brutal hours. Before we boarded the ship, we were scheduled to have a 7 hour tour of the city.  But, once on the bus, we were told that we may not be able to get into the Central City because there was an international bike tour going on and all streets entering the city had been blocked.  You could hear the groans. 

We were taken to see the new, ultra-modern opera house which was completed in 2005. It is built in the area of the old docks.

This is one of the lights in the main lobby

which gives the building a beautiful glow at night.

The opera house is built in alignment with the Queen's Palace  and The Marble Church, so that if one stands in the main entrance of the Opera, one can see the dome of the Marble Church behind Amalienborg (the name of the Palace).  Very convenient for the Queen when she wants to attend events at the Opera.

Then we were taken on a tour of the suburbs…around the airport…where we had been staying in hotels.  The driver drove very slowly, and the guide did his best to inform us of the community gardens and potatoes that people grow in these country communities . 

The night before I had happened to look out my hotel window and saw a couple working in their garden.  The man was using a hand-pushed lawn mower (which I haven’t seen in years), and his wife was sweeping and poking away at something. Neat little house and yard.  Here they are working on their tidy little plot:

On our way to a “quaint” fishing village,  we passed the newest hotel, the Bella, with 800 rooms, which was built just before the financial crash.  Poor timing. Lots of very modern apartment houses in this area which the guide said would be future slums. 

Notice the windmill in the background.  We saw many of these in Sweden and in Denmark. Also, I noticed that there was a man washing those crazy windows on the Bella.  Since we were stopped at a traffic light,  I was able to zoom in so you can see him better.

 The fishing village of Dragor (with a slash through the o) is quite a contrast with its thatched roof houses. 

While at the fishing village,  we got word that the race was still on, but some streets in the city were open and that we could take a  quick  tour to see some of Copenhagen.

The Stock Exchange

Nyhavn Canal

Lots more photos of this city, but I think you have had enough.  Must end with the little mermaid though.

We all knew that these countries would be expensive, but when you pay $15 for a bowl of soup, or $25 for a hamburger, or $40 for a pizza and a beer, you really begin to appreciate how relatively inexpensive the US is in comparison.  It doesn’t help to try to go to grocery stores to buy “supplies” to make your own. Food there was expensive, too.  For example, eggs were $8 a dozen. 

Fortunately breakfast was included in all of our hotels, and they were bountiful.  Since they included ham, cheese, fruit, nuts, hard boiled eggs, and other treats, most of us began to surreptitiously pack a lunch for the day which would save  anywhere from $15 to $25.

So after so much bus riding and schlepping our luggage from bus to room to bus again, and reluctantly paying so much for food and drink, all of us were ready for the cruise where we unpack once, eat what and when you want, enjoy the library, or entertainment, or lectures, or a quiet corner to read.