Monthly Archives: May 2022

We sailed the morning before we got to the port of Eidfjord. Eidfjord means a small place between 2 waters. The town is surrounded by mountains and each one had at least one waterfall. The scenery here was among the most spectacular we have seen.

Once again we were on great roads going through the mountains by way of tunnels. The roads were narrow, but it seemed like this was not as an inhabited area as we had been previously.

Our first stop was at the Norsk Naturcenter. We saw a film that was almost in the round, which had us flying over the Hardanger Plateau. The scenes were of spectacular beauty. The Hardanger Plateau covers over 6200 square miles. After the film we had time in the museum itself. It was a totally interactive museum. It followed the creation of Norway from 450,000 years ago. It showed how the land formed, how it became inhabited, how the ice ages came and went and then about the people and animals. The building was an event in itself.

We then rode to Flossi and stopped at the hotel there. The reason we stopped here was to see the Voringfoss waterfall. It is over 600 feet high. Not only was there this one waterfall, but about 5 others coming from other directions. It was truly amazing to see. We had a coffee break with apple pie at the hotel. The hotel was built in 1891, but no real roads were built until 1915.

We learned that fishing and tourism are the main industries in the area. They also mine slate to make roofing tiles.

Our last stop was at a huge stone dam. We were able to walk on the top of the dam. The area was snow covered and it looked like the water was partially frozen. The water from the dam goes through 2 underground tunnels to the hydroelectric plant. The dam holds over 330 million cubic meters of water.

The ride back to the ship was a continuum of beautiful mountain scenery and waterfall after waterfall. It was a true day of beauty.

The beautiful scenery continued as we sailed that evening with high mountains and waterfalls on either side of the fjord.

Although this was our 3rd visit to Alesund we ended up doing something different. Alesund is a quaint town. The buildings are colorful and built in the Liberty style. The city was mostly destroyed by a fire on January 23, 1904. When the city was rebuilt the buildings had ornate fronts with lots of colorful decorations as well as many windows.

Alesund is built on 7 islands and there are many more islands in the surrounding area. Most of the islands are hilly. About 48,000 people live in Alesund. The main source of income for the area has been fishing for cod and herring and ship yards. During WW II, Alesund served as a major port for those trying to escape. Many houses have grass roofs, which serves as insulation both during winter and summer. Housing costs are around $200,000 to just under $1,000,000. 95% of the electricity comes from hydroelectric production.

Almost every house had a flag pole outside. The Norwegians fly a small triangular flag to signify a personal event, birthday, new baby, wedding, etc. They fly a rectangular flag for holidays. It also seemed that almost every house had a trampoline in the back or side yard.

My tour took me to the outer islands. First stop was the in town mountain, Aksla. It is a good viewing point to see the whole town below as well as the many islands that surround the city. It was very cold and windy there, but my guide was able to show me the mountain that Bob was hiking. It looked like it was covered in a thick fog.

We then traveled through 2 of their 4 sea tunnels, of which they are very proud. They were long, over 3.5 kilometers each. They no longer charge a fee to use them, since they have been paid off. Our first stop was on Godoy, on Alnes Island. We had a coffee and pancake stop and then got to see and climb the lighthouse.

Our next stop was on Giske Island at the local church. It is over 900 years old. When the church was being restored around 1756, a young man by the name of Jacob carved the altar piece. He was just 22 years old and because of his talents was given the honor. He subsequently carved all of the wooden objects in the church and also did the painting of them. The church is still in use today.

Bob hiked Sugar Lump Mountain. He said it was one of the more difficult hikes he had done. It was cold and windy. The trail was mostly rocky and very steep. In addition it was misty/rainy which made the trail slippery. He came back cold and muddy. I got to do a load of laundry to both clean his clothes and get his jackets dried out.

Last nights sailing was like being on a roller coaster. The winds were high and the seas were over 10 feet. We both ended up wearing our “sea bands” which helped a lot. Seasickness adverted.

Olden is a village of about 700 people at the end of the Nordfjord, the sixth largest fjord in Norway. The area we were in was surrounded by tall mountains, some still covered in snow.

The “town” is Loen and it is very small as well. It has the largest meat packing plant in Norway and almost everyone is employed by it. They not only deal with cows, but also goats, sheep and horse. The roads we drove on were very narrow, with cars that had to pull over so our bus could pass by. There are a lot of “hobby farms”. These are small farms, that basically grow food for themselves. We learned that during the winter the roads often are impassable so the children that live on these farms can’t get to town for school. It appears that almost every small village/town has their own school up until high school.

We drove along Loen Lake which is about 10 kilometers long. It has an average depth of 100 meters (you will have to do the math on these numbers). The water comes from the glacier and is quite cold. There was a small white sand beach.

We were told about 2 tragedies in the area. In 1905 and then in 1936, there were huge rock slides from Mount Ramnefjellet. These rock slides caused waves of almost 72 meters and washed away all the homes and the people living in them. 61 were killed in 1905 and 74 in 1936. Now the people who live in the valley have built higher up the hillsides.

We were able to do a short walk to see the Kjenndal Glacier part of one of the largest inland glaciers in Europe. We stopped along the river to see a waterfall and to see if we could see any salmon going upstream to spawn.

All along the road we traveled were beautiful views of mountains and waterfall after waterfall. The area has summer skiing from May to September with 2 fairly large hotels in the town of Loen.

We next stopped at a small cafe for traditional Norwegian waffles – they look like waffles but are long and thin and you put strawberry jam and cream on them. They were very good.

We next had a 45 minute motored boat ride on the lake. It was still pretty cold even at 1 PM so Bette opted to ride inside. Bob was on the top deck until the wind picked up and the rain started.

This was a tender port, and we had to wait while they repositioned the ship. No explanation why, but maybe because the water was choppy from the wind and rain. It ended up clearing about the time we sailed away.

Today we are in Bergen. Thinking back it is our 4 visit here and the second this year. This time we were on a walking tour, no bus to ride. Made us happy.

We started at the fort and saw the fortress first. Bergen was the original capital of Norway in the 1200s. Trondheim was the religious center, but Bergen was the political center.

The Bergenhus Fortress has 2 main towers, Holmen and Rosenkrantz. It is the oldest fortress in Norway. It was partially destroyed during WW II, when a ship blew up near it in the harbor. It has been rebuilt to the original specifications.

We next went to St. Mary’s Church. It was built in 1240 and has never been destroyed or rebuilt. Since it is a civil holiday today, it was closed.

We next started our tour of the Bryggen, the merchant buildings. It was started as warehouses by the Germans during the Hanseatic Era. It is several blocks of wooden buildings which today have been restored to their original look. They are mostly colored in red and yellow. Today there are small stores selling souvenirs, jewelry and other goods. Many spaces also house restaurants. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and those that use the spaces have many rules to follow. We saw the Schotstuene which was the only building in the complex that could have a fire and so all hot meals were served there. It was also where you could get a warm bath and we heard it was also part of the red light district.

Our walk continued to the Magic Ice Bar, where we donned parkas and gloves and had a drink in an ice glass. The walls were covered with ice decorations recreating some of the famous Norwegian art by its famous artists.

We finished at the fish market area. We carried umbrellas, but it never rained. It was pretty cold, low 40s and very windy, but it was a fun day.

We started out with sun. The town of Kristiansand is the fifth largest in population in Norway with 114,000 inhabitants. Like the other places we have been so far, the original city was built of wooden houses, but after many fires they now are mostly brick or stone or other hard materials.

Kristiansand is named for the first official king of Norway and he had the town built in this harbor around 1641. People have been living in this area since the Ice Age and they have found remains that are 9000 years old.

Kristiansand is one of Norway’s southern most cities. On the outskirts there are many summer cottages. There are many coves and inlets where these houses are built. The Norwegians are a very outdoor oriented people and do sports and activities all year outside. This area is called the Norwegian Riviera. Every little cove and inlet was full of boats of all kinds. It was an interesting stop.

Our tour took us to the outer area of Kristiansand, called Sogne. We walked along the old main street which was barely a car wide. All the houses were painted white which in olden times indicated wealth. They all had water views and our guide told us that they pass from one family member to another. The houses, because of the location right on a small bay, are worth about $1,000,000.

We then walked down to the waters edge and saw some interesting sculptures.

Our guide had indicated that she had lived in Boston at some time so we stopped to talk to her. We asked if she had been anywhere else in the US and she said yes, she had an aunt in Florida who she visited often. We said that we were from Florida and asked her where her aunt lived and she said…Fort Myers! Her aunt lives about 15 minutes from us on Corkscrew Road.

We stopped by to see a church from 1536. It had a rune stone in a courtyard across the road from the actual church building. We wandered through the church graveyard.

Then we went to another open air museum. At this one we were actually able to go into one of the very old buildings and see how the people lived in the 1600’s. They also had some more modern homes from the 1800’s with furniture depicting their lives.

Our day ended back in the ship watching the rain.

We sailed all morning up the Oslo Fjord, passing many islands along the way. Oslo is the capital of Norway. It is a city with lots of new buildings along side many old ones. Although our day here is a Monday, there were lots of people outside enjoying the nice weather (60 degrees).

We learned some history of the city, which was the capital and then not. The hierarchy goes back many centuries and at one time this part of the world was part of Norway, Sweden or Denmark. It currently is a royal country, with a king. The population of Norway is around 5.5 million with around 1 million in the Oslo area. Many people commute to the city by ferry from the island and surrounding area. It is the largest, in area, capital in the world covering 175 square miles.

Norway has half of Europe’s coastline. The king and queen live in a palace in the center of the city, but the grounds are open to all to enjoy.

Our tour for the day was called Viking Explorers. It included visits to an exhibit about the Vikings of old and to the Fram Museum, with the ship Fram that Roald Amundsen sailed in the Arctic and Antarctic. We were even able to get on the ship and walk around.

We then went to the Kon-Tiki museum. They had the actual raft that Thor Heyerdahl used to travel from Peru to Polynesia. They also had his papyrus boat, Ra II, that he used to sail from Morocco to Barbados. For a man who never learned to swim, most of his adventures were at sea.

Our final stop was Viking Planet, which had interactive displays about the Vikings and their culture. They were not the barbarians that films depict them to be. The Viking Boat museum is closed for renovations but this stop had a 3-D site and we were able to see boats and artifacts from about 800.

We had a quick stop at the Town Hall where the Nobel Peace prize is awarded. All other Nobel prizes are awarded in Sweden.

Poor internet service, no photos today.

We were able to sleep in a little this morning. Bob did his walk on the treadmill and then we went out to walk in the nearby area. We walked to the Opera House which was opened in 2010. It is an amazing looking building. We got a peak inside and then climbed up one of the outside ramps to the roof for a view of the harbor and some of Oslo.

We then returned to the ship for lunch and to pick up our rain gear. We had an afternoon tour and although the morning was cloudy it had been dry. The afternoon not so much. It was drizzling as we got to the bus, and then the rain really started.

We were on our way to the Bygdoy (pronounced Bigbay) to see the Folk History Museum. This is an outdoor museum, with houses and buildings from all over Norway. It is there to show how people lived in this country for almost 1,000 years. There were farm buildings and houses with turf roofs. The best was an actual Stave church from 1,200. We were lucky that the church was open so we were able to go inside and see it. It was originally a Catholic Church, but now is a Lutheran church. Our guide said that it was available for weddings but you had to reserve it well in advance.

Our next stop was the ski lift that was used in the Olympics in the 1950’s. It was massive and quite impressive to see.

Our final stop, and the highlight of the day was the Vigeland Sculpture Park. All of the sculptures in the park were by Gustav Vigeland. He was supported by the city of Oslo and donated all of his work to the city. All the figures were nudes. They were amazing to see. His theme was the circle of life. There was a tower that had over 120 bodies working their way up from the bottom to the top. All the sculptures were busy doing things like dancing or talking or hugging. The one I liked the best was an older man holding the hand of a young boy with the boy looking up at him.

It was a great day and fortunately the rain did not slow us down even though all of the sites we visited were outdoors.

We sailed at 6. Tomorrow we are in Kristiansand.

Not great internet so no pictures. Have been trying to upload our first day in Oslo all day today.

On May 21, we left Fort Myers around 12:30 to go to Miami. We had a nice driver, Joe, the new owner of Royal Floridian car service. Of course we got to the airport early, but we were able to check in for our flight.

Unfortunately, the TSA was understaffed and it took us over 1 hour to get through security screening, even with our TSA pre-check. We had to let any number of people pass us, because they had a short time to get to their flights.

We were able to spend our time in the Turkish Airlines priority lounge before boarding our Swiss Air flight to Zurich. We had a short connection in Zurich and were concerned when we left Miami almost 45 minutes late. We arrived in Zurich, only 25 minutes late. We flew through passport control (yeah). Then we had a long walk to the train to get to the correct terminal. Of course our gate there was almost to the end. With great speed (and fortunately no secondary security screening) we got to our gate with about 10 minutes to spare. Now our only concern was that our luggage also made this transfer.

A short flight from Zurich to Copenhagen passed quickly. The Copenhagen airport is huge. We walked almost 1.5 miles from our gate to baggage claim. Miraculously our luggage was on the carousel. Now we had to meet up with our cruise line transfer to the ship. This was the biggest snafu of the whole day. We had to stand and wait over an hour for a bus to take us to the ship. The transfer people kept telling us the bus was almost there, but it wasn’t.

Although we had landed in Copenhagen at 2 PM, we did not get to the ship until almost 4. Check in was easy and then we were in our suite. After our muster drill, we had a welcome aboard drink and met another couple in the lounge who had a similar transfer experience.

After dinner, we were able to unpack, clean up and get to bed. Now we are ready to relax and enjoy our cruise.