Author Archives: bettesbatson

Lerwick is the capital city of the Shetland Islands. This area has a Norse heritage as well as a Viking one. The population of the island that Lerwick is on is about 8,000 while all the Shetland Islands have a population of about 22,000. The islands were settled about 6,000 years ago. There are very few trees as they were used in the earliest times for building and heating. The land is covered with peat, which is still dug up and dried and used for heating. There are over 100 islands composing the Shetlands with 69 being populated. Our guide told us that a few of these islands only have a few people living on them. They need to get between them by boat.

The name Lerwick means muddy bay. It too has a relatively mild climate. It is very, very windy here and an electric company is in the process of installing 103 huge wind turbines. The locals are not happy about this being in their “backyard”. It will however provide all the power needed in these islands as well as supply power back to the mainland of Scotland.

The oil industry was very big in the 1960s. They even built an 18 hole golf course so the people working in the oil industry could have some recreational time. It is the 2nd most northern golf course in the world. At this time of year it is light until 10 PM so the course gets lots of use by locals and tourists. The oil industry also provided funding for all of the islands and built recreational buildings and homes for the elderly. They also set up a fund to provide for the upkeep of these facilities.

There is obviously a TV series located in the Shetland Islands and our guide pointed out the various buildings along the way that were used in the show. It is a British show, but a few of our tour group were fans of the show.

There are over 2,500 lochs (lakes) in the Shetlands and many are used for salmon farms and mussel farms. This is a huge industry for them.

Along the way we crossed a very narrow point in the road. We were told that at this point, about 30 feet wide, we could throw a stone from the Atlantic Ocean and throw it into the North Sea. We had one stop to see the Drombs which were huge rocks in one of the bays. In this area we traveled on a single track road, one lane only. Our final stop was a a lighthouse with a fabulous view down the coast of huge seaside cliffs and wild crashing waves. This area is called Northmavine. We were able to see the famous Shetland ponies, which are small horses, but very strong.

We finished with a ride through the town, seeing the historic buildings.

After these 2 long days of riding buses, when we got back to the ship we changed to a walking tour for our next stop.

Today we were at Kirkwall the capital of the Orkney Islands. There are 70 islands in the Orkney archipelago but only 20 are inhabited. The islands are about 40 miles off the Scottish coast. Kirkwall and vicinity has a population of about 10,000 with the total population of all the islands around 22,500.

The main source of income is from farming and tourism. The cattle industry is most prevalent with about 15 different breeds of cattle being raised. The prime breed is Black Aberdeen. They are expecting 200 cruise ships this season and indicated that this was a large number and very welcome. They also have a large jewelry manufacturing industry. Many retirees are coming to the area because of the relaxed way of life and the relative lower cost of living.

The islands were settled by the Vikings in the 9th century. It became part of Scotland in 1468. The main church, St. Magnus Cathedral, was started in 1137 and took 300 years to complete. Our guide told us the very intricate story of Magnus who was a lord of the land and how he became a saint.

We drove along side many lochs which were being used for salmon farms. The huge rings that hold the salmon could contain 10,000 in each one. The landscape included lots of farm land with low stone walls.

The climate of this area is considered maritime, which means it is moderate. The Gulf Stream passes close to the islands so the winters are fairly mild and the summers cool. They are at the same latitude of southern Greenland, Saint Petersburg, Russia and Alaska. In the winter they get strong gales with winds topping 100 mph.

They have over 500 wind turbines and are able to send power to the mainland of Scotland. They have a large number of electric cars.

The area has a world heritage UNESCO site which is where we were headed. It is the Ring of Brodgar. It is the 3rd largest ring in the world. It originally had 60 tall stones, but now there are 26 remaining. It is about 120 feet across. It is about 4600 years old which makes it older than Stonehenge. There is a second stone circle called the Standing Stones of Stenness which has 12 stones. In the same area is a mound building similar to one we had seen on another trip. On the winter solstice, the sun shines in the doorway and lights the inner chamber. It was closed to our group because of the number we were. They will only allow groups of 5 to enter it.

Our last point of interest was Scappa Flow which was a huge military area during WW I and WW II. In WW I the Germans had brought their fleet to this large harbor to protect them. In June of 1919 all the ships were sunk. There are still 7 in the waters. All the others have been salvaged. In WW II the British fleet was here to blockade the Germans.

The day turned out to be cool and sunny. We are always thankful for the sun.

Our ship docked in Leith which is the current port for Edinburgh. It has been the major trading town for Edinburgh for over 600 years, being established by King James IV. It is considered a royal borough which means that the people here can trade abroad. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland with a population of half a million. It lies in the central belt of Scotland, dividing the highlands from the lowlands. The total population of Scotland is around 5.5 million. There are more sheep in Scotland than there are people, around 6 million.

They are almost 100% electric from wind power. They are very dedicated to being green, but it is harder with the current world wide oil crisis. They are working on tidal power since Scotland has over 9,000 miles of coastline.

Our tour took us out of town. We drove about 30 minutes to the town of Stirling and majestic Stirling Castle. It was started in the 1200s as a fort. It was battled for over many centuries by the various kings who were trying to be independent from England. Robert the Bruce is the most famous Scottish king. He defeated the English at the battle of Bannockburn. In the 1300s the line of Stuart kings took power and all the next kings were named James.

William Wallis, the original Braveheart, was a noble in 1296 and fought in this area. Our guide told us that most of the movie, Braveheart, had major historical and costume errors. But he agreed that the movie was a good one.

The royalty like to live at Stirling Castle. It was a good place to raise children because of the temperate weather. We were able to see the well preserved buildings. We toured the chapel, which was a huge room for the time. Later in history it was used as a banquet hall. We toured the main building with some of the rooms decorated as they would have been in the old times. There was an exhibit of military dress and medals as well as an exhibit of the tapestries that had been woven for use in the palace part of the castle that used colors and techniques that were authentic to the original times.

There were several beautiful gardens that we were able to walk through. The views from the castle were terrific because it was on top of a small mountain.

We then went to the Battle of Bannockburn center. We had a short movie which told about the people who fought there. We then went into another theater where our guide told us about the battle. He had small army figures which he moved around the battle field and gave a very exciting and interesting showing of how the battle was fought and how Robert the Bruce was able to beat the English with half the number of troops. After we were able to walk to the monument marking the site of the battle.

We returned to the ship and after a quick lunch caught the shuttle into the city of Edinburgh. We walked up to the castle. Then we walked down the Royal Mile for a bit. We stopped into St. Giles church, which has a crown for it’s turret. The church was lovely, but we had the added treat of listening to a choir and orchestra practicing. We sat for a while to enjoy the music.

A stroll down Princes Street along side the various parks in the city got us back to the shuttle to take us to the ship.

It was a busy day AND we had sun and blue skies all day. We even were able to take off our heavy jackets.

Another sunny, relatively warm day. Bob opted out of our booked tour. We drove through Edinburgh seeing the main sights. The architecture of the city is mainly Georgian. We learned that in the olden times, you paid taxes based on the number of glass windows. Many of the buildings we saw had bricked over windows to save the owners money. I was surprised that they remained like that and were not opened up for current use.

Edinburgh is the publishing hub of Scotland. One of the first English dictionaries was published here. It is currently a scientific center with a large university. A great many medical treatments were developed here. The first pension system was developed here to talk care of the clergy after they retired.

The main purpose for this tour was to go the the Edinburgh Botanic Garden. It was established 350 years ago by the medical school. They brought in plants from all over the world to try to learn how to use them for healing purposes. The gardens are spread over 70 acres and are divided into many different types. I was expecting a more traditional “English” garden with lots of flowers and a neat arrangement. This was not the case. There was a Japanese garden, with those traditional elements. A rock garden with rocks from all over Scotland. There were flowers, but not arranged in a way I was expecting. It did allow me to be outside and get in a nice long walk in a pretty atmosphere.

Bob enjoyed his lazy day – getting to exercise and relax. We met another couple in the afternoon for some bridge.

Friday, June 3, was another sea day. The weather was fair, with some sun. It was still pretty cold and windy. The seas were a little rocky and both Bob and I had to wear our sea bands.

This leg of our trip has some bridge players and we met at 10 and had a nice game with a couple from Australia.

Since it was the start of the Queen’s Jubilee weekend, the restaurant had an English Pub lunch with lots of flags and pennants from the UK. The entertainment team led everyone in a sing-a-long. It was a fun atmosphere.

The rest of the day was a lazy one. We read our books. Bob exercised but there was too much movement for me to get on the treadmill.

Awaiting our arrival in Edinburgh.

We finally started off with a clear morning. No rain, but cloudy. A big improvement on the prior days. We were off to Luneburg, a medieval town about 30 miles from Hamburg.

The land in this part of Germany is flat. Quite a change from the mountains and waterfalls of Norway. We drove through mostly farmland. The farms are very large in this area because they are passed on the the oldest son. Therefore they are not broken into smaller parts so all the sons could inherit. The autobahn (highway) going into Hamburg was about 7 lanes wide and crawling along. We were on a busy road but it was moving along nicely.

The town of Luneburg was founded in the 8th century. It came to prominence when salt was discovered close to the surface of the land. The town was never destroyed because in the time of Rome, they never came to this area. During WW II the town was never bombed because the British planned to use it as a headquarters once Germany was defeated.

Our tour started at the Town Hall built in 1230. It has been enlarged and expanded of the years. It has a Baroque facade. We learned about the way that salt was mined. It was a very complex industry. There were 34 families that ran the whole operation. They were quite wealthy. They called the salt “white gold”. Many of their homes are still standing today and are in use as homes or shops. The homes of the wealthy were quite ornate. We learned that over the years as the salt was mined various parts of the town sank because the water levels that washed the salt up to the surface changed.

We saw the town harbor where the salt was loaded on flat bottom boats to be brought to other place to then be shipped around the world. The harbor had a gate in olden times that was locked each night to protect the salt. We saw the warehouses where the salt was stored prior to being shipped and the crane that was used to lower the barrels of salt onto the boats. Inside the crane were 2 big wheels on which 4 men walked to raise and lower the crane bucket. They worked in 4 hour period and had to walk forward and backward to raise and lower the bucket.

There are 3 big churches in town. We went inside St. Nicolai. It was built in the 15th century and was a church dedicated to the sailors. There were boats hanging in the main area.

There were several squares around the town. The main one was near the town hall with many historic building surrounding it. On the day we were there, there was a group of 2nd grade children performing. They sang and played simple instruments. We even saw 2 couples going into the town registry to get married.

It was an interesting town and we learned a lot from our guide, Gertrude, who actually lives in Luneburg.

We sailed late afternoon, on our way to Scotland.

Today was a washout, literally. We woke up to a drizzle, but by the time we were leaving the ship for our tour it was pouring. Hamburg is in the northern part of Germany and is the second largest city in Germany with a population of approximately 1.7 million. It lies at the intersection of 3 rivers and has many canals as well. The city has 2,500 bridges with New York City being the only city with more bridges.

The city has a vast transportation system – buses, tramcars, underground trains and trains. There are 5 major train stations in the city. The traditional buildings are made of light colored sandstone with copper roofs. Most of the buildings from the 1800s to late 1900s are made of red brick. There was a large amount of building cranes with lots of building going on. These new buildings are modern big city looking.

The old warehouse area built from 1880 to 1920 is now part of a UNESCO area. There is a big area near this being developed as a modern new city. Hamburg is a cultural city with a new opera house, of very striking design, Elbphilharmonie, fondly called Elfie by the locals.

We drove through the city seeing the usual town hall, churches and other famous landmarks. We passed the red-light district where the Beatles got their start playing in bars in the area.

We then boarded a steam powered boat for a ride on Alster Lake. This is a huge lake system, 2 big lakes in the center of town. It was still raining so it was hard to see much. We passed through and by, beautiful parks and homes. This is obviously the upscale part of town. The American embassy is on one of the lakes. The city has been named a European Green Capital for all the beautiful trees and parks.

It finally stopped raining when we got back to the ship, so we were able to eat lunch on the deck, but still had to wear our warm jackets because it was chilly.

We overnighted in Hamburg.

We finished the first part of our journey with a day at sea sailing from Stavanger to Hamburg, Germany. The seas were perfectly calm and we even had some sunshine.

We exercised and found some bridge players and spent part of the afternoon playing.

Some final thoughts on Norway. It is an exceedingly beautiful country. The weather was fairly constant – cold, cloudy and misty rain. As the Norwegians say, there is no bad weather just bad clothes. We had bad clothes, not being well prepared for the degree of coldness we encountered. We however were able to layer up and mostly be warm. One pair of gloves was purchased by Bette.

The Norwegian guides, who were mostly not from Norway, spoke so proudly of the country. We did not have many chances to meet people but from what we were told they are happy and content. We never saw any homelessness and the streets were clean with very little graffiti. The Norwegians are very outdoor oriented going out to nature every chance they get. Most have cabins (very bare minimum shelters) outside of their towns and spend their weekends with family and friends being active. Babies nap outside all year round.

It was a very interesting trip so far. More adventures to follow.

Stavanger was settled over 12,000 years ago, because of the natural deep water harbor. It is the 4th largest city in Norway with a population of 140,000. It’s name comes from the words Stav, meaning hills with oak trees and Vanger, meaning harbor. The original industry was timber, then preserving herring in the 1800s and then canning both fish and vegetables. Now it is a tourist destination and is involved in the oil and gas industries.

We did a walking tour of the town. Our first stop was at the Canning Museum. It was interesting to see the old equipment and hear how much labor was manual when this industry was first started. It eventually became mechanized, but the drying of the sardines was still a hands on job. The smokers, the men who dried the fish, were the best paid and were usually well to do. After seeing the canning museum we walked through Gamle Stavanger with all of the old homes. They were in good repair and most had beautiful gardens. We went to a cafe that was in a building built in the 1700s and is still owned by descendants of the original owners. We got to taste 4 different types of sardines.

Our tour continued on the the town’s cathedral. It will be celebrating it’s 900th birthday in 2025 and was totally covered in scaffolding since the entire building is being renovated. It was built by the king of Denmark in payment for a divorce from his then wife so he could marry a beautiful young girl from Stavanger. It seats 800, but at the time it was built the population of Stavanger was only 150.

Norway is among the top 10 fishing nations and exports 140,000,000 seafood dinners a day.

We passed the town library which is used as a center for most of the towns activities. Our guide told us that Norwegians read more books and newspapers per capita than any other country. She also said that Norwegians are prolific knitters, using the wool from the 2 million sheep that call Norway home.

In the 1970s oil was discovered off the coast and it changed Stavanger. It brought in many people from other countries and the city became more cosmopolitan. There are all kinds of restaurants serving many different cuisines. Although they are huge gas and oil producers, Norway exports almost all of it’s gas. This is because they use mostly electricity which is supplied by hydroelectric plants.

Our last stop on tour was to the former watchtower for the town. Men manned it day and night to alert the citizens of fire, since in the day, all the buildings were built of wood.

This was our second visit to Stavanger and again, we did something different and learned a great deal.

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.