Saturday night Volendam had its sock hop. We danced to ‘50s and ‘60s music, so you can’t really blame me for humming that ridiculous old Bobby Darin tune all Sunday morning while visiting the Forest Lagoon, a geothermal mineral bath … Continue reading Splish Splash
Djupivogur, Iceland has decided to slow down. Its four hundred residents have opted to join the Cittaslow movement. Cittaslow started in Italy and grew out of the slow food movement. Membership is open to towns of under 50,000. The goals … Continue reading Tankurinn, It’s not what you may think.
Between our visit to Kamoyvaer fishing village and our return to Honningsvåg the weather cleared up unexpectedly, there was no fog and no wind. It was the perfect day to visit North Cape. North Cape (or Nord Cap) is branded … Continue reading This is the Donut Hole
Kamoyvaer is the type of town I love to drop an FM translator into. A translator is a low powered FM repeater. I’ve put them into small fishing towns along the Alaska Panhandle. Kamoyvaer fits the profile, in this case … Continue reading East of the Sun and West of the Moon
It was like we were in Tromsø on two different days. The night before this first call north of the Arctic Circle at latitude 69o the forecast called for temps in the 30s and a “wintery mix” of rain and … Continue reading St. Olaf vs. the Trolls
The click of a padlock and we are locked out. We were visiting the Sverresborg Trondelag Folk Museum, a open air museum with buildings collected from all over the region and assembled in a folk park. I particularly wanted to … Continue reading The Norski Elvis
The Lewis Chessmen may be the perfect icon for this portion of our voyage. The Chessmen were discovered on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. They were carved from walrus ivory from Greenland, probably transited through … Continue reading Ravenheart
Eidfjord sits at the end of Hardangerfjord, a deep (more than 2800 feet) and long (111 miles) fjord extending inland from the Norwegian sea. At the head of the fjord is the Hardanger plateau and the Hardangervidda National Park. The … Continue reading Hardanger Fjord
St. Giles Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, is ironic in several ways. First off, I find the idea of a Presbyterian Cathedral, Presbyterians have no bishops, to be almost oxymoronic. But what I really find funny is the stained … Continue reading Reformation and Art, St. Giles Cathedral
I had never been to Edinburgh on a nice day. Every time I’ve been here the skies were gray, or it was raining. The gray skies, the brownstone buildings, and the Sir Walter Scott Monument, a gothic tower blackened by … Continue reading Auld Reekie
First, “Firth of Forth” is not easy to type. Autocorrect helpfully suggests “first of four.” Firth is only sort of an English word, mostly Scottish, deriving from the Norse. It has the same root as “fjord.” The Firth of Forth … Continue reading Firth of Forth
While I mostly write about ports and port experiences, on this sea day I write about some of the social events on the ship. Today we have our third block party, where we all go into the hallway, the staff … Continue reading Sea Day Catch Up.
May 4th and 5th are big days in The Netherlands. On May 5, three days before VE Day, the end of the Second World War in Europe, the German commander in the Netherlands signed an instrument of surrender with the … Continue reading Freedom in Haarlem!
Ghent has three large churches almost in a row. Each one of them is grand enough to be a cathedral, but two are parish churches that look like cathedrals. Gothic Ghent had the mega church figured out before the U.S. … Continue reading St. Nicholas Church, Ghent
The Holland America tour of Ghent may have been the best organized ship tour I have been on. On each bus seat we found a map of Ghent and a card with an emergency number to call in case we … Continue reading Ghent
In an earlier post I talked about “ship days.” Days that we are in a port but choose not to go ashore. This last couple of weeks has been intensive. As I write this leaving the Netherlands we have had … Continue reading Ship Day, Shore Day, Cherbourg
Asterix and Obelix are French comic book characters, Celts, who resisted Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. When I was reading these comics to my kids, I assumed that the Celts in Brittany, a peninsula at the western edge of France, were … Continue reading Celtic France, Brest
Perhaps the rain was an omen. The weather on this cruise has been great but Wednesday we had overcast skies and rain, sometimes heavy. The ship docked at Leixeos, the port for Porto. Holland America ran a shuttle to Natosinhos, … Continue reading A Beautiful Way to Catch a Train, Porto
I was in the crosswalk at about 11:40 Monday morning. The green signal told me I could cross. Then the light went out, it didn’t turn red, it went out. Immediately a car pulled in front of me. He lost … Continue reading Lights Out! Lisbon
Everywhere you look in Portugal (and frequently in Brazil and Cape Verde) you find Azulejo, painted ceramic tiles. Azujelo is from the Arabic Al-zullij, “polished stone.” Our guide on our Lisbon tuk tuk, tour, Maurice, told us they were developed … Continue reading Azulejo, Portuguese Tiles.
At the Barcelona Meetup I had a conversation with Jo Johnston, (Writer on Deck). We discussed the timing of the publication of our blogs. On this trip she published two in one day and decided not to do that again. … Continue reading Manueline Architecture in Lisbon
We are now sailing in Europe and are approaching our stop at Ijmuiden in the Netherlands. One of the tours Holland America is offering is a visit to the towns of Volendam and Marken. I have been holding this post … Continue reading Volendam and Volendam
Sometimes the best days just happen. We had nothing planned for Cadiz, just step off the ship and wander. We loved what we saw from our balcony as we docked and wanted to see it up close. It was Sunday, … Continue reading Sunday in Cadiz
On each world cruise Holland America plans something special. This year it was the “Grand Meetup.” Both Holland ships, Volendam and Zuiderdam, on Grand Voyages met in Barcelona for two days of parties and activities. Holland claims it is the … Continue reading Grand Meetup.