North Sea, June 25

Last day. I'll have to start packing soon. The sea is pretty calm...at least for the North Sea. No whitecaps, but some swells coming from starboard. The ship begins to roll, then the stabilizers kick in and she comes back. It's not all that much, but the multi-directional nature sometimes makes walking in a straight line a bit difficult. Fortunately, in our stateroom there is usually something nearby to grab for stability if necessary.

it's been a really good trip. Our weather magic held pretty well for the whole month. We saw lots of interesting places. We met lots of interesting people and enjoyed good times with our table mates at dinners. I will, as always, miss being on board, but I am sort of looking forward to getting home again. I'll be back on another cruise again in a couple of months...Alaska on the Zaandam in early August. Until then... (sorry, I've got to say it like our cruise director) toodle-oo for now.

Stavanger, June 24 / At sea, June 25

We appear to have all engines operating again. We left Bergen on time at 11:30 pm with the quite loud accompaniment of a rock concert on shore. It was the celebration of midsummer, and folks were out in force on their small pleasure boats zipping around the harbor in all directions. There were even several bonfires along the shore which is a traditional way to celebrate the summer. By the time we went to bed shortly after midnight, the sun had actually set and there was darkness which we haven't seen in a number of days.

The trip to Stavanger was somewhat bouncy during the night, but we arrived at the projected time amid fog and light rain which we hope will clear off somewhat by late morning when our tours leave. Stavanger is Norway's fourth largest city and is the main place that supplies the off-shore oil drilling industry in the North Sea. It is a large port, and there are a number of large, strong-looking ships that we guess are the oil rig supply ships and one rescue ship in broad black and yellow slanted stripes. Also in port are Cunard's Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria.

My tour was a boat excursion up to Pulpit Rock in the Lysefjord. The boat was a catamaran and quite the nicest and most comfortable excursion boat that I have ever been on! It could probably hold eighty people, but there were no more than forty of us, so everybody had a good seat. Although the weather was cloudy with mist in the distance, my weather magic held until I got back to the dock where I got rained on getting back to the ship.

Lysefjord is 42 kilometers long and mostly 400 meters deep. The granite cliffs rise to about 600 meters high. Pulpit Rock is one of the most famous attractions in Norway. You often see photos of it taken from the air looking down at people standing on it above the fjord. The rock itself is separated from the mountain by a significant crack. This photo, of course, is looking at it from the other direction.

There is a herd of goats turned out to pasture at the base of Pulpit Rock in the summer. The excursion people give them treats, so whenever the goats see an excursion boat, they come trotting to meet it. Most everyone on our boat crowded the outside decks to take pictures of the goats. I do have one slightly blurry photo of goats, but it's not worth posting here.

After the photo op at Pulpit Rock, we continued a short way up the fjord to the Hengjane Waterfall seen here. Our boat pulled in right to it, and one of the crew caught some of the water in a stainless steel bucket and let anyone who wanted to taste it have some. It tasted like cold wet water to me.

Then we stopped at the Helleren Fjord Restaurant pasted on the side of the fjord at the base of a high cliff for Norwegian waffles with sour cream and jam along with coffee or tea. There was a tall teenager there in full Viking get up for people to photograph. Also there was a young boy with a fishing rod pretending to fish in the fjord. Aside from those slightly hokey bits, it was a lovely break in the tour.

WOW!! Both Queens just sailed right past us! The Queen Elizabeth sailed first then the Queen Victoria. Both were sent off by the local fire boat pumping five streams. It was quite a sight. Word is that one is starting a seven day tour and the other a fourteen day tour, but i'm not sure which is which. We will be leaving soon, but the fire boat disappeared while we were watching the other ships negotiate the narrow part of the harbor. That's okay. We had our fire boat welcome yesterday in Bergen.

And again, we are small enough that when we sail, we are going up the Lysefjord to Pulpit Rock before we head for Amstrdam. If I had known we were going to do that, I could have saved the cost of a tour, but I really won't mind seeing it again from our larger ship. This kind of extra touch is why I like sailing on smaller ships that can go where the big ones can't.

More Bergen, June 23

4:15 pm. We are finally arriving at Bergen. There is even a fire boat spraying water to welcome our captain to his home city. We will be docking very near Bryggen which is the area of old Hanseatic League warehouses that has been preserved as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We had a two hour bus ride around town past a number of places that I had seen last year. The photo here is of the Bryggen area. Not the most inspiring tour I've ever had, but at least it didn't rain more than a sprinkle, and we got back to the ship in time for dinner. As for the rain, evidently Bergen is the rainiest city in Norway and is sister city to Seattle, our guide said that it rains here on average 275 days a year, so I am guessing that Jill's and my weather magic is still working if we only got a sprinkle.

The only word on the engine situation is that we are still supposed to sail around 11:30 this evening and are now supposed to arrive at Stavanger tomorrow an hour earlier than originally scheduled.

At sea, June 22 / Bergen, June 23

Aaahh! Sun! We were sailing south, and the temperature, even out here beyond all the islands, was quite moderate, and the sky was only partly cloudy. I wished that we were a small enough ship to sail between the islands and the mainland, but we are not. We did have a view of the islands off the port side until we got south of the Lofoten Wall.

We spent most of the morning, or what was left of it by the time we finished breakfast, on our balcony enjoying the sunshine. The temperature was up in the high 60s with barely a breeze and very calm seas. Delightful.

According to the Captain's report this afternoon, our delay in Tromso was an engine problem, but then, when we were ready to leave, the dock's linesmen had gone to another area work the departure of another ship, probably the Costa Deliziosa, thus we had to wait until they got back. Then, during the night, the engines acted up again, so we are making what speed we can and will be about six hours late into Bergen tomorrow. That will delay all the tours, but shouldn't matter much since it will still be light by the time we leave again. (We will cross the Arctic Circle again this afternoon so will begin having sunset and sunrise again.)

I don't remember if I mentioned that Jill's next door neighbors are on board for this second half of our trip. Anyway, we are meeting them early this evening for drinks and dinner at the Pinnacle Grill. That will be a nice change from our late second seating dinner. Later. Yes, it was a most elegant dinner with both champagne and wine, several flaming entrees and with things like chocolate souffle and creme brûlée for dessert.

There is a pronounced roll to the ship this evening. My guess is that it is more noticeable because we are having to go so slowly due to the engine problem, whatever it is. However, the wind has picked up a good deal also making lots of whitecaps.

About 9:45 this evening we passed this oil platform. I'm sure glad that I never had to even visit one of those, much less work on one. It doesn't look too bad from a long way off, but the thought of riding out a storm on one is really scary.

Bergen

Well, we are not in Bergen yet, and won't get there until at least 4:00 pm. The engine problem reoccurred during the night, and we evidently spent a good while dead in the water while they got it going again. As I write at 11:00 am, we are poking along the coastline. No one knows yet how this will play out. If they can get things fixed in Bergen, I am guessing that we will probably go on to Amsterdam but skip the stop in Stavanger Fjord, but there's no telling yet. At the least, with such a late arrival in Bergen, most of the tours there will probably be cancelled, especially the long ones. Ours is/was just a two hour tour of the city which goes to places that I have already seen, but Jill hasn't seen. Ah well, "Success is learning to deal with Plan B."

Honnigsvag, June 20 / Tromso, June 21

Hooray! We are docked at Honnigsvag instead of having to tender in. The Celebrity Constellation is anchored and tendering. The Braemar of Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines just docked near us. After we went off to North Cape, the Braemar cast off, anchored out, and started tendering. As we got back the big, slab-sided Costa Deliziosa was just docking. I think the Braemar will dock in our spot after we leave at 6:00 pm because she isn't leaving until 9:00 pm.

Since about the only thing to do here is to go to North Cape, there were hordes of buses taking people up there. I counted 21 buses that I could see, and there were probably more than that as they just kept shuttling up and back. The trip up was very very foggy. I could barely see the bus in front of us part of the time. The main difference from last year was that most of the snow was gone exposing the treeless hillsides and mountains. We did make a short photo stop on the way up at the Sami camp where everybody, including me, got out to take a photo of a reindeer and a guy in Sami costume.

At North Cape itself the Nordkapphallen (visitor center) was fairly full when we got there, but nothing like it will be this afternoon! It was also so foggy that you could barely see 50 feet. You certainly could not see the globe statue from the building, and probably couldn't see the whole thing from far enough away to get a photo of it. We watched the nice film and poked around in the souvenir shop then came back to the ship for lunch. The fog had cleared a little on the way back down so we could see occasional groups of sheep, goats, and reindeer grazing on the hillsides. The scenery is just as stark without the snow as it was with snow, but still interesting.

We got another view of North Cape after we sailed. Going west, we were a lot closer to it than we were the other day en route to Kirkenes. The Captain slowed the ship down and did a do-si-do turning in a complete circle so that everyone had what view there was of it from the sea.

Tromso

To get to Tromso we needed to go under a bridge that is 45 meters high. With her mast stepped down, Prinsendam is 44 meters high. We made it. The Costa ship is here today also, but couldn't fit under the bridge so is docked a good distance away from the center of town while we are right there.

Our tour today, again under low clouds but no rain, visited the "Arctic Cathedral" which is actually a Lutheran church with the biggest stained glass window north of wherever. Then, after driving around town, we visited the Tromso University Museum. It is a very nice museum where we saw a beautiful slide show of photos of the Northern Lights, then had plenty of time to look at other exhibits on things like geology, animal and bird life of the region, Sami culture, and arctic exploration. The university, which is the northernmost one in the world, has several unique specialty research areas including the Northern Lights, fish health mostly for salmon and other fish farming operations, and a center for peace studies.

After we got back, Jill went to a particular shop in town that she wanted to see. I watched the always interesting process of raising lifeboats and tenders on our side of the ship until she got back and we went for lunch. After lunch was lazy time. We carefully did not go up on deck to witness the "polar swim" with "Thor" and "Odin" in attendance, an event which is akin to the "Neptune" festivities when crossing the equator. I learned years ago to avoid things like that on ships.

We were over two hours late leaving Tromso. At first it was because of two missing passengers. They had evidently wandered off on their own and hadn't paid attention to the time to be back on board which was two hours earlier than usual. But then there was some sort of trouble with one of the engines that delayed our sailing, so the couple were able to board even though they arrived an hour and fifteen minutes late. I bet they always pay strict attention to the departure time after this.

At sea, June 18 / Kirkenes, June 19

Another sea day. The morning started out sunny then clouded over with haze or light fog. After breakfast we spent the rest of the morning in the Crow's Nest lounge up top forward reading and working on our various needlework projects. Eventually the fog cleared and we could see the coastline which is still very mountainous. At noon we must still have been in the upper reaches of the Gulf Stream because the outside temperature, while quite brisk in the wind of our passage, is not really all that cold. I wouldn't want to sit out on deck for a long time, but 15 or 20 minutes I could do it without resorting to a heavy jacket.

It cooled off some more in the afternoon, but hey, we were sailing past the top of Norway at 72 degrees north which is certainly the farthest north I've ever been. By evening as we sailed past North Cape, the fog closed in. While we were at a Captain's cocktail party up in the Crow's Nest, the fog horn started and went on until well after we went to bed. The ocean was kicking up a bit also, but the ship's stabilizers are up to the task of keeping us pretty smooth. Hoping for decent weather tomorrow at Kirkenes, but the official forecast is for lots of rain. We'll see.

Kirkenes

Cloudy, somewhat foggy, cold, and clammy, but not raining as of about 10:30. Thankfully, we are docked instead of tendering. That is a lot easier for me to go ashore. Jill's and my weather luck held pretty well. The local forecast had been for heavy rain today, and we only got sprinkles and some light rain while on our tours instead.

My tour went up the Passvik Valley. The Passvik is a very large river that forms the border between Norway and Russia (before WWII the other side was Finland). There were several scenic photo stops including one at the highest point in this region at 96 meters from which we could see across to the Russian city of Nikel. That city is known for its nickel smelter and for many years under the Soviet regime produced so much sulfur pollution that the average life expectancy there was 45 years. That was because they were processing high sulfur nickel ore shipped in from Siberia. Now they only smelt local low sulfur ore, but the Norwegians monitor the emissions very closely.

Our main stop was at the National Park Centre. This was originally established in the 1950s as an agricultural research center. It still does some of that, but also does monitoring for both the sulfur pollution and for radiation pollution from the Russian nuclear plant to the east which is of the same type as Chernoble. The Park Centre was attractive and modern with a theatre where we saw a nice film about the different animals and birds in the park. Evidently there are lots of animals and plants in the park that are found nowhere else in Norway.

Basically this tour was about four hours on the bus on roads that were about one and a half lanes wide. Despite the narrow width of the roads, the bus and other on-coming traffic seemed able to pass each other without slowing down. As usual, I had a front row seat for any excitement. At one point we came around a curve to find a big orange excavator taking up the entire road and digging a huge hole on more than half of it. Eventually, it deigned to vacate its position to let us creep by.

The most interesting thing for me was seeing the taiga ecosystem. There are over 3,000 lakes, ponds and other bodies of water in the region, and, of course, permafrost under it all. The forests are mostly short birch trees with some short pines, although there are more pines farther up the valley. It is all short because of the climate and short growing season. The pine trees can take 100 years to reach 10 meters tall. We didn't see any moose or other wildlife, but there was a herd of reindeer in one of the fields. Our guide was going to stop on the way back so we could take photos, but by that time they had gone elsewhere. Reindeer herding is the only agricultural pursuit allowed in the park itself, although there are about a dozen farms left in the valley from its original settlement in the early 1900s. Kirkenes itself was only founded in 1906 after iron ore deposits were discovered in the region. Actually, in this photo (which is also one of my famous collection of telephone pole shots around the world) you can see the reindeer herd as little light-colored specks in the far field to the right of center.

The word from the Captain is that there will be three other cruise ships at Honnigsvag tomorrow besides us. There is not dock space for all four, so it seems as there will be some negotiation as to who gets what. I am hoping that, as a Noewegian himself, he has some clout with the harbor master, or maybe that we can get there first. This also means that the Visitor Center at Nordkapp (North Cape) will be packed, but I still want to go there unless we have to tender in rough conditions.

I tried to post this from Kirkenes, but we are way too far north for satellite reception, so it will have to wait.

At sea, June 16 / Leknes, June 17

Lazy day. Despite sunshine beginning at an unholy hour, I managed to sleep late. Finally got up and moving in time for lunch. The rest of the day was pure laziness.

This photo was taken at 11:10 pm. We are now above the Arctic Circle so the sun won't go down for about a week until we head south again. In fact, at 2:00 am, there was even more light than this as the sun had dropped below the clouds. Going to bed and trying to get to sleep with this much light outside feels really odd.

Leknes

As we had breakfast we were sailing in past the Lofoten (which means "foot of the lynx") Wall. It looks like one solid wall of sheer mountains but it is really a series of islands. It protects this area east of it from ocean storms. Although Leknes has only about 4,000 residents and is not a fishing-oriented town, it is the only one in the area with a pier big enough for a cruise ship.

Unfortunately, today the winds and tides prevented us from docking, so we had to anchor and use the tenders. I opted to skip my tour today and stay on board. Jill went on the same tour and came back to say that I had made the right decision as there was a great deal of up and down walking to deal with in addition to getting on and off the tenders which can be uncertain, at least for me. Meanwhile, another slightly smaller cruise ship arrived, and by then the tide had come in far enough that it was able to dock. It was the Discovery which used to be the Island Princess. (Shades of meeting my friends, Virginia and Gil, in Arica, Chile when I was on Prinsendam and they were on Discovery.)

Geiranger, June 15

This one is new for me as the Hurtigruten ferries don't come in here in April (although the protected waters of the fjord do not freeze in winter). It is absolutely spectacular! This fjord is one of Norway's narrowest and most dramatic with very steep sides laced with waterfalls of various sizes. At the very head of the fjord, some 100 kilometers from the ocean at Alesund is the little village of Geiranger where we tender ashore for our tours.

After breakfast. Jill and I rediscovered the way to the aft deck where we sat for a while soaking up the scenery and sun and working on our tans. Those tans, or at least mine, are probably unique to this cruise as they extend from the wrists down and the neck up, everything else being covered by one or more layers of clothing. (After our tour I had even more sun...not quite burnt, but close.)

WOW!!! What a day! What a place! What a tour! Absolutely ideal weather warm with bright sun and only a few little clouds. Geiranger is as totally awesome as anything I've ever seen in my life! By this, I mean the fjord itself and the mountains around it. The village of Geiranger is also lovely, but it is the natural scenery that just takes your breath completely away!

Our bus driver, Hans, was a wonder also. He negotiated what must have been several hundred hairpin curves on roads that were barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass on the short straightaways, and certainly not on the curves where we needed the whole thing to ourselves.

Our first stop was at the Eagles' Bend where we had a great view back down the fjord including the Seven Sisters waterfalls which you see here. This road was only completed in (if I remember right) 1954. Next, looking back toward Geiranger, you see our ship, the village, and the lower end of the Flydalen Valley. Mt. Dalsnibba is the one at the upper left that I didn't get the top of in this photo.

From Geiranger a road that is only open in summer climbs over the mountains to Oslo. We went back through the village and took that road which was completed in 1889 after eight years' work. It is a true engineering marvel. They could only work in the summers, and first they had to shovel the snow off by hand. At 300 meters up is where the road closes in the winter. At about 800 meters we passed the tree line and into snow fields complete with several skiers going cown nearby slopes, and at about 900 meters we turned off onto a road that goes all the way to the top of Mt. Dalsnibba at 1524 meters. This is the highest mountain in Norway that you can drive all the way up. The last photo here is from up there looking back at the fjord. You can see part of the road we traveled. And again, WOW!

Sailing back out of the fjord we passed all the big waterfalls again during dinner. We had a full table at dinner this evening as Jill and I and Jean and Curtis from Birmingham, Alabama were joined by a couple from Australia.

Alesund, June 14

Yesterday evening the ship's doctor joined our table for dinner. He is an ER doctor from the big island of Hawaii who sails as a ship's doctor for several weeks to a month about four times a year. He is an excellent conversationalist, and we all enjoyed his company.

We lucked out on weather again today. It was cloudy and rather windy in the morning, but by the time our tour left at 12:30, it had cleared off a lot. It was a very nice tour to the nearby islands of Giske and Godoy through three very long undersea tunnels and another tunnel through a mountain plus a long high bridge. The first of the tunnels is the world's longest undersea tunnel.

Giske is a very flat island with only about 200 inhabitants. There we stopped at a very old (12th century) marble church with some fantastic decorative panels which had, at one time, been painted over, but when they went to clean them, they found bright colors underneath so managed to restore them to the original artwork.

Back through one tunnel to Godoy where there was a long mountain tunnel, one lane with several pull-outs for passing. Here we visited the village of Alnes and it's lighthouse which you can see here. Then back over the bridge and down through the other two tunnels to Alesund where our very skillful driver took us up Mt. Aksla for the gorgeous view of Alesund and Stor Fjord.

Alesund itself is very heavily Art Nouveau in style because it burnt almost to the ground in 1904. At the time of the fire, Alesund had about 1,000 wood houses and 10,000 inhabitants (it's population is about 40,000 today). Over 800 of the houses were destroyed, but with only one life lost, an old woman who had been rescued but tried to go back for something. Ironically, her house survived the fire. After the fire, no more wood houses were allowed in the city center, and everything was rebuilt in the Art Nouveau style which was popular at the time.

I may not be able to post as regularly for the next week or so. We will be going so far north that we will be beyond reception of the communications satellites located above the equator due to the curvature of the earthq. Also, the high mountains surrounding the fjords will cut off our signals from time to time. I will post as I can.

Amsterdam, June 12

Yesterday evening was the last of the cruise for a lot of people. At dinner they did the "Parade of the Flaming Baked Alaska" thing in the dining room. For the first several decades of my cruising experience, there were actual flames involved with a little can of sterno in the top of each Baked Alaska, and they turned out most of the dining room lights as the assistant waiters paraded around to martial music while passengers clapped and waved their napkins. About ten years ago, the real flames went away (either by law or by lawsuit), and were replaced by sparklers, but the parade was still fun and fairly spectacular. Now, for pity's sake, the sparklers have been replaced by things that look like a cross between LED Christmas candles and flashlights. It's just totally not the same any more. It didn't help that at 9:30 pm it was still broad daylight outside. Sheesh!

But the good part of the dining room, at least on this ship, is that the rules have evidently been relaxed somewhat, because the captain of our area allowed our assistant waiter, Imanuel, to bring his guitar up tonight, and after dinner he serenaded our section with several numbers. Also, a few nights ago the dining room captain let our waiter, Sugeng, show us some of the shirts his mother had painted along with photos on his iPad of the gorgeous dresses and other things that she paints and sells. Jill and I are going to get her website URL, and I will share it so you can see her beautiful work. She will be in Amsterdam for 2 weeks this summer as part of an Indonesian arts show.

Well, we managed a morning tour from Amsterdam without getting rained on, but it was completely cloudy, cold, and very windy. We had an excellent guide who kept us all laughing and groaning with horrible puns.

We left Amsterdam and drove to Zaanstad which is a small town that has become an unofficial open aIr museum and enormous tourist trap. I didn't even try to count the buses in the parking lot. It does, however, have one of the largest groups of windmills in one place, and what would a visit to the Netherlands be without seeing a windmill or four. There was also a cheese shop and a wooden shoe workshop/museum, plus a plethora of souvenir shops. Huge hordes of tourists roamed the place, with large numbers of Japanese all trying to take photos of each other standing in a pair of giant yellow wooden shoes.

Then we went to Edam (pronounced A-dam, not E-dam) which is a charming small town with virtually no tourists at all. I am very glad I went on this tour and saw Edam, but now I. Am. Wrecked. We got off the bus on one side of town, and walked for over 30 minutes on cobblestones, up and down over bridges to the other side of town with only one 4 minute opportunity to sit and rest. By the way, they do not make cheese in either Edam or Gouda (and I won't even attempt to tell you how that is pronounced properly). These two towns were the sites of cheese markets rather than cheese making.

Back on the ship, I gobbled some Tylenol (which didn't help a whole lot), then Jill and I phoned for room service and collapsed for a while as new people came on board, including about 300 Dutch. The ship has now added a Dutch cruise director in addition to "Miss Toodle-oo For Now" so every announcement takes twice as long. That's not really a problem, but it did keep us standing out on deck twice as long for the obligatory emergency drill before we sailed this afternoon.

Jill's next door neighbors at home, Peter and Mary, also boarded today for the next two weeks. I will meet them at dinner this evening. We are at a table for six, so we are wondering if there will be anyone else joining us for this part of the cruise...and sure enough, there was another couple at our table: Jan and Curtis from Birmingham, Alabama, although Peter and Mary are still unknown as they must have decided to eat elsewhere tonight. During dinner we saw our first North Sea oil platform shining in the sunset.

Thank heavens we have a sea day tomorrow. Maybe I will have recovered by the time we get to our next port of Alesund, Norway.

At sea

This morning we are bounding cheerfully over the main which is also bounding. Oh, it's not terribly rough, but it is significantly more motion than we have had in the past two weeks. You'd think that all the wind would blow away the fog outside, but it hasn't yet (11:00 am). The other thing that I didn't manage to pack was a hat, so I guess I'll have to see about buying one somewhere, at least before we get to North Cape. (Later) I found a hat, scarf and pair of gloves in the shop on board, so I'm ready.

All day today it has been cold, cloudy and windy. We are sailing directly into both the wind and swells, and it had gotten pretty roller-coastery by afternoon. These conditions do make for interesting interactions between the whitecaps on the swells and our bow waves. The captain has the "pedal to the metal" which would ordinarily mean that we would be making about 21 knots, but we are only doing about 18 knots. Hopefully, this front will be past us by the time we reach Alesund tomorrow.

Lubeck/Travemunde/Hamburg, June 10 & Kiel Canal, June 11

I saw several things today that I've never seen before and not all of them were sights. You'll read about one of them below, and the other occurred after I got back to the ship. We were docked at the shipping/ferry port at Travermunde, Germany. One of the overnight ferries, which is almost as big as we are, came up river behind us. Before it got to us, it turned around in the basin, and proceeded to back up the river past us and a good deal beyond us where it parallel parked with no assistance from a tug. And here I thought that parallel parking a tour bus was quite a feat!

Jill took a tour to Lubeck where the guide walked the legs off everybody for three and a half hours. But she did get to the marzipan factory that was her reason for choosing that tour. Meanwhile, I took a five and a half hour tour to Hamburg which is 90 minutes away by bus on the autobahn. Again the weather cooperated although toward the end of the afternoon it got cloudy, and there was a brief shower as we traveled back to Travermunde.

Hamburg is a lovely city that was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II (one of the few undamaged buildings was the office of their IRS equivalent). Our tour was mainly photo stops. However, at the very ornate City Hall shown here, we descended to the restaurant/rathskeller in the basement for coffee and cake. After that we resumed touring the city.

Our route was most convoluted because many streets were closed for a special annual event. You can see why. There were 30,000 motorcycles in town waiting to all ride out together. We jigged and jogged all around waiting for them to get going so that we could visit St. Michael's church (where four motorcycle couples were getting married as part of the festivities). Three times we wound up at polizei road blocks, and three times our guide got out and talked our way past them. He wouldn't say what he told them, but whatever it was, it was effective!

Kiel Canal

The canal goes from the Baltic to the Elbe River and North Sea, and is 60 miles long from Kiel to Brunsbuttel. Only five cruise ships are small enough to pass under the bridges, and we had to lower our mast to do so. Initially built for military purposes, it was enlarged before World War I and is now used mostly by shipping and pleasure craft. We entered the canal at The Kiel-Holtenau locks about 4:00 am, and no, I was not up to see that end of it.

Jill and I spent a beautiful morning enjoying the sunshine, warm temperature and lack of wind out on deck on our balcony and up on Lido deck. Even the wind turbines of the several wind farms we passed were still. The land the canal passes through is generally flat with occasional small hills. It is all farms with patches of forest. Roads and paths go along each side with people waving to us from their RV campsites, their bicycles, as they walked along, and from the cross-canal ferry docks. It was enormously peaceful.

We eventually went down to the dining room for lunch to escape the brats-und-bier buffet with loud recorded biergarten music on Lido deck. Just as we finished lunch, the ship approached the Brunsbuttel locks, so we went outside to take some photos. As the ship came to a halt in the lock, on shore there were hordes of people out to see us pass by with lots of waving and greetings. Then suddenly, a local brass band of about 14 or 16 uniformed people began playing lively music, mostly German tunes, although they did do a rendition of "Anchors Aweigh." I think the ship must have been listing to starboard as all the passengers were lined up along the rails to clap along and listen to the music. What great fun!

Onward this afternoon toward Amsterdam. Lots of passengers are busy packing to get off tomorrow. I'm really glad that we are going on for another two weeks. We will be sorry to lose our delightful Australian table mates, Ken and Sheila, however Jill's next door neighbors will be coming on. A few months ago, she and they were comparing vacation plans and discovered that that they were booked on the same cruise.

Stockholm, June 8 / Visby, June 9

I am still amazed at how calm the Baltic Sea has been ... like a millpond. Of course, we still have several days for it to act up. Also, I am sure that we will get our share of ocean motion from the North Sea, Arctic Ocean and Barents Sea before the trip is over.

Today dawned very early (duh) and absolutely gorgeous! There is a beautiful bright blue sky and the temperature is in the high 60s at least. After our separate bus tours this morning, it was even nice enough that we had our lunch on the open Lido deck.

Because we were up quite early for our tours, from our balcony we got to see much of the archipelago of over 24,000 islands and islets along the coast as we approached Stockholm. Many, if not most, of them had houses on them ... sometimes several, sometimes on the little ones, just one house. Most of these are summer houses as, during the summer, and especially at the solstice, just about everybody escapes from the city at every opportunity.

My tour today included a nice harbor tour by boat, since Stockholm is built on 14 islands as well as part of the mainland. Basically we circled the Djurgarden which was originally the king's private hunting preserve with deer (djur), moose and even reindeer, but is now mostly public parks and some private residences along with marinas and a Tivoli Gardens amusement park established in 1883, some 40 years after the Danish one.

After that we reboarded our bus to experience the traffic in the center city. The few places where we stopped for photos also provided opportunities to watch the buses dance as they jockeyed for parking in the narrow streets. The building in the first photo looks like it might be the royal palace, but it is a retirement community instead. The palace itself is in the second photo and has 606 rooms which is one more than Buckingham Palace in London (our guide was proud of this). The royal family of Sweden is well liked, especially Crown Princess Victoria who married her personal trainer, now Prince Daniel, a few years ago.

Here's a bit of trivia: the Swedish consume about 17 kilos of bananas per person per year, the most of any country in the world. No, I don't know why.

This afternoon I went down and cancelled my shore tour for Visby ( pronounced Vees'buh) tomorrow. It's a tender ashore port. That plus a description of a good deal of walking on cobblestones, some steps and a change to a 7:45 departure time just did it for me ... especially that departure time! I'm on vacation! It's hard enough to get going for an 8:30 tour!

There are a number of passengers with canes, walkers, and/or wheelchairs. The woman in the shore excursion office told me that several people have expressed curiosity about where I got my nice Volaris that folds up sideways. So I explained that it was made here in Sweden so that she can pass that along. She immediately commented that I have "the Volvo of walkers." So far it has performed well and has survived being checked through on the plane as well as a lot of being stowed in bus bellies.

Nice sail away this evening ... quite a parade, in fact, led by P&O's Arcadia then us with one of the huge Silja ferries (almost our size) bringing up the rear. It took us about three hours to clear the archipelago with several spectacularly narrow spots to negotiate.

We went to the Indonesian Crew Show which is always good fun, and this time was even better than usual. Our assistant waiter, Imanuel, sang two numbers and did a fine job. The "Thousand Hands" dance was great, and even the story dance about Rama, Hanoman, and Rahwana was very well done. The latter involves an "army" of monkeys led, of course, by Hanoman, and a battle between the evil king Rahwana and the good king Rama. This time they threw in some modern sight gags like doing rock/paper/scissors in the middle of the fight. Everyone had a good time.

Visby

I'm glad I decided not to go ashore today. In the morning the weather was solidly overcast although the temperature wasn't too bad. If we were going to have clouds, I'm glad it was here instead of at Stockholm yesterday. Also, they announced that boarding the tenders was a tad bouncy. I rather suspect that was a precautionary announcement as tender boarding is always bouncy, and the average passenger age is well over 60, but the sea didn't look that bad. Actually, the cloud cover broke up about 11:30 and all was gorgeous again. The last tender back was at 12:30 pm, and we were at sea for the rest of the day.

For those like me who have never heard of Visby, here are some basics. Visby is on the Swedish island of Gotland about 60 miles east of the Swedish mainland. Gotland is the Baltic's largest island (80 x 35 miles) and is rather flat with the highest point being only 100 meters or so. Visby was a major Hanseatic League port, and the city's walls with 40 well-preserved towers date back to 1470. Archeological evidence of permanent settlement goes back to the Vikings in the 9th century, and evidence of humans on the island goes back 5,000 years. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Helsinki, June 7

Early, early, this morning the sky was very overcast and grey. Today I had the early tour and Jill has the afternoon tour. Bless her soul, she got up early with me to have breakfast and went back to bed after I left.

My tour was excellent! Our guide, Liina, was fantastic and had a great sense of humor. We went out of the city quite directly to the countryside where all the roads were bordered by wild flowers, mostly Queen Ann's lace and lupines in both pink and purple along with smaller white and yellow flowers that I couldn't identify. It was gently rolling country and heavily forested. About 65% of Finland is forests. Many of the larger roads near Helsinki have tall fences on each side to keep the moose from jumping onto the roadway. We did not see any moose today, although Liina said that occasionally a tour will see one. We saw several hares in the fields, but nothing bigger. (I did see two moose once on a bus tour out of Moscow to Vladimir.)

Our first stop was at the Old and New churches at an area called Sipoo. The old church seen here was built about 1450, and the new one is only about 100 years old. The old church was originally Roman Catholic, but was "converted" to Lutheran later. Now it is a popular spot for weddings. The decorative work at the top is all bricks.

Our next stop, also in Sipoo, was at a private home. We were welcomed by the lady of the house who was named Harriet, and who spoke very good English. Her husband was also there but does not speak English so he chatted with our driver. Their gardens were lovely with fruit trees in full bloom as well as roses and all sorts of other things. The original part of the house was quite old, and the whole place was filled with antiques and trophies won by her father and grandfather both of whom were race car drivers, and evidently very successful at it. They served us coffee, tea, apple cake, excellent vanilla ice cream with whole blueberries in it, and a most interesting thing called Karelin pie. The latter was a small oval pastry about 2x4 inches made of rye flour and filled with lightly buttered rice then baked. It was excellent.

While we were at the house the cloud cover burned off, so our return to Helsinki was in bright sunshine. We were supposed to stop at Senate Square to see the Lutheran Cathedral which is a huge white edifice with a dome, but there was a regional expo going on and there was no place to park the bus near the square. Our driver eventually found a spot and parallel parked the bus! It was too far back down a cobblestone hill for me to attempt to walk back to the square, and it was mostly a stop to let people off who wanted to stay in town. I did get back to the ship in time to give Jill one of the Karelin pies that I made off with for her.

I spent most of the afternoon watching activities in the harbor and on the pier. There are lots of little and not so little islands in the harbor and lots of small boats and ferries going back and forth. I also chatted with several nice couples from New Zealand, which is still on my list of places to go one of these days.

St. Petersburg, June 5 and 6

We are docked at the new passenger terminal area. Today there are four other large ships in port: one Royal Caribbean, one Norwegian Cruise Lines, one Thomas, and one that I haven't seen before called Saga. There is a separate terminal building for each pair of ships, and they are building another. That project includes pounding I-beams into the ground as in Copenhagen, but fortunately a good deal farther away from us...thump thump whomp thump thump whomp.

Getting off the ship for tours was a fine example of the Russian way of life. After waiting in line at Passport Control, you submit your passport, a landing card, and your tour ticket through a little slot in the officer's booth. He or she then looks through the entire passport, looks you up in an online database, carefully compares you to your photo, and then loudly and energetically stamps your passport and hands it back with the departure portion of the landing card, all while maintaining a total poker face. You'd think they all had their smile muscles severed as a job requirement.

After walking over a quarter of a mile to get through the building and around to the bus, my tour was quite good. It was one of those "Panoramic St. Petersburg (or whatever city)" things where you ride around while the guide talks, the bus stops every so often, and the group files off to take a photo or shop for souvenirs. Our guide was good, and the bus driver was amazing at navigating the snarl of streets in the central city.

The city has changed a lot in 37 years. The traffic has increased enormously, mostly in the number of cars zipping (or trying to zip) around. There is very little parking, especially in the central part of the city, so they park anywhere at all, sidewalks, grass, anywhere. We did not get stuck in too much traffic, but that was the luck of our timing just after the morning rush hour.

Another change was the amount of poster advertising along the streets. I even saw one that I recognized. It showed three men, the center one of whom was Will Smith. It was a poster for "Men in Black 3," but in the Russian alphabet the title was much longer than that.

As you may know, Peter the Great established the city beginning in 1703 mainly because he wanted a port on the Baltic and to establish a shipbuilding industry. (Peter had been trained as a shipbuilder while studying incognito in Amsterdam as a young man.) While most of the nobles didn't want to move to St. Petersburg from Moscow, they didn't have much choice, and the city served as the Imperial capital for over 200 years. Peter, and Catherine after him, favored the Italianate architecture, so all the original buildings are of that style and massive. One notable exception is the Church of the Saviour of Spilled Blood you see in the photo here. It is, of course, copied after St. Basil's in Moscow. The only services ever held in it were royal funerals for the Romanovs. In fact Nicholas II and his family were reburied here after their graves were found. However, they are buried in a sort of annex because the Russian Orthodox Church chooses not to accept three rounds of DNA evidence that these are actually Romanov remains.I spent a quiet afternoon on board. Jill finally came in after her nine hour tour of Catherine's Palace and The Hermitage. I had originally booked a tour of The Hermitage for tomorrow, but after advice from the shore excursion people, I decided to cancel that one. I'm not fond of art museum tours in large groups, and I was in there back in 1975. My main memory of it is the huge urns of malachite and lapis lazuli trimmed in gold leaf. I always thought they were carved from solid blocks of those minerals, but a woman I talked to who had been on a private tour told me that they are actually clever mosaics on brass where the patterns in the pieces are matched so closely that they just appear to be all one large piece. You learn something new every day.

June 6

It did not really get dark last night, or if it did, it was only for a couple of hours while I was asleep. This is what the Russians call the time of "white nights." when sunset is at 11:15 and sunrise at 4:45, if you figure a couple hours of light at twilight and before dawn, that doesn't leave much time for darkness.

Only the Royal Caribbean ship remains, although another NCL ship came in this morning. After a quiet morning, Jill headed back on another tour to The Hermitage to see the Gold Room, while I planned to just relax on board. I had a little lunch and chatted with several other passengers.

As we sailed away we got to see Peter's Summer Palace although it was a bit far away for a good photo. Then we did get good views of the Neva Bay Flood Dam which is 25 km long with only two gates to the sea. The whole area has been heavily fortified on every small islet for several centuries. The flood dam had been planned for decades, but was only completed fairly recently. When certain kinds of weather systems come in from the Atlantic, the gates are closed to keep St. Petersburg from flooding which it had done over 270 times in several hundred years. It's the biggest flood control system in the world.

Warnemunde, June 2 / At sea, June 3 / Tallinn, June 4

The Costa Fortuna is docked next to us today. I feel sorry for the captains and crews of the other Costa ships who are now having to put up with all the snide comments and jokes about their line since the Concordia business.

The weather is lovely today. A bit warmer with less wind...or so it feels on our balcony. My tour here was cancelled before we sailed and there wasn't another that I thought I could manage. Many people left very early for a 12 or 13 hour tour to Berlin by bus. That's not for me. I hope to find a camera store this afternoon.

The photo here is what I saw of Warnemunde. I did not need to go ashore after all. While on her tour in Rostock, Jill found a camera store, and her tour guide helped her buy a camera for me. It's a nifty little Canon. The manual is in German, Italian, French and Dutch, but fortunately the camera itself speaks English. There is, of course, an English version of the manual, but it is on a CD which I presently have no way to access, however, I think I have at least the basics down.

Costa Fortuna just sounded their general alarm. But since they are still firmly tied to the dock, we are assuming that it's just a drill. Soon after that the sound system on the dock began playing a CD of a very energetic German brass band doing folk/drinking songs and general biergarten type music, presumably to welcome back the buses from the Berlin tour or maybe farewell to the Fortuna which sailed soon after. We don't sail until 10:30 pm. We got back up from dinner in time to watch us sail, but it was just too cold outside, so they had to sail without my supervision.

At sea

I think that the cold front has gotten ahead of us. The temperature is somewhat warmer, and we have both a following wind and a following sea so that you don't get blown overboard when you go outside. The Baltic is an interesting shade of very dark olive green with lots of whitecaps which is probably due to its being fairly shallow here ... about 25 meters beneath the keel according to the Captain.
As it is both a sea day and Queen Elizabh's Diamond Jubilee, there are lots of activities on board, many of which have a British theme from the menus to high tea. Otherwise it is a nice lazy day at sea with a formal dinner this evening.

We had a nice pre-dinner Captain's cocktail party for about 35 or 40 passengers who, like us, have many days with Holland America. At dinner we got to hear about our tablemates' long tour to Berlin yesterday. They are a fun couple from Australia. There are a lot of Australians on board. I talked to one older woman who lives near Ularu (Ayers Rock) who told us about being on an Antarctic cruise last year and seeing snow for the first time in her life.

As Samuel Peyps said, "And so to bed."

Tallinn, June 4

We had just docked at Tallinn. I was quietly contemplating the breakfast tray and enjoying the warmth of the sun on my shoulders when all of a sudden the sun went completely away! The cause turned out to be the arrival next to us of Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas. And she's not even the largest of their ships!

By the way, sunrise this morning was at 4:11, and sunset this evening will be at 10:28. We are certainly not in Kansas (or Colorado or Virginia) any more. By the time we get to the summer solstice, we will be at Tromso, Norway which is well above the Arctic Circle.

We had a fine tour of Tallinn, mostly by bus. There has been a great deal of building since they gained their independence about 21 years ago. The Soviet Era huge blocks of flats that I remember from 1975 are still there, and the old town has been preserved mostly unchanged, but the lower town is almost all new hotels, banks and office buildings. The two towers shown here are 'Fat Margaret" and "Tall Herman." They date from the 16th and 13th centuries respectively.

Estonia is a thinly populated country with about 1.3 million people, 70% of whom live in towns with about 400,000 in Tallinn itself. About 54% of the countryside is still in original forests. Their highest mountain is in the southern part of the country and is about 1,000 feet high. All the rest is virtually flat. The area has been controlled for centuries by Denmark, then Sweden, then by Germany, and then by the Russian Empire. They had one prior "golden moment" of independence for 22 years between the World Wars before the Soviets took over until 1991. They are confident that this time, their independence will last longer. They appear to have an energetic economy. They joined the EU in 2004, and last year qualified to convert their currency to the euro.

Copenhagen, May 31 and June 1

May 31

I had a lovely tour of the city this afternoon. In addition to seeing a lot of most interesting buildings many with wonderful towers and spires in the city, I got to spend about two and a half hours at Tivoli Gardens which I have always wanted to visit. What a great place! I could spend several days there! Fountains, flowers, concert halls, restaurants, even rides! It was established in 1843 and refurbished to the period of the early 1900s. Walt Disney spent a lot of time there getting inspiration before building Disneyland. I love amusement parks, and this is my new favorite!

Since it took me a good while to walk anywhere, I got in a lot of people watching along the way. There was one darling little boy in a kind of light weight bright blue snow suit (yes, it was rather chilly). He was just learning to toddle and was using a brightly colored pinwheel as a balance pole. He would get going across the grass then his mother would catch him and turn him around when he reached the sidewalk.

I also got to see a dress rehearsal of the ballet/pantomime at the Peacock Pavilion. You can see why it is called that. I did get to see the famous statue of "The Little Mermaid," but there was such a crowd of us tourists, many of whom climbed down the rocks to photograph and be photographed with her, that I wasn't able to get a really good shot of her. Nevertheless, I got to see the two things that I have always wanted to see in Copenhagen.

I was not on the morning tours that got held up by the arrival of Hilary Clinton to visit the Queen, but Jill was. Now to find the Tylenol for my aching muscles...

June 1

Still in Copenhagen. I don't have any tours today, so I'm going to just take it easy. I did manage to figure out where the battery charger for my camera is. Unfortunately, it is on my desk at home along with the spare battery. Sheesh! That's about the stupidest thing I've ever forgotten when packing for a trip. Well, either I can find a new charger or I can buy a new camera.

Every so often I step out on our balcony to watch the various construction projects going on. On the pier next to us they are driving a number of long i-beams into the ground in what appears to be the foundation of a new building with backhoes and one of those large hammer machines. Across the way they are noisily demolishing a former shopping center which went out of business. Off the other side of the ship is a nice view of a wind farm with about 30 huge windmills which are quite pretty with the sun shining on their blades.

It is, however, quite cold and very windy outside. At 2:00 pm the air temperature is 61 degrees, but with the 26 knot winds, it feels a lot colder. Jill has gone off to tour a reconstructed ancient Viking village and will probably be frozen stiff by the time she gets back.