June 24, 2014   Sea Day

 This was another sleepy sea day with very few activities available onboard. We attended another Mariners cocktail party and luncheon where several folks were recognized with medallions for the number of sea days they had traveled on Holland America Line ships. A gentleman that looked like Santa Claus with long white hair and a beard was recognized for his 804 days at sea. He said he had fourteen more cruises booked! It must be nice.

After cocktails in the Ocean bar we had dinner in the Pinnacle Grill with friends. The food and service is always excellent. One in our group of six guys includes Eddy from Melbourne, Australia. We’re not sure what Eddy, 45, does, because he has mentioned several professions: autistic student teacher, derivatives trader, model, import business manager, gay bar manager, etc. He has lived in many places and is traveling to Hungary to buy investment property with cash in his cabin. He says he is bisexual (we say that means a stop on the way to “gay.”)   He is a real talker (we don’t know what to believe) and knows many people on the ship. All seem to have a nice word to say about him. He is considerate and thoughtful with all in our group. Eddy has bought clothes in almost every port. He says he will donate his old clothes to the orphanage in our last port. He is apparently quite the entertainer in the sauna….if you know what we mean, and is always talking about sex and hooks up in ports after using Grinder.

June 23, 2014   Sea Day

 We departed Honningsvag about 6:00am for a couple of days at sea before we arrive at our next port. As we sailed past the North Cape a small group of passengers took part in a Nordic Plunge in the outdoor swimming pool.

There were very few activities scheduled so it was mostly a quiet day onboard with folks reading, swimming in the indoor pool, enjoying a spa treatment or napping.

Kyle Kennedy was the entertainer for the evening. Once a member of the cast on a Holland America ship some twenty years ago, he is now a headliner. He sang a variety of soul music, many of which were familiar but he had no pizazz.

Kent and his new friend

North Cape

Honningsvag Village

Oversized mail boxes

June 22, 2014   Honningsvag, Norway

 We arrived in Honnigsvag about 11:00 am this morning. Honningsvag is located at the northern most part of Norway and has a population of 2,500. The city thrives on its fishing industry, which is aided by the ice-free Barents Sea. From Honningsvag you can take a forty-five minute drive to the North Cape that is the northernmost point of Europe. The cape has a 1,000-foot cliff overlooking the Arctic Ocean. The weather was not very nice with cloudy skies and intermittent rain throughout the day, not to mention the cold temperature and wind. We chose not to take this trip, but several of our friends did. They returned somewhat disappointed.

We wandered the small town, but being a Sunday most of the shops were closed. A few large gift shops were open to accommodate the four cruise ships that were in port. The homes here were mostly constructed of wood painted in bright colors dotting the hillsides. There was a short downtown business district with a few shops, a library, a church, a cemetery and a market. More unusual was the large sports complex with both indoors and outdoors soccer fields. We were amused with the large mailboxes on all the houses.

Being that the ship was docked in port until early the next morning, there was not the usual entertainment. On this night they had a special Nordic Jazz and Food Festival onboard where they served a Smorgasbord of Scandinavian snacks like smoked fish, salads, and desserts.

After the food festival they invited guests to move to the Crow’s Nest lounge to see the midnight sun while listening to classical music, sipping Gluwein and eating cheese fondue. Unfortunately the sun was not visible through the cloudy skies.

Interior of the Cathedral

View from the Cable Car

Interior of the Cathedral

Tromso Arctic Cathedral

Tromso Sami House

Sami People

June 21, 2014   Tromso, Norway

 Researchers have found evidence of civilization in this area dating back nearly 10,000 years. Tromso is the seventh largest city in Norway today with a population of about 75,000. The city of Tromso is split between an island called Tromsoya and the main land now connected by a bridge. The town was originally built on an island but after the bridge to the mainland was completed in the 1960’s the town expanded to the mainland. Due to its very northern location, Tromso was often used as a starting point for Arctic expeditions.

There is a very large medical university in Tromso where students from all over the world study specialties like hypothermia, sun deprivation and depression, as well as the ordinary subjects.

Our tour took us to the Tromsdalen Church or Arctic Cathedral as it is called, which is located on the mainland. This very modern church was built in the 1960’s and houses Europe’s largest stained-glass window measuring 1,500 square feet and depicting the return of Christ. The window was not part of the original design of the church but was later installed after the morning sun through the glass wall behind the altar was so blinding to the parishioners, they needed to wear sunglasses in church. The pastor couldn’t tell whether or not the people were paying attention.

Next we took the Fjellheisen Cable Car to the top of Mt. Storsteinen where we got a great view out over the town of Tromso. Unfortunately it was cold and snowing so the views were somewhat restricted. Luckily there was a lovely café at the top where you could enjoy the views from a warm comfortable spot.

Our next stop was the Tromso Museum, which is the largest and oldest research institution in northern Norway. Here we saw a short film about the Northern Lights phenomenon that occurs during the winter months when the sky is clear. These colorful swirling waves of bright colored light appear in the sky when the atmospheric conditions are just right.

Another exhibit was the Sami Ethnography exhibit where we learned about the indigenous “Sami” people who lived in this northern region from Norway, through Finland and into Russia. They believe that the Sami people (formerly called Laplanders but is now not politically correct) were using wooden ski’s with fur pelts on the bottoms for traction some 4,500 years ago. They lived in structures similar to a teepee (like our native Indians) although some of the permanent homes were more substantial including the use of wood for the structure with sod covering it. They used reindeer for pulling sleds, spears for hunting and lived completely off the land.

The museum here also features exhibits on geology, botany, zoology and archaeology that we had a quick look through.

After lunch onboard the ship, the weather was improving and we were able to take a shuttle bus back into town to have a look around. The city center is very charming with a blend of old and new architecture. Since today was the longest day of the year the city was having a summer solstice party including a midnight sun marathon.

We attended a cocktail party in the Crow’s Nest hosted by the captain for those guests who were on the ship for more than one cruise booked back to back. There was a good-sized group of folks in attendance. The evening’s entertainment was a repeat of a show that we had seen last week called “Ace’s High” performed by the Ryndam singers and dancers. Although we had seen it last week we went with friends to see it again.

June 20, 2014   Sea Day

 Most of the passengers including us were ready for a sea day after four busy port days in a row.

At 10:34am this morning we crossed into the Arctic Circle so we are not expecting the sun to set for several days now until we head south out of the Arctic Circle. The weather is cold, windy and raining at times but we are hopeful for sunshine.

The captain hosted an Indonesian lunch in the dining room for all of those passengers who had booked more than one cruise back-to-back. In our case we had booked a seven days cruise back-to-back with a fourteen-day cruise. Many of the passengers onboard had booked the fourteen days cruise to Norway followed by a fourteen-day cruise to the Baltic. The majority of the lower level of the dining room was filled with guests for this special lunch.

Most everywhere on the ship we meet other guests who are complaining about something. For one thing the price that people paid for the cruise varied greatly so many were upset about that. Some guests received free drinks or other incentives to book the cruise while others did not. It has made for a lot of unhappy passengers. We have heard about several water leaks in people’s cabins and have seen the fans in the hallways drying the carpeting outside of cabin doors. Many complain about the high cost of the shore excursions, while others complain about the recent change in charging for cappuccino and latte’s with your dinner. If it is not one thing it is something else that people are complaining about. The crew is even complaining that the guests are not spending money in the casino, in the shops or at the bars! I guess we all just want to feel like we got a deal.

The entertainment on this night was a variety show featuring Ian Cooper, Petrina Johnson and David Schofield who had each performed solo over the last week.

Trondheim Nidaros Cathedral

Nidaros Cathedral

June 19, 2014   Trondheim, Norway and Scenic Cruising of Trondheimsfjord

 Founded by King Olav in the year 997, Trondheim was also the capital of Norway until the year 1217. Trondheim is one of the oldest cities in Norway and today it is the third largest city of Norway with a population of 185,000.

We took a bus from the city center to our first stop this morning; the Ringve Music Museum located a couple of miles outside of town. Ringve is Norway’s national museum of music and musical instruments. Once the childhood home of Norwegian naval hero Petter Wessel Tordenskiold, this 18^th century summer manor house now houses the music museum. The manor house is comprised of period rooms named for famous composers, each with multiple musical instruments on display. As the tour guide leads you through the home and discusses not only the residence but also the collection of instruments, they stop in each room to play some of the instruments. You get a chance to actually hear the antique clavichords, organs and square pianos.

The old barn of the residence has now been converted into a gallery space with an impressive collection of musical instruments from around the world. They are beautifully displayed in a climate and light controlled environment to preserve them. The entire collection is made up of more than 2,000 instruments. You receive a video recorder and headset when you arrive so that you cannot only see the instruments but you can also hear many of the instruments being played.

The manor house is situated on a 32-acre botanical garden with a lake and a variety of flowers and trees to enjoy. Unfortunately the weather was cold, rainy and not very inviting to stroll the grounds.

After our visit to the Ringve museum we traveled by bus back to town where we visit the Nidaros Cathedral and Archbishop’s Palace Museum. This impressive, Gothic Style cathedral was built over the burial place of St. Olav beginning in 1070. The extensive construction project took some 250 years to complete. It had only been completed eight days before an extensive fire damaged much of the building. Over the centuries several fires badly damaged the church. Late in the 19^th Century an extensive restoration was begun which included the stained glass windows, two German organs, the sculptures on the western façade and much of what is still visible today.

The church is reminiscent of something you would see in Rome or a much larger city than Trondheim. The church is nearly 400 feet in length, 200 feet wide and 400 feet tall. Much of the interior is comprised of huge Gothic style arches of soapstone. This is the church that is used for Norway’s coronation ceremonies, royal weddings and large national events.

Adjoining the church is the Archbishop’s Palace Museum and several other museum buildings where we saw the crown jewels, an interesting military exhibit about the resistance movement during World War II and archeological excavations on the site including the Archbishop’s mint where coins were minted. It is an extensive collection of things to explore but we only have a few hours before we had to be back onboard the ship.

We had wanted to visit Stiftsgarden Palace; Norway’s royal families 18^th Century private home consisting of 140 rooms but we ran out of time. The royal residence is located in the center of Trondheim and includes furnishings in a variety of styles from Biedermeier to Chippendale and Hepplewhite.

The night’s entertainment was a show by the Ryndam singers and dancers titled “Rock Legends”. A collection of songs form the Stones to Sting, Michael Jackson to Madonna and John Lennon to Annie Lennox. These young people work so hard to put on an entertaining show every time. They repeat the same show three times in one night, have multiple costume changes and are on the move the entire forty-minute show. We sit in front of the stage to cheer them on!

Alesund Church

Alesund View from Mt. Aksla

June 18, 2014   Alesund, Norway

 Alesund was once a flourishing fishing harbor but now has evolved into more of an offshore oil industry town. In January of 1904 a terrible fire destroyed the entire town of wooden buildings, leaving 10,000 inhabitants homeless. Shortly thereafter the entire town was rebuilt using stone, brick and mortar, much of which remains today. The architectural style of the day was Art Nouveau so all of the towns’ older buildings were rebuilt in this style. In addition to the oil industry, the city also is know for its manufacturing of Stressless furniture. The Stressless furniture is a luxury line of reclining chairs and sofas. Today the town has a population of about 50,000.

Our exploring took us through town to the Alesund Park where we began our climb up 418 steps to reach Mt. Aksla for a panoramic view out over Alesund and the surrounding islands. The climb up the hill was tiring but the views from the top are spectacular. Our friend Eddy joined us for the climb.

After returning to town we wandered the streets exploring the wonderful Art Nouveau buildings with their floral motifs. The majority of these old buildings have been beautifully maintained and many meticulously painted to show off the Art Nouveau details. Some have large sunflowers cascading down the façade while others are simpler with only a decorative owl and leaf motif around the entrance. Others have very detailed garlands of flowers and fruits accenting the roofline or the ground floor retail space. Most of the buildings have stone and plaster exteriors with wrought iron railings and adornments. The streets themselves are mostly comprised of small granite paver stones.

We walked to the Alesund Church to see its beautiful stone exterior and adjacent cemetery. The present church dates back to 1909 after the fire although the cemetery appeared to only date back about ten years. The exterior of the church is very nice; unfortunately we were unable to see inside the church.

While out in town we ran into Chris Marcado, a shopkeeper from onboard the Amsterdam last year on the 2013 world cruise. He is now working on the Crystal Symphony which is a much more luxurious ship. He says that he has only been on it a short time but while the ship’s public areas are very beautiful he is having trouble adjusting to the smaller crew quarters, food and a different makeup of the crewmembers. He was on his way to see Ryndam crew he may know.

The weather today was much colder than we have been experiencing with a high of only 47 degrees. We were lucky in that it was only mostly cloudy and the rain was limited to a very light sprinkle while we were ashore. The hours of daylight are continuing to get longer with the sunrise at 3:46 am and the sunset not until 11:30 pm.

The night’s entertainment was a twenty-six year old British concert pianist by the name of David Schofield. We had him as an entertainer on the world cruise last year and he is a wonderful entertainer and pianist. David grew up in Manchester, England where he learned to play the piano at the age of four. His parents sent him to a private boarding school for nine years to continue his studies. His next stop was Chicago where he studied piano and when he was only nineteen-years-old he won a music competition at Carnegie Hall and since then he has been performing all over the world at concert halls and aboard cruise ships.

Flam Village

Waterfall

Laerdal Village near Flam

June 17, 2014   Flam, Norway and Scenic Cruising of Sognefjord

 Flam is a very picturesque village located several hours from the open sea at the end of an extension of the Sognefjord, the Aurlandsfjord. The name of the village means “little place between steep mountains” which is exactly what you find at Flam. Snow-capped mountains surround the harbor. It is a popular holiday destination for hiking, fishing and biking.

Our shore excursion took us on the Flam Railway dating back to 1940 when this section of the railroad was finally completed after twenty years of construction. It was a major challenge for railway engineers of the period due to the fact that 80% of the line has a gradient of 55%, the equivalent of 1:18. In addition to the steep grade, a total of 20 tunnels exist — 4.5 miles in length– and 18 required to be hand dug.

The result is a spectacularly beautiful train journey providing panoramic views of the Norwegian mountains and valleys. Waterfalls cascade down the mountains into the river below. We saw fruit orchards, sheep grazing and goat farming for cheese production along the way. The train stopped along the way for a photo stop of one of the largest waterfalls in this area. When we reached our destination at Vatna-Halsen we disembarked the train for waffles and coffee at the local hotel. Some free time allowed us to wander out into the beautiful countryside to explore some of spring’s wildflowers, a local lake and to look for Trolls. Unfortunately as we have learned the trolls only come out at night so we were not lucky enough to spot any Trolls.

We returned to Flam via the railway where we explored the Flam Railroad Museum to gain more insight into the construction and history of the local railroad. In Flam we wandered the small village, which consists of a hotel, market, visitors center and a variety of large souvenir shops selling trolls and other Norwegian items. No wifi internet sites were to be found……lots of frustrated people, or at least us!

The entertainer on this night was Petrina Johnson a star of the BBC television series “Showstoppers” and has also performed in London musicals like Sunset Boulevard, Copacabana and Evita. We had enjoyed her voice on the world cruise last year and she was excellent this night as well.

Stavanger Harbor

Kent Smoking his Fish

Stavanger Wooden Homes

June 16, 2014   Stavanger, Norway

 As this was our second stop in Stavanger this trip we checked out a couple of new museums and explored a few new parts of town. The weather was once again sunny, warm and glorious.

Our first stop was the Norwegian Petroleum Museum that is located in a sleek, modern building along the fjord not far from our ship. The museum has an enormous amount of information about the offshore oil industry that has made Norway one of the richest countries in the world after the discovery of oil in 1969. They have films showing where the petroleum comes from, models of dozens of drilling platforms, a collection of drilling bits, drilling rig helicopter transport information, a film about the divers who work at the ocean floor in special pressurized vehicles and suits. It was a very interesting museum that gave us much more insight into what happens on a drilling rig in the middle of the ocean.

We also visited the Norwegian Canning Museum located in the one of the town’s former canning factories dating from 1880 to 1930. In 1915 Stavanger exported 350,000 cans of sardines to 59 countries. Inside the museum we saw equipment from each step of the process: the arrival of the fish in crates of ice; the salting; the threading , which made them ready to be smoked in huge wood burning ovens; the removal of the heads; packing the fish; adding oil and sealing the cans.

They also have equipment for you to see how the cans were made from metal, soldered together, sterilized, washed, sealed, packed in waxed paper and labeled with a paper label. In later years the exterior wrapping was replaced with cans that were already printed onto the metal.

Laborers used to do most of the work by hand including solderers who could solder 500 to 600 cans closed a day, the threading of the fish on thin rods ready for smoking, packing of the fish into the tins to the actual can production. In this particular factory in addition to the smoked sardines they also made fishballs and fishcakes that were either boiled or fried. No samples were available. Canneries existed in Stavanger until 1982.

We shared drinks and dinner with several of the LGBT group. The night’s entertainer was a violinist who played classical, Gypsy, Jazz, Country and Irish Fiddle music. He is a very accomplished musician and the show was excellent.

June 15, 2014   Sea Day

 It was a quiet sea day to relax before a string of four port days of touring and exploring ashore. We attended a couple of lectures about the upcoming ports of call and what shore excursions were available as well as the things to see and do in the next couple of ports. Kent actually worked out at the gym to enable the consumption of more deserts, while Mark worked on his blog.

The LBGT gathering included a couple of new fellows and six of us decided to dine together in the dining room, then attended the show on the first row to better see the “blossoms” up close!

The evening’s entertainment was a show by the Ryndam singers and dancer’s called Classique. The show included music from Mozart to Manilow showing how classical music and dance has inspired artists of all generations. Most agreed it was one of the best shows we’d seen so far!