Norway Baltic Trip

  Day 8 – Alesund The blog is now refusing to upload photos.  I will add when possible.  Will continue with text. Alesund is an indescribably cute town with a compact harbor and a spectacular viewpoint which is 418 steps up a cliff. The town was largely destroyed by a large fire and rebuilt in Art Nouveau style. We followed the Rick Steves walking tour around the town and then trudged our way up to the Mt. Aksla overlook.  The town is pleasant and quaint but not outstanding in any way.  The trudge up the mountain was worth the effort, with fantastic views of the harbor and surrounding islands.  The view was enhanced by a striking deep blue sky laced with striated clouds.  Among little known facts is Alesund’s role as a starting point for large numbers of Norwegians who escaped the Nazi occupation to Britain and fought for the allies.

 Day 7 - Eidfjord  In the morning we were still hours away from the Norwegian coast, and our breakfast was enhanced by a rising sun turning broken clouds glorious colors.    Along the way dozens of wind turbines and offshore oil rigs came into the view, some close to the ship.   It turns out that the north sea between the Netherlands and Norway covers a shallow continental shelf with water depths of 50 meters or less.   Like the shelf off for New England, this fosters great fishing as well as energy opportunities.   As we approached the coast and entered the Hardangerfjord the clouds lifted, providing sunny views of the many small towns clinging to the steepening walls of the fjord. Our long cruise up Hardangerfjord to Eidfjord was nothing short of glorious.   The weather was high broken clouds with lots of blue sky, providing spectacular reflections in the calm water of the fj...

  Day 6 – At sea between Rotterdam and Eidfjord Norway This was a day on the ship, full of eating, drinking, and hanging out in the sun.   The weather continued to be nice.   Lectures on the ports to come were a helpful precursor for our sightseeing.   A movie “The king’s Choice” highlighted the plight of Norway during WWII and German occupation.

 DAY 5 – Boarding our ship Before leaving the Netherlands for a while, it is worth pontificating about my (Ben’s) sense for the Dutch people and culture.  Many aspects of the culture and people’s behavior are quite Germanic (they might hate me for saying this), but they have, particularly in Amsterdam, a playful spirit and a lighter view of “behaving properly”.  I see the Germanic aspect in the way they ride bicycles and line up in crowds.  On bicycles they are focused, insistent, and expect that everyone “follow the rules”.  And they ride fast!  If a pedestrian steps into a bike lane, even for a moment, they beep or ding insistently.  Crowds are always orderly, even when everyone is drinking.  On the other hand, they consume weed and alcohol in prodigious quantities and at all hours.  And sex is just a normal part of life to be accepted easily.  Those we talked with were serious about helping us and both polite and congenial.  An...

 DAY 4 – Amsterdam to Rotterdam This was a travel day, but the train trip was about 1.25 hours and was fast, comfortable and on time.   This part of Europe like most of the rest has very efficient and inexpensive public transit.   Any comparison with the transit systems leaves one feeling inferior and ill-used at home. We decided to walk from the station in Rotterdam to our hotel near the cruise ship pier.   It seemed simple and only a bit more than a mile.   HOWEVER, pulling multiple suitcases on a sunny morning along busy streets was more than we bargained for.   We got to the hotel hot and tired – and realized as we arrived that both the metro and trams went directly between the station and our hotel!   Judy and Toni had researched the process and thought we had chosen wisely, but local knowledge wins out again! Rotterdam is much that Amsterdam is not and vice versa.   It is much mo...

  Day 3 – Amsterdam Today was another full day in town.   Toured both the new church and the old church.   The “new” church is really less than 100 years newer than the “old” church.   The old church has a world renowned organ, in the photo, and has multiple enclosed pews.   It is used as an art venue and appears to no long host services.   The new church is massive with a long nave and extensive choir.   Much of the nave is torn up as they rebuild the supports for the columns.   They are also doing archeological work as they exhume many bodies of those buried in past millennia.   An interesting fact is that when parishioners paid for a burial spot in the church floor, they paid for a limited (25 year) duration, after which the bodies were removed to an outdoor burial site to make way for current deceased.   From 1200 to 1865 over 60,000 bodies were buried in the church. ...

 Day 2 -Amsterdam This was a day chock full of walking and major sights.   We purchased two-day Amsterdam passes, which included most sights and transit.   A short walk to the main train station got us on a tram to the Rijksmuseum – the premier art museum in the NL.   The train station is itself a work of art, as you can see in the picture of three of us in front of it.   We used the tram system extensively over the two days and found it to be superb: fast, frequent, immaculate, and with good signage showing when trams were arriving at each stop. The Rijksmuseum building was even more impressive than the station, as shown in the photo.   The interior was enormous, similar to the size of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.   The interior architecture and décor were just as impressive as the art works and included a three story library, full of ancient works.   Of course, we made a bee line to Dutch masters (Halls, Vermeer, especially...

 Well, getting this going upon arrival in Amsterdam turned out to be too ambitious!  So this is the evening of our first full day in Amsterdam.  We will spend three nights and 3+ days in this amazing city and then we take a train to Rotterdam where we spend one night and have some exploring time before boarding our Holland America cruise ship. Our flight from SFO to AMS was good despite a modest delay and after 10 LONGGGG hours we arrived safely.  The plane was only 2/3 full so we had some room and the service was good.  The food was weird somehow and the wine mediocre.  Ah well, at least we got fed.with enough alcohol to be relaxed.  Sleep, on the other hand, was elusive!  Schiphol airport was about as good as modern airports can be. After some WhatsApp confusion we connected with our assigned taxi and were whisked away to our hotel.  After a long flight, jetlagged, and little sleep it was so nice to be taken care of, arriving at our hotel w...