Up two fjords with an umbrella

Sunday - 23 June 2013 - At sea, crossing the Arctic Circle

As we are out to sea today but within sight, so to speak, of the now very low in the sky satellite, I will try to post yesterday's report on our full day's visit to the head of two fjords. The ship's schedule for today lists sunrise at 3:20am and no sunset as we will be crossing the Arctic circle before evening. The sun will not set roughly for the next week of the voyage. So much for determining when the sun is below the yardarm.  Of course, we don't have a yardarm as well as a sunset. Oh well. We'll make do.

Saturday – 22 June 2013 – Hellesylt and Geiranger, Norway

The sail out yesterday evening from Bergen was more beautiful than the sail in, mostly because it was at 6pm instead of 5am. We sat outdoors behind the Panorama Lounge on high up 8 deck enjoying a number of included in the price of the cruise beverages. Besides a major tourist destination, Bergen is a working city where the former blood thirsty profit at any cost Hanseatic traders have been replaced by the current blood thirsty profit at any cost oil production industry. We sailed past a number of additional helipad and submersible equipped off-shore oil drilling platform tenders like the one we saw yesterday (see, I really knew what that ship was for) and a curious looking emergency evacuation training facility where platform and tanker crews can practice their E-ticket ride to launch the lifeboats when necessary.

We sailed along and within the Norwegian coast overnight and entered the Storfjord (Really Big Fjord, I believe) at 4:30am. I missed that part but woke up to see thousand foot waterfalls left and right coming down share rock walls with tops too high to see. That was mostly because it was raining raindeer and mountain goats and the top of the fjord was in clouds. Of course, the unbelievable abundance of spectacular waterfalls was due to the abundant rain. The view of these falls more than compensated to having to dress more appropriately for winter than, say, at home in Boulder on June 21^st. 

The first stop was at a purpose built "Cruise Ship Pier" in the heart of Hellesylt, a town of 650 hardy Norwegians who remained quite hidden for all of our two hour stay in port. The short stop was for the ship's passengers who chose to book the all day $249 per person "Overland from Hellesylt to Geiranger" eight hour excursion to board their buses. (We later found out that these now poor folks saw fantastic views of the inside of clouds for the entire eight hours.) Not taking this tour, Barbara and I took one of the oversize ship's umbrellas and did our own walking tour of this actually very lovely (as well as very wet) back water—so to speak—at the end of the Sunnylvsfkprd (sic) Fjord, a few mile branch off the Storfjord. 

The rain turned to drizzle, so we were able to do a nice circular hike around the outlet waterfalls from the Briksdal Glaacier which runs nearly 4,000 feet down the mountainside (as the tourist brochure says). Briksdal means something in Norwegian, we were told.

We left this peaceful hamlet after Barbara dropped a sizable donation to the Norwegian fleece jacket and sweater industry. The shop clerk was a very pretty Lithuanian Ph.D student who spends summers in Hellesylt earning, as she said, "Norwegian salary."  She also said that she heard that it rained 46 days straight a couple of summers ago. This fact was not from the town's residents who apparently also hide from her as well. She said, "I almost never see the townsfolk."

The 10 mile cruise to the more well know tourist town of Geiranger at the end of the Geiranger Fjord—a town so nice they named the fjord for it--was breathtaking as well as wet. The ship anchored as we were having our lunch on board. We hopped on our first tender ride of the cruise to check out Geiranger as the drizzle changed to a heavy rain. We walked through the tourist trap main street, taking in the sights as best we could, and hurried back to the tender pier only to find that the rain had stopped as we were about to take the next tender back to Silver Cloud. 

Taking advantage of the change in the weather, we headed up the road out of town for a bit of a hike. Any road out of town goes up, now that I think of it. As it happened, we took a most pleasant walk to an overlook of the end of the fjord with its array of ferries and other passenger ships. One of these is the floating condo, "The World", where something like a $20,000,000 net worth is required for a prospect to be sent a brochure. I can show you mine, if you'd like. But I don't have a brochure for "The World".  We also checked out the lovely 1840s church built in the style of the early Christian stave churches and returned to the tender pier as the sun came out, albeit very briefly. 

Yup, it's still raining in Bergen

Friday – 21 June 2013 – Bergen, Norway

Yesterday we enjoyed a welcome sea day after leaving Copenhagen Wednesday evening. I enjoyed the sight out our suite window of the nice calm North Sea, as well as the view from our suite's door of the long queue in front of our deck's laundry room consisting of less than 100 day Silversea guests who do not get free laundry service.

I visited Bergen from Oslo with a Scandinavian rail pass in the early 1990s. It was the rainiest place I visited during that late summer trip. This being the summer solstice, I imagined that it might be quite a bit warmer and dryer. I was wrong on both counts.

No matter it was again a rainy low 50s temperature day. I love Bergen anyway. As the sun rise was at 4:10am (sunset tonight here is at 11:11pm), I ran up on deck early to see the sail-in among the many islands only to be startled by an awful sound coming from the top deck. Why a bagpiper was performing on the aft deck of the Silver Cloud as we sailed into our first Norwegian port is one of the many mysteries of this land of gnomes and trolls as well as of life at sea. But there would be more today.

After a relatively solo last segment cruise, we were startled to see at least five other cruise ships docking around the small port of Bergen. As Silver Cloud is much smaller than most cruise ships we eased by the various ships named, Voyager, and berthed right downtown abeam the old fort. Along the same pier was the curious looking very modern Skandi Bergen, perhaps a whaler as Norway is one of the few countries that still allow the harvesting for food of creatures that are sentient and probably more intelligent than humans. (Also, raw whale meat is very yucky looking. Picture not included. You're welcome.)

We ran down the gangway as usual as soon as the local authorities cleared the ship to see the traditional carrying of the unicorn as well as the row of hanseatic houses. As mentioned earlier in the blog, the German merchants settled here in the Middle Ages to do their extensive trading. As Corey, our ship's destination lecturer put it, these guys were, "like the EU but with a lot more guns". But they built cool looking houses including apparently a very nice Scottish restaurant with a familiar name.

We fought off the various huge cruise ship tour groups—the one in front of us had narration in French, so I was warned to, "Prenez votre billette a la main gauche"--and ascended the funicular to the 1000 foot high summit of Mt. Floien. The view was as fantastic as I remembered it, and Barbara and I were able to enjoy a somewhat damp but scenic hike on one of the many well maintained (i.e. not too deep mud) trails along the top. I even convinced a local resident to allow me to take a picture with him.

We returned to the ship and after a rest checked out the nearby Bergenhus Festining fort and a "closed until late 2015" church, returning to  Silver Cloud as the rain got heavier and to hang up our umbrellas and jackets to dry. A nice visit for the longest day of the year, not that we could notice it was. 

We sail at 6 pm for the small town of Geiranger at the end of a wilderness fjord. We are told that there will be six other cruise ships there also enjoying the wilderness. 

Re: Why the name Louisiana?

Thanks, Marc, for the enlightenment. Cool story, even if not substantiated. I will forward this to my Danish friend.

Mike

On Thursday, June 20, 2013, Marc Raizman wrote:

Dear Michael:  You missed a piece of "dirt" following your visit to the above museum. The story, as I was told when we visited the place,was that

Alexander Brun, the museum founder, had three wives and they were all named Louise.

In Italian there is a saying, "Si non e' vero, e' bene trovatto."

If it isn't true, it is a good story.

Sorry to hear that you are about to lose your satellite connection because of your ship's northerly location.

Best,  Marc Raizman

A great city with a gracious native

Thursday – 20 June 2013 – At Sea 58N 10E, off the northern tip of Denmark

We cast off the dock of Helsingborg, Sweden just before 3pm on Tuesday afternoon with help from a tug to thread through the narrow breakwater. Helsingborg is a busy ferry port with large car and truck ferries coming and going every few minutes for the 20 minute crossing of the Oresund Narrow to Helsingor, Demark. Since Silver Cloud's maneuvering took about a half hour, I suspect that cascading delays on the ferry schedule will not be resolved until the Christmas break. No matter to the locals (except for those who missed their train connections). We had a large audience for our departure. Silver Cloud's call at this port in Sweden was a big deal. Cruise ships are usually much too large to dock at Helsingborg.

The couple of hour's transit to Copenhagen was quite lovely. We caught a glimpse of "Elsinor" castle of Hamlet fame, actually Kronborg Castle just outside of Helsingor. I could almost hear Ophelia jumping over the cliff, or was it drowning in a river. I forget. Barbara and I stayed up at the bow in sunny and windless conditions as a following wind matched our speed. We passed the iconic line of wind turbines out in the Copenhagen harbor, the first such off-shore facility I had seen years ago during my last cruise from this port, and we were docked shortly after.

We stayed on deck for the arrival in Copenhagen hoping to see our friend Jannik, a Copenhagen native, but a broad smile indicated that he saw us before we saw him. We joined Jannik on the pier as soon as the ship was cleared by the local authorities. Jannik had a wonderful evening planned for us. Somehow knowing our preferences, he came prepared with 24 hour passes for the Copenhagen transit system, tickets for Tivoli, and dinner reservations. We had a delightful evening in the wonderful prototype 175 year old theme park and even took in a classical ballet/pantomime show near the restaurant Jannik had chosen in the park. After an after dinner Carlsberg or two watching the lights come on in the park we walked back to the classical central railway station for our short train ride back to ship. A wonderful evening, indeed.

We met Jannik on the pier at 9:30am yesterday morning for a full day exploration of Copenhagen. Although I had been here before a number of times, this was the first visit for Barbara. Near where Silver Cloud was docked we walked through the throngs of tourists, souvenir stands, and tour groups gawking at the Little Mermaid statue. After some time and considerable patience I was able to take a photo of the "Copenhagen's Number 1 Tourist Attraction" as the souvenir stand's sign said without getting a bunch of tourists taking pictures of mostly each other.

Our exploration of Copenhagen covered the Crown Prince's Palace where a shift change of the guard was occurring, the whimsical old stock exchange with its steeple of dragon's intertwined tails, and just about every other sight in this most livable and enjoyable city. Of course, a tour led by a native can not be beat. So nice not to have my head buried in a map.

We ventured back to the railway station for the half hour ride up to Louisiana, the curiously named modern art museum, for lunch with a lovely view across the water to Sweden after enjoying oddly enough a very nice retrospective of Yoko Ono's artistic career.

We bid goodbye to Jannik on the train at the port and thanked him for a fantastic visit. We most likely will see him on a future cruise. Of course, we offered to reciprocate in Boulder or somewhere else in the States. Jannik travels extensively and we most certainly hope he takes us up on our offer.

As yesterday was the "turn around day" on our two segment cruise, we checked out the newcomers at tea time. They seemed a jovial fun loving group. (See picture above at tea). Then we joined the now every segment mandatory safety briefing. This is held on Silver Cloud in the small Panorama Lounge. As crowded as the short briefing was, it was gratifying to realize that this small throng comprised all the passengers and most of the crew on this tiny cruise ship. 

An overlooked ferry port

Tuesday – 18 June 2013 – Helsingborg, Sweden

I visited Helsingborg about 20 years ago just long enough to run from the slightly delayed train from Stockholm to board the ferry to Denmark. So I didn't get to see this quite lovely town until this morning's half day port call. And we were no longer in Germany.

We arrived before 8 am adjacent to the very busy Helsingborg ferry docks for our cruise's only stop in Sweden. The view from Silver Cloud of the town square was promising although the tourist information didn't really list a bunch of "must sees". It was kind of fun to see Kronborg Castle in Denmark across the Oresund Strait. Kronborg is the setting for Hamlet, of course, and a tourist destination right up there with visits to the buildings in Cleveland used to film Jean Shepherd's, "A Christmas Story", or for that matter Mork and Mindy's house in Boulder. But the view from Helsingborg was quite nice. As it happens, Helsingborg has a nice castle of its own. So there!

On the way to check out the 7-11 store at the railway station—where else—we observed a peasant on a bicycle and bunches of little kids in safely gear being led to look at Silver Cloud. We later found out that cruise ship calls are quite rare in Helsingborg, and our visit was highlighted in the local newspaper. I was amazed. There still are newspapers?

Another bombed to smithereens but restored Hanseatic League town and an octogenarian beach resort

Monday – 18 June 2013 – Warnemunde Port and Rostock, Germany

The most important city/state in the Medieval Hanseatic League was Rostock in modern Northern what used to be East Germany. In the 15^th and 16^th Centuries, traders in Northern Europe controlled many areas. It was not good to mess with these characters, but they sure built pretty houses.

Upon docking in the seaside resort of Warnemunde, Barbara and I hot footed it the 100 feet or so to the train station conveniently visible from our window on the ship. The S-Bahn commuter trains run every 20 minutes for the 20 minute ride to the downtown Rostock Central Railway Station. The 4.60 euro day pass also included the connecting tram line which we took to the stately University Square to "do" our own walking tour. So we paid about $10 total for the two of us and gloated at the Silversea shore excursion groups where each participant had put down $99. We kept coming across the group—their guides were using the same map—and might have heard the narration from their tours guides had we walked as slowly as they did.  But of course we had the brochure with the text. Boy, do we know how to do this sort of thing!

From Rostock's University Square we took pictures at the pretty nifty Town Hall. (Compare and contrast Boulder's square unadorned city building where there's homeless people lounging where the apparently forgotten front door should be).  We photographed the meticulously—hey, it's Germany—restored Hanseatic houses and visited the Medieval St. Mary's Church which has the highest ceiling I've seen and a very impressive Astronomical Clock. The clock is said to be operating continuously since the 1400s, but apparently not quite perfectly since it claimed that the current year was 1952. Also, the "perpetual clock" which originally started in 1489 or so had a revised start date of 1889 and perhaps more disquieting, an end date of 2017. The end of time? No matter, it was a very impressive accurate clock—the time appeared correct. Those Hanseatics must have anticipated Daylight Savings Time.

After what was a quite pleasant few mile walk around historical Rostock we returned to the ship via the efficient S-Bahn, had lunch, and then decided to explore Warnemunde where we had docked. I was surprised to see a modern and quite busy ocean front resort town, a very crowded beach (including an enterprising kite maker displaying his work), some whimsical park statues, and a very tacky snack bar. Just like similar places in the USA, but Barbara and I seemed to lower the average age of the beach goers by a good 10 to 15 years, and the few groups of teenagers around sat quietly on benches and tried to practice their English on us. Maybe a short visit isn't enough to truly understand a place.