Dr.Dobro

Does this mean a federal arrest warrant would be issued, and if so, what kind of trouble might he be in? I am interested because a couple of years ago, I was on a 14-day back-to-back, Boston-Quebec City-Boston. I got word a few days ahead of disembarkation that my elderly mother's health had taken a turn. I thought I might get off one day early in Portland, Maine, where one of my sons would pick me up. When I asked at the desk about arrangements, I was told I could not do it. From discussion here, I assume I could have. I assume this was a knee-jerk, dismissive no. As it turned out, we soon got word that the immediate crisis had passed and I was OK with continuing to Boston. But Mom's condition was such that she moved into a care facility a month later. She just turned 95 earlier this month and seems to be going strong. Thanks, Rich, for all the great info over the years.

We pulled out of Reykjavik and sailed north to our final port in Iceland: Grundarfjordur, on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. (We tried to get the pronounciation down, but we just settled on "Sniffles.") We took a half-day tour around the peninsula, which is touted as "Iceland in Miniature" by the local touristicians. That's a bit of a stretch, but it was a very pretty area and we enjoyed yet another improbably sunny day. The highlight for me was Arnarstapi, a tiny town with huge seaside cliffs overlooking rock formations and the nesting places of thousands of seabirds. I've been looking at this picture of a gull and chick, and it seems to show remnants of the egg shell around the baby's body. Could it have just hatched? Ornithologists, please weigh in. There was no shortage of cormorants, either. But hey, here's the big news: Whales at last! I'm pretty sure these are orcas because of the distinctive black and white pattern. But are orcas whales or dolphins? Wikipedia has it both ways: "The orca (Orcinus orca), also called killer whale, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member." These pics are grainy; the orcas were some distance from the cliffs, and my camera's built-in telephoto was tested to the limit. I'm wondering whether this is a mom giving lessons to her calf. Here's an impressively tall lighthouse with severe utilitarian styling. This photo looks back from the cliffs to the tiny town. The glacier-capped mountain is actually a volcano called Snaefellsjokull, and it occasionally leaks lava, but there has been no eruption for hundreds of years. In Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), this mountain was where the explorers found their passage to the underworld. We continued our walk, admiring the cliffs and rock formations. We met a couple in full wedding regalia, walking out to the cliffs for photos. I didn't get a pic, but the bride was wearing hiking boots. Back near Grundarfjordur we stopped to see Kirkjufell, Iceland's most photographed mountain, with a nice little waterfall to punctuate the picture. Nerd alert: Kirkjufell served as Arrowhead Mountain in "Game of Thrones." According to a nerdsite I visited, "10,000 years before Aegon's Conquest, the Night King was created by the Children of the Forest near this mountain." Here's a pic. Strange place for the Children of the Forest to hang out, because there ain't no trees here. That branch in the photo is pure CGI. Karen got close-up with a horsey friend, one of several on a farm right by the mountain. And that will do it for today. Adios, amoebas.

For the second day of our car rental in Reykjavik, we got up early and hit the highway at 6 a.m. We were going to see some sights on the "Golden Circle," a 140-mile loop from the capital city that includes some of the most popular attractions. (Not to be confused with the Ring Road, which circles the entire island.) Our goal was to get out ahead of the tourist busses which would fill every parking lot by mid-day. Win! We had virtually no traffic all the way to the immense Gullfoss waterfall, where only about 10 cars carrying other early birds were parked. In summer, the Hvita River dumps 5,000 cubic feet of water per second into the rapids at the top of Gullfoss. I couldn't picture how much 5,000 cubic feet is, but I hit upon the School Bus Scale. One big yellow school bus occupies about 1,000 cubic feet. Just imagine, every second, five school busses rolling and tumbling by. After the rapids, the river makes a hard right turn and plunges 130 feet into a crevice. We were taken aback by the Mountaineers of Iceland mega-rigs awaiting customers. Not exactly what comes to mind when I think of mountaineers. I had to look up what MAN was; it's a Munich manufacturer of everything from city buses to military vehicles. We moved on to the nearby Geysir geothermal area and walked among rocks hissing steam and hot springs of gurgling, boiling water. Geysir gets its name from the Icelandic geysa, meaning "to gush," and English has adapted the word to apply to any such gusher. "Geysa" is how they still pronounce it in Boston, howevah. The area includes an Icelandic version of Old Faithful, called Strokkur. It's a hyperactive little devil, going off every 6 to 10 minutes, but you have to be quick -- it's one squirt and done. Photographers have a two-second window. The Icelandic horse is a small but solid breed, and they are everywhere. The nation keeps the bloodlines pure by forbidding the importation of other breeds. There are herds kept elsewhere in Europe, but once a native horse leaves the island it cannot return. Horse racing in Iceland dates to 1874. They even have winter races over frozen lakes. The horses are groomed with a characteristic front-combed haircut (vintage teenager, c. 1972). Fine looking animals. So were us teens. Speaking of cute critters, you have to love this pic of ebony and ivory living together in perfect harmony. With Big Mama, of course. I think this little dude is a red shank, our second of the cruise. Can you stand one more splendid waterfall? This is Hjalparfoss -- not the tallest, not the mightiest, but certainly one of the prettiest we've seen. Love the flowering meadow and that column of lava rock standing up to the two half-fosses. Back to the ship for an evening sailaway. Follow-up; The captain announced that local authorities had inspected the ship that day, following up on the emissions incident in Akureyri, and the system checked out. Speaking of emissions, the volcano south of Reykjavik was just starting its renewed eruptions as we pulled out. There seemed to be a lot more alarm on the U.S. cable channels than we saw right here near ground zero. It's not a big old ka-blooey eruption, just a huge, slow lava leak, and it's in a remote roadless area. There was some concern that the road to the airport might be affected, but it didn't happen. All in a day's work on a volcanic island. More to come. Thanks for reading!

After a day at sea we pulled into Reykjavik for the second time. On the previous visit we suffered the first umbrella-worthy days of the trip, and we spent our time just exploring the capital city. But this time the skies were mostly blue, as they have been most places -- the weather gods were sailing with us. So, let's see: perfect weather, a two-day stay in port, sundown around 11 pm. Sounds like the perfect recipe for another road trip! We secured our vehicle at an Iceland-based rental joint about 30 minutes walk from the port, and hey voila! We're off to the south coast for the day, and here's what we saw. Waterfalls, of course! No place does waterfalls like Iceland, which has more than 10,000 of them on an island the size of Kentucky. This is largely due to the tremendous glaciers that cover 11 percent of the land. This is Myrdalsjokull Glacier, the fourth largest. Mix all that ice with a snowy, rainy climate and you have huge amounts of water. And thanks to the magic of tectonics -- Iceland lies astride the European and North American plates -- you have upthrust mountain ranges creating great tumbling cascades. Below is one of the big kahunas -- Skogafoss, a 200-foot plunge over what used to be the coastline cliff. That coast has retreated three miles south. But you don't have to hunt the big ones for satisfying waterfall action. They're everywhere, including on several little loop roads that branch off the Ring Road. That bright green vegetation around the falls could be velvet. There always seems to be a red-roofed church standing solitary in the wide-open spaces. They are kept up well so they must be active, but people must travel long miles. We continued down to the coastline near the town of Vik, where we stopped at Reynisfjara Beach, an expansive reach of black sand. This great cave features columns of basalt rising out of the sand, then folding inward in a most pleasing way as they form the roof of the entrance. Nerd alert! The beach and cave were Eastwatch-by-the-Sea in "Game of Thrones," with Daenerys Targaryen accepting the loyalty pledge of some tribe or other. I think a dragon was involved. My sons have to explain it to me. Anyway, down at the other end of the beach are pretty big rock formations. The first one reminded me very much of Perce Rock in Quebec, where the missus and I spent our long-ago honeymoon. Hey, bonus puffin! We found one nesting high up on a cliffside. After a nice pizza stop in Vik, we headed back northeast to Reykjavik through the long evening light. We continued road-tripping the following morning, and we'll pick that up next time.

Hi again all, Iceland has its famed Ring Road, shown in blue below. Visitors plan itineraries of 7 to 10 days to make the circuit, easier now since it's become fully paved. (Still has over 30 one-lane bridges, though.) Anyway, you'll notice the weird tumor growth jutting from the northwest corner of Iceland. This is (are?) the Westfjords, and to get there you have to get off the Ring and cross an isthmus just 4 miles wide. Juat 7,000 people live in the Westfjords, with the heaviest snowfall in the country often closing roads and cutting off the region for weeks each winter. We left Akureyri and sailed west along Iceland's north coast, running parallel to and just a few degrees below the Arctic Circle. This was our last taste of 24-hour sunlight. We pulled into Isafjordur, biggest town in the region, and quickly hopped on an excursion to Vigur Island and its rich seabird population. We had attempted to book this as a private excursion, but the operator told us it would be sold only through the ship's shore excursions (at a highly inflated price). Best use we have had for the use-it-or-lose-it shore credits! It turned out to be spectacular -- our best birding experience of the whole trip and the one and only time we got reasonably close to puffins. These comical and appealing birds are the stars of the show up here, but previously we had seen only a few in faraway flight or small groups bobbing on the waves. We visited during the nesting season for arctic terns, which will dive-bomb visitors to defend their nests. Visitors received sticks with little colored markers and held them aloft as they walked past the nests. The terns wouldn't swoop below the sticks. Karen took my dare to lower her stick for a moment. It wasn't down for long. Vigur Island also has an uncommonly large colony of black guillemots. And this little acrobat is a red shank, we learned. Amidst all this exciting bird life, a centuries-old farm thrives from the more mundane eider ducks who nest along the beach. There are more than 3000 nests built every year, and the eiderdown left behind is harvested and processed by the resident family. The island also hosts a few student naturalists from France who greeted the excursion and showed us around. The windmill on the farm, built in 1840, is said to be the oldest in Iceland and the northernmost in the world. The windmill is the vantage point where we got the puffin pics, but I have to admit that we were lucky. The birds were only close to us for about 10 minutes, so if you're dreaming of doing this, be advised. But, hey -- hooray for luck, right? What a great day.

Well, thanks for your concern, all ... it has been a little while since I wrote. It's an oft-told tale of getting sucked into the cruise vortex, when the serious going-on-vacation business distracts you from the photos and the keyboard. Spoiler alert: We arrived home as scheduled on July 22, thanks to our son for the pick-up. Coming home after 71 days at sea, we felt like astronauts re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down into a sea of loose ends. But now, with some equilibrium restored, let's wrap up what was a most enjoyable and exciting trip around the North Atlantic. *** The Zuiderdam made a return visit to Akureyri, the only city of any size on the north coast of Iceland. It's a long and pretty sail-in up the Eyjafjord to the city pier. I think this is the fourth visit for us, and on the other three we took excursions into the spectacular countryside. This time we stayed in town and enjoyed a modest ramble along the fjord south of town. Akureyri's cruise mini-terminal had an interesting display of salvaged woodcraft, and nearby is a pretty streetscape. Bird ID, anyone? Several of these along the shore. Our walk led us to the home of Akureyri's favorite son, Jon Sveinsson, a Jesuit and author of the Nonni series of children's books. They've been widely read in northern Europe for over 100 years. Sveinsson's bust sits atop the writing desk at Nonnahus, his childhood home. The town museum had a steel wire recorder from the 1930s playing some tunes of the era.The sound quality was comparable to my grandfather's 78 rpm wax records. Interesting to see technology that never caught on but works nonetheless. I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but on our walk back to the ship we witnessed an ugly cloud spewing from the Zuiderdam. The first photo is a look north to the ship; the second faces south, deeper into the fjord. The captain got on the honker that evening and said the spew was caused by moisture in the fuel or in the system, and it was harmless but ugly water vapor. Now he could have said it was fairy dust, and I might've bought it. But he did say he fielded a lot of local inquiries. Engine-savvy folks, feel free to weigh in. Here's something a lot more fun from our sail-away. I snapped this tasty waterfall photo... ...but I did not realize until I got the photo on a big screen (and a bit grainy) that three Icelandic heads were poking out of a little pool at the brink of the falls. Holy Nonni! That's gotta be some frigid water, unless they're lucky enough to have a hot spring mixing in. And so we continued on, following the Nieuw Statendam, which was our tag-along partner for a few ports now. Will write again in a few weeks. Just kidding.

We left Rotterdam behind for the last time and sailed north to Maloy, our final port in Norway. It's a fishing town of fewer than 4,000 people on the island of Vagsoy in the southern part of the country. I doubt they catch fish by hand as the mural suggests, but I won't judge. We joined a group of eight who rented a ridiculous orange van and took a scenic drive around the Vagsoy Island. The day began cloudy and a bit foggy, so some of the pics aren't so great. C'est la vie. One of the main scenic attractions is Kannesteinen, a small rock formation that somehow still stands despite centuries of Norwegian Sea tides chewing at it. It is made of a metamorphic rock called greenschist, often used by ancient people for weapons because it can be split into layers and sharpened. Some people see E.T. in its shape. Terrestrial or not, people are not prohibited from climbing on top, but it is slippery and no one in our group felt like a morning dip. We hiked up to the top of a headland where the Krakenes Lighthouse stands, but you can't actually get to it and you can just barely see it. The white building (which includes a few hotel rooms) blocks access to the light, which is the red knobby bit. Well, it was a great shoreline view anyway, and I guess the main thing is that ships can see the light. Maloy was the scene of a dramatic military operation in December 1941, called Operation Arrowhead. More than 500 British commandos stormed German positions on the island, with support from Royal Navy ships bombarding the area. The mission was to destroy storage and production facilities of fish oil, used by the Germans in the manufacture of explosives. Today a Maloy Raid Museum commemorates the event. There's another invasion that takes place every year: the Norwegian Elvia Festival. Yes, Maloy has a hunka hunka burnin' love for The King, and in August you can see four days of performances (including a gospel-themed show in a church) featuring impersonators and devotees from all over the world. The movie theater shows some Elvis films and there's even a parade down the main street, renamed Elvis Boulevard for the festival. Here's a scene from last year. When we got back to the pier, a sign greeted us about a "rock and roll farewell" for the Zuiderdam, with a picture of an Elvis impersonator. How could we resist? Well, there was a show, but it was a Tom Jones impersonator belting out "Delilah" and other hits to a karaoke track. Jones and Elvis did have some things in common, such as the uncanny ability to wear out their pants from the inside. But when you're all geared up for "Jailhouse Rock".... oh, well. One tourist tip for Majoy: If you run down to the local SuperMegaloMart to pick up some antifreeze, watch that you don't come home with wine instead. The sailaway was lovely as the sun came out after all. We even got a great sunset -- complete with North Sea oil rig -- to send us off. And that's it for today, kids. Thanks for reading!

The Zuiderdam looped back south to Rotterdam for the third time, and as usual we got out of the crew's way during the madness of passenger changeover and loading and restocking and all. We headed out to Dordrecht on the recommendation of a friendly Dutch couple with whom we had breakfast one day. Since we started passing through Rotterdam, about 40 percent of the passengers have been Netherlanders -- so many that ship announcements were made in two languages. Dordrecht turned out to be a great, great recommendation. It is the oldest city in Holland (founded 1220) and has the historic look and feel of Amsterdam, with much less tourist buzz. The city is inland from Rotterdam, accessible by the leisurely waterbus or by train. Dordrecht occupies an island of the same name, bounded by four or maybe five rivers. Depends what you consider a river. We took a walk past the immense Grote Kirk (opened in 1285), and since it was Sunday, we got to hear the carillon of 67 bells play. Karen squeezed her way down the narrowest street in the city Below is a great example of centuries-old buildings designed to lean slightly forward over the street. These buildings have incredibly steep and narrow stairways, so the only way to get your sofa or piano into your top-floor apartment was to haul it up to your window from below. The tilt lessens the risk of scraping against the neighbors' windows on the way up. Nowadays, people often hire a company with a firetruck-like lift to do the job. We continued through the old city gate onto a waterfront promenade and enjoyed a pleasant outdoor coffee as boats of all kinds passed by, including a river cruise ship. Gotta try that some day. This seal on the gate has greeted visitors to Dordrecht for hundreds of years. Interesting lighthouse just across the way, guarding the confluence of some rivers. There is so much water that it's hard to figure what flows where. When you're walking around here, you have to make sure to look up at all times. There are lots of artful surprises lurking just beneath the rooftops. Whoa, that is one naughty Ariel. But you also have to look down to see the golden Stolpersteine, or "stumbling stones" embedded in the pavement brickwork. The *** regime sent many Dordrecht Jews to the death camps, and these little plaques are placed outside the last known home of each victim. They list the names, birthdates, and date and place of death. We were stopped cold by this portrait of a couple -- maybe an engagement photo? -- in the window of a closed museum. The gentleman was compelled to wear the Star of David even on this presumably happy occasion! And of course, Anne Frank's hiding place in Amsterdam is just a short train ride away. The Dutch were hit hard by the fascists and they seem determined to remember. In a terrific stroke of luck, our visit coincided with the annual Dordrecht Book Fair, one of the biggest in Europe. Vendors of just about everything you can print filled more than 800 booths. Every time you turned a corner, there was another street or square jammed with booksellers. There was a considerable number of English works, so the browsing was pretty good. We passed this beautifully preserved 1965 VW Bug and chatted with the owner for a bit. He said he has several old VWs, including microbuses; he has them shipped from California, restores them and sells them. All for today, amigos. Thanks for reading.

Today I had my hair cut by an Iranian man in a Turkish barber shop in Scotland. Our port for the day was Invergordon, a Highlands town of just 4,000 people. We were here years ago and enjoyed a pretty good tour that included a few nice castles. We could have hopped a bus to see Inverness, "capital of the Highlands," but time was not on our side, so we decided to stay in town. Let's just say this won't be a long entry. The barber shop was recommended by a thoroughly Scottish greeter on the pier. I was a little apprehensive about what a Turkish haircut might involve -- I mean, have you seen videos of Turkish baths? -- but it turned out just great. The barber was a recent immigrant from Iran. I was unclear how a Turkish barber was different, but I got one hint when he asked me if he should singe my ears. What the hell, I said OK. This involved dipping a Q-tip into a flammable liquid, lighting it on fire, and holding is close to the ears to shrivel all the gross little hairs. It was a strangely pleasant sensation. Interwebs photo below. We got our daily walk in by going along the waterfront to Saltburn Woodland Walk, a pretty little oasis and a great example of community spirit. Bob Brown had visited Australia and was taken by the planted woodlands there, probably as a callback to English roots. He decided to try to plant a woodland in his hometown of Invergordon, and he and a friend, Sandy Adam, undertook the project. They identified a plot of a few acres, owned by the municipality, and went to work on it without official permission. Finally they secured a no-pay lease, and 20 years later they have wrought a mini-forest with three walking trails. Spider-Man and other favorites lurk in the branches to amuse the kids. There's also a pretty garden where a local artist has crafted a figure of Bob and his wheelbarrow. We walked back to town and took in some of the 17 murals in the modest downtown. We liked the one about the Highland Games and the depiction of a fire at the Royal Hotel. (Might there have been a Turkish barber shop on the premises?) Walking back to the pier, we spotted a seagull chick atop some kind of service boat, with Mom nearby. Some bird cognoscenti were also looking, and I asked how the chick could have flown up there. He didn't, they said, that's just where Mom chose to lay the egg. So this little guy needs to hope that the boat doesn't set sail anytime soon, as he won't be abke to fly for a few weeks yet. So that's our not very exciting but still okay visit to Invergordon. Some days you just don't need adrenaline, you know?

We made a return visit to Edinburgh, Scotland on a perfectly sunny day. The actual port is in nearby South Queensferry, in the Firth of Forth. We decided to stay on the outskirts of the city and do something outdoorsy. That turned out to be a local tour operator, and we booked the Three Bridges Cruise to Inchcolm Island. Because the Zuiderdam was visiting, the operator used another dock half a mile away. So we ran past Peter Piper on the pier without much nerve damage and had a nice morning walk along the shore on a nice little lane. The touristic attraction of the Inchcolm Island is three-fold. Inchcolm Abbey was inhabited by Augustinian monks for about four centuries starting around 1130. Second are the military fortifications, with the island's position critical to the defense of Edinburgh. And finally, there's a seabird sanctuary that occupies most of the island. Puffins visit here, but it is late in their nesting season and most have departed. Not so the gulls, who are very actively nesting and not especially welcoming to visitors. There are mowed paths through the meadows which provide ample viewing, but the gulls still dip, swoop and shreik. Karen found herself channeling Tippi Hedren. We passed huge numbers of fuzzy gray chicks, usually with parent(s). These youngsters are about four weeks old, and it will be another four weeks until their flight feathers come in and they can hit the skies. We explored the fortifications, walking through tunnels and around former gun batteries. The island has been fortified since the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 14th century, and re-fortified periodically through the world wars. We also rattled around the abbey, remarkably well preserved. Rabbithole alert! In this photo, the little island in the distance to the right of Inchcolm is called Inchkeith. It has a strange and disturbing story. In 1443, King James IV devised an experiment in which two newborns were exiled to Inchkeith and placed in the care of its only inhabitant, a woman who could not speak. James wanted to find out if children deprived of learning a language would start to speak "the original language of God." The rest of the story is hazy, but supposedly the king visited after several years and found that the children could imitate sounds of nature and use gestures. It's unknown what happened to the children. I mentioned that this was the Three Bridges Cruise, and the first one is the Forth Rail Bridge, opened in 1890. I wrote about it after our first stop here, but I didn't know why it was built. Then I fell into Rabbithole the 2nd. The bridge's predecessor, the Tay Rail Bridge, met a disastrous end when it collapsed in December 1879, spilling the Aberdeen-Edinburgh train into the water. Between 75 and 90 people were killed, depending on whose accounting you use. And that led me to a rabbithole within a rabbithole. There's a poem called "The Tay Bridge Disaster" by William McGonagall, who is widely regarded as the worst poet in the history of the English language. He cared nothing about what his peers thought, and he often performed before audiences who were there mainly to hoot about how bad he was. If you saw Meryl Streep in "Florence Foster Jenkins," you get the idea. Anyway, here is the last stanza of the Tay Disaster poem. It is immune to poetic rhythm, although he did seek to rhyme at all costs. I must now conclude my lay By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay That your central girders would not have given way, At least many sensible men do say, Had they been supported on each side with buttresses, At least many sensible men confesses, For the stronger we our houses do build, The less chance we have of being killed. The man's got to have courage to rhyme "buttresses" with "confesses." Anyway.... Here's a picture (taken from Inchholm) showing the three South Queensferry bridges. The nearest is the cantilevered 1890 rail bridge. Behind it (with the Golden Gate style towers) is the Forth Road Bridge (opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1964), for motor vehicles and now reserved for bicycles, walkers and public transit. And the third bridge is Queensferry Crossing (opened by the same queen in 2017), one and a half miles long, with its modern cabled design. Not much else to write about except seeing seals snoozing on a buoy and a pretty nice sunset after we pulled away into the North Sea. Why do we say Edin-burrow and not Pitts-burrow? Inquiring minds are signing off for today.

I have studiously avoided saying too much about the weather on our trip. I did not want to jinx what has been an unbelievable string of bee-yootiful days -- mostly sunny, a few days cloudy, rain no worse than a light drizzle. Well, our luck ran out in Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital. It was truly an umbrella-worthy day, and how nice of Holland America to provide big bright orange umbrellas in every room. Our tribe can easily pick each other out on the streets of the city. So here is a not-too-organized account of our rainy Reykjavik ramble, in fine weather for ducks. And swans. A new landmark in Reykjavok is Harpa, the waterfront concert hall and convention center which opened in 2011. Its colored glass walls grab the most attention, but a gaze up to the ceiling reveals lots of intriguing geometry there too. We wandered down the street to the Reykjavik Flea Market, held every weekend. You could find clothes, old vinyl, and collections of just about anything. No room in the suitcase for travelers like us. Lots of places have underground parking garages, but this the first underwater garage we have seen. Speaking of underground, the Punk Museum of Iceland occupies a former public toilet, right downtown. Sid Vicious would approve. We elevated our sights with a visit to the National Museum of Iceland, where this little icon (just two inches tall) grabbed our attention. It dates to about 1000 A.D., a time when worship of the Norse gods was being supplanted by Christianity. So what is the little figure holding? Some say it's the hammer of Thor, but others believe it's a Christian cross. The exceptional woodwork on this alter piece really captivated us. It is from Ogur in west Iceland, crafted around 1500. And then there is this bizarre depiction of the crucifixion, painted in 1768, which includes a bureaucrat and his family on Calvary. Wow, talk about entitled people! Gotta love the ladies' hats, though. Is it weird that we like to visit cemeteries? We don't often plan on it, but if we're walking by one that looks interesting, we'll wander through. You often learn a few things, such as: Icelanders let forests grow up in their cemeteries, even directly atop the graves. I suspect some trees were planted, since that's how most trees get started in this climate. I wouldn't mind knowing my remains will serve to fertilize some nice fauna. We came across the well-tendeded grave of a national hero, Jon Sigurdsson, leader of the movement for independence from Denmark (1874). Iceland's version of the Fourth of July is celebrated on his birthday, June 17. A few words on Icelandic naming conventions. You are given a first name by your parents, but your surname will be an identifier of your father. For example, Leif Ericson is read as Leif, the son of Eric. If Leif had been a Lucy, the name would be Lucy Ericdottir (Lucy, the daughter of Eric). But here's one weird thing: if a woman did not know who was the father of her baby, the child would have the surname Hanson, literally "his son." After Allied forces were stationed in Iceland during World War II, lots of little Hansons and Hanssons were running around. (The name can also mean simply "son of Hans," but boy, imagine the stigma.) We were walking down a street when we heard a bird shrieking its head off. We soon saw why: this cat had climbed halfway up the tree and had his eye on the nest. Wonder how that turned out? What else? Murals! Quite a number to be seen in the central city. Who knew Albert Einstein and Tupac Shakur shared a love for brewskis? And finally, there's the Icelandic Phallological Museum, "dedicated to collecting, studying and presenting actual phalluses and all things phallic," according to the website, with "hundreds of specimens from the entire Icelandic mammal fauna and well over 100 foreign species." We ventured only as far as the gift shop, where I liberated a coffee mug with the museum logo. I will leave it to serious students of the 1960s to figure out why Jimi's Johnson Lager is on hand. Oh, wait -- it all makes sense when you look at Hallgrímskirkja, the Lutheran church that was erected on Reykjavik's highest hill. Wow, that's a lot! Will write again soon.

The good ship Zuiderdam proceeded west along the north coast of Iceland, rising briefly above the Arctic Circle once again, to reach Akureyri, "Capital of North Iceland." The five largest municipalities in the nation are clustered in and around Reykjavik, in the southwest corner of the island. Akureyri rings in at number six. But we didn't see much of the city because we were using another of our use-it-or-lose-it shore excursion credits. We don't usually take ship-sponsored tours because they are so pricey and we don't like feeling herded. But these credits came with the fare, so with dork dots donned, we climbed onto the bus. First stop was the Akureyri Botanic Garden, which was certainly pretty, but it did not have much in the way of Arctic flora. Most of the garden was plantings of spring and summer blooming flowers. There was one section devoted to Arctic species, but I think these tend to be small and stunted, so they fail to grab the eye. I'm certainly no expert. Onward we rolled to Godafoss, an impressive waterfall about half an hour from the city. We passed through sprawling, treeless space before arriving at the waterfall. The water drops about 40 feet. The falls are relatively small by Icelandic standards, but pretty and impressive nonetheless. The young and intrepid took advantage of steep trails leading down to the river's edge. Our last stop was at Laufas Heritage Site in Eyjafjordur, administered by the National Museum of Iceland. It preserves several 19th century turf houses, with roofs of plant growth providing good insulation in freezing winters. Laufas is bigger than the typical turf-house settlement, actually more of a manor. Residents of the main house had more than 20 servants, A small church that had its own resident vicar is also on-site. The museum has furnished the main house as it would have appeared around 1900. A passageway connects the house with a barn so that no one had to fight their way through the snow to tend to the animals. Many old New England farms used the same strategy. Young people in period dress (well, maybe not the tennies) did a pretty good job explaining what we were looking at. We were herded back on the bus, which had to hurry back to the port in time for an afternoon version of the same excursion. Later on, we got a pretty nice sky display to end our day. That's all for today, amigos. Thanks for reading.

We visited Seydisfjordur, a town of just 700 people in the fjords of eastern Iceland. The morning sail up the fjord to the town was majestic, despite (or maybe because of) the treeless terrain. The sense of sheer space is overwhelming. But it didn't look so great just two and a half years ago, when 15 days of rain set off a series of landslides that devastated the town. The biggest slide (73,000 cubic meters) swept 13 homes and the town museum into the fjord, and many other homes were buried in mud. All of this at the height of the pandemic (December 2020). Here's a newspaper photo that shows some of the damage. Miraculously, no lives were lost. That's largely thanks to an evacuation of the entire population after a series of "warning" slides. The residents were sheltered in Egilsstadir, the nearest town, about 18 miles away over a mountain pass and safely inland. For many, it was months before they could return. Some had their homes declared unsafe because of their location near the slide areas, and those were purchased by the municipality. Looking at Seydisfjordur today, we saw no hint of the disaster. It's a pretty town with colorful homes clad in iron against the fierce winters. This building, a Swedish consulate (and as far we know, the only consulate in town) is covered in pressed iron tiles. There is a modest shopping area dominated by the lone church, with a rainbow road leading to it. It's nothing to do with Pride Month; it has been there for years. Rushing right through one of the slide areas is this double waterfall, no doubt a new configuration after the slide. The area has completely revegated itself, with a landscape dominated by purple lupins. If you've seen the 2013 film "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," you've had a glimpse of Seydisfjordur. An extended skateboarding scene featuring lead actor Ben Stiller was filmed there. Much of the movie was filmed in Iceland, including at Grundarfjordur, where we will visit later. Iceland features prominently in the plot, and some Icelandic locations stood in for Greenland and Afghanistan. Not a very exiting day, but a very scenic one. We'll take it.

Today marks the northernmost point of our journey as we traveled deeper into the land of 24-hour sunshine. The port is Hammerfest, the northernmost city (defined as 10,000 people or more) in the world. This cruise originally was supposed to go even farther north, to the island of Svalbard and the actual northernmost settlement, tiny Longyearbyen. But environmental concerns over smokestack emissions nixed it. The problem is the low-quality bunker oil used by cruise ships. They can burn a higher quality oil and get permission for Svalbard, but they are required to drain the tanks and steam-clean them first. That would mean lost sailing days and added expenses -- something cruise lines won't take on just for the sake of one port. So we have to settle for a town that is roughly as far north as Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) in Alaska, the northernmost town in the U.S. But Hammerfest is a very nice consolation prize, with terrific scenery as we sailed in and a lovely little harbor. We took a walk along a nice shoreline trail, finding a convenient bench where we sat and observed the bird life, including this oystercatcher. We were shamed into getting off our duffs and continuing our walk by the two people in this photo. They are identical twin Dutch sisters in their eighties who walk incredible distances in every port, and if there's a steep slope to climb to a viewpoint, so much the better. They are in training for the International Four Day Marches in the eastern Netherlands, held in the third week of July. The non-competitive event, started in 1909, draws 40,000 walkers annually; they walk four daily legs of 19, 25 or 31 miles. The walk is the centerpiece of a huge festival in towns along the route, with Dutch TV live-broadcasting the event's final day. Hammerfest is home to the Royal and Ancient (1963?) Polar Bear Society, a quirky little museum and club. You can learn about the history of the fishing industry and see several taxidermied denizens of the north. You can also purchase a membership in the society for $36, which seemed a little steep. On the other hand, it does entitle you to attend the annual meeting. The polar bear is the symbol of Hammerfest, despite the fact that none live on the Norwegian mainland. It signifies a kinship between the bears and fishermen, both gathering food out among the ice floes. It occurred to us that climate change is likely to shrink the ice and bring the bears into town pretty soon. These girls found another polar bear to climb on for a group photo. We had read that reindeer are commonly found on the streets of Hammerfest, but we didn't see any; other people we spoke to did. We found a few interesting monuments. This one honors Adolf Henrik Lindstrom, a local native who was the cook on several Arctic and Antarctic expeditions in the early 20th century, including two led by national hero Roald Amundsen. He is immortalized with spoon and coffee pot. And we actually found Ole Olsen! Not the one we were thinking of (the protagonist of many Ole and Lena jokes in Minnesota and North Dakota). This Ole was a noted composer from Hammerfest. But just for the heck of it, here's an Ole and Lena joke for you. Ole Olsen was on his deathbed when he was stirred awake by the aroma of some of his favorite foods wafting from Lena's kitchen. Using his last strength, he got out of bed and crawled on all fours to the kitchen, where he raised a trembling hand to the goodies on the countertop. Lena slapped his hand and cried "Ole, no! That's for the funeral!" After we got back on board, the captain steered us past North Cape, the northernmost point on the European mainland. It's a 1,007-foot cliff topped by a plateau with some tourist infrastructure. (The party poopers at Wikipedia point out that a couple of other promontories nearby are farther north by less than a mile, but none of them have a road with a coffee shop at the end.) The circular structure you can see is the top of a visitor center, and several visitors lined the clifftop fence to photograph the cruise ship going by. The cape features a "horn" near its base, kind of an echo for us of Cape Horn at the tip of South America, where we sailed a few years back. So I'd say we wrung every ounce of tourism out of this little town. A beautiful, sunny and fun day. Let's hope it continues like this!

We are officially in the Land of the Midnight Sun now that we have moved north of the Arctic Circle. Our port today is Alta, Norway, at 70 degrees north latitude with a population of 21,000. In Alta, the sun does not set from May 17 to July 27. It just lowers toward the western horizon at a gradual angle, then skitters along just above the horizon before it moves back upward. We usually leave the drapes in our cabin open a little bit, but after getting face-blasted by a sunbeam at 3 a.m., we'll be closing them here in the north. Of course, the other side of the coin is the polar night, when the sun does not rise from Nov. 26 to Jan. 16. The bright side (so to speak) is that you get great views of the Northern Lights. Anyway, the sail-in to Alta through a fjord was very scenic -- so nice you wanted to bundle up and have breakfast out on one of the decks. It is surprisingly warm, reaching the 60s in the afternoon. The town itself is mostly new, having been bombed heavily by Allied strikes against the German battleship Tirpitz, stationed in the harbor during the 1940-45 occupation. A townwide fire near the end of World War II took care of the rest. Today the centerpiece of Alta is the gleaming new Northern Lights Cathedral, built in 2013 with an outer shell of titanium to resist the Arctic elements. The stylized depiction of the crucifixion behind the altar shows Jesus looking upward, perhaps with hope, as opposed to the traditional downward, defeated gaze of a brutalized man. We were surprised to find virtually everything in town closed. It was a Sunday, but with hundreds of cruisers in town itching to spend money, it was unexpected. One coffee shop was open, doing a land-office business. The only other option was the Fort Gjort. Just outside of town, Alta has some of the world's highest-quality deposits of slate. The center of town includes this tribute to the people who mine it. Slate was also the medium used in prehistoric rock art, some of which is displayed at the Alta Museum. We did not go because the bus schedule was thin on Sunday, but we learned later that extra buses had been put into service. Bummer. I fell into another one of my rabbit holes doing research on Alta. This one involved the Kautokeino Rebellion of 1852. It inspired a movie featuring Sami actors in 2009. A faction of the Northern Sami indigenous people, living mostly in nearby Kautokeino, were concerned with rampant alcoholism that had developed in the community under Norwegian rule. The local trader in liquor and other goods, who often cheated Sami customers, came to be seen somewhat like a drug pusher. It all boiled over one day in the killing of the trader (his home and business were also burned) and of the village priest, who the rebels believed had done nothing to try to improve the situation. Servants and associates of the two were whipped and beaten. It was the only fatal confrontation between indigenous people and Norwegians in the nation's history. Several Sami were tried and imprisoned, and the two leaders of the rebellious faction were beheaded and their heads sent to Oslo for a museum's collection of skulls. The skulls were not returned for burial in the north until 1995. Well, that's a sufficiently cheerful note to end on for today. We have even further north to go!

It was yet another improbably sunny day as we pulled into Trondheim on the mid-coast of Norway. We set out on a do-it-yourself tour of the city and environs. We took a ride up to Lake Lian on the Grakallen Line, the northernmost tramway in the world (since a Russian line closed in 2004). It feels a lot like riding the Green Line trolleys in Boston, but it's faster and it runs on time. It goes just six miles or so, and dead-ends at this nice little lake on a plateau above the city. A daycare group was setting up for a picnic lunch in the sun, and pale Norwegian girls caught some rare rays. There are lots of hiking trails, including a one-mile shoreline circuit. Back in the city, we crossed the Old Town Bridge, on the site where a fortified city gate once stood. The present bridge was last reconstructed in 1861. On both sides of the Nidelva River near the bridge are former trade houses like those we saw in Bergen, standing on pilings. Trondheim is best known for the Nidaros Cathedral (Church of Norway), where the patron saint of the nation, King Olav II, is buried. Built between 1070 and 1300, it is the place where new kings are consecrated before retreating to the palace in Oslo. You gotta love the gargoyles. If you're into Norwegian rock and roll (and really, who isn't) you can get your fill at Rockheim, right on the waterfront. Seems to be their version of the Rock Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I loved the stoic statue taking in this huge plaza. Here's an artsy-fartsy photo I took. Art aside, we are trying to get a handle on these electric scooters, on which lots of younger folk zigged and zagged. Seems like you phone-scan a barcode to pay, take your ride and then abandon it anywhere for someone else to use. But who charges them? Do trolls come down from the mountains at night and zap them with gnome juice? Inquiring minds. We didn't go to Munkholmen Islet, but it remains a possibility for future visits. It has a juicy history, starting as an execution site (severed heads mounted on posts to deter invaders), a prison, a fort, a monastery, and a German submarine base and anti-aircraft battery during the 1940-1945 occupation. Seems like a lot happened on less than three acres. On the pier was something maybe salvaged from a yellow submarine? Karen took a look inside. The name of the installation is "What Does the Fjord Say?" Maybe these guys know. That's it for today. Hasta la vista.

Road trip! That's how we spent the day after the Zuiderdam pulled into Molde, Norway. I can offer no observations about Molde except for the fact that it has a pretty good car rental agency that fixed us up with an all-electric BMW. Our goal was to drive the Atlantic Ocean Road along the coast north of Molde, between Bud and Kristiansund, and it turned out to be every bit as spectacular as we had heard. But we were also surprised and delighted at the scenery inland, with farms and homes sitting in vast green valleys under mountains bearing the last vestiges of winter snows. The sail-in to Molde featured some lingering low clouds, but they burned off as yet another sunny summer day unfolded. We picked up the rental and headed northwest to the fishing town of Bud, then turned east along the coast road. Technically, the name Atlantic Ocean Road applies only to the most spectacular stretch, just five miles long, that connects the island of Averoy to the mainland. But the entire route from Bud to Kristiansund is a designated scenic road. And how. Here's the much-photographed highlight, the Storseisundet Bridge, the longest of eight bridges in that five-mile segment. A telephoto lens can make it look pretty scary. But a more conventional photo makes it look less breathtaking but still beautiful. On the other hand, winter storms can introduce some whole other problems, as this photo from the interwebs shows. It took six years to build this bridge as construction was often hampered by storms like this, including some hurricanes. It's not just bridges -- there's a three-mile-long tunnel, too. So many pretty scenes away from the coast, too. If the shoreline reminded us of Maine, the farmlands could have been Vermont and some of the mountains made us think Colorado. We took a side road to a little hilltop church surrounded by an old cemetery, providing great views on either side, including the suspension bridge we crossed. Driving an all-electric car was a new experience. The acceleration is tremendous, so much so that we learned it can be tricky driving in snow, since the wheels tend to spin. When you take your foot off the accelerator, the car slows almost as if you were braking, so you don't have to use the brakes much at all. And, of course, no gas to buy! I calculated the cost of gas at around $8 U.S. per gallon. (Our rental contract had a cap of 240 kilometers, and we were assured the charge would carry us that far.) High gas prices incentivize the purchase of electric vehicles in a big way. Norway leads the world in the percentage of EVs on the road, now up to 25 percent. In 2020, 74 percent of new-car sales were EVs, so the percentage of EVs on the road is sure to keep growing. So that's our day as land-based creatures. Back to the sea from here!

Our cruise moves northward into Norway, and we dock at Bergen, the nation's second largest city and one of the rainiest places in Europe. A local atmospheric phenomenon forces cold sea air upward when it hits the coastal mountains, causing a humid soup from which rain can fall at least part of every day for up to two months. But, ha! There's hardly a cloud in the sky during our visit, which coincides with the annual Bergenfest rock festival. Either I'm too old or too American, but the only names I know are Iggy Pop, the Lumineers and Calexico -- and Iggy's the only one I'd have a remote chance of identifying on the radio. But they're going to have 8,000 people a day for four days, and next year Robbie Williams is coming for an expanded festival that will hold 15,000. (Tragically unhip, I had to look him up. Stardom confirmed.) Entry to the festival is through the Bergenhus Fortress, with some buildings dating to 1240 and expanded right through World War II, when it was fortified by the occupying Germans. Near the fortress is St. Mary's Church, a basilica built between 1130 and 1170 and the oldest building in Bergen. The most famous landmark in the city and -- wait for it -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site is the Bryggen area. These striking buildings date only from the most recent of many fires (1955), but they stand where the Hanseatic trading empire from north Germany operated a major pier starting around 1350. The buildings, now the heart of a shopping and dining district, are under seemingly constant renovation. The two buildings on the far left are wrapped, one in white, the other with art that gives an idea of what's inside. As you can see below, wooden buildings shift and need upkeep. There's a pretty busy open-air food market, where you can pick up whale (!), reindeer or moose sausage. We found a good deal on a shared admission ticket to four art museums, arranged nicely alongside a small but pretty befountained lake. Here's a Picasso from 1953 called "Dead ***** and Jar." And this is a self-portrait of Edvard Munch, best known for "The Scream" (or "Skrik" in Norwegian -- I kinda like that). That painting is in Oslo, but I found out that there are eight or so Skriks extant. Apparently Munch kept coming back to the image, with little variations in each. That's maybe a little disturbing, no? I'm no art critic, but I think I detect a theme here. This entire exhibit -- indeed, the only exhibit in one of the museums -- was a lineup of wood-burning kitchen stoves, without explanation. Another exhibit was a large room with this you-name-it in the center. Microphones in the corners of the ceiling amplified ambient sound. Head-scratching ensued. This large installation, "Last Dance," looked pretty interesting. The program said it's a commentary on the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, which of course is evident. Norwegians are big on statues. I love this trio on a downtown fountain, and the bathing maiden contemplating the lake. This duo stands at the entrance to the courthouse. This led me to believe that Norwegian trials are held in the sauna. We're headed further north from here. We are noticing as the solstice approaches that the nights are really short, and not that dark -- more like an extended dusk. Looking forward to the midnight sun!

We are back in Rotterdam, where the ship gets restocked and refueled, some passengers depart and some get on. We are doing neither, because we are continuing on to another cruise segment. So while the ship staff works furiously on the changeover, we get out of their way and go exploring. We walk across the mighty Erasmus Bridge, named for the Renaissance scholar, and hop on a "water bus" for a ride up the River Lek. Our destination, 45 minutes away, is Kinderdijk (pronounced kinder-dike). Kinderdijk, a village in South Holland, is home to -- you guessed it -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a collection of 20 windmills, most built between 1738 and 1740, to somehow create dry land out of the rivers Lek and Noord. Proverb: "God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands." And when you look at a map that shows how much of the nation is below sea level, it rings true. The three largest cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague) owe their existence to the genius of Dutch water management, including extensive dikes. Our new word for today is polder, defined as "a piece of low-lying land reclaimed from the sea or a river and protected by dikes." Nowadays the windmills are augmented by modern pumping stations, raising water from the polder into a reservoir. When the tidal rivers are lowest, sluices are opened and the water pours out. Or so they tell me. I watched the movie, visited the exhibits and read the placards, and the whole magilla remains a mystery to me. But the Dutch created their first water boards to manage the systems in the 13th century, so I assume they know what they're doing. Going on faith here. At any rate, it is a pleasant visit on the hottest day of our trip so far, maxing out around 85 degrees. Hot enough for some local boys to go polder-jumping off a bridge. Some of the windmills are now private homes, some are virtual museums, and some still pump water. It's a fun place for family outings, like this group in a little motorboat. They waited for this modest pedestrian drawbridge to open so they could go on their way. The water also supports wildlife, such as this cormorant flapping away in a bid to impress any cormorantesses in the vicinity. Here's an odd thing in the water: a sculpture about a legend, Beatrice's Cradle. In 1452, the story goes, the St. Elizabeth Flood overran the area, bringing with it a cradle containing the baby Beatrice and a cat that leapt from side to side when needed to steady the craft. We headed back to Rotterdam on the waterbus, taking in some interesting architecture. Since most of the city was flattened by German bombing, it's all pretty new. Lots of sun in this building. Here's one that survived the war: the White House. Built in 1898 with 10 floors, it was the tallest office building in Europe at the time. I'm curious about whether the front leg is load-bearing. View across the river to the pier area. This mural is right at the end of the pier. Some protesters came out before we sailed; their banner reads "You are not welcome here." They have environmental concerns about the kind of fuel burned by the ships, among other issues. We'll be heading north from here. Adios for now.

It seemed odd not to have a pier in a city the size of Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, but at least the tender ride in was interesting. Actually, it was not on one of the ship's lifeboats, but aboard a local excursion boat that pulled right up to the ship. So we got a great open-air view of the Forth Bridge, a railroad bridge across the Firth of Forth (honest). The bridge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After a while, you start to get the feeling that UNESCO hands out these designations like Little League participation trophies. But the bridge, built in 1896, is some sort of architectural marvel as "the world's first major steel structure." It is also the site of the Loony Dook, a New Year's Day charity swim by several Scots of questionable sanity. It was a short bus ride into the center of Edinburgh, where we set out to do what all newbies do: walk the Royal Mile. The route runs along a high ridge in the center of the city's Old Town, stretching between Edinburgh Castle at the top and Holyrood Palace at the bottom of the hill. The Royal Mile is full of magnificent buildings and interesting monuments. It is also "plastic Scotland," as one local in another port described it. He said that every other shop on the Mile is a souvenir shop, but that was clearly an exaggeration. It is only every third shop. And even at the very beginning of high season, it is absolutely choked with people. I will endeavor to be positive, because here there be many amazing things. But this is industrial tourism. Edinburgh Castle, originally a royal residence (David the First started the construction in the 12th century), has been mainly a military garrison since the 16th. Beseiged 26 times in its history, it is the beating heart of Scottish pride. The plaza in front of the castle is the home of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in August, and during our visit, the yearly erection of viewing stands was going on amid the tourist crowds. Here's what it looks like when the Tattoo is in full swing. Just down the hill is the Cathedral of St. Giles (patron saint of lepers), also known as the High Kirk (church) of Edinburgh. The building was started in the 14th century, but it has a significant recent addition: the Robert Burns window (1985). His signature is displayed at the bottom center. Burns, born in 1759, is Scotland's national poet and internationally renowned despite the fact that most of his work, in a Gaelic-English mix, is unintelligible to the layman. A well-worn joke has a new doctor getting a tour of a Scottish hospital, and when he hears patients spouting language like "an auld wife's tongue's a feckless matter to gie ane fash," the doc supposes this is the psychiatric ward. Nae, he is informed; that be the Serious Burns Unit. Intelligible or not, Burns is revered in Scotland, and memorials of many kinds have popped up all over the country. The one in Edinburgh must be the grandest. Pipers dotted the Royal Mile, playing for coins. I was not sure whether people paid to get them to keep playing or to stop. But they gave us enough of a screechy warning that we were able to give them a wide berth. I don't know which Scotsman said it, but I love it: "Ye don't play the pipes, laddie. Ye wrestle the beast into submission." This was interesting: of all the statuary we have seen depicting men and horses, none has shown a man trying to get his steed under control. Until now. It turns out this is Alexander the Great breaking in his enormous and mighty steed Bucephalus. Why in Scotland? Who knows -- all part of the magic of the Mile. We passed the Tolbooth Tavern, occupying the ground floor of a building that surely had higher aspirations than ale. And then there is the new Scottish Parliament building, with modern architecture that has been a flashpoint for debate. Not necessarily for the design itself, but for the fact that it has been plopped down right next to the historic Old Town buildings. Something interesting we noted about Parliament: flying alongside the city flag, the Scottish flag, and the Union Jack was the European Union flag. Scotland voted against Brexit a few years back, so the EU flag seems like a jolly old poke in the eye for London. We also passed a building that houses several government offices (in a former penitentiary, heh) where the EU flag was displayed alongside two Scottish flags, with no Union Jack in sight. Two referenda to separate Scotland from the U.K. have failed, but the sentiment must still be strong. Right across the street from the Parliament is Holyrood Palace, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. Queen Elizabeth set up shop here for a week or two every summer, and her body lay in state here before being brought to London for her funeral. The palace includes the apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots, open for public tours. Not on the Royal Mile but nearby is the 200-foot-tall Sir Walter Scott Monument, dedicated to the writer (born 1771) of "Ivanhoe," "Rob Roy" and other novels, along with many plays, poems and histories. The touristic literature notes that the heavily Gothic structure is the second tallest monument to a writer in the world -- runner-up to the Jose Marti monument in Havana. Go figure. We were surprised to see that the headquarters of Britain's beloved soft-serve ice cream, Mr. Whippy, is in Edinburgh. Quite the touristic gantlet we ran today! Hopefully we will survive to write more.

Whenever it makes sense time and location wise, Karen and I like to rent a car on our port visits. We love the flexibility it affords us, being able to stop, look and explore whenever we like. And the cost of the rental plus gas usually is less than an equivalent shore excursion for two. We decided not to do that in the north of Scotland. It's not so much the driving on the left (we did that in Australia and New Zealand) as it is the single-track roads, where only one car can get by at a time. The decision on who pulls over and who proceeds seems to depend on a blend of hand signals, the size of the respective vehicles, and testosterone. This handout we got in Portree pretty much clinched it for us. So we found ourselves back on the shore excursion bus after pulling into Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands in way northern Scotland. It's a half-day jaunt to see an excavated Neolithic village that's around 5,000 years old. Skara Brae, older than Stonehenge, is the remains of 10 homes the ancient people dug into the earth, some connected by passageways. The houses even included rudimentary sewage systems, with conduits that could be flushed out with water to carry the waste to the (very) nearby ocean. People lived here from approximately 3180 to 2500 BC. The settlement was discovered after a violent storm struck the coast and took away much of the ground cover in 1850. The owner of the land, the Laird of Skaill, did some amateur excavation, but it was not until the area was raided for artifacts in 1913 that more organized preservation efforts began. Lately a seawall has been installed to prevent further storm damage, but people are worried it may not be sufficient. the water is right there. A unique feature of the homes is the stone-built furniture, including shelves for storage and sleeping areas segregated by stone slabs. A hearth is positioned in the center of each. Historic Scotland, the agency that manages Skara Brae, constructed a model to show what the homes might have looked like. After looking around inside, I decided that I have rented apartments that weren't a hell of a lot worse. The homes lie virtually in the front yard of Skaill House, where the laird lived, and people can tour the mansion as part of their admission. Life certainly was good for the old boy, and I guess it's fortunate that he had the resources to protect the ruins. We travel a short distance to the Stonehenge-style Ring of Brodgar, believed to date back to 2500 to 2000 BC. There are 27 standing stones remaining out of the original 60, which formed a near-perfect circle with a diameter of 341 feet. The stones were stood up in a ditch 10 feet deep carved out of the rock, which must have involved tremendous effort. But why? Theories abound, but most agree the site had religious significance. We are hurry-upped back onto the bus so that we can get back to the ship in time for another set of passengers to take an identical afternoon tour. We spent the rest of our day in the town of Kirkwall, which is laid out around the magnificent St. Magnus Cathedral. The first construction was in 1137, and it continued in fits and starts over the following 300 years. It is not the prettiest or most ornate cathedral, but its sheer massiveness distinguishes it. Great stone columns and arches define the interior, and the exterior stonework is also impressive. The overall impression is one of sheer, massive weight. St. Magnus is surrounded by a classic old graveyard, and right nearby are the remains of the Bishop's and Earl's Palaces. This biker dude offered tours for two on the high seats of his rig. Better bundle up and hold on tight! We snagged a photo of the rare bovine-marine parlay before getting back on board. We passed this pretty lighthouse on our way back out to sea. It had been cloudy most of the day, which paid off in a glorious sunset. I was hoping for the elusive green flash, but not today. That's all I got right now, folks. Will file again soon.

We continued northward and enjoyed a really pretty morning sail-in to Portree, Scotland, on the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides. Cloudbanks were draped delicately over the green hills, but the sun burned them off by the time we reached our anchorage out in the bay. We rode a ship's tender into a lovely little harbor with multi-colored storefronts along one side. We took a short hike up onto a headland called The Lump, which offers a pretty view all around, including some of the other islands. The lumptop boasts a natural amphitheater that was used for hangings in the good old days. Now it serves as the arena for the local version of the Highland Games and for an annual music festival. Also on The Lump is the Apothecary Tower. It's a little stumpy as towers go, but it does provide a nice view after you climb the spiral staircase inside. They also play shinty in Portree, though not on The Lump. We had been hoping to see a shinty match, but there seem to be no professionals; players work at their jobs all week and beat each other up only on the weekends. What is shinty? Glad you asked. It's a ball-and-stick game similar to hurling in Ireland -- so similar that hybrid rules have been established to let Irish hurlers play against Scottish, um, shinters? Shinty-ites? Shiites? Anyway, I have managed to learn one actual fact about shinty by looking at a sports page, and I love it. You know how in baseball, they'll say "First pitch at 1 p.m." In football, you'll hear "Kickoff at 2 p.m." In basketball they say "tip-off", and in hockey it's "the puck drops." And shinty? You'll hear "Throw-up is at 3 p.m." Continuing our walk around Portree's small town center, we stopped in to a corner store where we were smacked in the face by a rack of newspapers. We've often heard of the tabloid press in the U.K., but this line-up of urgent headlines really brought it home. Still, you have to give them credit; newspapers are dying every day in the U.S., and these seem to be in robust competition. I remain on the edge of my seat to find out whether Hamza will pull the plug on the bottle shambles. Maybe he'll get help from Prime Minister Fishy Rishi. Portree is famous as the place from which Bonnie Prince Charlie made his escape dressed in women's clothing. I have the typical American's education in European history, which means I know next to nothing. But apparently in 1745 there was an attempt by the deposed and exiled Stuart clan to reclaim the British crown. The Jacobite Rising made some headway, with Charles Edward Stuart (the Bonnie Prince) and his forces capturing Edinburgh, but they suffered a decisive defeat at the Battle of Culloden. The prince escaped and became a fugitive with rewards of thousands of pounds on his head. A Jacobite sympathizer, Flora MacDonald, hid him in Portree, then disguised him as a servant named Betty Burke and spirited him out of town. As I read up on this, it seemed unlikely that any kind of romance had time to develop between Charles and Flora, but local touristicians play up the doomed-love story, citing their last heartbreaking farewell on the site where the Grand Hotel now stands. A reportedly awful 1948 movie, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," did the same with David Niven and Margaret Leighton portraying the alleged lovers. (The female lead had been offered to Deborah Kerr, which might have helped.) Niven, who shaved his trademark mustache for the role, recalled the film as "one of those huge, florid extravaganzas that reek of disaster from the start." So all in all, a rather quiet day in a rather quiet place. But the scenery was great, the weather was perfect, and the people were friendly. I'll take more of that, please.

There's no getting away from the Beatles when you visit Liverpool, England -- and that's okay with us. I had two romances with the Beatles. As a nine-year-old, I got swept up in the juvenile joy of Beatlemania, just a fad that no one thought would last. But it all started to feel a little silly when I went to see "A Hard Day's Night" among screaming girls right there in the theater. So I turned away from the Beatles at what turned out to be the worst possible time: the middle period, when the group pulled the plug on their life-in-a-bubble touring and frenzied live shows. They retreated to the studio to produce albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver. Those records showed new musical depth and sophistication, but I let them pass by. I was sucked back in when the Sgt. Pepper album exploded onto the scene in 1967 (the Summer of Love) and changed everything in the world of popular music. I was hooked again at the worldly age of 13, and Beatles music has been in the soundtrack of my life ever since. The Zuiderdam pulled into the Royal Albert Dock, a warehouse district that has morphed into all things touristic. Just steps from the pier is a larger-than-life statue of the Fab Four, dedicated in 2015 on the 50th anniversary of their final Liverpool performance. The sculptor had some fun with his creation. Paul McCartney is portrayed with a camera and camera bag; he was long married to Linda Eastman, of the Eastman Kodak fortune, a noted photographer in her own right. The belt of George Harrison's overcoat includes Sanskrit writing, a nod to his devotion to Eastern mysticism. The sole of Ringo Starr's shoe displays "L8," evoking the Liverpool 8 postal code for "the Dingle;" this was the poverty-stricken area of public housing where he grew up poor and so sickly that he had only a few years of education. And in John Lennon's hand are two acorns, recalling the time when he and Yoko Ono sent a pair to the leaders of every nation, asking them to plant the acorns in a gesture toward world peace. Karen and I had considered taking a tour bus around town to go here, there and everywhere to see Penny Lane and Strawberry Field and the Lennon and McCartney homes that are now administered by the National Trust. But it's a big city with a lot of traffic, and we opted for own little magical mystery tour on foot. It was a good choice. We walked up to nearby Mathew Street, home of the legendary Cavern Club, the dank basement where the Beatles performed hundreds of times in their youth. It was destroyed when British Rail bought several properties in connection with an underground line beneath the River Mersey. (There is a "New Cavern Club" across the street, just steps away.) Cilla Black's statue stands at what was the original Cavern's entrance. She was a hat-check girl at the club and became a pop star in her own right after Lennon introduced her to manager Brian Epstein. Her first hit, "Love of the Loved," was a Lennon-McCartney composition. This "Liverpool Wall of Fame" commemorates all the Number One singles charted by local artists. A certain foursome dominates the list, but it's surprising how many other acts came out of the scene. Around the corner is the Hard Day's Night Hotel, a 110-room, four-star affair. The lobby is lavishly decorated with Beatles memorabilia, including this bust of Lennon that we rather liked. Of course, there is an inevitable cheesy element to all this. Right across the street from the hotel, you can visit an optician called Johnny Goggles. Back at the Albert Dock, we had a great time at "The Beatles Story," a multimedia museum that follows their entire career, both as a band and as solo artists. Visitors walk through the timeline with an excellent audio guide, narrated by Julie Howe (Lennon's half-sister) and featuring voices of the Beatles and several contemporaries. The Star Club was the sleazy sailor bar in Hamburg, Germany where the young Beatles (Harrison was just 17) got toughened up with an exhausting performance schedule in two long residencies. McCartney later called the experience "800 hours in the rehearsal room." The cramped stage at the Cavern was re-created in this exhibit. Just three years after the depths of Hamburg, the boys were making their momentous American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. You can even walk through a yellow submarine. We passed a sweets shop with this window display made up of 15,000 jelly beans. Harrison famously told some teen magazine that he liked the candies, and joked that Lennon had stolen his stash. For months afterward, the Beatles were pelted with rains of jelly beans at their performances. Right nearby the Beatles Story is the Tate Liverpool. a branch of the esteemed London art museum, but I have to say I was a little disappointed. Contemporary art is my go-to choice, but the selection here was a little too-too for my taste. At least admission was free. The Albert dock displays the propeller (or one of them?) from the Lusitania, the Cunard trans-Atlantic liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in May 1915, just off the southern coast of Ireland. The ship sank in less than 30 minutes, and 1,198 passengers and crew were lost, including 128 Americans. The tragedy built public support in the U.S. for its eventual entry into World War I. Overlooking the whole magilla is the impressive Royal Liver Building (pronounced lye-ver), built in 1906 and one of the first buildings in the world to use reinforced concrete. Atop the twin clock towers are the 18-foot-tall "Liver birds," named Bella and Bertie. The birds now overlook a waterfront with gleaming new structures -- all in all, a most pleasant place to spend a port day. There's a dark stain on Liverpool's past: its leading role in the triangular slave trade of the 18th century. Manufactured goods from Britain were traded in West Africa for slaves, who were then transported to the Caribbean and North America. The enslaved people were exchanged for rum, sugar and other goods, which were then carried back to Liverpool. Before Britain finally abolished the practice in 1807, an estimated 650,000 Africans had been transported on Liverpool-based ships. All by itself, Liverpool accounted for 40 percent of the entire European slave trade. When we came across this monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson, we thought that the four manacled prisoners around its base were enslaved people. Maybe this is some reckoning with the past, we were thinking. But the four are just symbols of Nelson's four greatest victories, including Trafalgar. Well, this one went a little long, didn't it? So we'll just sign off for now. On to other adventures.

I would not call this a news article. It appears s to be a press release by the group that organized the protest. It goes into some detail about their point of view and includes a few photos of the protest. The press release says that they delayed Zuiderdam for 90 minutes by locking themselves to the lines. I didn't see that, but it may be true. I did hear the captain announce that the delay was due to difficulty loading and stowing two very large engine components. He also acknowledged the protesters, but only to request that passengers not interact with them. So I can't say what the truth is. I did snap some pictures during the delay. All I could see was the protesters gathered in one area with police and/or security standing by. Maybe the protesters were moved by authorities. Can't say.

After an overnight sail north on the Irish Sea, we pulled into Dublin, Ireland -- or actually Dun Laoghaire (pronounced dun-leery), a southern suburb about 10 miles from the city center. We had enjoyed an extended visit to Dublin on a previous cruise, and with more use-it-or-lose-it shore excursion credits to burn, we signed up for a river cruise along the Liffey through the center of town. So we slapped on our dork dots and hopped on the excursion bus. It was immediately apparent how Dublin had grown and modernized in recent years. The mix of old and new was apparent everywhere we looked. The Convention Centre Dublin has a gigantic glass atrium leaning into its granite front wall. A local joke is that it illustrates the correct angle to hold the glass when pouring yourself a Guinness. There are 21 bridges over the River Liffey, and the second newest is the Samuel Beckett Bridge. It was designed to evoke Ireland's national symbol, the harp (you can win a lot of bar bets with people who swear by the shamrock), and the huge structure somehow turns 90 degrees to allow large boats through. The top of the Custom House displays one of the last remaining depictions of the Royal Coat of Arms of Ireland, displaying the harp flanked by a lion and a unicorn. The coat of arms was adopted in 1800, when Ireland was merged into the new United Kingdom, but fell into disfavor as the always fraught English-Irish relations worsened. By the early 20th century, most examples had been vandalized or destroyed. A new symbol -- a golden harp on a blue background -- was adopted when the Republic of Ireland broke away in 1943. Of course, there is much pain and suffering in the history of Ireland, and a poignant example is the fleet of "coffin ships. A replica of one is pictured below. During the Great Famine of the 1840s, with London turning a mostly blind eye, one million Irish died and two million fled, mostly to North America. The coffin ships were the cheapest transportation available, but the passengers -- many sick with malnutrition and/or cholera -- suffered terrible, crowded conditions in the holds, with meager rations and rape and other abuses carried out by the crews. It is estimated that one-third of the passengers died, their bodies heaved into the sea to feed the sharks that had learned to follow the ships. A notable pair who survived were Patrick Kennedy and Bridget Murphy, who married in Boston and gave rise to an American political dynasty. We had a brief stop at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland (no, it's not Catholic). The adjacent St. Patrick's Park looked like a popular gathering place on this sunny day. On the cathedral grounds is a statue of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, grandson of the founder of the famed brewery. He grew up in the family business and when he took over in 1855, he undertook a great expansion (much of it into the British market) and became the richest man in Ireland. Between 1860 and 1865 he spent 160,000 pounds on a restoration of St. Patrick's, which had fallen into disrepair. The Irish are dedicated to the preservation of the Irish language. (We were calling it Gaelic. but we learned that simply Irish is now the preferred term.) The language had been falling toward extinction, but now it is routinely taught in schools, including some that provide total immersion. All over Dublin, city buses provide an invitation to visit the American wonderland of New Jersey. If tourists are expecting anything like the Isle of Jersey, I think they'll be disappointed. Apparently one bus was so crowded that this person took a siesta on the back deck upstairs. Back in Dun Laoghaire, we attempted to visit the "Irish Sistine Chapel," the Oratory of the Sacred Heart. It is a small, circular World War I memorial, with every inch of the interior painted with Celtic imagery by Sister Concepta Lynch. She spent 16 years on the project, starting in 1919. We had read that it is only open on special occasions, but the fresh-faced staff at the town information center assured us we could get in. They were wrong, and all we could get was this picture of the exterior. Dun Laoghaire has a robust street art scene. I am convinced that the model for this one is Arlo Guthrie. And we'll sign off for today with the uplifting message below. Seems very appropriate for cruise passengers, right?