Zuiderdam May 12 to July 22: Across the Pond and Beyond

[whogo]

4 hours ago, Dr.Dobro said:

Nae, he is informed; that be the Serious Burns Unit.

Could you hear the groans from your stateroom?

[Dr.Dobro]

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.

 

[Dr.Dobro]

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!

 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Dr.Dobro

[Seasick Sailor]

@Dr.Dobro Please see if you can locate Bobby Fajaro. He works in MDR and sometimes Lido pool. We email each other every week over the past year since we were with him on Rotterdam for 45 days. Please tell him Joy and Allen send hugs.

 

 

[Dr.Dobro]

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!

 

[oakridger]

I have been eyeballing driving down through the Lofoten Islands in Norway for several years but they are considerably more north than Molde.  I'm trying to figure out logistics for a land trip next year and this Atlantic Road route might be a simpler alternative.  Hmmmmm......................Thanks for the idea.

 

Those Twizy cars look fun from Flåm too!

 

 

~Nancy

Edited June 24, 2023 by oakridger

[Seasick Sailor]

@Dr.Dobro Bobby said he got a note from you but he has yet to meet you. Thank you. So sweet to send a note. 

[Seasick Sailor]

@Dr.Dobro Bobby said he got a note from you but he has yet to meet you. Thank you. So sweet to send a note

 

Bobby sent a picture of your note and a picture of the 3 of you. 

 

Hope you are having a grand time.

[Dr.Dobro]

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.

[oakridger]

Thanks for the info about the tramway. My Grandfather left for the USA in late 1890's from Trondheim. It's another nice walking city.  I have been once and am going back next year on the Havila Coastal Ferry.

 

~Nancy

[cunnorl]

 I am really enjoying your pictures and commentary. Very helpful.

[trixiee]

Hope to meet you onboard!  We'll be joining you on July 2!

[Dr.Dobro]

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!

[oakridger]

I had seen this church in another review recently.  I just love the architecture and will make a point to visit if I ever get to Alta.  I hadn't thought about the upward facing Jesus until you pointed it out.  I love that!

 

~Nancy

[Dr.Dobro]

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!

 

[Dr.Dobro]

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.

 

 

[cunnorl]

Your pictures are amazing! Thank you for sharing.

[Dr.Dobro]

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.

[BetsyS.]

Dr. Dobro - Thanks for the  great reports and beautiful pictures! I like the photo  

of your wife, but could we please see one of you too sometime?

[Reagan0712]

Lovely pictures! I remember visiting the Botanic Gardens about 8 years ago. I was amazed at all the flowers.

[Dr.Dobro]

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.

[oakridger]

All that important stuff you taught us about Iceland, and the part I will probably remember the most is the Icelandic Phallological Museum!  

😎

 

~Nancy

[Dr.Dobro]

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.

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Dr.Dobro
Clarity

[C 2 C]

Absolutely wonderful description of your travels and the pictures are outstanding.  When we visited the north cape a decade ago, all we saw were clouds and drizzle.

[Dr.Dobro]

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?