Trip across North America and back
On Monday morning, first thing, we got on a train for a 2-1/2 hour ride to Berlin. Then into a bus for a quick tour and then we were on our own for about 5 hours. We went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, very interesting. Lots of information to digest. After that we went to Continue Reading
We got word in Oslo, that due to Hurricane Knud, up from Africa and into the North Sea, Baltic and Skagerrat our next two ports of call will be cancelled. Instead of leaving Oslo for Gothenburg, Sweden and then going on to Aalborg, Denmark, we will not depart Oslo until the morning and will go Continue Reading
Today we took two shore excursions. The first was a scenic trip around Oslo including a walk around Vigelund Park to see all of the remarkable sculptures. The final part of that trip was going up to the ski jump. Unfortunately it was completely fogged in. We lucked in that the walk in the park Continue Reading
We arrived again around 8 am. After breakfast, we headed out, on our own, to the ferry to various museums. We missed the 9:55 and during the wait for the next, we went into the Nobel Peace Prize Museum. We went through the bottom detailing various current human rights issues and then it was time Continue Reading
We again cruised all night arriving around 7 am. We had a walking tour of Kristianstad scheduled fairly early, so we got room service for breakfast. We headed out for the tour and it was quite a lovely city. It is the southernmost big city in Denmark and many second homes are here. Again there Continue Reading
After a cloudy trip back down the fjord, we arrived in Stavanger around 8 am. We had breakfast and did some laundry, since our tour activity was in the afternoon. We set out on our own in the morning and went to the Stavanger Torget open air shopping district and got a hand knitted coat for Continue Reading
We got up early so we could see the beautiful, although rainy fjord as the ship docked. We took a morning bus trip to the Hardangervidda Nature Center in the nearby largest National Park in Norway. Very interesting panoramic movie followed by lots of stuff on local flora and fauna, especially reindeer. We returned to Continue Reading
We walked out after breakfast and went to the Hanseatic Museum, which is a recreation of the way merchants lived in the 1500’s, when Germans ran all of the trade in the Baltic region. They lived separately from the locals. We then went to the Norway Fisheries Museum which was quite interesting. We then returned Continue Reading
We actually slept normally and woke in the morning. The extended day flying over mostly solved the jet lag. We had breakfast at the hotel and then repacked our suitcases and rolled them over to the ship, about a half mile away. After checking the bags, going through metal detector (extra sensitive) and checking Continue Reading