Oct 26 2007

On The ms Prinsendam in Norway - Holland America Cruises

To our favorite travel agent, Julie from All-Travel.com We would like to share with you some of our cruise experience to Norway.

Julie, we departed from Amsterdam for an 18 day voyage up the coast of Norway and then back down through Scotland’s Shetland Islands and Edinburgh before returning back to Amsterdam. It was a great holiday, and we thoroughly enjoyed all parts of it, especially visiting the little fishing villages.

Norway’s rugged coastal beauty rivals any in the world, with it’s gorgeous and majestic mountains, it’s numerous, isolated islands, it’s magnificent fjords - valleys of fresh, green seawater flowing between high canyon walls - and the many tiny villages sprinkled randomly on the tree-shrouded hillsides. It’s wonderful sights are a traveler’s delight and the memories of this voyage, Susan and I will remember for a long time.

On days when the ship was in a port, the weather was generally pleasant, just like southern California. Bergen and Spitzbergen were the exceptions. At sea, which was a total of 8 days out of 18, the weather was quite nasty, cold, foggy and very windy. But further north, near the Artic Circle the sea was surprisingly calm but the air not surprisingly chilly.

The Norwegians are very friendly, and all of them speak some English with no difficulty at all. Many of their houses have sod roofs on them with a foot or more of grass growing mightily in the breezes. Sometimes they mow it by putting their goats up on the roof. And the roofs can last up to 50 years.

One of the highlights of the cruise was an incursion into the Polar ice-cap; the ship was completely surrounded by ice. What an experience. But we were disappointed to learn that after 2008 no Holland America ship would be stopping at Norwegian ports. Our ship paid port fees totaling 2.2 million dollars, for an 18 day voyage. The fee was a carbon tax imposed by Norway for the environment. I believe that’s excess with a capital E!

Stan, Norway is without a doubt the most expensive country in the world. A gallon of gas for the buggy costs about $9.00, a bottle of beer costs another $9.00 and in one small village we were going to take a 11/2 mile shuttle ride from town back to the port, but it would have cost us $10.00. We walked! And seal-skin slip-ons, like slippers, at one store were $100.00. Wow!

But in spite of the atrocious costs, Norway is the crown jewel of the earth’s northern hemi-sphere. With only 4.6 million people in a country not much larger than either New Mexico or Arizona, and 1/3 of them living in rural areas, they truly are a rugged, individualistic nation.

After two days of sailing, with a stop in Oslo in-between, we arrived in Bergen – an ancient, medieval town on the lower coast with picturesque buildings and a great but smelly fish market.

Betty, in historic Bergen, Norway’s very picturesque city of 240,000 people and the nation’s second largest, after Oslo, All the inhabitants are very friendly and welcome tourists but hope it doesn’t rain on them too much. (It rains about 250 days a year there). Bergen is so old – it dates from 1070 – all the buildings near the waterfront look like brightly painted, pointed-roof boxes of candy. And the cobble-stoned streets are suggestive of a horse cart and wheel barrow transportation system of an earlier day.

We liked Bergen very much; it would be a pleasure to stay there for a few days and wander the whole town. After seeing Bergen’s smelly fish market, we visited a wonderful, sweet-smelling bakery and bought a couple of hot rolls for lunch. A treat! While walking slowly along the waterfront, with it’s medieval houses, a drop of rain struck my glasses dead center. Like a note in a symphony! Soon it was a deluge, the rain slapping on the cobbles, getting us drenched, but we still had a mile to go to reach our ship. Ducking into one of the little shops along the way, we bought an umbrella, but alas it was very small and was almost useless. But other people didn’t mind the downpour so we persevered, toughed it out, and eventually got to the Prinsendam and some dry clothes.

The Norwegians with their earthy vigor, their blonde hair, their pale faces unblemished by a California sun are hearty people, used to cold, darkness, and hard work. Their life in this 21st century is still of the Vikings, still of the bold desire to battle the elements and protect their simple way of life. It seems that they are a proud and independent nation, always free, always strong.

One of the most attractive sights we saw in Bergen was an old “stave” church.

Ron, the Norwegian “stave” churches are truly one of the country’s national treasures. These churches, first established in the 11th century, were highly decorative with carvings such as dragon heads that expressed a symbolic marriage of Christian and Viking icons.

These stave churches were constructed of vertical timbers set on a sill, somewhat like a barrel and not a horizontally built log cabin. Thus the walls of the church are known as stave walls, hence the name.

About 1500 of these all wood churches were built over the years and many survived until the 19th century, when a substantial number were destroyed.

The beautiful church we saw in Bergen, was very ornate with carvings of animals and Viking figures sprinkled here and there. It was quite small, as are all the others, and the people were required to stand throughout the service. It was about 30 feet wide and 60 or 70 feet long, with a very simple alter. Entirely made of wood, they are susceptible to fire and rot and today there are only 29 of these unique structures remaining in Norway.

They are really phenomenal and are quite a tourist attraction because of their beauty and gracious style of design and construction. Susan and I were glad we had the opportunity to see this one .

Norway’s fjords are spectacular; a valley of water about 1/4 to 3/4 miles wide and bordered on each side by high walls of light grey rock and stone., extending up about 1/4 of a mile. Just magnificent! And in some flatter places there are tiny fishing villages which fit narrowly above the bright sea water. We began to see our first glacier here.

Norway’s dependence on fish and the very productive fishing industry is what keeps this age-old country going. In the far north, where there are no trees, only fish, along with reindeer and polar bear the people’s main diet is fish and reindeer, and some bear, plus whatever fruits and vegetables are flown into the villages each week.

We stopped at three more ports and visited villages there before coming to the North Cape – a gigantic outcropping of rock that is the northernmost point of contiguous Norway.

Phil, after we left the North Cape, we sailed 736 miles for 2 days, up to Norway’s furthermost island, Spitzbergen. A very large land mass, it sits adjacent to the top of Greenland, and whose it’s industries are coal mining and tourism. Sled dogs and reindeer are abundant as well as the ever-dangerous polar bear. We did not see any of these great, white behemoths but the school there and the surrounding homes all had bear fences encircling them. One young girl, in 1995, was killed by a bear just outside of the village.

Spitzbergen, a desolate, treeless land is cold and windblown, but traveling up the fjord to port we saw many icebergs and glaciers. A glacier would appear every 1/4 mile – mile after mile. Lined up like great, mammoth bedsheets spread over drooping clothslines in Aunt Matilda’s backyard. A beautiful sight.

We sailed north again from Spitzbergen and arrived at the POLAR ICE CAP, about 18 hours later. As we approached the ice, an excited murmur of the passengers could be heard through the Prinsendam, because this ship had never been this far north before. At 12:05 PM, we entered the first ice, which was broken up, and it was thrilling. Absolutely thrilling! There were huge chunks of ice, all tightly spaced together like a giant snowfield. The ship proceeded at about 1/10 of a MPH – so slow you could walk faster if you were out on that cold, cold plateau. The temp was 42 degrees, not awfully cold but with the wind blowing across the ship’s bow, all the passengers were uncomfortable. We felt like those explorers of the North Pole: Robert Peary, et. al. From the upper deck we watched the Captain standing on the bridge slowly maneuvering his ship into the ice – like a man on a trapeze without a net- taking the ship slowly all the way into the ice and then cautiously back out of that white prison. He was quite careful about seeing that his ship did not endure the same fate as 1912’s Titanic.

It was quite a feat to come so far north and let the ship’s passengers experience such a vast, white sight; as far as the eye could see. It was the furthest north any Holland America ship had ever been, and perhaps the largest ship of any type to go that far north. We felt very privileged to have taken part. Los Angeles, at 34 degrees latitude north is about 3867 miles from the pole and Point Barrow, Alaska’s northern most point at 71 degrees is 1312 miles from the pole. We stopped in the ice at 81.5 degrees, just 8.5 degrees from the pole – equivalent to 587 st. miles. What an experience! But no Midnight sun there, as it was midday.

Ben, our experiment with the Midnight sun was rather shaking as we couldn’t go to sleep with all the very bright light. (You may as well stay up and read a book in the daylight). In Spitzbergen, there is always daylight between mid-April to late August- and the daylight lasts longer the further north one travels. At the North Pole of course there is light for half the year and darkness the other half. It is really a phenomenon and we never quite got used to it and laughed a bit as we crawled into bed in the broad daylight. And the compass we had could not make up it’s mind on how to act, because of the magnetic pole being south of the real pole.

We traveled south from the ice and reached Scotland’s Shetland Islands 2 days later. The islands, off Scotland’s northeast coast are like a quiet and pleasant dream: serene and peaceful the big island is full of green valleys with rolling hills rising upward and then descending down again to the next valley. And they are not rocky. Sheep are everywhere – 360,000 sheep to 22,000 people. And the Shetland ponys are a kick to watch as they prance friskily in their pastures, anxious to show off their exuberance to us, the ship’s tourists. If one really wanted peace and quiet, the Shetlands are the place to go.

We also stopped at Edinburgh and took a tour to “Stirling Castle” which we had not seen before. As we like to explore Europe’s castles we enjoyed this one. Guarding the principal north-south and east-west routes across Scotland, Stirling Castle is 30 miles from Edinburgh and was a supremely important strategic stronghold. Located on a high volcanic peak it played an important role in the Scot’s everlasting struggle against England’s domination.

Commissioned in the 1100’s, Stirling Castle was an edifice that was besieged many times changing hands frequently between the Scots and the English. Great Scottish names like William Wallace (Braveheart) and Robert The Bruce are associated with it’s history. Really an imposing and mammoth fortress it’s hard to see how any opposing force could take it over; but they did.

From Scotland we sailed one more day to Amsterdam and as we arrived there early in the morning we had lots of time to get to the airport and our long, long flight home.

Bill, Norway does not belong to the European Union (EU), along with Switzerland, and it is because of 2 interesting reasons: hydrocarbons and immigration. Because of their oil wealth they are the world’s 5th largest oil exporter - they want to keep the kroners they get from oil within their own state pension funds and out of the hands of the EU bureaucracy in Brussels. And they have built up an enormous fund to cover the day when their oil runs out, probably within 25 years.

Immigration, the second and probably principal reason for the country’s opting not to join the EU is immigrant assimilation. Norway, being fiercely independent does not want thousands of immigrants crossing their frontiers and taking jobs that Norwegians ought to have. Plus, they are fearful that the new population will not become assimilated, as is not now happening in so many other countries. Especially ours. In the EU, any citizen can go to any other country and try to obtain a job. There is no restriction. The Norwegians have a 1% unemployment rate and want to keep it that way.

Take care,

Rick and Susan

About Julie Northington

I am a designated accredited travel consultant (CTC) with over 25 years of industry experience. My true passion is helping clients realize their life-long vacation dreams. Tahiti is one of my specialties, and I just recently became a Paul Gauguin PEARLS Agent, which coupled with 10 years as an accredited Tahiti Tiare Specialist, affords me many resources and experience to make your South Pacific travel plans seamless and very memorable. Education is very important to me. I have completed several comprehensive destination training courses on preferred cruise lines and tour companies, in addition cruising on and visiting many popular worldwide vacation spots. Please call me—I am eager to assist you in planning your next vacation whether by sea or land!