24 December 2012
Today was a great day.
After a turbulent, stormy night in the Norwegian Sea we arrived in Trondheim on Christmas Eve. It was a frosty arrival. Icy, windy, sunless. Perfect Christmas climate. I loved it. I walked from ship to hotel while the others took a taxi.
Earlier in the week, we learned that Norway closes for business on Christmas day and the days just before and just after. Our hotel, the Britannia, may be the only hotel open for the three days of our stay. But restaurants are all closed. Entirely closed.
This afternoon we went to visited the Nidaros Cathedral for the four o'clock mass. We walked on snowy sidewalks in twilight to the church gates. Between the gates and the sanctuary door is the cemetery. The dates are from many centuries ago. Tall elliptical gravestones. Candlelit. The oldest stones atilt. Tall, leafless trees overhead. Resting in an undulating flat grassy field. Against a twilight sky, hazy blue, illuminated by a half-moon.
We passed through the Romanesque doorway into the church. It is magnificent. A long expansive space with a tall rectangular tower near it's center. It is enormous. With gothic vaulting that thrills the eyes. It is all so perfect in form and line.
The space was filled. The people looked joyous. Dressed well. Many children. People in traditional dress. A man with black shoes with silver buckles, white cable knit socks up to his knees where a red braided tassel was tied. Black wool breeches from his knees up. A white collarless starched shirt under a colorful knit vest in red, buttoned up to his clavicle. Finally, a wool coat, white, snowy, fine, with two vertical rows of silver buttons and elegant, discrete ornamental stitching.
We took our places. The choir began. Boys and men singing. The organ played. It filled the room with quaking sound. The program followed the format of a traditional mass. Singing. Standing. Sitting. Sermon. Etc. Etc. Until the Hallelujah Chorus. The tremendous bells began to chime, heard throughout the town. The people rose and filed out into the Christmasy ambiance of Norway winter.
We had lowered our expectations for food. Then back at the hotel, the staff surprised us. They showed us to an elegant dining room built in the eighteen-nineties. Chandeliers. White roses. Candles. Red walls. Glossy black tall wooden doors. I felt I had fallen into a Christmas scene in a Bergman film. We were each presented with a plate of various foods. Salmon. Cheese. Potato salad. Cold poached turkey. And a bottle of Spanish wine from Catalunya. Afterwards, there was a triple-tier of cookies. All variations on butter cookies. And delicious coffee. The hotel presented all this to us as a gift. It was all very wonderful. The stuff of sweet dreams. Which I will now lay down to.
Marlow and Wes
The Brittania Hotel
Trondheim, Norway
24 December 2012
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Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Trondheim, Norway: 24 December 2012
Norwegian Sea: 16 December 2012
I am sitting in a room full of easy chairs and small tables all bolted or chained to the floor. On my right is a wall with five windows. On my left, another wall with five windows. In front of me are ten windows. One floor up is the same set-up done slightly smaller. Outside the windows is the Norwegian Sea and islands and fjords. We are on the MS Lofoten, the smallest and oldest ship in the Hurtigruten fleet.
We boarded the ship near midnight in Bergen. Our room is in the top class, in the category of the largest rooms. However, by hotel standards--by any standards--it is a tiny space. Two narrow bunks fold down from the wall, one atop the other. Our tiny bathroom has a smaller-than-a-phone-booth shower, a toilet and a heated floor. (I love the heated floor.) We have a port hole window, but it is sealed with an iron cap for the winter season, lest a storm push the sea through the glass and soak the room. We are in the lower half of the ship--about ten feet above the water line--but it is only a short one-minute walk upstairs to all of the lounges and decks.
Compared to today's enormous cruise ships, the Lofoten, is like a bathtub toy. Quaint. Old-fashioned. The interior is done in gleaming wood and shiny brass. The lounges are living rooms. Large enough if you want to be alone. Small enough if you want to chat with fellow travelers. Fellow adventurers. The winter voyages have few passengers on-board. Each has a compelling reason for making the journey into darkness and cold. Here, the sun rises at ten a.m. and it set's near two p.m. Our sleeping and waking is not governed by the sun's rise and fall. As we go far north into the Arctic Circle the days will get shorter.
The daily temperature is in the twenties. I am exhilarated by the cold. I saw an exhibit about walruses. Their skin is thick and dense like several straw mats combined. My clothing is similarly insulating. Patagonia Capilene long-johns. Fleece-lined jeans. Waterproof ski pants. Up top, a long sleeve shirt. Fleece vest. Down sweater. And a heavy hooded parka. I can stand comfortably on deck--in the howling wind, in the frigid air, watching moonlight shine on the sea and stars shine in the sky--for a long time, comfortably.
We made this trip, in part, to experience the Lofoten, the Grande Dame of it's fleet and the last of it's type. Forty-eight years old. With it's original diesel engine. With only one-hundred and fifty-three "bunks" it is fairly small. More than several Lofotens would fit into the space of a Princess Cruise ship. For one-hundred and ten years this shipping company has had a goevernment contract to connect the coastal Norwegian cities. It delivers passengers, cargo and mail to the thirty-four ports on it's route. It stops at half of the ports on it's way north to the Arctic Circle. And stops at the other ports on it's way down south to Bergen. It's round trip takes eleven days.
It begins it's journey in Bergen, which is Norway's second largest city. Population about four-hundred thousand. It's last stop is Kirkenes in the Arctic Circle, a stones throw from Russia. We will exit the ship in Tromsø, two days short of Kirkenes.
Here is what runs through my head as I stand on deck, my fingers ashiver as they type, on the blackberry, these words.........
We are traveling north, weaving in and out of hundreds of islands and fjords. The Norwegian coast is entirely spectacular and breath-taking. The light is crystalline. The color palette is blue, gray, slate, silver, mercury. This time of year the sun is indirect. Over the horizon. It will not come back into view until late-January. It rises at ten a.m. And it sets at two-thirty p.m. On the one hand, our magnificent scenery passes, barely seen, in moonlight and in darkness. On the other hand, our time, our pace, is out of our control. The ship travels at it's pace, not ours. We are left to sit, to think, to read. To stand on deck. Outside. In the dark. In the wind. Twenty-degrees Fahrenheit. Where the mind goes into sensory mode. Collar raised. Scarf tightened. Hat pulled low. The face chilled. The cheeks tingle. The air clear and clean. The light brilliant, crystalline. Everything vivid. The stars seem brighter. The mountains more etched. The ocean dark, roiling and alive with power and peril. The brain tries to conjure words for the all-encompassing physical sensory experience of it, but words won't come, it is all sensation and one must simply give in to being awash in the cold and the wind and the moonlight glinting on the sea.
Marlow and Wes
16 December 2012
The Norwegian Sea
Monday, December 24, 2012
Christmas Eve
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| Marlow decorating the lounge |
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| Crew of MS Lofoten |
Once we arrived in Trondheim we walked about the historic center where our hotel is located.
The highlight of the day came at dinner time. Earlier in the trip we had assumed that the hotel restaurant would be open for dinner on Christmas Eve. But several days before arriving in Trondheim we learned this was not the case. In fact many hotels in the City are closed entirely for the week. So the fact that our hotel was even taking guests was unusual for the City. But having an open restaurant (or bar) was out of the question. I even asked the Trondheim tourist agency to give me a list of open restaurants for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but they came up with none. I also expressed my surprise to the hotel management in an e-mail sent a few days before we arrived and they responded that they would try to come up with something.
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| Christmas Eve dinner |
Our plan for Christmas Day is to spend the afternoon at the hotel's spa which is supposed to consist of several saunas of various temperatures, a domed soaking pool that reminds me of the Ritz in Paris and other water features to pamper us.
Marlow and I send our very best wishes to all for a wonderful holiday!
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Route of our trip
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Our room
We are lucky to be in one of the four rooms on the ship that have windows. And we have two! This is the same room that Sam and Kathy stayed in during our trip north. It is larger than the room we had before.
Saturday - Back on Board
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Tromso at dawn
Thursday dogsledding
We traveled about 45 minutes outside of Tromso to spend a few hours dogsledding with a team of six very strong and fast huskies. Marlow and I took turns with one of us sitting down in the sled and the other standing on the back of the sled with one foot on the "break" and the other on the sled. The dogs did all of the work. The dogs wore boots to protect their paws because the snow was fairly icy. Several of the dogs in the team of dogs have actually been on expeditions to the North Pole!
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Above the arctic circle
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Bergen, Norway; 14 Dec 2012
14 December 2012
Bergen, Norway
It is December and we are in Bergen, Norway.
Norway has a long coastline. It is irregular and broken into hundreds, maybe thousands of islands and fjords. In two days we will travel by ship, the Lofoten, up the coast, but first we will spend a few days in Bergen in the southwest of Norway.
Bergen is about one-thousand years old. What remains from it's earliest days is a row of Thirteenth-Century buildings on the harbor's edge. The row consists of a dozen-plus wooden structures. Each one is three stories tall with a pointy roof. Some, in their old age, lean against each other otherwise they are stand about a bed-width away from each other. They are painted each a different shade of butter, terracotta, moss or rust. Together, they make a quaint, folksy postcard image which is used as the symbol of Bergen.
They were built for use as headquarters for German sea-faring merchants, known as the Hanseatics. The buildings were multi-purpose. Their lower floor's long and large rooms were used for cod. The fish was piled high. Their livers were pressed for oil and the fish themselves, salted, hung to dry and eventually shipped throughout Europe. The smaller rooms housed the inventory and payroll offices. And along the walls were rectangular cabinets--six-feet long, three-feet tall and three-feet deep--each with a little door to open and climb in for a sleep.
UNESCO has designated this cluster of buildings a World Heritage Site. And the first building in the row is our small hotel which shares the building with the Hanseatic Museum where you can see a three-story portion of the building as it used to be. All old dark worn wood planks. Hardly a right-angle anywhere, the walls lean like a house of cards. There is original wall paper--faded and barely intact--and hand blown glass windows. The walls without paper are painted with various designs to bring cheer to the dark interiors.
The Museum occupies the front of our hotel with our hotel in the rear. Our hotel shares some of the old features, but has been upgraded with carpets and wall papers and upholstery that are warm and attractive to the eye. The bathroom floors are heated. The free-standing bathtub is perfect for our cold snowy nights. Breakfast is excellent buffet with all pickled herrings I love. Overall it was a great choice.
Two foods in Norway are unusual: reindeer and whale. When in Bergen one ought to try them. Afterall, where else can you try them? For me, once is enough. I had them when we were here three years ago. I had them again this time. They are more interesting than they are delicious and I can move on to herring which I love.
We went to hear the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. Afterward, we hung out with orchestra members. Above their stage, the players operate their own canteen. They have a little bar. They take turns staffing it and sell stuff at cost. Everyone we met was welcoming and interesting.
The climate here is cold. Everything is snowy. The narrow lanes we walk are cushioned with snow in a good way. The city sidewalks are slick with ice in a perilous way. It is chilly, chilly, chilly. And I love it. It suits me. If I am feeling lazy and sedentary, I can go outside and the inertia disappears instantly. I become vividly alert and happy.
On Friday we will board the ship, the Lofoten. It will be my first time overnight at sea. I admit I have butterflies. I do not know how I will respond, but I can't wait to find out!
Marlow and Wes
Bergen, Norway
Thursday, 14 December 2012
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Aboard the MS Lofoten
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
We've Arrived in Bergen, Norway!
Marlow and I arrived in Bergen on Wednesday, Dec. 12 around one in the afternoon. And to our surprise (and great delight) there was not only daylight but blue sky above us! For some reason we were not expecting to have much daylight during this two week visit to the Norwegian coast. The sun set about 4PM so it is not a long period of daylight, but as you can see, we are in for a treat! We hear that as we approach the Arctic Circle the daylight period will shorten. And we will be in Tromso for the shortest day of the year! But I think we will have daylight sufficient to take photos as we head north. We were also greeted in Bergen by Kathy and Sam Adams. They are experienced Arctic travellers so we are fortunate to be traveling with them on this trip!
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