Holly and I are home again, safe and sound in our little Hillsborough home after a week in Scandinavia and England. We had a terrific time-blessed with fabulous, sunny weather and only one choppy,rainy day at sea. Friday night we caught the direct flight from RDU to Heathrow airport in London. That got us into London around 7am their time, where we took a National Express bus directly to the Southampton Cruise terminal some 1 and 1/2 hrs away. Neither of us slept much on the overnight flight so the bus ride allowed us a short nap before boarding the ship. Our cabin was terrific with big sliding glass door, balcony, and deck on the starboard side of the ship. That turned out to be the better side of the ship as we got to see the dixieland jazz band play at the gangway as we sailed away. It also afforded us a marvelous view of the Oslo fjord both coming and going on our last port of call at the end of the trip.
Our first stop was in Zeebrugge, the port for Bruges, Belgium. We took the local train to Bruges about 8 miles away-through the beautiful countryside of Flanders-an area of important battles during WWI. It was green, lush farmland. The Bruges train station was a short walk to the old part of the city, a medieval village that has preserved much of its character and history. I got a picture of the bike lockup area outside of the train station because I have never seen so many bikes. It was just the first of many such bike parking areas in these European cities that tax cars at 180% (yes, you read right. We couldn't believe it either, but a car, even a small car costs the equivalent of $40,000 to encourage biking, trains, buses, etc).
Anyway, we literally ate our way around the Bruges walking tour I'd downloaded from the internet. In short, we had waffles, chocolate, beer, mussels, and frites (fries). We bought some great Belgian beer to take back to the ship since they only had can British beer-not our favorite. Beer must be heavily subsidized in Belgium as a bottle costs little more than 1 euro in the grocery store (well they are brewed by monks...). We bought a selection of different ones and enjoyed them one at a time each night before dinner. Unfortunately we didn't have time for a brewery tour at one of the monasteries-next time.
Our second stop was in Copenhagen Denmark. The walking tour started right near the boat dock with the Little Mermaid statue and continued along the shore to the Royal Palace, the city hall and then to the central shopping district. We had packed some delicious sandwiches for lunch from the hard rolls, smoked salmon, and cheeses from the ship buffet. But we still ate our way around the city, stopping for chocolate and pastries at the golden pretzels (that's how they advertise their bakeries). I wish we had had time to take the countryside bike tour with Mike at one of the local bicycle shops. Bikes are huge in Copenhagen-everyone has one-those cool commuter types with good fenders, baskets for hauling goods and, of course, bells on the handlebars to warn pedestrians. They cost the equivalent of $1,000 for the basic model-a lot cheaper than a $40,000 car at least. The bikes have there own lane in the streets, and watch out if you're a pedestrian, because they do have the right of way. We saw every kind of person biking, and I mean even women dressed in chic outfits with fancy shoes. Everyone bikes and you can get everywhere on bike. People were especially friendly and happy, it seemed to us, in Copenhagen; it's high on our list to see again. Maybe a bike trip next time.
Next we cruised an hour or so North to the small town of Helsingborg Sweden. It was the least impressive of the ports we saw. But we had a great walk through town and up past the fortress to a preserved farmstead from the 1800's. That was pretty cool-to see what an old town square was like complete with shops, barns, animals, windmill, and gardens. I looked, but I couldn't find Pippi Longstocking. She was in the bookstores though. Tee hee.
Our last port of call was Oslo Norway. We cruised up the Oslo fjord just as it was getting light; we really enjoyed seeing that entrance into town. It was the prettiest of the places we docked being at the marina for ferries and other boats. We bought one of the Dagskot cards to get the tram, or streetcar, out to Frogner park with all the famous Gustav Vigeland sculptures. We managed to get there early before all the tourists arrived. It's a city park with many paths for walking or jogging and some 200 sculptures. I took lots and lots of photos as the guy made sculptures of all kinds of human figures expressing various emotions. At one point, we were walking along the jogging path and noticed a big monument that looked remarkably like Lincoln. When we got closer, we realized that it was Lincoln-our Lincoln seated on a big slab of marble. The monument said it had been given to the people of Oslo from the state of North Dakota in 1914-Go Figure. Must have been alot of people from Norway in ND in 1914, who knew?
Oslo was full of interesting museums, including the Nobel Peace Museum, right near the docks. Again, there were tons of bikers just like the other cities, but everyone rode mountain bikes instead of those city commuter bikes. And man, talk about an expensive city. The cheapest mountain bike was Kroner 14,999 which is the equivalent of $3,000. A typical sandwich at a shop was Kr80, about $16 each. A beer was Kr49, about $10. It turns out they are the richest country in Europe due to their oil (3rd behind Saudi Arabia and Russia), fishing, and timber. But $3000 for a mtn bike, really that is alot. Makes my little Bella seem like a bargain (and she is).
We had a beautiful trip back out the Oslo fjord on the way back to Southampton England. Once we got to the North Sea, we hit bad weather with galeforce winds and rain. The Captain slowed the boat to a crawl, and we landed in port later than planned. Many people missed their connections to buses, trains and planes, including us. Fortunately, we were able to go online in the Ship's internet cafe and rebook a later bus back to London. We missed the chance to go into London and sightsee, but that was okay. We had a nice dinner of fish and chips and Fuller's ESB in the Three Magpies pub near our airport hotel. All in all, we only had 1 day of bad weather (out of 8), and it was a day at sea anyway, so who cares? As the Brits say, Lovely trip, just lovely!
