EUROPE – PART 10 

A cruise with Hurtigruten is not cheap; on a price-per-day basis, twice what we paid for the Princess cruise. So, was it worth it? There’s no short answer to that question.

The Hurtigruten brand is synonymous with “expedition cruising”. Other companies like Quark, National Geographic, and Viking offer the same type of cruise with a focus on smaller ships, the experience ashore, active excursions, and ports that are off the beaten path. On the plus side, we enjoyed the best food we’ve ever had on a cruise ship, excellent service, highly qualified expedition guides, and very active excursions that were included in the price. And we visited small ports in Norway that a larger vessel wouldn’t have been able to reach. On the other hand, small-ship cruising may not be for everyone. We endured some very rough days and nights at sea, and the near disaster with the gangway in A Coruña would not have happened with a larger ship. And we were thankful for a cabin without a window for three reasons: it was cheaper; it was much bigger; and we couldn’t see the swells when the sea was rough as it often was.

On the Norway leg of the trip, the MS Spitsbergen carried only 60 passengers. Several of them disembarked in Hamburg and Amsterdam and were replaced by some new faces. Some 90 passengers were on the ship for the second leg of the voyage. I’d say that about half were healthy and active enough to enjoy the onshore experiences. I really don’t understand why the other half chose an expedition-type cruise, but it’s their money. 

On balance, we’re quite satisfied with our Hurtigruten experience. We met many interesting guests who share the same interests, and who love to learn and be active when they travel. But whether we sail with them again will depend strictly on itinerary and price. At this point, I’d say likely not because of the high cost per day.

All we knew of Portugal was from a day spent in Lisbon while on a cruise a few years back. That day, we’d walked around the waterfront and taken the tram to visit the Tower of Belém, the Jeronimos Monastery, and the Monument to the Discoveries honouring Portuguese navigators. 

The population of Portugal is 10 million or so and the country’s land area is about equal to that of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island combined. Portuguese navigators were the best in the world during the 15^th and 16^th centuries, a period when it was a world power with established colonies in South America, Africa, and Asia. After the fall of the monarchy in 1910, the country was ruled by an authoritarian dictatorship until 1974. Today, Portugal is a peaceful, modern country with a high Human Development Index, and an excellent health care system. However, in economic terms, it ranks in the bottom third of member countries of the European Union.

Our arrival in Lisbon marked the end of the cruise. We spent an enjoyable first day walking around on our own, then took a guided walk with our expedition guides. First, we visited the Museo do Fado, a museum dedicated to telling the story of a form of Portuguese traditional music and poetry called Fado, born in the district of Lisbon called Alfama. Fado is recognized by UNESCO as an “intangible cultural heritage of humanity” along with others that may be more familiar such as the Argentinian tango, mountain climbing in the Alps, and flamenco in Spain. Interestingly, the UNESCO list contains nothing of intangible cultural heritage worth preserving in either Canada or the United States. Then, we walked through the medina that defines the Alfama district and had some nice views of the cityscape below, the antique trolley cars, and a peek through a gated balcony.

On Day 2 in Lisbon, Elva and I got off the ship fully laden with knapsacks and suitcases and took a cab to our hotel. As it turned out, the Hotel Britania Art Deco offered four-star comfort just one block away from the Avenida Liberdade at a third the price of hotels on the boulevard. Once again, we learned the value of trusting booking.com, my go-to app for all accommodation bookings. The Avenida Liberdade is not Barcelona’s La Rambla but it has the potential to become just as interesting. We walked up to the highest point in Lisbon to get a view of the city and wandered back down where we visited the botanical gardens and came across a classic car show featuring mostly European cars and the occasional American entry like this lovingly restored 1952 Studebaker pickup.

We said goodbye to Lisbon, a city worth another visit, picked up our rental car, drove through the morning traffic guided by our trusty GPS and headed north. I had a vague idea of what the Douro Valley might look like and wanted to see for myself. Those who think I'm a meticulous trip planner would be wrong. I like surprises! The drive from Lisbon was uneventful and rather boring although Portugal’s highway system is impressive for a country not supposed to be that well-off. 

We descended from 1,000 meters down into the Douro and soon saw what all the excitement was about! Terraced hills like a patchwork quilt climbed from both sides of the river and were highlighted by gorgeous fall colours. The Douro region has been producing wine for at least 2,000 years and is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Landscape (like Grand-Pré). Because the hills are so steep, vines and orchard crops like oranges, olives, and lemons are grown on terraces, probably hand-dug with pick and shovel many years ago.

As we climbed out of the valley toward our B&B, Quinta do Bosque (farm in the forest), we couldn’t believe where the GPS was taking us. Single-track cobblestoned lanes, hairpin turns, and 25% slopes with blind hills, terminating in a laneway barely wide enough to accommodate our Renault 2008! Ah! But the views! The pictures speak for themselves. It’s a place we’d come back to for sure to spend a couple of weeks just wandering around.

Looking out our window the next morning, all we could see was driving rain and fog. We were thankful for a few hours of dry weather and good light the day before. We headed southeast toward the coastal town of Nazaré, a former fishing village that now doubles as a beach and surfing destination. I’d planned the trip so that we’d see a variety of regions and landscapes. Since it poured rain all day, we certainly didn’t see the place at its best. Elva took this photo of fishing dories and mine is of a meal I’d been longing for, the triple threat of fresh grilled squid and octopus, plus salt cod. God they were good!

The next day of our Portuguese adventure was “cork day”. Elva had discovered that cork is produced in the region called Alentejo in the east, not too far from the Spanish border. So, we drove to the biggest town in the region, Evora, and asked where we could find cork production and a retail outlet. We were directed to the nearby village of Azaruja. Arriving there, we passed several cork production plants in the industrial park but no sign of a retail outlet. Elva is like a dog with a bone when she sets her mind to something, so she asked around and we finally found an amazing retail outlet at one of the plants with a selection of goods that would stand out in a high-end shopping mall in any major city. But no sign out front and, “sorry, but we don’t take credit cards”, the young salesman told us. We spent our last Euros on a few things and wished we’d been able to buy more from their amazing inventory.

Portugal has a major highway system that would be the envy of every Canadian province and American state. But, as we found out, tolls are very expensive. On one two-hundred-kilometer stretch, we were charged about $35! Now we know where the money comes from.

Our next port of call, Lagos, is a tourist town of about 20,000 located in the southwestern corner of the country on the Atlantic Ocean. We settled into our cozy nook at Villas Dinis and walked into town to have dinner at a nice local restaurant. Next morning, we hiked from the hotel out to the lighthouse nearby and walked down to a couple of pocket beaches framed by some impressive limestone formations sculpted by the pounding surf. Of course, when you walk down, you have to walk back up again! We met a couple of young women whose accents sounded Québécois. Turns out one of them worked in Morell last summer at the Nature Space Resort and Retreat Centre. Small world!

We wandered around downtown Lagos for a while before lunching on an amazing Italian sandwich, and then went back for dinner. That evening, I dined on another old favourite, pig’s cheeks, not something on many menus back home. Although it’s the shoulder season, there were still lots of people around. The place is just as beautiful after dark, and we’d like to come back some day.

After one final stroll around Lagos, we hit the road again, bound for the seaside village of Porto Covo, halfway to Lisbon. Our lodgings for the night turned out to be less than we’d expected, and so did the village. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all! We were thankful for the sunshine though.

On our last day in Portugal, we visited Cascais and Estoril, twin cities near Lisbon. We’d heard about them from a Spaniard we met on the MS Spitsbergen. Both have lovely beaches and Cascais has a nice historical district typical of Portuguese cities. As you can see from the photos, the area offers lots of opportunities for a nice stroll. People were taking advantage of the nice weather to play beach volleyball and beach tennis, and a few surfers tested the waves.

Portugal is a place we’ll return to someday soon and with these three locations at the top of our list: the Douro Valley, Lagos, and Cascais.

We have a few suggestions for friends and family who travel. First, use a travel agent to book the big stuff: airline tickets, cruises, and car rentals. Second, use booking.com to find and book hotels, and always include breakfast. Third, visit anything that has the UNESCO label attached to it. You won't be disappointed.

It’s been one hell of a trip! We left home on August 27 and haven’t had a quiet day since. We’re very happy to have finally been able to get away and, although we caught COVID on our trip, it only spoiled six days out of eighty-four. Time now to head home and plan our next adventure!

 

EUROPE – PART 9

Our sea day between Hamburg and Amsterdam turned out to be a lie-in-bed-so-you-don’t-toss-your-cookies kind of day! The MS Spitsbergen pitched, rolled, slammed, and shuddered for the best part of 24 hours. By the end of this cruise, we’ll have been on ships for 313 days by my count and have only been cabin-bound twice so far, but this storm was the worst we’ve experienced.

Finally on solid ground in Amsterdam, we hit the bricks early and wandered aimlessly around Old Town, a twenty-minute walk from the cruise terminal. Bicycles rule in this city and canals are as common as streets. The old houses lean precariously against one another and might fall down if they weren’t. The ones shown in the photo are seventeenth century and are not an optical illusion. Since Amsterdam was built in a swamp, the result is not surprising. The same thing could have happened in my home village of Wellington, originally called “Quagmire”!

While it’s tempting to look up when in Amsterdam, important things can be found when one looks down. We came across many brass markers like the ones shown in the photo below. These tell the sad story of one Jewish family who lived in a lovely Amsterdam house overlooking a canal before they were deported by the Nazis in 1942 and 1943. The markers state that all four were murdered at Auschwitz in December of 1942 and February of 1943. Ten percent of Amsterdam’s population was Jewish, and three quarters of Dutch Jews were murdered. While Anne Frank’s story may be the best-known, I found these markers just as poignant.

There are 2,500 houseboats moored more or less permanently in the city’s canals, some of them of modern construction, others converted canal boats like the one shown in the photo. After our morning walk, we took a canal cruise, then went back into the city on foot. While Elva and her friends shopped, I strolled through the red-light district, Zeedijk, a rather tame neighbourhood, I thought. Maybe it livens up after dark when the snakes and the old skunks come out! Amsterdam is one city we’d like to return to and a longer visit to the Netherlands may be in the cards some year hopefully.

Soon after we left Amsterdam, the Captain asked that we all meet in the Explorer’s Lounge to hear what we suspected would be bad news. Either we were headed for Davey Jones’ Locker, or we were about to change course. A forecast storm in the Bay of Biscay, the body of water between Brittany and the Iberian Peninsula, would mean a change in plan for the voyage. Instead of stops in Dover, England, the World War II Normandy beaches, and at the city of Caen, we’d be at sea three days before our next stop in Northern Spain. And not three calm days either. So, we endured. Sometimes prone, sometimes sitting, hanging on to the rails, bobbing like corks in a jacuzzi, and hoping the sea-sickness pills would work so that we wouldn’t have to use the barf bags. It will be interesting to see what Hurtigruten has to offer for the rest of this trip and, perhaps, compensation for a future voyage. Certainly, many guests are unhappy, particularly those that embarked in Hamburg, expecting a quiet and uneventful journey.

I’m disappointed to have missed the Normandy beaches where Allied troops, including 14,000 Canadians, landed on D-Day, June 6, 1944. As was the case with Vimy in World War I, it became a coming-of-age moment for Canada as our soldiers stormed Juno Beach. By the end of the day, the 3^rd Canadian Light Infantry Division had penetrated farther inland than any other landing force. While it’s easy to say that there will be another time, we’re not getting any younger and northern France is a bit out of the way when it comes to popular European destinations.

After a tedious and treacherous crossing of the Bay of Biscay, we landed in A Coruña, a city of 250,000 on the northwest coast of Spain. We couldn’t wait to get off the ship and onto solid ground. Fortunately, it was a sunny, warm Sunday morning and the locals were enjoying the day. Before lunch, we set out on foot and took in the beauty of the harbourside promenade which stretches an impressive 13 kilometers, and the lovely central square.

It got me thinking about what we have in Charlottetown by comparison. Here, they’ve built outward starting with a massive stone seawall; inside that is a broad pedestrian promenade; then a two-meter-wide two-way cycling path; and, finally, the roadway. Spain is no richer than Canada. So, why don’t we have similar infrastructure in, say, Charlottetown? One bad storm from the sou’west will wash away our lovely boardwalk and a good part of Victoria Park. We are vulnerable to sea-level rise but seem to be doing nothing to protect our city. While I have no sympathy for the people building that obscene monstrosity at Point Deroche, we must do something soon in downtown Charlottetown. The threat of sea level rise should incite us to do it right as they have in A Coruña.

We were supposed to spend two days in A Coruña but fate intervened once again. Just as we were about to leave the ship for an afternoon excursion, a sharp-eyed crew member noticed that something wasn’t right with the gangway. Sure enough, it came crashing down to the dock, some fifteen feet below. Thank goodness no one was on it because there could have been serious injury or death to one or more passengers. Due to high winds and the orientation of the ship, she kept moving back and forth until, finally, the flimsy setup shown in the photos gave way.

Since the MS Spitsbergen couldn’t tie up safely in A Coruña, we sailed into the harbour of Ferrol, just around the corner along the Galician coast, and hoped for a better day. Next morning, we drove to our scheduled walking tour of A Coruña by bus and listened to our excellent guide describe the city and the Spanish region called Galicia. She told us that her people are more Celtic than Spanish and that their favourite musical instrument is the bagpipes! The streets of A Coruña made for a beautiful walk. At our first stop, a restaurant called Bonilla a la Vista, we had hot chocolate and churros. Except the hot chocolate wasn’t like anything we’d ever had before; it was hot melted chocolate you had to eat with a spoon as it cooled in the cup!

During our walk, we saw many beautiful façades like the one in the photo and a tasteful bronze statue of John Lennon in the city park, another reminder of how far The Beatles influence has extended. Finally, we stopped for a photo of Torre de Hercules, the world’s oldest lighthouse, built by the Romans in the first century AD, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. By mid-afternoon, the wind was howling, and the waves were crashing against the shore. We watched as a large cruise ship of the German Aida line made her way into A Coruña harbour to take shelter there. We’re thankful not to be on the open sea and would rather stay here until this Atlantic nor’wester blows over.

On our second day in Ferrol, I set out on foot on my own while the girls did some shopping. Although I’m not a religious person, I love to visit churches. Saint Julian Cathedral is a beautiful building and I had it all to myself as I walked around and took in the grandeur of the place. The city, population 65,000 and traditionally an important shipbuilding center, has fallen on hard times, and it shows in the buildings I walked past in the downtown area.

Ferrol is the starting point of the English Way, one of the many pilgrimage paths that lead to Santiago de Compostela. Seeing the scallop shell symbols that mark the way reminded Elva of her epic 400-kilometer solo walk in September 2013. Our afternoon guided walk gave us a better understanding of Ferrol’s history and what makes it tick nowadays. 

After another rock-and-roll night at sea, we docked in Vigo, Galicia’s biggest city with a population of 500,000. We took an early afternoon bus tour to nearby Pontevedra. Although our guide was quite good, by this time, we’d heard enough about European cities to get the picture. Back in Vigo, Elva and I set out on a one-hour walk on our own; much more satisfying than following a group and listening to historical tidbits we’ll never remember. In the photo, Elva gets friendly with a street performer in Pontevedra.

Day 2 in Vigo dawned bright and balmy. We’d decided to join a more active group for a hike along the Portuguese Camino. Finding our way out of the city following the scallop-shell signs was easier said than done but Gerd, our expedition leader, had GPS as a backup. She also carried a knapsack-full of stuff: water, snacks, tea, a first aid kit and, amazingly, a portable stretcher! We had a great group, all of them younger than us, of course. The views from our hillside trail were awesome and the 18 kilometers went by easily. We stopped for a coffee at our destination and took a bus back into Vigo. A perfect day!

Porto was our first port of call in Portugal and the second-last on this eventful journey. The city’s metropolitan area is home to around 1.7 million people, is a major industrial and financial center, and is perhaps best known world-wide as the birthplace of port wine. The old part of the city, which lies near the mouth of the Douro River, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our day began with another forgettable guided walk through the city center. Don’t get me wrong. The guides are very good, but I don’t really care which king married which queen and had which palace built for their daughter. Or that it took one hundred years to build the Bishop’s Palace!

Elva and I broke free and went off on our own, retracing our steps. We took our time and explored the bustling pedestrian streets and bought fresh figs at a stall in the immaculate market. I took a picture of salted fish there, a Portuguese specialty. The smell reminded me of times spent in the “lean” at the old Coop store in Wellington when I was a kid. Salt cod, stiff as a cedar roof shingle, was stored there year-round along with other bulk items, like the 45-gallon puncheon of molasses for customers wanting to fill their cruche. While we’re in Portugal, I intend to try the local salt cod dish, bacalao. Then, we had tea and coffee on a terrace, enjoying the sunny day, 24-degree temperature, and quiet time just the two of us. It’s interesting that the weather has warmed exactly one degree per day since we left Tromsø on October 21. Dinner that evening was a feast of shellfish and seafood prepared by Chef Tomasz and his excellent kitchen staff.

 

EUROPE – PART 8 

Soon after arriving at l’École Évangéline at the tender age of eleven, my interest in learning plateaued. In la petite école in Wellington, I’d been encouraged to learn outside the box and was rewarded for being inquisitive. The rote-learning model we were forced into in Grade eight by the nun who ran the place, and those teachers who were afraid of her, didn’t suit me at all. I made it through Grade twelve because of high school sports and one particular girl who had struck my fancy.

Hazel Graham was the village librarian in Wellington. Our library, tiny as it was, held stories that were much more interesting to me than most of what I was learning at École Évangéline. One topic that caught my attention early on was Arctic and Antarctic exploration, and the stories of the brave men who risked all to claim the glories of discovery. Mrs. Graham could always find another book to pique my curiosity.

Travelling in Norway, we’ve come across many reminders of famous Norwegian explorers. There were Erik the Red who founded a colony in Greenland and, his son, Leif Erikson, the first European known to have pitched a tent on the north American continent at l’Anse-aux-Meadows; Roald Amundsen, first to reach the South Pole; Fridtjof Nansen, first to cross Greenland; Otto Sverdrup, who explored Canada’s far north; and Thor Heyerdahl, who piloted a hand-built raft called the Kon Tiki across the Pacific Ocean from South America to Tuamotu Island. Our expert historian on the MS Spitsbergen has given illustrated talks on some of these men, rekindling my teenage interest.

Day 5 was meant to be a day of rest and we’d chosen to take the gondola up to an observation point high above the town of Andalsnes. Once there, we decided to walk up the path to get a better view of the town and the harbour, and then we just kept going... The day was sunny and warm, the trail was good, and the views were spectacular. We didn’t make it to the top of the highest peak, but my Garmin registered 50 stories, so we did have ourselves a bit of a climb. After three straight days of hiking, my quads had finally stopped screaming, so the walk down wasn’t so painful.

Some days, the journey is more interesting that the destination. So it was on Day 6 as the MS Spitsbergen sailed up to the head of Sognefjorden, the world’s second-longest longest fjord at 203 km, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In places, it’s over 1,000 metres deep and cliffs surrounding the fjord rise to as high as 1,500 metres. National Geographic calls it “the world’s number one natural heritage site.” It’s hard to describe the majesty of the place in words, and easier to illustrate it in pictures.

While anchored in the tiny village of Gudvangen, we took the zodiacs to shore and visited the Viking Valley historic village where Elva learned to throw an axe.

Bergen is Norway’s second-largest city with a population roughly equal to that of Halifax. The former warehouses that still stand along the old quay are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The harbour is lined with modern, well-equipped ships that service the offshore petroleum industry and the downtown area is a beautiful place for a walk. Cities that feature broad boulevards, pedestrian streets, parks, and public sculpture are our favourites and Bergen ticks all those boxes. We spent the morning wandering around, dodging the drizzle and seeing the highlights, then took a ride up the funicular to the observation point called Floyen. Unfortunately, all we saw was cloud. We did come across this plaque though showing where Tom Dumoulin of The Netherlands won a steep uphill time trial in the 2017 World Cycling Championships, beating his closest rival by an incredible margin of almost one minute.

Another day, another beautiful fjord! From the dock in the village of Eidfjord, we took a bus to the Norsk Nature Centre where we learned about Norway’s natural history. The goats keep the roof of the nearby restaurant well-trimmed. Then, our driver took us to the waterfall called Vøringfossen in Hardangervidda National Park. The drive up the valley to the alpine plateau is 10 kilometres at a slope of 8%, with a few tunnels along the way, one of which is a spiral tunnel. Vøringfossen is one of Norway’s premier tourist destinations. Water pours down the side of the mountain 182 metres into the chasm below. Government is building a five-kilometer walk around the edge of the waterfall, all of it steel and aluminum, so that people can get a better look. It's not a place for people who are afraid of heights!

If the Swiss are the world champions of tunnel building, the Norwegians must certainly come a close second. Tunnels are everywhere. We’d seen one a couple of days earlier that connected a small settlement of no more than 50 people on a dead-end road to the village of Gudvangen; it was 1.7 kilometres long! Another observation I’ve made while in Norway is that, while the country has a very advanced social system, its tax rates are sky-high. A liter of gasoline in Eidfjord cost an eye-popping $3.43 CDN the day we were there, double the price on Prince Edward Island. That’s the equivalent of $10.00 US a gallon! I suppose Norwegians are being eased out of internal combustion engines, in line with government’s decision that all new cars sold by 2025 will be zero-emission.

Not much happens in Egersund on a Sunday morning. It was our last port of call in Norway, a town of 12,000 or so with a fine natural harbour. We took a guided walk around the downtown area, then hiked up to Vardberg, the highest point around to take in the best view of the place. As usual, we were rewarded, and managed to get in our 50 stories and 10,000 steps for the day. The MS Spitsbergen stayed in Egersund for just half a day, then set sail for the German island called Heligoland, southward across the North Sea.

‘Hurtigruten’, Norwegian for 'the fast route', is a shipping route along the coast from Bergen in the South to Kirkenes in the North. The route began in 1893 and has always been funded in part by the Norwegian government. It calls at several ports and completes the route both ways in eleven days, year-round. It has run continuously from 1893, except for World War II and during the COVID outbreak.

Hurtigruten, the company, has an interesting history. It began with one ship running the coastal service and branched out into the cruise business in the 1990s. It now also offers expedition-style cruises in the Arctic and the Antarctic. It’s our first time with this company and, although it’s considerably more expensive than other companies we’ve sailed with, we’re satisfied with what we’ve gotten so far. Many excursions are included, we are accompanied by excellent guides, the service standard is very high, and the food, well, it’s to die for. Although it’s cafeteria style, they manage to put on an impressive spread at every meal, all of it top quality.

Due to heavy fog, our time on Heligoland was limited to one hour. We climbed onto the zodiac and bounced on choppy seas to reach the jetty on the tiny island, barely one square kilometer in area and home to 1,300 people. We had just enough time to walk the 3 km trail around the island and to see the sea stack, Lange Anna, at its northern tip. Due to its location some 60 kilometres off the coast of Germany, the island is home to many nesting bird colonies and serves as a resting place for those migrating across the North Sea in the spring and fall. Of great strategic importance during both World Wars, the island is pockmarked with bomb craters, and evidence of defensive structures is everywhere. One part of the town features back yards like this one with all kinds of interesting characters.

The weather in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, was perfect for the time of year. We started our day with a bus tour, then went back on foot in the afternoon with our expedition photographer. He didn’t share too many of his trade secrets with us, but I watched at every stop to see what he was shooting in the hope that some of his knowledge might wear off. Hamburg is a beautiful city with many canals and bridges. Its strategic position on the Elbe River makes it Europe’s third-largest port, topped only by Rotterdam and Antwerp. We walked through Harbour City, presently the largest construction project in Europe, to reach the warehouse district, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Along the way, I took the types of photos I don’t normally. I actually like some of them, particularly the one where the herring gull flies up to catch a morsel of food tossed by some people sitting beside the canal. Not bad for an iPhone 8!