Catching up on Maria's travels

 Maria is now in Europe and had been a little too busy eating and sightseeing to keep us up to date with her travels. However she has managed to find a quiet moment to do a little bit of reminiscing. Enjoy her story!

Where do I start to tell you what we have been up to over the last seven days?  Well how about the day we started on the Scenic Crystal?  We were greeted like royalty and all the ladies received a beautiful long stemmed rose.  WOW!

 Flower Market in Basel

The food is fabulous but not as fabulous as was on the ship ... thank goodness but the mouth keeps opening!!  Right now while sailing on the River Rhine, I am sitting in a sunny corner, listening to beautiful music and can help myself to hot chocolate, icecream, coffee etc. all day and soon, at 4.30 we will be having an Ice-cream Bonanza which is a first for me. Then at 7.0 pm we have a booking at the Restaurant on board, to be followed by a walk through a magical town called Ruedesheim and the reason I know it's magical is because John and I have been there before and it was our favourite.  Let's hope that our memories will not disappoint us on the second time round.

 Basel, Switzerland.  Town Doctor checking tourists health - looking for Black Plague.

We stayed in Basel, Switzerland for a couple of days and today I can't remember where we went or what we did but what I do remember is that woman in some parts of Switzerland were not allowed to vote until 1990!!  Yes that date is right.  The right to vote did not come until 1971 but this was only in some regions.  The women would you believe, resisted the passing of the law in their regions, the right to vote.  The Supreme Court in the end stepped in and passed the law that all women had the right to vote irrespective of the region's preferences.


Tuesday 17th we went to the Black Forest and saw lots of Storks ... yes the birds that deliver babies to the lucky mum's and dad's.  They are so much larger than I imagined and much loved by the locals.  The village has even placed a CCT camera near a next which is on top of the Church's bell tower so that it can keep an eye on the babies' well being.  The nests are HUGE.

 

Some beautiful homes of the New Town, Heidelberg

The Blue Danube begins in the mountains of the Black Forest and we actually saw the spot which was only a small pond.  The other magical thing I saw while sitting in the bus was a couple picking berries on the mountainside.  So it's well and truly summer over here which reminds me to tell you that the temperature on most days starts off about 16, hits 24 in the early afternoon and peaks to 30+ by 8.00 pm.  I only have the one pair of summer pants (recent purchase) and 2 summer blouses, and one pair of black flats, so I am doing it tough as all the other ladies look beautiful in their summer dresses and shorts etc.  Oh well only another 9 days to "endure" such hardships.  (ha ha ha ... only kidding but washing every night no matter what the hour)

We had real "black forest" cake which I don't like so I didn't have it but am loving the bratswurzt and the bread is so delicious I am having 4 servings each time.  The farmers are given an annual payment to keep their meadows as meadows to prevent the pine trees from obliterating them.  It is a stunningly beautiful region.

Cuckoo Clock shop at Triberg, Germany.  Karl Marx was born here.

Yesterday Wednesday 18th we went to Strasbourg and visited the Notre Dame cathedral. I have to tell you this ... the boat is sailing past hundreds of people sitting on the river banks, irrespective if it's concrete, pebbles, or gravel soaking up the sun and going for swims on this very hot day but I have been told this is the case irrespective of the weather when its summer because the season is so very short ... so everybody makes the most of it.  Amazing sight.

Today we went to Heidelberg and what a beautiful town it is.  Like most of the town we have seen, there is the Old Town and the New Town and off course it's always the Old Town that has the most beauty but everybody want's to live in the New Town due to the amenities.

So that's it from me for now because I have to go to the Ice-cream Bonanza and I just don't know when I will get some free time again

Beautiful Baltic

I have had another update on the holiday that is being enjoyed by Maria and John, the ship has been "out of range" for a while so there is a bit of catching up to do. Maria has broken her visits to the different places into little paragraphs. Enjoy! (I did!)

Dover, England - we spent the day there and visited a beautiful village called Rye which used to supply the King with ships and it's greatest trade in the 18th century was in smuggling.  Today this medieval town with its cobbled streets and narrow passageways revealed some beautiful little 'houses' where you can have a bite to eat or buy souvenirs.  Our Tour Guide told us that Paul McCartney still lives there.  We saw some wonderful Oust houses which were places to dry the hops for beer but today they are private dwellings and very prime real estate.

 Tivoli Gardens, Stockholm, Denmark. Toys for big and little boys.

Copenhagen, Denmark - the Tivoli Gardens was my biggest and best surprise as I was expecting it to be a garden however it was much, much more and thrilled all of my senses no matter where I looked!  It had the most thrilling rides with scaled down versions for the children.  I tried to get on one but literally ran out of time.  Beautiful restaurants by the dozen, pavilions with activities for the children and adults, sculptures, water fountains and art!!  Birds, seagulls, ducks, fish, sharks and even old vintage cars for the Boys .. big and little.  We were told that when Walt Disney visited the place it inspired him to create Disneyland.  Naturally we saw the "Little Mermaid" and now there is also a "Big Mermaid" nearby (cruise ship terminal) and as I was taking a photograph of it I overheard an American woman saying how this one offended her.  Yes the Big Mermaid is much larger and so are her breasts however still in proportion to her body.

The delight of sitting on verandah and soaking up the sun and cruising along.

Tallin, Estonia - we walked up to Toompea Hill on a hot day but we were rewarded with a magnificent view of the Old Town below with it's many beautiful church spires and listened to a medieval concert.  The people here can understand the Finnish language and visa-versa and often the Fins will get on a 2 hr ferry across the Baltic Sea to drop in and shop.  Stunningly beautiful wool products but very rough and scratchy to touch.  So far I have not come across any wool products that were soft to feel.

Saint Petersburg, Russia - I don't know where to begin because the iconic palaces and churches we saw were overwhelming with their grandeur and opulence!  You could never imagine the amount of gold that has gone into the trimmings, furniture, statutes, mirror frames, chandeliers, wall paper, dinner sets, door frames, ceilings, floors, door handles, cutlery, glassware, vases etc. etc.  It is phenomenal!!!  Just tons and tons of it!  Literally!  Everything is gilt-edged!  Nothing escaped.  And humongous in size!  There is nothing to compare.

  Catherine's Palace.  Just the tip of the Gold Iceberg.

It was here that I first saw people soaking up the sun anywhere they could find a place to sit.  In the city or countryside it was simply a case of taking of the outer clothes and lying back.  I mostly saw this in the city.  Sadly the Russian history has left it's mark on its people as the older generation are angry.  Fortunately the younger ones are far more optimistic and outgoing.  Let's hope that the political future of the country will be a lot more stable and not experience any of the dreadful upheavals of the past.

Passenger feeding seagulls off the back of the ship until he almost lost thumb.

Helsinki, Finland - not much to write about really as we only did a walking tour through the City and as everybody is on holidays - they get 5 weeks holidays during the summer - the place was deserted.  Pretty town with a lovely lake which they skate on in the winter.  A fire in the 18th Century wiped the town out so all construction after that had to be in brick.   Sailing boats are lifted and "garaged" during the winter because of the damage the ice creates.  The trams look exactly like our Melbourne trams.  Same colour and shape.

Street Entertainer having a fun moment with tourists.

Stockholm, Sweden - to reach this beautiful City we had to sail through it's Archipelago which was stunningly beautiful.  We got up at 3.30 am and it took another 3 hours of sailing to reach the Port.  There are over 32,000 islands but not all of them are inhabited.   We visited City Hall where the Nobel winners get together for their Banquet meal, the Royal Residence which is now a museum as the Queen way back in the 1980's wanted her children to have a back yard which they now have by the hundreds of acres and can ride their horses, and the Vasa Museum ... an incredible sight because it is literally a museum BUILT AROUND a ship that sank 15 minutes after it's launch in 1628 and it's still in its original shape due to the water being brackish.

One of the many glorious and rare ocean sunsets we saw from our Balcony.

Visby, Gotland, Sweden - I fell in love with this little Island as it was rural, it's paddocks chock full of wild summer flowers, and its beautiful town of Visby which still has a wall surrounding the town which once protected it's people.  It has the oldest Viking graves, it's wild horses were once exported to England and Ireland to work in the mines because of their temperament and size, the Island relies on fishing and agriculture today however the young people are often forced to move to find employment elsewhere.  The economic decline of the Island centuries ago,  resulted in the preservation of it's ancient buildings and monuments.

Warnemunde, Germany - we were so lucky to be here during one of it's annual festivals which made this seaside town into a fantasy, one that I have often read about in novels but have never seen.  The seaside walks were full of kiosks, each one selling something unique and colourful and once again we found ourselves walking on cobbled streets with narrow passageways and as a special treat, a huge lighthouse at the end of one of them.

Maria enjoying German Oom Pah Pah Band.  Yes it was a cold night.

  Later in the afternoon we went for a ride on the Molli Train which is quiet famous and had a ball all due to the locomotive being repositioned from the front (we were in the last carriage) to the back!!  So we copped it all, the sounds of the steam, the clanking of the bell and yes, even the black sooty smoke and laughed even though we were choking.   Later on that night on board the ship we were treated to a German meal of Bratwurst, sauerkraut and an Oom Pah Pah band so we danced, drank German beer and reluctantly crawled back home about 10.30 pm.

  Cruise coming to an end.  Second last pilot boat.

 (PS from AJ)  From one part of the world to another, Maria and John have now packed their cases and are on their merry way to Amsterdam where they will shortly start their next adventure - travelling down the River Rhine.

Maria's Sami experience

I have received another informative email from Maria about her travels - my own travels ended on Sunday with nothing new to tell you about - it was horribly cold and raining in the morning and it was a pleasure to climb into the car and turn the heater on for our long five hour drive back home. Warm at last! I really loved what I saw on Fraser Island and would jump at the chance to go back again. It would be lovely to see those "beauty spots" in sunshine! But I have Maria's story to share with you so here it is. . .


Yesterday (Saturday 22) we did not have a guide on our bus tour going to North Cape (Norway) and what a difference that made to our enjoyment of the trip ... no where near as interesting as we were left to our own devices and I got lost several times while looking for the highlights... and time was awasting!!  Sadly I missed out on seeing the Observatory but got to see most of the other things.

I decided to play with the ISO on the camera as the sky and landscape was darker than 'normal' and even though the pictures looked good on the camera's LCD screen it was a different story when I got home and looked at them on the iPad.  YUK!!!  Typical touristy mistake, not practicing before leaving home.  I met a guy the other day while waiting to get back on board after a day's outing and he told me that he only brought one SD card, the reason being is that he was depending to download his photos onto his tablet but something went haywire and now he was in trouble.  Not a happy chappy!

What can I tell you about North Cape?  Firstly let me take back a comment I said in my other email about North Cape being the world's most northern land point as I am not so sure anymore because the Captain of the Ship during his daily greeting to the Guests said it was the most northern point of Norway.

North Cape.  What does this world famous and dangerous place look like?
The Dream.  I thought I was going to be doing it tough like some Arctic explorer struggling through snow, hail, gale force winds, fog, hunger, ice and sub zero temperatures and come home a hero telling John of all my super human endeavours.

North Cape. The Reality.  Jammed packed with campervans/mobile homes & tourists to start off with.  And on this itty bitty dusty and unpaved road, we almost collided with four toll booths.  I was astounded.  The next picture to unfold was the grey landscape, no footpaths or 'roads', uneven ground covered in gravel and really, really, really dusty.  What else was there to see?  Miles and miles of grey skies and ocean.  In amongst of all of that there were a couple of sculptures that are photographed by the thousands each summer day.  See below.  Never-the-less still loved the experience.

Today (Sunday 23) I went along on a tour called the "Sami Experience" which John once again thought there was a better photo opportunity by walking through town.  Once again, John was right and he managed to take some stunning photographs.

Anyway the Sami Experience was unforgettable as we sat in a Sami hut, all 62 of us, some on benches and some on the Reindeer skins on the ground. The huge fire was warm and cosy, the Sami Leader told us about their culture in a slow and easy style, "sang" the unique Sami song, the cadence is more like a person in a trance while were served smoked samon and smoked reindeer meat with tea or coffee.

 The hut (completely covered by soil with grass growing out of the soil, excellent insulation) soon filled up with smoke even though it had a "chimney" and the embers from the fire filtered down onto all of us.  I had to laugh when I noticed where I was sitting on the Reindeer skins that the hair had come off and was all over my jeans.  As I said, it was an unforgettable and delightful experience. 

I forgot to tell you that the weather changed within seconds.  When getting dressed this morning it was 18 C at 8.00 so I thought it was going to be a scorcher and got dressed accordingly.  Well it was something that had to be seen to be believed.  During the outing the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped drammatically.  Amazing and  quite frightening that it could happen without warning.  A regular occurence I was told.

I got back on board by 2.00 pm and the harbour within an hour was fogged in.  We set sail about 6.00 pm and we have been fogged in ever since. 

An update from Maria who is in Norway.

 Maria is once again in internet contact so is able to share more of her travels with us.

It just keeps on getting better!  I thought I was in Heaven yesterday, well today was even more spectacular as we travelled through the countryside of Norway by train, on our way to Voss where we were thoroughly spoiled by a magnificent buffet of all the local, traditional foods such as meatball, fish and fresh strawberries accompanied by a cream that you could stand a spoon up in. And yes I made a little piggy of myself.  Thankfully we did not have the smoked sheep's head where it is the custom to start off with the eyes as they are the most flavoursome as they are full of fat.

Norway is mainly an agricultural country, there are approximately 900 registered farms in Voss with an average size of 23 acres with an additional 7 acres of summer pasture lands in the mountains.  The farmers have a strong union and receive government subsidies which in turn makes the cost of food very expensive.  Everything is very expensive here and apparently gets more expensive the further north we go.  Education and medical care is free.  Today sunrise happened at 3.28 am and the sunset  at 11.40 pm.  On Saturday we will be in the land of the Midnight Sun where the sun never sets for 2 months.  Most people's religion is Anglican Lutheran and the local church has to have enough seats to accommodate all it's parishioners. Also, Mass will not start until everybody has arrived.  Each region knows how many reindeers, moose etc. it has in preparation for the hunting season. If you want to fish it will cost you 50 kr ($10.00) for the day and to hunt will cost about about $100.00 for the season.

The first photograph is of typical farmhouses situation in the mountains which I snapped from a moving train.

The second is of the outside dining area where we had lunch at Fleiches Hotel, the third is of a Troll which is the country's 'emblem' which apparently belongs in a fairy tale.

This photo was of a poster in the town we visited the day before "Stavanger".

Due to sailing in the Fjords for the last couple of days, the satellite signal apparently is not strong enough to get onto the internet.  Good to be back again, just hoping I don't go through my account before finishing this holiday.

Maria is in Norway

Maria is enjoying her chilly cruise across the North Sea and has visited a port in Norway, Here is an update of her story.

We arrived at Stavanger, Norway this morning and what an amazingly beautiful place it is. The industrial part of town looks like a National Park with everything in its place and spotlessly clean.  We saw only one bit of graffiti in the not so good part of town.  It is as cold as I thought it would be.  The Long Johns saved the day as the wind it bitterly cold. As soon as the sun is hidden behind a cloud - it's murder!

We did a trip to the Lysefjord (sounds like Lucyfjord) and the quirky attractions made my day.  The boat had the responsibility of delivering the newspapers, this was done by just tossing them overboard onto the jetty.  The next attraction was calling in on a huge colony of seals, three goats which were called Clinton, Gorbachev and Brezhnev, after that we parked right under a fabulous waterfall where one of the crew filled a spotlessly clean bucket of water and offered each of us a drink.  This water had to be the best I have ever tasted in my life.  No animals live on the island which meant the water was really, really clean.

For morning tea we had the local waffles with fresh cream and home made jam.  Once again, I have never tasted such delicious jam and cream.  The other thing John and I noticed was the clarity of the air as it is incredibly clear making it a photographer's dream.
Maria

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Maria has limited internet connection (which costs an arm and a leg) and will be unable to send updates daily as a result. However I shall add more of her story as I receive them. Today there were no pictures to show the places that were visited so I have used a couple of pictures that are not mine - the first one I have been able to give credit to the photographer but the second came from a travel site with no reference to the photographer. I have changed the sky in the photo (the one of Lysefjord) but I would have liked to have known the name of the person who took it in the first place to give him or her, credit for it. AJ
AJ

On the high seas

Maria is aboard ship and off on a cruise across the North Sea. This is her story.

Well if I thought that London was cold, Dover proved to be a totally different meaning of brute cold winds!! Even the ship had troubles with the wind as it required two tugboats to get it away from the birth!!  The winds were over 54 km an hour.  Believe me it was a memorable experience. What a pity we had to leave London when the skies were blue and all dressed up for the trooping of the colour.

Last night I signed up to the package deal for the wifi on board ship and now have to see how it works because it is expensive no matter how you look at it and I hope it will not prove to be as inefficient as has been told to me in the past.

The ship is beautiful but cost cutting measures are obvious, the most annoying one is the toilet paper.  I am astounded that it even stays on the roll because it's sooooooo thin!!!   Some bathroom mirrors are kind and not give you the heebie jeebies when you see your reflection but the one in our cabin shows every crook, cranny and crevice that has been etched over the years, but what is even more depressing are the lines!!!  Where on earth did they come from?!  There are hundreds of them.  

Yesterday was once again, a difficult day spent mostly travelling not long distances, but tied up with getting from one point to another and listening to other travellers over-talking others in their group. We finally got on board the ship hungry and tired.  It sailed on time at 5.00 pm and our luggage arrived shortly after.  Two people unpacking in a small room naturally takes extra time and I have found I am still sorting things out this morning.  

We have a formal night on this evening so the long black dress is hanging up and ready to go.  At 11.00 am there is going to be a "dancing with the stars" event in the showroom which I am looking forward to.  

Maria