We had two first class one way tickets to anywhere in Europe so it seemed logical to book a transatlantic cruise. We selected Copenhagen to NY because the itinerary took us to many places we had not visited before, including cities in England, Scotland and Ireland, plus Greenland, Iceland and Newfoundland. And it promised an easy trip home at the end thanks to the New York arrival.
The trip over was great except for a airline security problem. Continental blocked our reservation for check in because they did not want us to fly without a return ticket or proof that we lived in Europe. Finally they relented when we produced our cruise tickets! Otherwise security was a snap.
We arrived in Copenhagen at 730am and were out of customs by 815. We walked a short distance to the airport Hilton. No room was ready, of course, but we were invited to go to the executive lounge for coffee and breakfast. They did get us a room by 1030 and we both napped. After two hours I slipped out for a walk. I found a supermarket and a McDonalds. Bought a bottle of wine (from Spain) for the ship at the supermarket and a large sandwich from McDonalds promising to be enough for two. I ate my half on a bench overlooking the Baltic Sea at a local marina. It was sunny and perfect 70s weather.
Everybody bicycles as much as possible. Denmark is number two after Holland in this sport.
Dinner was at the hotel and after dinner coffee and drinks in the executive lounge.
We slept late, had breakfast and went off by taxi to the ship. The 35 minute ride cost $50 and thankfully all the taxis take credit cards so I did not need to change money. Still perfect 70s and sunny weather.
Check in and boarding of the ship was really fast as was baggage delivery to the room. We lunched, explored the ship and did a lifejacket drill. Then dinner in the specialty Italian Restaurant.
Then a sea day starting with jogging. Perfect weather again and we really enjoyed our balcony. Lots of ships in the North Sea and English channel.
The first stop was Dover, England, with the famous white cliffs and a very old castle. Lots of ferry slips although less are used now with the tunnel. We took an a afternoon trip to a very old town on the coast named Rye. En route there were a huge number of sheep peacefully grazing. Rye used to be directly in the sea, but then the land built up and now there is a tidal channel to the sea used by small pleasure boats.
The town of Rye is remarkable it goes back to 5500bc. It was very important around 1100ad as a civilized city; we saw a house with a nameplate asserting that it was rebuilt in 1402. The tourist center had a scale model, built by locals, showing how the town used to look as supported by various paintings and local records. Interesting to view. There have been lots of invasion attempts that were fought off, mostly from France. Later the locals were very worried about an invasion by the much feared Napoleon but it never happened. The streets are cobbled and we saw an old church that was originally Roman Catholic and then was converted to Anglican when the King changed the state religion.
Supposedly the steeple clock is 'original'. Still perfect weather in high 60s and sunny.
The next stop after an overnight sail was Falmouth, England, which is in the extreme southwest. This was the mining capital of England and maybe Europe for base metals such as tin and copper. The mines are very deep with a vertical elevator/hoist operating in a tower that also did some ore processing. They are no longer economic to operate and are all closed. The country side is devoted to farming with very permanent fences of the local granite reinforced by dirt and vines. We visited Land's End, the western extremity of England.
The next stop after an overnight sail was Waterford, Ireland. Very pretty, some houses with thatched roofs and very green due to frequent rains. We also learned that Ireland was an easier mark for invasion than England, so had its own problems even though England and Scotland are between Ireland and Europe. They were also afraid of an invasion from Napoleon, which never happened.
We had a very interesting tour of the Waterford Crystal factory. They have world famous lines of crystal glassware for the table which is all hand made and very expensive. They also have a second business of making trophies for major sports events such as tennis and golf events. We saw nearly every step of the process and even spoke with several craftsmen. Needless to say, the product quality is very high and thus the process for manufacture is very expensive the glass is hand blown and has hand cut decorations. In our global, very competitive world they do not have all the pricing flexibility they would like and so are losing money. There are similar products in France and Japan. We hope they find their way!
Another overnight sail to Greenock, Scotland. It is a port city on the western shores of Scotland and near to Glasgow. We did not do a tour and found out that we could take a train to Glasgow to look around. Glasgow is both gritty and pretty. Its heyday was in the mid 1800s when locals made a lot of innovations, for example the steam engine, invented by James Watt. The architecture of the city is most distinctive. It was a cloudy day and then it rained hard once we returned to the ship.
Next stop Belfast, Northern Ireland. We took an afternoon city tour and learned a lot. We had a 70+ year old activist lady as our guide. She told us of the downtown area being heavily bombed first in WW2 and then by the rioters of the 70s and 80s. She showed us the loyalist/ Protestant section of the city and and nationalist/ Catholic section and the wall separating them. It is relatively calm now. Most of the rioting, she says, is done on Saturday nights when everybody drinks too much. There are 'Mafia' bosses on each side that keep things stirred up so that they can collect their protection money from the local businesses.
The downtown has now been rebuilt after all these bombings and is beautiful. One of Belfast's claims to fame is the Titanic, which was locally designed and built. Our guide explained that safety laws at the time did not require a lifeboat place for every person. The naval architect for the ship wanted to provide them but the owners refused for various reasons including wanting to give open walking space for the first class passengers! There also was a speed competition from Europe to NY. This was the iceberg season, and absent radar, an invitation for disaster which obviously happened.
Our guide had lots to say about her husband and told a amazing story. She said he was never there for her. He once left her on the street when their car broke down en route to the station, saying that a woman alone could better get help, and went to a nearby pub. She did get help but had to leave the car. So she got a bus to continue her journey to the train station. Then the driver abandoned the bus to join a demonstration. Then she drove the bus and all its passengers to the train station and made her train!
She loves America and thinks Northern Ireland people were mostly responsible for the development of the US!
Still perfect weather with a low of 63 and a high of 68 with sun.
Then a sea day en route to Iceland. It was sunny and 60s.
Then our day in Iceland. The first notable point was that the ship had to turn around in a very narrow channel and back into its intended berth. It rotated 180 degrees with its side thrusters in an unbelievably small space and then we quickly docked in Reykjavik, the capital city.
Reykjavic is a city of 150,000 spread out with almost no high rise buildings. It gives the impression of being clean, new and modern. There are low interior mountains in the background. We had chosen a tour that took us through the city and out in the country to the 'Blue Lagoon'. We learned and saw a lot. Iceland goes back to the Vikings from Norway in their era of 900ad. In 1300 their system of local fiefdoms broke down and the King of Norway was asked to govern. Then Iceland became Danish in 1900 and then it became independent in 1944. The population is 350,000 and must live in the capital. Its main natural resources are fish, thermal energy, sand and gravel. Reykjavik strikes one as being modern, clean and vibrant. It has a system of neighborhood swimming pools and central heating. Its education system has turned out successful innovators and artists!
As we drove out of town to the Blue Lagoon, we drove through lava fields from the many volcanic eruptions. It reminded us of the big island of Hawaii. The lagoon is near a thermal power plant and has eerily blue heated water of a high mineral content being discharged from the plant. So it is a favorite place for swimming and the mineral water is reputed to be highly therapeutic.
We also learned that Iceland sits on two continental plates, Europe and the Americas. The plates are gradually separating and part of Iceland is actually dropping a few cm. per year and creating a slightly bigger island and dropping the 'saddle' between two mountain peaks.
On our way back to the ship we stopped at a simple white, wooden building where Ronald Reagan and Mikhial Gorbachev had their historic meeting to negotiate an arms treaty in the 1980s and pave the way for the end of the Cold War!
To our surprise the climate of Iceland is moderate thanks to the Gulf Stream. No more extreme than Connecticut except in daylight hours by month. Apparently the ocean currents changed after Iceland and Greenland got their names; Greenland now being ice covered and somewhat colder than Iceland.
Again perfect weather with 62 high and 55 low with sun. Then an uneventful sea day that was cooler and cloudy. Very foggy for a while with the ship's horn sounding every few minutes.
The next day something moved me to awaken and look outside. I did as we were passing a very large iceberg and entering the fjord to the Qaqortoq, Greenland harbor. There were lots of icebergs ranging from small to huge.
We anchored and took tenders into town, a quaint village of 2500, with modest houses, a hotel, a supermarket, a post office and some restaurants and bars. And lots of fishing boats. There were fish carvings on a cliff wall. There were lots of friendly native kids that were Inuit Indians. Greenland is nearly the size us the US being 3000 x 1500 km. Part of it is north of the arctic circle. Except for a band around the coast, it is covered with ice year round. And it is icebound in the winter. It has been inhabited since 4500BC, with civilizations dying out and later explorers rediscovering it
The Vikings were here as well. Presently the population of 25000 is composed of Inuits and European immigrants. It is a part of Denmark. People make a living from sheep farming, fishing, seal hunting. It has an international airport with flights to Iceland and Copenhagen. It can be 70s in the summer and minus 40 in the winter. There is tourism especially of fit people who do things like triathlon races. Again it was perfect weather with sun and high 30s.
Then it was a 1 ½ day trip (one sea day) to Newfoundland which was southwest of Greenland. The icebergs disappeared some 50 -75 miles to the south, this being late in the iceberg season. The trip was windy and cool.
We arrived late morning at St. John's, Newfoundland, which has a beautiful, protected harbor. Big local turnout to greet us. After lunch we started a tour of the city and nearby countryside. Of interest was Cabot Tower on a high hill where Marconi received the first wireless message from Europe to North America. An interesting exhibit explained the systems that were used at the time. Then we went to the Easternmost point in North America to see a lighthouse and WW2 fortifications. We finished with a downtown tour. We learned that St. John's has lot of entertainment, culture and drinking.
It was a surprise to us to learn that Newfoundland only joined Canada in 1947. Before that it was a British colony back to the 1400s, except for brief periods when the French took it over. The Germans were very close in WW2, threatening invasion.
We learned that Newfoundland has mineral, waterpower, fishing and wildlife resources. Fishing is now limited due to a Canadian Government Cod Moratorium to restore depleted stocks. Lots of Moose and Deer.
As we arrived back at the ship we saw lots of passengers waiting on shore. Soon we learned that someone had gotten on board without being authorized and that three packages had been found abandoned aboard as well.
This had happened three hours before and it took another two hours after we got back to play out. The Canadian police were called, and they took the packages for evaluation, fortunately OK. The ship was searched and its bottom checked by divers. No problems and we left for NY two hours late.
The first sea day was cold and rainy. The second was warm and sunny. Arrival was in Brooklyn with views of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge on one side and Lower Manhattan on the other. Getting off was easy, especially with the optional handle your own baggage program, which made you first off if you wanted.
Some overall comments. First the ports.
We did not go to so called exotic ports. Not Tahiti, not the Greek Islands.
We went to modest ports that you could call offbeat or forgotten, or even ports with recent troubles. They all had a lot of history from different time frames, and were interesting and vibrant. All you needed to do was be interested. Some common threads were in the ports:
--the French /English conflict
--the threat of an Invasion by Napoleon
--the Viking explorations and settlements
Next the weather. It was not beach and pool weather, but mostly 50s and 60s. Some 70s at the beginning, some 30s near the end. It didn't make much difference, thanks in part to the sliding roof over one of the pool areas that created a sunny atrium.
Next the ship. It holds 2600+ passengers and 1200 crew. It is not intimate, though you could always find a somewhat private place to be. There really were very few lines on the ship.
The concerns we heard were about the tender operation in Greenland. They needed more shore docks to do the transfers fast and in the available timeframe.
Anytime dining was very helpful, although it took time to find a best time for us. Food was very good. Lobster twice, etc.
We talked with hundreds of people from all over the world, mostly quite interesting. All ages were represented, but we did meet several couples in their mid 80s and going strong The percentage of foreign (to the US) passengers was very significant, making it more interesting. Some variety in formal wear!
