Eidfjord

June 11 - Eidfjord

We sailed up Eidfjord overnight and were anchored at the town of Eidfjord before breakfast. There is also an Upper Eidfjord. Not very imaginative in their place names here in Norway.

Apparently paved roads are a relatively new thing in Norway, at least western Norway. They were mostly built in the 70s.  In Eidfjord, before the road and a tunnel through the mountain, the way to get from Upper Eidfjord to lower was by water.  In the winter you can walk on it; in the summer you can take a boat.  In the spring, hower, they were losing schoolchildren, so in the 60s they petitioned the government to build a road.

From the ship, we could see clouds sitting up on top of the mountains. Our bus tour excursion drove us up into them, where we could see nothing (including the road, which was a bit frightening).

At our second stop, we drove out of the clouds to Halne. There are no trees up this high and the flora and fauna are arctic. Note: dandelions grow everywhere.

Some pics:

Root cellar? Note the sod roof.

Tent beside cabins for rent at Halne. 

The view

Snow in June. This is how glaciers start.
My foot in the frame for scale.

How to get around. Your 4-wheeler has nothing on this.

Halne Lake.

More of the view at Halne

The road we came up.

More road and some of Bear's hair.

MS Rotterdam

June 9 - Rotterdam & the North Sea

Bridge at the port in Rotterdam

We are on the ocean! I have flown over oceans and been on the verges of them, buy this is the first time I have been out in the middle of one with no landline in sight. There really isn't much to see.

Look!  Rocks!

Amsterdam

June 7 & 8 - Amsterdam

Bicycles

The first thing we saw when we exited Amsterdam Centraal was a bike parking lot. Bikes as far as the eye could see, glittering in the sun. Only about half of them are locked up.

On the other side of the canal is a bike parking garage, three stories high and a block long.

Bicycles rule the streets in Amsterdam. I don't know what the official rules are, but they seem to have the right of way over pedestrians and cars. Most roads have dedicated bike lanes (pink pavement) and cyclists sail along, rarely stopping.

The bikes are "old fashioned" with hand brakes and fenders. Scooters also use the bike lanes.

I have seen kids as young as 5 or 6 riding on the road (with a parent).

Air Conditioning

Nope. It was 81F yesterday.

Density

Amsterdam is very dense. The houses or apartments are 3 to 6 storeys tall and there is no space in between them. Businesses are generally located on the ground floor, or multiple floors. Apparently they aren't any taller because the water table is too high and the ground wouldn't support more weight, but I also suspect many of them were built before high rises were a thing.

Stairs

In keeping with compactness stairs are very steep and narrow and the steps are not very deep. They are almost ladders.

Two storeys worth of stairs leading up to our AirBnB.

This is not a picture of the street light.
It is showing the booms for raising furniture.

I go down these stairs backwards (like descending a ladder) and I'm afraid at one of the other residents will come out and see me being so awkward and go tripping up and down the stairs like a mountain goat.

Some places have booms so that large items like furniture can be hauled up to the upper floors. Windows are larger than front doors. I wish we had one of these for getting our luggage in and out.

Plants

The Dutch apparently love growing things. They will plant things in the smallest section of Earth or pots indoors and out. There are lots of trees which help break up the blocks of buildings.

Canals

Amsterdam has canals which seem to mostly be used for tourist tours. We went on one yesterday.

The width and height of the boats are limited by the size of the underside of bridges, and the length is limited by the intersections of canals. The boat can only be as long as what can turn in the limited space.

The canals add beauty to the city and break up the dense building. They help keep it cool in summer.

Weird looking black ducks that have
bird skull faces and skeleton looking feet.

Food

O. M. G. Your food choices are cosmopolitan (like the city). Everything we have eaten has been fantastic. Had the best baklava of my life at at a little Lebanese mum-and-pop takeout place around the corner last night.

Getting there

June 5 - Getting There

We have gone to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam for 3 days. Then we take the train to Rotterdam and get on a very large boat for a week-long cruise of Norwegian fjords.

Air Canuck pretzels

We flew out on Air Canuck. Due to cutbacks Air Canuck only gives out teeny tiny pretzels. You can upgrade to full size pretzels for $278 plus tax.

We arrived in Amsterdam having had about three hours sleep on the overnight flight and feeling absurdly wide awake. The plan was to take the train from the airport to Amsterdam Centraal (the central station, like Union Station) and then a tram to our airbnb.

It sounded simple.

Amsterdam Centraal is enormous and it is full of people rushing hither and thither.

Eastern end of An
Msterdam Centraal.

Western end of Amsterdam Centraal

Amsterdam has great public transit: trains, trams, and buses. The problem is they don't have great signage. We tried three different platforms before we found the train. At Centraal we could not find where to catch the tram and ended up just taking a cab.

It was totally worth it to rent an airbnb instead of staying at a hotel by Amsterdam Centraal. We are on a quiet residential Street and just around the corner or all kinds of fabulous places to eat.