Category Archives: Adventures

Wawel Castle in Krakow

September 15, 2017 – 11:00 am

September 15, 2017

Marta showing us the street side layout of the old city.

We were up and out to meet our Krakow guide at 9am.  Her name is Marta.  The plan for the day was to do a walking tour of the Wahel Royal Castle a few blocks away.  It was sunny, but cold ad windy, so we stood in protected corners while she talked and then walked fast.  We stopped in front of the house Pope John II lived in when he was Bishop of Krakow from 1951 -1967.

Home of Pope John Paul II when he was still a bishop in Krakow from 1951-1967.

Then we walked up the hill to the castle site and took a few pix outside the castle walls.  The rocky outcropping towers over the banks of the Vistula River and has been the seat of secular and ecclesiastical power since the early middle ages, although the first historic ruler of the Polish state, Mieszko I,  established the first cathedral here in 1000.   Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside so this will be a dry day.  Sorry.  Not my idea.

The approach to the castle.

 

The castle wall overlooking the Vistula River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A model of the castle as it currently exists. There have been many changes over the centuries.

According to Marta, Wawel experienced its golden age from the 14th through 16th centuries, especially during the period of the Jagiellon dynasty.  Sigismund’s I and II (1506-1572) transformed the medieval castle into one of the finest Italianate Renaissance palaces in Central Europe. The next king, Sigismund III, moved the court to Warsaw and a thus began slow and steady decline.  The castle was sacked and looted during Polish-Swedish wars in the mid-17th century.

The Wawel Castle inside the walls Many architectural styes are visible from Romanesque to  medieval, to Gothic, to Renaissance, to Baroque.

The final blow came with the partition of Poland in the 18th century and the conversion of the castle into barracks for the Austrian army in 1796.  Major restoration began in the early 20th century and intensified after 1918, when Poland regained independence.  In the 1930’s the castle became a museum.

The courtyard of the castle, which is now a museum.

Marta went on and on about the Kings, Popes, Bishops, Nobles and the details became a muddle.  Aside from the interesting juxtaposition of architectural    styles through the centuries; we enjoyed seeing many exquisite tapestries with much gold threading, which were used to provide the rooms with some warmth as much as to display wealth and tell biblical stories.  The coffered wooden ceilings were original and quite impressive.  One ceiling had carved and painted wooden heads that were each uniquely different.  The floors, made of marble, were worn smooth and uneven by centuries of use.  It is mindboggling to think of the famous people who walked there through the ages.   By the time we passed through all the various rooms, large and larger, filled with Italian paintings, furniture, centuries of armor, guns, swords, canon and more, we were both done in.  Finally, we exited the castle and walked to a restaurant near our hotel, where we had Polish food.  It is pretty heavy, like Czech food.  Not our idea of “good eats”.  Marta was still full of energy in spite of all the talking she did.  All we wanted to do was finish lunch and get to our room to rest.

She gave us a suggestion for dinner, but I think we will keep it simple and light, if possible.  Tomorrow we have another full day.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (3) Sept-Oct: Czech Republic / Poland / Slovenia / Hungary / Romania / Macedonia / Bulgaria / Albania / Kosovo / Bosnia / Montenegro / Croatia / Slovakia | Comments (2)

From Prague to Krakow

September 15, 2017 – 9:31 am

Map of Poland

September 14, 2017

Our driver today, Maciek, told us to pronounce his name “Magic”, so Magic it is.  Thankfully he speaks excellent English after spending 2 years in Chicago (the second largest Polish city in the world he tells us), and 4 years in England.  We traveled in a very comfortable mercedes sedan, after departing the Augustine Hotel at 9:15 and heading east out of town.  It took almost an hour just to get through the city as the roads, although in reasonable good shape, are clogged with traffic.  Finally, we began to see green trees and small farms.  Gradually the farms increased in size and the scenery became more open and expansive.  The terrain was fairly flat and reminded us of the Sacramento Valley, except there were no orchards; just corn, sun flowers, grasses and vegetables.  There were pockets of planted trees that included birch, linden, poplar, oak, pine, maple, chestnut, spruce and willow and other conifers.  Happily, Magic knew his trees.   He told us the farms in the Czech Republic are nearly all cooperatives, which is why they seem so large.  In Poland the farms are smaller as no one wants to be cooperate.  They do share equipment.  I did not take photos during the drive as the scenery, although interesting to witness, would have been flat in a mid day photo.

We learned that Magic did not go to university, and was a steel fitter while he was in England.  Now he drives cars for a large car rental company.  He makes reasonable money and owns his apartment free and clear with the help of a deceased relative, who left him a nest egg.  He and his wife have an 11 year old girl and a 1 1/2 year old baby girl.   They have been married only 4 years.  The new modern way.  His wife has been on paid maternity leave since the baby was born and soon she must go back to work.  Fortunately, his mother lives nearby and will tend the baby.

 

Holy Trinity Column. A baroque sculpture built between 1716 and 1754. Is now a UNESCO site.

The sky was overcast, cold and rainy for the first 2 hours of the ride, but by the time we reached Olomouc, our lunch stop on the drive, we were under warm sunny skies.   The three of us did a walk about the town square, looked at the Holy Trinity Column that is now a Unesco site and several fountains.

A turtle and porous fountain in Olomouc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Maurice Church. Very 1400’s gothic, with impressive windows.

Then we visited the Church of St Maurice, which had impressive gothic stained glass windows and the largest organ in Central Europe with pleasing organ music being played while we visited.

I liked this carved alter piece in St Maurice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THe largest organ in Central Europe, made by Michael Engler in 1745

 

 

 

From there we stepped into the Church of St Michael and say a very baroque altar piece and a lot of scaffolding.  As we turned to leave the church se spotted a restorer up near the ceiling and caught him painting.  After leaving there we walked back into the square and had an unappetizing sushi lunch as every other place was full.

A restorer at work on the church ceiling.

 

 

 

The baroque alter in St Michael’s Church. Too rich and un-Christ like for my taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A walking street in Olomouc.

 

 

Back on the road the terrain began to undulate more and we could see hills in the distance to the east.   Magic pointed in the direction of the hills toward a place where the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia come together.  The hills were covered with trees.  As far as I could tell, the forests have been planted and none look very large or old.  Without the slightest change in anything, we were suddenly in Poland.  I would have missed the small sigh if Magic had not pointed it out to us.  My only disappointment is that I wanted to have my passport stamped.  Not sure how I will get that done in EU countries.

My only photo of the drive to Krakow. A bridge through the window shortly before entering the city.

Entering Krakow did not seem all that different than leaving Prague.  The outskirts are modern, industrial and suburban.  When we arrived at the Hotel Stary in the heart of the old city, it looked a lot like Prague’s old city, including the river, in this case the Wisla, running through it.  Also, like the Augustine, the hotel entrance does not stand out.  The place is a collection of remodeled old buildings that are very convoluted.

Entrance to Hotel Story very near the old town square.

We have to walk around several corners to get to our elevator to the 4th floor, then walk another hallway, up some stairs and around a couple more corners to our room.  Without the bellman, we would still be wandering around lost.  Turns out our room is on the top of a new, old building.  Our ceiling is pitched from one end to the other with 2 full length skylights that we can open and have screens that close to make the room darker.   The space is quite large feels like a garret.  The only bad part is that we cannot look out, except at the sky.

Our room at the Hotel Stary.

With very little time before our concert booking at the nearby Church of St Peter and Paul, we changed quickly and went to find something to eat.  We settled on an outdoor place near the church and were about half way through dinner when it began to rain.  We were under an awning that helped for awhile, until the wind picked up and we got cold and wet.  Did not finish eating.  Mark paid and we ran for the church, while our rain gear was nice and dry in our room.

Classical music graduates of the Music Academy in Krakow perform in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul..

The church was dark, but dry as people slowly filed in.  The lights did not come on until the  musician walked out.  There were 6 including harpsichord, base, cello, viola, and second and first violins.  The music was lovely, but the program was too short, only 45 minutes.  Everyone wanted more, but they did not come back.  It was still raining so we walked very fast back to the hotel.  We could hear the rain pounding on the skylight.  Lovely.

 

 

 

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (3) Sept-Oct: Czech Republic / Poland / Slovenia / Hungary / Romania / Macedonia / Bulgaria / Albania / Kosovo / Bosnia / Montenegro / Croatia / Slovakia | Comments (1)

Terezin, a Concentration Camp

September 14, 2017 – 2:57 pm

September 13, 2017

Doris Grozdanovicova, a 91-year old holocaust survivor.

Today we met Doris Grozdanovicova.  She is a 91-year old holocaust survivor.  What a treat.  She is sharp as a tack, highly educated and still tours around the world giving lectures.  In her younger years, she was trained in the printing business, and got involved in printing books for people who would later became famous writers.  She knows many important people and loves to talk about her experiences, including her time in the Terezin Concentration Camp, 45 minutes north of Prague.  She is close friends with our guide and was happy to join us on our visit to Terezin.  She reminded me of my mother, who was quite spry at 91 too.  Before leaving the hotel, I asked her what we should know about her and she told us she has a collection of sheep well in excess of 1000.  I asked her how that happened and she said she was once a shepherdess and would tell us more later.

Born in 1926, Doris was sent to Terezin Concentration Camp in January 1942, when she was 16, along with her parents and older brother.  When they arrived there, her father and brother were immediately transferred to Auschwitz.   She and her mother did not stay in the same barracks, as girls and women were kept separated.  However, they did get to see each other now and then.  Her mother became ill and died from pneumonia after 2 years.  She says she thought she was the only one left in her family, but felt lucky that she was healthy and stayed that way because she had an outdoor job, that got her away from the contagion that proliferated inside the buildings.  Also, she was blond, blue eyed, pretty and did not look Jewish.

Picture of Doris while tending sheep. Taken by a local citizen, who later found her and gave her the prints.

The Czech police assigned to Terezin treated her well and gave her the job of tending sheep in the fields outside the camp.  Often, she was very cold and even got frostbite, but was glad to be outdoors in clean air.  She liked the 70 sheep she tended; milked them and even watched a lamb being born.  That was her job for 3 ½ years, until the camp was liberated by Russians in 1945.  One of the Czech policemen, who had lost his own daughter to disease, felt sorry for her because she was alone and offered to take her to his home and adopt her.  She agreed and stayed with his family a few months.  Fortunately, her brother, who had survived Auschwitz, surprised her and they moved together back to their home town of Brno, south east of Prague.  They both went back to school, finished university and enjoyed successful lives.  She has one son and 2 grandchildren.

Doris pointing to the photo in the Terezin Museum, of her tending sheep.

Terezin had been a garrison town of 7000 people before Hitler converted it into a concentration camp in January 1942.  The citizens did not leave at first and Doris remembers seeing them going about their business as if everything was normal, while Jews continued to arrive.  The local public school was converted to a boys dormitory that is now the museum we visited.  Other buildings were converted into separate housing for women, girls and men.    Factories and work places were also created from existing buildings.  All the houses and garages and small buildings were put to use as well.  Doris told us the camp was governed by the Jews themselves with Czech police guarding the perimeter of the camp, but not bothering the Jews as to their behavior.  Everyone, including the police, was controlled by the 20 Nazis assigned to the camp.

Terezin population from November 1941 to April 1945 – by the numbers.

Everyone was accepting of the situation, even though they were crowded into tiny, dirty spaces in the barracks, lived more like animals than people and had only 20 overlords.  Eventually the citizens left and the whole place was a concentration camp, which at its height held 58,000 people.  As another 1000 arrived, a thousand were shipped to Auschwitz for the final solution.  However, the Jews in Terezin had no idea what happened to the departed.

Enlarged copies of paintings made by people in the camp and then hidden in camp buildings until the 90’s.

In the museum, we saw how the people lived in cramped quarters, tried to keep themselves somewhat clean, kept their few possessions in their luggage, and created culture in every way they could.  Men who worked with printing presses, printed their own books, made drawings and paintings.  Machine factory workers managed to create some sculptures.  Other people created musical instruments.  Classical music was not allowed, but jazz and blues was.  Go figure.

 

Jewish actors were also taken to the camp and soon started a theater in one of the buildings.  Doris said she got to see a theater program once and liked it.  One famous comedian who performed there and was later killed, was Kurt Gerron.  Maybe one of you will remember him.  I do not.

The girl in this drawing was of a friend of Doris’s while in the camp.

 

 

Mark in front of a garage and a door to a hidden synagogue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside a hidden synagogue.

We came upon a garage and found a hidden synagogue.  Apparently, there were seven so well hidden inside Terezin that they went undetected for many years after liberation.  People kept not only the synagogues quiet, but they hid their art, poetry and writings in walls and under floors.  Many things did not come to light until after Communism fell in 1989.  According to Doris, no one even talked about the concentration camps until then, including herself.  She did not even tell her children until the 90’s.  Then she became a flood of information even until now.

We learned the story of the Red Cross visit to the camp in April of 1944.  For weeks the camp had been cleaned and painted and made to look pleasant.  People were given nice clothes, toys were brought in for the children, movies were shown, exercise activities performed, better food served, even a play performed by camp members – all to impress the Red Cross visitors.  Doris said it was awful.  There were many obvious questions that could have been asked and signs noticed, but were not.  Things that could be ween, but were overlooked.  When they left, they were so pleased with their experience that they chose not to look at any other camps, including Auschwitz.  Doris believes that they were corrupted.  She did not know what country they came from, but she hated their lack of conscience.

Terezin Cemetery for the 37,000+ people who were killed in the camp. The stones represent trees cut prematurely.

Anyway, as soon as they were gone with their movies of the pretty camp, everything nice thing was removed and life went back to the way it had been, except that people soon started being transported to death camps in large numbers.  By then a crematorium had been installed and was in use there as well as Auschwitz.  We found it near the cemetery.  Doris chose to stay in the car when we were there.

Crematorium in the Terezin Concentration Camp. Originally part of a glass blowing factory. Doris did not talk about it.

 

 

Doris has long since stopped weeping.  She seems to be on a mission to tell her story, to get the world to know, understand and remember.  So she keeps lecturing and taking people like us to the camp.  She has a lot of work yet to do.

 

 

 

Mark, Doris and Julia in Terezin Concentration Camp. She comes here often to share her story with people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in Prague, we stopped at the New Jewish Cemetery where Franz Kafka is buried.  It is a very spacious place with many trees and plants and beautiful black tombstones, although Kafka’s is a granite obelisk.

Franz Kafka’s grave in the New Jewish Cemetery. Also, his sister and other relatives.

 

 

 

Soon we were at the hotel and saying good bye to Doris and Kamila.  They both added greatly to our appreciation of Prague and what it means to be a Jew in the Czech Republic.  Mark gave them each a nice tip.

 

 

 

Approach to Charles IV Bridge.

Then we walked toward the Charles IV Bridge again to the clock tower to watch the mechanisms do their thing when the clock strikes the hour – in this case, 7pm.  On the way we were entranced by two figures in a meditative pose with one of them in the air.  How do they do that?  We think we figured it out.  Can you?

Street performers, with one levitating over the other. Pretty convincing.

 

Once in front of the clock, I found the movement so small and far away that I could not make it out.  Fortunately, Mark took a video and I saw it that way.  Must say, it was not worth the trouble. It seemed to me, that the hundred or more people watching it with us, felt the same.  Much ado about not much.

Clock tower with figures moving in little windows. Could not see other figures shaking their heads or the cock flap its wings and crow.

 

 

We walked back to the Augustine, which we have finally learned how to find with its small entryway that is barely marked.  Mark went to bed while I worked.

Keep forgetting to mention that the weather here has been clear, but on the cool side – 52 to 65 at most.  Only a tiny bit of rain.  I hope it warms up as I did not pack for cold temps.  We are drinking tap water everywhere and eating everything we want, including greens.  Tomorrow we leave Prague and drive through the countryside to Krakow with a planned stop in a small town called Olomouc.  I would enjoy another couple of days in Prague, but am sure we will have seen enough impressive buildings long before we get home and we will be hard pressed to remember which is which anyway.  So we press on.  Poland here we come.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (3) Sept-Oct: Czech Republic / Poland / Slovenia / Hungary / Romania / Macedonia / Bulgaria / Albania / Kosovo / Bosnia / Montenegro / Croatia / Slovakia | Comments (2)

Day 2 in Prague

September 13, 2017 – 1:38 pm

September 12, 2017

High Altar in St Nicholas Church.

Kamila met us at 9am for a 4-hour walking tour.  We started near our hotel in the Old Quarter (Mala Strana) Square with St Nicholas Church, which was built during the 1700’s.  It is not a very attractive church from the outside, but the inside is a blast of High Baroque.  Unfortunately, scaffolding fills most of the church except the altar.  A close up of the main altar provides an idea of the opulence of the era.

A complex 1714 sculpture that I will call Good guys and bad guys or Saints and Sinners.

From there we walked across the famous Charles IV Bridge, where I took a photo of a complicated sculpture from 1714, with Saints John de Matha, Felix de Valois and Blessed Ivan.  Don’t ask me anything about it.  Kamila seemed to know, but I only remember that the guy on the left was Turkish.  Near the middle of the bridge Mark and Kamila posed in front of the 1629 Crucifix, which for 200 years stood alone on the bridge.  The gilded sign above the cross saying “Holy, holy, holy Lord” was paid for by a Jew as punishment for blasphemy.

The crucifixion with Kamila and Mark in front.

Then we passed under the bridge tower into the Old Town, “ Stera Mesto”.  Walking down a street, Kamila steered us into the Public Library to show us an art piece made of books and called the “Well of Knowledge”.  Looking down inside, a mirror makes it look like it will go forever.  Very appealing and off the beaten path.  The sort of experience that makes us glad to have a guide, who knows her stuff.

Charles IV Bridge with Prague Castle in the background

Entering Old Town

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1714 Sculpture on Charles IV Bridge. Saints and sinners. A complicated tale.

 

 

 

Looking into the Well of Knowledge, Public Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once in Old Town Square, where Mark and I had dinner the night before, Kamila told us about the wonders of the Clock Tower.  It needs to be seen striking the hour.  Will have to come back to catch it happening.

The Clock Tower in the heart of Old Town.

We learned that the population of the Czech Republic is 10 million.  Prague has 1.2 million with a Jewish population of about 4,500. Today, Jews seem to be accepted in, what Kamila considers, the country’s atheistic society.

50% of each person’s income goes to the government.  In return, citizens receive free education through university, medical care and prescription drugs and three years of maternity leave per child, while your job is held for you.  If someone else is solidly in your old job, another one is found for you.  What a deal that is.

Old Town Square, a hub of activity

We wandered around the Square awhile and then walked to the Jewish Cemetery, which was founded in 1478.  Kamila, we learned, is Jewish and speaks and reads Hebrew.  She read to us the descriptions on several stones, which give not only dates, but information about the person; what they did and what sort of person they were.

The Old Jewish Cemetery in the middle of Old Town. Over 120,000 people buried here

A stone Kamila translated for us.”Isaac, Son of Samuel, died 1635. Was a good person. Lived a fulfilled life. His father died an unnatural way.” (meaning he was murdered)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The oldest tomb stone was from 1439 for a Rabbi who was also a physician and a poet, with a poem dated 1389.  The only woman mentioned on a tombstone was for Rivka Tiktiner, who was a scholar and author of a book for women called Meneket Rivka (Rebecca’s Nurse), published in 1609.  Kamila says it is now in English and available, she thinks, on Amazon.  If you find it, let me know, so I can read it too.

Shield of David. Symbol originated in India.

 

This was the only Jewish Cemetery in Prague for 300 years and over 120,000 people are believed to be buried in the mound of earth, where bodies are stacked 12 high and over 12,000 grave stones are displayed close together.  The last burial here took place in 1787.

The shield of David is inlaid in the sidewalk next to the cemetery.  The symbol comes from India initially and appears for the first time in Prague in the 1500’s.

Mark taking in the magnitude of the many people who died just from Prague.

Around the corner was the Jewish Museum, where the name, birth date and date the person was sent to the concentration camp are painted on walls.  There had been 120,000 Jews living in Prague before Hitler came to power.  80,000 of them died in camps and are listed here.  Very powerful.

Names and dates of the 80,000 people who died in concentration camps.

Upstairs, there are drawings made by Jewish children during the holocaust that got hidden away in trunks and forgotten until Communism fell in 1989.  Now they are a lovely and painful expression of children who never got the chance to grow up.

Pictures made by children in the camps while trying to keep a positive attitude.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also nearby is the Old-New Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Europe, built around 1270 and still the religious center for Prague’s Jews.  Inside the space feels dark, small and cramped.  The windows are small and few and stalls fill up the two naves. Light is provided by chandeliers.

Old-New Synagogue showing the right Nave and the lighting.

 

The holiest place in the synagogue, The Ark, holds the sacred scrolls of the Torah and the Books of the Prophets.  If I understood Kamila correctly, the Jews enjoyed a relatively safe period during the late 1500’s after having been considered surfs or slaves of the King since the 900’s.  The benevolent Rudolph II encouraged wealthy Jewish leaders to help their own people and received privileges for doing so.

The Ark in the Old-New Synagogue. Originally called the New Synagogue until a newer one was built nearby.

 

For a time, life was good.  In the 1600’s the bad times came back.  There was no more pleasant interaction with non-Jews, pogroms started happening.  Christians feared the Jews.  Between 1740 and 1780, Maria Teresa, the first Austrian, Hapsburg Empress, expelled Jews from Prague.  Kamila would say only that it was “horrid”.  Meanwhile, for Christians, she established institutions to help women and improve education.  Kamila recommended another book, “Savage Pages” by Otto Wolf.  It is a diary about 3-years of life in a forest hole.  Sorry, I did not get a date.

A painted catering truck. An uplifting sight after the Jewish Museum.

 

 

 

At that point our time with Kamila was up as she had to pick up her kids from school.  On the way back to the hotel we took in some city scenes, including a painted catering truck, a tourist boat on the river, a typical city street.

A typical street in Old Town, Prague.

Tourist boat on the Vitava River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked back to the hotel, rested an hour and headed out again at 4:30 to see an Exhibition called Nervous Trees in the Gallerie Rudolfinum, have dinner at nearby La Finestra and get back to the Rudolfinum Concert Hall for an 8pm concert.

Gondola plying the Vitava toward the Charles IV Bridge

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t resist this image of a gondola backlit on the river.

 

 

Nervous Trees, an exhibit by Kristof Kintera, was very peculiar, curious and mildly interesting.  Mostly it was fanciful and fun.

Washing machine sculpture in the Strange Trees Exhibit

Our two favorite exhibits included a tall pile of washing machines, some of which were turned on; and a group of metal trees that danced around the floor by themselves every few seconds.

Dancing Trees in the Strange trees Exhibit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there we walked a couple blocks to La Finestra for a delicious meal of short ribs and cauliflower risotto.

Dinner at La Finestra Restaurant–Cauliflower Risotto and Short Ribs.

With time to spare we walked back to the Rudolfinum Concert Hall to watch a wonderful performance by the Essener Philharmoniker Orchestra of Brahms, Dvorak, and Strauss and a joint performance of the orchestra and the Pavel Haas Quartet performing Martinu.  The audience was very respectful and clapped long and heartily, but did not give a standing ovation, which surprised me.    After several curtain calls, they played a piece by Wagner that satisfied everyone.

Me on the red carpet at the Rudolfinum Concert Hall.

 

 

 

 

The program we experienced on September 12, 2017

The orchestra taking extra bows and then playing an encore. Wonderful.

It was a lovely evening that made me feel like I was out for an evening at home rather than acting like a tourist in a foreign land.  The gentleman sitting next to me was an 87 year old widower from Dallas.  He travels back and forth to places in Europe to attend musical festivals.  I hope I feel as able to travel when I am his age.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have had a long, full day and it is time to quit.

 

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (3) Sept-Oct: Czech Republic / Poland / Slovenia / Hungary / Romania / Macedonia / Bulgaria / Albania / Kosovo / Bosnia / Montenegro / Croatia / Slovakia | Comments (4)

The City of Prague

September 12, 2017 – 3:04 pm

September 11, 2017

While we are waking up in a converted monastery, now the charming Augustine Hotel, to cool, overcast and calm weather in Prague, we are watching what is happening in Florida on TV.  The devastation from Irma and Harvey is overwhelming.  Our property manager in Dickinson, Texas is just now getting the demolition of our surgery center under way.  It took 2 weeks to get a property appraiser from the insurance company to inspect the building.  The timing for us to be here is pretty bad, but with my mother gone, we chose not to buy trip insurance.  So we are in Central Europe, while our team of helpers is working on our building.  I am grateful and concerned at the same time.   Although our attention is somewhat diverted, we will carry on with our adventure here.

It took more than a day to get from walking in Central Park to arriving at our hotel in Prague.  We are both glad that long haul is over.  We were on 2 flights with British Airways with a stop at Heathrow.  Both planes were old and tired.  Fortunately, there were no mechanical problems, the service was pleasant and we arrived on time.

Interior of the Spanish Synagogue, where we heard a beautiful concert

After an afternoon nap, we walked 20 minutes across cobbled streets and a bridge over the Vitava River to the Spanish Synagogue for a wonderful performance by 6 members of the Czech Symphony Orchestra

Franz Kafka sitting on a empty suit pointing at you.

including soprano soloist, Michaela Srumova.  Between the quality of the musicians and the acoustics in the synagogue, we experienced a very special performance of Bolero, Carmina Burana, Porgy and Bess, the Barber of Seville Overture and more.   Although we were tired, we were glad we went.  Next to the Synagogue was a statue created of Franz Kofka – a large headless suit with Kafka sitting on its shoulders and pointing at you.  Strange, but Kafka was strange himself.  He was born Jewish into an antisemitic society, had Czech citizenship, but wrote his stories in German.  He lived a No Win life and died at age 40 of TB. The statue was created by a man named Roma, who took inspiration from Kofka’s stories about one man’s struggles.  It is situated between the Spanish Synagogue, a Catholic Church  and a Protestant Church, the neighborhood in which he lived.

From there we walked through Old Town and got a bite to eat in an outdoor café.  I was surprised to see hundreds of people, all tourists, wandering around Old Town so late in the evening.  After eating we headed back to our hotel, but got hopelessly lost along the way.  Finally, Mark hailed a cab.  We were certainly never going to get home the way we were headed.  Fortunately, the cab driver knew the way and we were home in short order and went directly to bed, but after 3 hours I woke up listening to Mark snore.  It took a long time to relax enough to let go of his noise and go to sleep.  At 7:30 he woke me up for the day.  I was not ready, but got up anyway.

View from the top of the Castle Hill

The heavy baroque altar with the wax Baby Jesus in Virgin Mary Victorious Church.

Our guide, Kamila, was waiting for us at 10am and off we went with her and our driver, George, for a 2-hour drive about the city.   She was very well informed and talked about the history of local architecture, the political history of the country and specific places we visited.  We stopped at the Lennon Wall covered in graffiti from the time he was killed, the Church of Our Lady Victorious with the wax statue of the Child Jesus,

Memorial to the Victims of Communism – both dead and living.

the Memorial to the Victims of the Communism, the office building called the Dancing House, and a huge shopping center located within a cluster of regular looking renaissance buildings that are connected internally by large halls.  Not a place tourists would seek out or find.  Inside was a statue of St Wenceslas sitting on top of an upside down dead horse, representing Nationalism in Czechoslovakia following WWI.  Interesting subject.

The Dancing House in Prague’s new town

Then George drove us to the top of Castle Hill and departed.  We slowly walked downhill taking in several sights starting with the view of the Vitava River, its bridges and the city.  Our first major stop was the Strahov Monastery and the large, ancient libraries inside.

St Wenceslas riding an upside down dead horse – a political expression about Nationalism

We were given a VIP tour inside the 2 libraries and took our time walking through them, learning about the books covered in goat skin bindings dating back to 860 as well as contemporary works, the ceilings painted similarly to the Sistine Chapel, and the concept of binding a book in leather so that elongated pieces of leather held the book as if in a sack.  It kept the book safe and clean.  There was an interesting statue of a man holding one.   We visited both the Philosophical and the Theological libraries.  It took effort to resist our desire to touch the books and specially the old globes in the Theological library.

The Philosophy Library in Strahov Monastery houses 280K titles dating from 860AD.

Studying the globes in the Theology Library without touching them.

A statue in the Theology Library holds a leather bound book in its own bag.

As we walked, we passed a wedding couple posing in front of a very convincing, etched 3 dimensional wall (another one of many seen on our travels).  Eventually we arrived at the Prague Castle.

Prague Castle entrance

Inside the Castle compound, however, are a few interesting sights.  First is St Vitus’s Cathedral, which was started in 1344 and took 600 years to complete.

St Vitus’s Cathedral inside the Castle grounds.

It is Gothic in style and includes the tomb of Good King Wenceslas, several beautiful stained glass windows in Art Nouveau style and a rose window created in the 1920’s.  The cathedral, like everything else we visited, was crowded with tourists, but I still liked the space.  As cathedrals go, it was fairly unadorned and pleasing to the eye.

The nave inside the Cathedral. Less busy and ornate than many cathedrals we have seen.

Also inside the castle walls was an area called Golden Lane.  It is a narrow lane filled with tiny houses that were lived in by castle guards during the 16th century.  In the 17th century goldsmiths moved in and modified the buildings.  By the 19th century the buildings had become slum dwellings, but by 1950 artists began to move in and the houses were converted into shops selling books and souvenirs.

The colors were light and happy in this window in St Vitus’s Cathedral.

For a time, Franz Kafka live in one of them.  The lane is very charming and attracts many tourists.

We continued to the bottom of the hill and were rewarded with a lovely view back up to the castle from the Wallenstein Palace Garden. Taken together, everything we have seen of old Prague is lovely and appealing.  No wonder so many people rave about the beauty and charm of Prague.  Thank goodness Hitler wanted to preserve the city for his future capital.

The rich rose window in St Vitus’s Cathedral

Kamila walked us to a shoe Exhibition we had heard about and departed with the agreement to meet at 9am Tuesday, the 12th.

The Art of Shoes created by Manolo Blahnik, was a delightful exhibit, even if I could never even stand in a pair of his creations.  They were all fun to admire…..beautiful torture.

The charming Golden Lane built into the Castle wall.

Then home we went to rest up for dinner at a nearby restaurant called Kampo Park.  It was right on the river looking out at Charles Bridge.  We both had tasty fish dinners.  Being so close to the river, I could not help thinking about Hurricane Irma and the damage she was causing even as we ate.  In 2002 there was a major flood here in Prague and we could still see where the high water mark had been and what the citizens have done to protect themselves in the future.

The Wallenstein Palace and Gardens with Prague Castle in the background.

 

The head waiter described and showed use part of the system the city would use to keep the river within bounds.   After dinner we took a short walk on the Charles Bridge and then headed home to bed.

Manolo Blahnik Shoes in The Art of Shoes Exhibit. Almost wearable.

A Manolo Blahnik shoe. Can’t even imagine wearing it.

The only wearable shoe I found in the Exhibit. I even liked it and would try it on if I could.  Probably couldn’t afford it however.  His shoes got for more than $1000 a pair.

 

 

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (3) Sept-Oct: Czech Republic / Poland / Slovenia / Hungary / Romania / Macedonia / Bulgaria / Albania / Kosovo / Bosnia / Montenegro / Croatia / Slovakia | Comments (7)

New York City

September 9, 2017 – 3:27 pm

September 9, 2017

We arrived in NYC on Wednesday evening, September 6.  Had a pasta dinner and went to bed.  Thursday we road the subway for the first time.  Went from our hotel location at 7th Avenue and 51st Street to the end of the line at the ferry depot.  The train was packed.  Hardly had to hang on.  Virtually no one talks, cell phones distract everyone.  Made for interesting people watching.  The day was clear, sunny and warm with a slight breeze.  Perfect.  Lovely ferry ride to and around The Lady.   Did not get off at Liberty island.  Seemed like we had the best view from the water.  Continued on to Ellis Island, where we spent several hours visiting the whole building and listening to docents explain its history.

Both of my father’s parents came separately and alone through immigration here in about 1910.  Unfortunately, they were both gone before I was born and I do not know their experience here.  After passing through immigration they each took trains to Oakland, California where they had work already arranged — Manuel with cousins in the dairy business and Maria with a family as a maid.  Not long afterward, they met and married.  It was not a bad experience, but it must have been scary, not knowing the languages being shouted at you, why you were being physically inspected by doctors, questioned by lawyers with interpreters,  or if you would get accepted or sent back.  Of the 12 million people who came through Ellis Island, only 2% actually got sent back.

After leaving the building, we enjoyed sitting at a table on the grounds and looking at the city scape.

The Lady

Immigration Building on Ellis Island

The Registry Room on Ellis Island

Lower Manhattan Island from the ferry

Back in Manhattan, we walked uptown several blocks looking at the sights as we went until we got tired and took the subway back to 51st street.

Trinity Church

Mark and a New Yorker visiting in the Trinity Church garden

Inside Westfield Center

Exterior of Westfield Shopping Center

Times Square

That evening we went to The Music Box theater and saw “Dear Evan Hanson”.   It was one of the best plays we have ever seen.  Almost as good as Hamilton, and better in one way – the lead actor, Ben Platt – gave an extraordinarily fantastic performance.  It is about an anxiety ridden teenager who finds himself enmeshed in another family’s tragedy that he complicates and makes worse.  Hard to explain.  Does end ok.  No pollyanna here.  Try to see it if you can.  Fabulous theater.  Afterward, we had some so so food  in The Olive Green at Times Square.

Set in The Music Box theater for Dear Evan Hanson

Yesterday, We took the subway to 14th Street and walked to the Whitney Museum.   It is a very contemporary place with much that was not appealing to us.  One floor had some nice things including these two photos.  Maybe we are too old already.

Entrance to the Whitney Museum

Photo of an immigration group

A photo by Walker Evans called “Westchester, New York Farmhouse, 1931

Next to the Whitney and under the High Line tracks, we had a very nice lunch at a Greek restaurant called Santini.  Then we walked the entire length of the High Line, which is 30 feet above ground.  It was constructed in 1934 to provide efficient and safe rail travel along New York’s west side for transport of meat, milk, produce and other products to and from the upper stories of warehouses and factories.   It was very successful until the development of highways and the trucking industry caused the line to fall into decline.  The last train rolled out in 1980 and the line was abandoned.  With the help of city preservationists, the line was restored into new life as an elevated walkway full of vegetation, activities and city views.  We walked the entire length from 14th Street to 34th Street and enjoyed every bit of it along with hundreds of other people.  Quiet is not something we found anywhere in the city.

The High Line walk

A city view from the High Line

Landscape along the High Line

From the High Line we walked the rest of the way to our hotel on 51st and 7th, The Michelangelo.  It is a boutique place Mark picked for its proximity to the theater district.   We rested a bit and then walked to a restaurant named Butter on 45th Street, where we met Martina Reznick and her mother-in-paw to be, Lisa Limblad.  We had a delightful conversation with them until they had to leave for a party.  After a delicious meal there, we walked the short distance to the Lyceum Theatre for the farcical comedy, “The Play That Goes Wrong”.  We did laugh a lot, but it was very silly and hard to catch all the words.   We don’t recommend it.

Set in Lyceum Theater for The Play that Goes Wrong.

This morning we woke to another beautiful day in New York.  We have had 3 days of perfect weather, with no humidity, light breezes, blue skies and temps in the mid-70s.  I worked on the blog for awhile.  Then we walked to Central Park and wandered around the park enjoying the families at play.  It was packed with people, I guess because it is Saturday.  We stopped to listen to a lady playing violin.  She was quite good and Mark got her name.   Then we headed for 5th Avenue and ran into a huge parade of union workers marching and making noise in their annual Labor Day Parade.  We started to get concerned about the heavy traffic and getting to the airport with so many roads closed, so we left the hotel early in a cab that took the bell hop extra time to locate.  He corralled the driver, stopped in the middle of the street, we ran with our bags and jumped in.  The drive took more than an hour and a half to get to JFK airport.  Now we are sitting comfortably in the airport lounge.  No more to report until we get to Prague, after a stop in London Heathrow.

Music in Central Park, by Susan Keser, a retired professional violinist.

Labor Day Parade of all NYC unions. Sure closed the streets.

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (3) Sept-Oct: Czech Republic / Poland / Slovenia / Hungary / Romania / Macedonia / Bulgaria / Albania / Kosovo / Bosnia / Montenegro / Croatia / Slovakia | Comments (5)

Europe here we come

September 6, 2017 – 7:27 am

September 6, 2017

Ready or not, we are about to depart on another adventure.  We can’t wait for time to come back and get us.  So we are off to parts of Europe neither of us has ever visited.  Thirteen different countries in 45 days.  Are you tired already?  Starting in the Czech Republic, we will begin our adventure in Prague then travel by road to Krakow, Poland; the High Tatras in Slovakia; and on to Budapest, Hungary; from there fly to Bucharest in Romania; drive through Transylvania to Sofia, Bulgaria; continue driving through Bulgaria to Skopje, Macedonia; visit Pristina in Kosovo; drive through Albania; take a rest (Mark is looking forward to that already) at the Villa Milocer in Montenegro; drive to Mostar and the religious shrine, Medugorje, in Bosnia Herzegovenia; spend 10 days visiting the islands and seaside towns of Croatia; and finish in Bled, Slovenia.  Yep, there are 13 countries.  I will need this blog myself to remember where we have been and what we have seen and done.  I just hope I have time to do both the sight seeing and the blogging. Pray for fast wifi everywhere.  This map gives an overview of countries we are visiting.  I will also try to include a map of each country as we visit them.

I have already been reminded by a few of you that we are going only to Central Europe and not, as I supposed, to Eastern Europe.  But I am not giving up on Eastern Europe.  The maps I find on Eastern Europe  and Central Europe tend to overlap, although this one, which I picked because it is easy to read,  puts all 13 countries in Central Europe.  So it is not clear where the line is, if there is one.  When I get to Bulgaria and Albania, which do not show up on some Central European maps, I will ask people in what part of the world their country lies.  Stay tuned.  That will be in mid October.

Today we fly to New York and will spend three nights there so we can do some sightseeing we have missed on previous trips and see a couple of plays.  Then we will fly to Prague with a connection through Heathrow.  So Here is a map of the Check Republic.  We will spend 5 days in Prague and then drive east to Krakow, Poland.

We are about to board our plane.  More later. We are off.  Julia

 

 

 

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (3) Sept-Oct: Czech Republic / Poland / Slovenia / Hungary / Romania / Macedonia / Bulgaria / Albania / Kosovo / Bosnia / Montenegro / Croatia / Slovakia | Comments (10)

Into the Glacier and back to Reykjavik

July 28, 2017 – 4:40 pm

July 26, 2017

We were up early the morning of the 26th. Hated to leave the Hotel Burdir and its lovely setting. After a quick breakfast we were off to experience our last big day in Iceland. On our way to the Into the Glacier Tour on Langjokull glacier, two hours drive east from the peninsula, we paused to take a photo the Erdman crater from a distance.

Eldborg Crater. Perfectly round.

100 degree C hot springs. Towns down the hill use it to heat th

Stopped briefly at Delldartungahvar spring to see the 100 degree centigrade water spouting out of the hillside and made a quick stop at the lava waterfalls, called Hraunfossar,

Waterfalls streaming from under the lava. On way to our glacier tour.

Another smaller glacier, Eiriksjokull, next to the one we went into called Langjokull because it is…..well,  long.  Truck tracks are visible in the snow.

that consist of countless springs of clear water that emerge from under the edge of the lava. Very interesting, but no time to contemplate.

Our tundra truck and the entrance pipe into the glacier.

Mark inside the entrance to the glacier, which is 500 meters long.

We arrived at the tour headquarters late and were told to drive as fast as possible to catch the tour at the base camp. Mark drove like a crazy man over the rough gravel road until we caught up to the trucks ahead of us and could see that we would make it when they did.

A passage in the glacier

Once there, we had to add warm clothes quickly and jump on the next vehicle going up the glacier ice to the entrance of the tunnel. It was about 10:45 when we entered the glacier, having had commentary and instructions about what to experience.

A hall carved out of the tunnel. We went 25 meters under the top of the ice.

The project was over 4 years in preparation by a team of experts in all fields. The actual excavation took 14 months from March 2014 to May 2016, with 4 to 8 people working in the tunnel every day of the week.

Inside the glacier. The different shades reflect the density in the ice.

5,500 cubic meters of ice were excavated from the glacier during construction. The whole of the glacier measures 200,000,000 cubic meters,

Me bundled up. Only my feet got cold as I stepped in a puddle of water.

so the tunnel takes up an extremely small percentage. We were told the glacier ice is about 30-35 years old. Seemed like too short a time to us.  The guide said there would be no sign of the tunnel if the snow were not constantly being cleared from the opening. The tunnel is 500 meters long, the longest in the world.

A chapel carved out of the ice. One person singing gave a nice acoustic. When everyone entered, the sound went dead.

Once down inside, we were standing 25 meters below the surface of the glacier with 200 meters of solid ice beneath us.

Even though it is an icy world, it is very wet and even raining in parts of it. I was warm until I stepped into a puddle of melted ice. Mark was luckier. The tunnel was quite large and not at all scary. We were told some staff even stay overnight in the place.

Blue ice inside the glacier.

Several “rooms” have been carved out as well as the passageways. There were a few crevasses that provide air.  LED lighting is and placed to enhance the color and structure of the ice as well as to provide dim passage. Once far  enough into the tunnel, the rain stops and the place is more comfortable.

A crevice in the ice.

Hopefully my photos will tell the story better than words. We exited the tunnel about noon and rode in the tundra truck back to base camp. I got a photo from the truck of the small glacier next to Langjokull called Eiriksjokull.

Back at camp Mark and I ran to the car to beat the line of vehicles that would soon be going down the gravel road.

View from inside the truck. The ice looks very fragile and unsafe. The truck had huge tires that the driver remotely inflates and deflates to improve traction as we crawl up and down the glacier.

A glacier selfie.

Only one truck got ahead of us and it went even faster than Mark. We were in a hurry to get to Reykjavik to attend a piano-violin concert in Harpa Hall.

The Harpa Concert and Conference Hall. Completed in 2011, it is becoming a major draw for classical performers.

Harpa concert Hall. Holds up to 1600 people in many different configurations. We heard a piano and violin recital.

We made it to the Reykjavik Enterprise rental place by 2:40. The agent jumped into the car and drove us to the Reykjavik Residence Hotel, where we stayed a week ago.

Harpa Hall from inside. This room is a staff hangout.

We threw our bags into a different, and slightly nicer room, and walked quickly to Harpa Hall to meet Frank Hammarin at the front entrance. He was right on time. We were even a few minutes ahead of the curtain.

Harpa sits next to the yacht harbor.

I sank into the seat and when the lights went down I had a hard time staying awake in spite of the lovely music. Mark nodded off a bit too.

After the program, Frank, who is the new french horn player for the Reykjavik Symphony Orchestra, toured us around the facility.

Mark and Frank Hammarin inside Harpa Hall. As a new member the Reykjavik Symphony, he could show us around. We met him when he performed in MIM SummerFest

It is very light, airy and spacious and has 5 concert halls as well as conference spaces. Very impressive. He says the oddly shaped windows are lit in different colors when it is dark and that they create a special pleasing atmosphere. He is from Granite Bay and performed in this year’s MIM SummerFest, which is how we met him. A very blond 27 year old, he can pass for an Icelander any time. So far he has learned only a few words of Icelandic. No surprise there.  I can’t imagine a more difficult language to try to learn as an adult.  But, time is on his side.

Charming buildings in downtown Reykjavik.

Down town Reykjavik. Late afternoon. A pleasant, not-too-big city.

We left Frank a couple blocks from the hall and walked up the pedestrian shopping street. It was full of people window shopping and drinking at outdoor cafe’s. We walked into the sporting goods store called 66 North. Very nice store. Very big mistake. Bought a rain outfit that will crowd my suitcase and thin my wallet…..but I will look good walking in the rain with my street walking lady friends.

The Lutheran Cathedral in Reykjavik. Big and tall but lacking in warmth.

From there we walked to the nearby Cathedral and took a couple photos of it and the huge organ taking up most of the inside back wall. I really would like to hear it played, but the timing won’t work. Interestingly enough, the pews in the back half of the church face the organ, while the pews in the front half face the altar.

The organ inside the cathedral. Would like to have heard it. Maybe next time.

It makes me suspect there is more interest in listening to the organ than attending services. The several young people we have chatted with express little interest in church and do not attend. They don’t bother with marriage either. They get together, have children and maybe get married sometime.  Marriage is expensive and unnecessary. Besides everyone has a unique name unaffected by a ceremony. Who needs It?

Thankfully, the Residence Hotel is only a few blocks away. We got to our room at 4pm and were glad to have a break. Our dinner plans were not until  8pm and the Grill Market Restaurant is only a few blocks away too. Time enough to repack our gear after days of spreading out in the car, polish off the last of our Oban scotch, have a long shower and even rest awhile.

At 7:30 we walked to Grill Market. Got a little lost and had to get redirected. Not an easy to find spot as it is behind another building and there are no signs. Before we arrived we saw Gudbjorg and her boyfriend coming toward us. Having exchanged photos weeks before, we had no problem recognizing each other. It was a treat to meet up with someone I had known over 30 years ago when she was 19 and living with my brother’s family as an exchange student. She is the same age as Brad.

Gudbjorg Jonsdottir and her boy friend. She lived with Lance and his family as an exchange student for a year during 1986-87.

We had a fun evening getting caught up with each others lives. She wanted to learn all about Lance and his family, so I told her what I could. She has hoped for years that someone from his family would come to visit her. We are good substitutes, but I still think she would like to have one of them visit. The restaurant offered some unusual choices and I took advantage of the opportunity to have a smoked Puffin starter, while Gudbjorg’s boyfriend, Sigurjon Eiriksson, had horse for his entre. We each had a bite and found the horse meat tender and tasty. For my last dinner, I ordered a platter of langoustines with scallops and shrimp. Mark had a mixed meat platter of beef, lamb and duck. A good meal was had by all. We sat and talked until 11pm when I finally called it a night. We bid them adieu and wished them a happy life. We all knew we would likely never see one another again. We walked back to our hotel and fell into bed.

The Greenland mountains near the east coast of the island.

Next morning we were up at 5:45 preparing for a 7am pick up to the airport. The 7 hour IcelandAir

The polar ice cap over central Greenland. Only a tiny pit of rock is exposed and you can make just make out the curvature of the earth.

flight was very smooth and uneventful. I worked on the blog most of the time. We flew over Greenland and got clear photos of the mountains and glaciers on the east coast as well as the polar ice cap covering the vast middle of the island.
Now it is the last leg from Seattle to Sacramento and I am working again on the last post of this trip.

Some things we did not expect include:

Good to great weather most of the time; so few people and no traffic;  friendly young people from around the world waiting on us in hotels and restaurants-Poland, Lithuanian, Australian, Danish, Hungarian, Canadian;  fluent English spoken by every Icelander we met; literally hundreds of beautiful waterfalls;  millions of bugs, but no mosquitoes; treeless countryside that afforded unlimited visibility throughout most of the country;  good food everywhere including fresh vegetables and fruit, even pineapple;  free WiFi everywhere;  credit cards accepted everywhere no matter how small the purchase; exceedingly high prices for everything; a progressive, enterprising attitude toward business; a country very much on the move with an exciting future.

We had a wonderful time everywhere we went and recommend a visit to Iceland, even if as a short visit on the way to Europe.  Both Iceland and Greenland are well worth the effort.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (12)

North and Westerly from Akureyri

July 27, 2017 – 10:04 am

July 25, 2017

The weather continues to be clear, warm, sunny and windless. Great luck for us as well as the locals who are especially enjoying their short summer.

Our hotel patio overlooking the old town center.

Yesterday morning we enjoyed sitting outdoors on the patio of our hotel overlooking downtown Akureyri, whose population is about 18,000 people, when not swollen by tourist ships.

In 1899 trees were planted for the first time. The concept of gardening with trees took hold and today Akueryri is full to different trees and gardens.

Such a treat. Clean, clear air that felt, as well as smelled, good. The evening before, the patio was crowded with people soaking up the balmy air, while we had a delicious dinner including a seared raindeer starter and a mixed seafood platter at Rub 23 across the street from the hotel. We recommend reindeer meat. This was cut very thinly and was succulent and tasty.

Akureyri with 2 passanger liners in the harbor. The hotel receptionist told us up to 5 can be there at one time.

Mid morning, the 24th, we decided to drive back to Christian’s farm to see if we could find him and his Uni-wrap machine.

Christian’s Unwrap machine in action.

He was driving it through a field beside the road making covered bales as he went, so we stopped and took some photos. He stopped and chatted with us awhile. His family has had 600 hectares

The Uniwrap drops a bale and moves on to make another. A beautiful setting for making hay.

since the early 1900’s and they have done very well because this particular land has deep, rich soil that produces quality grass. They grow hay on 80 hectares to feed the 100 dairy cows the family owns. The money is in the high grade milk the cows provide from eating the good hay. They can afford to own a 180K tractor and the 250K Uni-wrap machine. No wonder he and his brother keep both machines spotless. The rest of their is rocky hillside that the government is threatening to take away from them if they don’t do something with it.  The government takes this position because they pay no taxes on this land.  So they are considering putting sheep on the hillside to add value and pay some tax for it.  This is the same area  where his mother planted trees.

After Christian went back to work, we drove to the airport and visited the Aviation Museum. It gave a history of aviation in Iceland, which got started in 1928 with a mail delivery service. The only unusual plane we had not seen before was one called a “Junker’. There was an interesting display of stewardess uniforms going back to the 70’s. I really felt old realizing there were no uniforms going back to my era, the mid 60’s.

Christian’s property from the air aw we fly to Grimsey island.

At 12:30 we boarded a Twin Otter for Grimsey Island, and flew right over Christians fields on our way to the island.

Standing on 66 degrees North at Grimsey Island, the edge of the Arctic Circle.

 

 

We landed at precisely 1:05 and were met by a local guide who drove us around the island in search of Puffin and Arctic Tern, but insisted on taking our photo at the Arctic Circle first.  Did not have to look far for birds. They were everywhere.

The scene on Grimsey Island. A barren rock with a few houses for the 45 full-time residents in the winter 100 in the summer and millions of birds everywhere.

Several puffins resting at the top of a cliff.

Three Puffins checking the horizon.

Two Puffins keeping an eye on me.

The prize, however, was on the bluffs. Puffins sitting still and nesting. We took many photos and here is the best of our catch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sitting Puffin watching another fly by with a white shirt and blue pants. Look closely.

One Puffin. Maybe my best shot.

Another Puffin. Maybe this is better. You decide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our guide casually picked up this helpless baby Arctic Tern to give us a close up.

All too soon, we had to catch the 3:05 flight back to Akureyri. As soon as we landed, we jumped into the car and began the long drive Southwest to our next stop, Blonduos, and the Brimslod Atelier Guesthouse. Had we not gone to Grimsey Island, we would have had plenty of time to stop along the way and take in a few hikes and sights. As it was, Mark drove 280 kilometers in 4 hours and 36 minutes of driving time. We went through 4 tunnels one after another — 4 km, 7km, 4km and 1km. The two 4km tunnels were single lane and a bit nerve wracking as we had to pull into a turn out every time we saw head lights. There were lots of turn outs, fortunately, and they were all on our side of the road, so it was clear who had the right of way. By going through the tunnels we avoided driving around several small fjords.

I had hoped to get to the Emigration Museum in Hofsos to learn about the thousands of Icelanders who left the country between 1870 and 1910 due to years of famine, extremely bad weather and natural disasters. We arrived at 5:50 and they let me stay until about 6:30. I did not have time to read much information, but I saw walls of formal family photographs and learned that 37 Icelanders managed to get free passage to Brazil, while 450+ others waited in vain for the Brazil government to send a ship for them. Another 20,000 people, mostly poor and suffering from famine were provided passage to Manitoba, Canada by the British Government. Today, Manitoba, has the second largest population of Icelanders outside Iceland. Another contingent went to North Dakota, but I do not know how or what happened to them. Given that the population of Iceland was around 80,000, the departure of 20,000+ people made a significant change for the people who remained in the country. Conditions improved and there was less reason to leave. The young staff person I talked to was Canadian of Icelandic descent. He is here for the summer to learn more about his roots and to develop more connection to Iceland. He told me emigrant descendants arrive at the museum frequently wanting to learn more about their family roots. Most all of them get connected with someone who is actually a relative.

Emigrant Museum in Hofsos. Depicts stories of the many Icelanders who left Iceland between 1870 and 1910.

Finally, I was lead out the door. I found Mark with a beer in hand at a local pub. We drove another hour to the guesthouse and were glad to stop. Inga, the owner of the place, knew we would be late and met us at the door with a big smile.

Inga in the garage she remodeled into a guesthouse in the village of Blonduos in Northwest Iceland. It is the shape of an old Viking home.

Dinner was ready almost as soon as we dropped our bags. We learned she is a super chef and has written a few cook books. Both dinner and breakfast were excellent, if a little too filling.
We have now realized that “guesthouses” are not our cup of tea. The rooms are small with little if any storage space. We are asked to remove our shoes at the door and sit with the other guests for meals. “Forced conviviality” as Mark likes to say. Our table mates were two women from Shanghai and the 5-year old son of one of them. They spoke fluent English and we did have a nice conversation.

This is our first accommodation in Iceland where we had to walk down the hall to the bathroom. Fortunately, we did not have to share it. There was large claw-foot bathtub with a hand held shower head, but no curtains. Mark had to do sit in the tub and sprinkle himself with the shower head. Not, shall I say, his favorite method of getting clean.

We went to bed as soon as dinner was over, almost 11pm. Rather normal for Icelanders in summertime. We are adjusting to the constant daylight.

Kelugijufur Falls an hour south of Blonduos.

After breakfast on the 25th, we waved good bye to Inga and continued southwest toward the Snaefellsnes peninsula and National Park. We continued to enjoy warm, sunny, clear weather with little to no breeze. We passed over a dozen waterfalls during the day, but stopped to photograph only one, Kolugjufur Falls in the canyon with the same name.

One of the many stops we made to clean the windshield. There are huge numbers of bugs on Iceland, but, as we learned, no mosquitoes. Except for the windshield, we were rarely bothered.

We stopped at the town of Stykkishholmur to buy gas, clean the windshield and buy shoelaces to replace the shredded ones on my hiking shoes. The car collects so many bugs that we have to stop every 100 or so kilometers to get a clear view.

The charming town of Stkkishholmur at the beginning of the..Snaefellsnes Peninsula

There was a pretty old church and a grand new one as well. The view from the new one was pretty good and we were hungry, so we picnicked on the hillside next to the building.

Stkkishholmur Harbour put the town on the map.

Freshly caught Lump Fish, caught for its popular roe. The fish is not eaten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After leaving the town, we entered the peninsula and park and noticed a change in the scenery. Somehow it was prettier, more interesting and grander. Soon we realized we were driving around the Snaefellsnes Glacier, which had created the peninsula, and the massive amount of fallout from it.

Snaefells Glacier. Beautiful from all sides.

The mountains nearby were beautiful, the beaches were large and black, the lava fields were huge and moss covered and the cliffs along the ocean were full of squawking and nesting birds.

Kirkjufell Mountain.

We stopped at Kirkjufell Mountain standing tall and barren directly out of the beach. Further along the road, we stopped to walk to a large black sand beach and later, at Arnarstapi camp ground, to walk along stunning, bird filled cliffs.

Black sand beach. I should say small pebbles rather than sane. Looks better than it feels.

The sun was just right to get some nice close ups of mothers and their chicks.

Stretch of road around Snaefellsnes National Park.

Cliffs at Arnastapi Camp ground. Lots of Arctic Terns. Finally got a photo of one.

Arctic Tern flying over Arnarstapi cliffs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark was exhausted from the nine hours of being in the car, including our few stops.

Hotel Budir. A very nice place. Our room was on the top floor with a view of the mountain.

Famous black church at Budir, next to the Hotel Budir. Could see it out our side window.

 

 

 

The Hotel Burdir came none too soon. Still in the Park, it is set on a bluff and has a commanding view of the area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lovely spot for our last night on the road. We had delicious green salads, lamb for me and cod for Mark.

Lamb dinner. A popular dish in Iceland.

A cod dinner. The other common dish in Iceland. We are tired of both.

Not much variety in the menus of most places. Good though. Although not late, Mark crashed early and I am about to stop writing.

 

 

 

We have one more day in Iceland. We changed our tour called “Inside the Glacier” from noon to 10am so we can get to Reykjavik in time to see a few sights that we lost by missing our first day. It means getting up early tomorrow. So, good night.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (4)

North Coast and Akureyri

July 24, 2017 – 2:43 am

July 23, 2017

Hotel Laxa in Myvatn. Roof is sod as are many in Iceland. Distant crater is the one we hiked.

We have slowed down a lot and it feels good. Did not leave the hotel until 10am with another beautiful warm day to enjoy. We drove through another large green valley dotted with farms and plastic covered hay bales. As the cultivated areas give way to hillside, planted trees can be found in many areas.

 

Small forest planted by one woman over several years in the 70’s and 80’s. Common scene.

I wondered about them and have learned that a tree planting program began in the 70’s and millions of trees have been planted since then by school kids, farmers and house wives. At first they were planted in tidy rows until people realized how bad that looked and started planting them randomly. The older trees are the ones we can see in rows and they are 40+ years old. The majority of trees are sitka spruce, Alaskan cotton wood, Russian larch and lodgepole pine. Birch, the only indigenous tree, was wiped out by the Vikings who used it for construction and heating. It is rare to find birch today. Willow is abundant as a shrub, but rarely grows into a tree. The forests we have seen are relatively small, but with mixed varieties of trees.

People are continuing to plant trees wherever there is uncultivated soil, especially on hillsides. We met a farmer today who pointed to the hillside above his house and told us his 68 year old mother planted every one of them years ago and is very proud of her effort. He said she planted many more than we see. Unfortunately, not all of them survive, so there are bare spots in her forest, which explains why we see bare spots in most forests we see from the road.

Godafoss, another large and popular waterfall near the highway.

Godafos from the other side of the river.

We have driven counter-clockwise around the country and are now in North Iceland. Our first stop of the day was…. you guessed it…..another waterfall. This one is called Godafoss. By now you have probably noticed that every waterfall name ends in “foss”, which means “waterfall”. The story is that this particular foss was in the territory of an important Viking Chieftain, who in 1000 AD, made the decision to convert all his people to Christianity. He gathered all his pagan statues and symbols and threw them into the falls. Thus the name, God’s Falls. The slightly horseshoe shape of the falls reminds me a bit of Niagara Falls. This is a very popular tourist stop. There were bus loads of people arriving frequently. Today, many seemed to be French. Other days many have been Asians. We see occasional Americans, but so far, not in big groups.

Roadside scenery

From the falls, we had no other planned stops until reaching Akureyri, the second largest city in Iceland, about 40km away. So we took our time and enjoyed the scenery.

A farm house reflected in a lake.

We had been hoping to see a farm machine bailing and wrapping hay, but had had no luck until we passed a farm with one sitting in the yard. We drove in and, happily, the farmer was near the machine. We introduced ourselves and asked if we could watch it working. Unfortunately, the machine, called a Uniwrap, needs some repair and the farmer, Christian, was waiting for the repairman to fix it.

Christian, a farmer with his Uniwrap machine.

He said we could come back later and watch. We said we would try to do that. By the way, it was his mother. who planted the trees I mentioned above. Within a 10 minutes we were at the end of the Fjord where Akureyri sits. It seemed like a charming place, but as we drove into town we could not miss the huge passenger ship docked at the harbor. It must have held 5,000 people and looked like it would double the population of the town.

The approach to Akureyri.

We were too early to check into the Hotel Kea, so we parked and walked around the delightful little town. Ate a famous SS hot dog we had been told to try. It was ok, but unimpressive. Maybe it wasn’t as good as reputed because we bought it from a street vendor. The weather was so perfect that everyone wanted to be outdoors.

The walking street in downtown Akureyri, Iceland’s second largest city. Hard to find a place to sit.

We finally found empty seats at an outdoor cafe and ordered a beer to wash down the dogs. Next thing you know, we were talking with a couple at the next table, who turned out to be from Michigan and had just returned an hour before from a morning flight to Grimsey Island, where they saw thousands of nesting Puffins and had a “fantastic” experience.

Steps, immediately next to our hotel, that climb to the Lutheran church.

We had driven by the airstrip as we entered town and got so excited about the prospect of an airplane ride and seeing Puffins that we shortened our conversation with the couple and hurried back to our hotel to have the front desk clerk see if she could get us a booking. We hoped to go this afternoon, but the best we could do was noon tomorrow. That means we will hang out in Akureyri in the morning, fly to Grimsey at 12:35, get there at 1:05, spend 2 hours wandering around the island looking at Puffins and depart at 3:05 and get back to Akureyri at 3:35. Then Mark will drive pretty fast to our stop for tomorrow night. There is a fair amount to see along the way that may have to be skipped. For us the choice was easy. We will fly to Grimsey Island and visit Puffins.

Locals enjoying the Botanical Garden in the sunshine. The temp got to 27 c, a rare event.

With so much excitement we forgot all about going back to watch the farmer. Maybe we can do that in the morning. Having checked in, we went back to walking around town. First we walked up several levels of steps immediately adjacent to our hotel to see the local Lutheran church.

A large columbine in full flower.

Mark saw a billboard advertising a classical concert at 5pm and we decided to try to get back for it. In a short time we were in the Botanical Gardens meandering around the multitude of blooming plants. I especially liked the huge columbine plants, that are twice as tall as the largest ones we have at home.

These front yard peonies, reminded me of my mother. Her peonies flourished too.

From the gardens, where many locals were taking advantage of the warm day, we continued walking to the also famous ice cream store called Brynja. We waited in line and selected soft ice cream in a waffle cone with walnut sprinkles for me and chocolate ice cream for Mark. I thought mine was good, but Mark could not get excited about soft ice cream. That is all there was with dozens of sprinkle options that could be blended into the ice cream and served in a cup rather than a cone.

Waiting in line at the ice cream shop.

After a short rest in our room, which is truly in the heart of town, and a hike back up the 100+ steps to the church, we were right on time for the 5pm concert, which included an organ, cello and baritone singer performing works by Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Bach, Saint Saens and others including Icelandic compositions. It was a joyful hour of beautiful music. Then we crossed the street to the Rub 23 Restaurant recommended by our hotel.

The pipe organ inside the Lutheran church. The organist made it sing more sweetly than I have ever heard an organ sound.

In addition to delicious reindeer and sushi appetizers, we shared an amazing platter of fresh fish, salad and, for Mark, pork belly. We walked through another part of town after dinner and were back in the room in time to hear the ship give three blasts and pull out of the harbor. Maybe there will be fewer people around tomorrow.

The trio included Andreas Schmidt, the baritone, Inga Ingolfsdottir, the cellist and her husband, Horour Askelsson, the organist.

In bed at 11pm, even though it is still light outside. It does not get completely dark during mid summer in Iceland. Tonight the air is warm and windless.  Several of you have sent very nice comments and I thank you for them.  There is not enough time to respond individually, so I hope you will understand that your remarks reach us and we enjoy reading them.  Do ask more questions.  When I  receive questions, I make an effort to learn and report the answer.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (1)

From East to North Coast and Inland

July 23, 2017 – 2:48 am

July 22, 2017

Now I will write about July 21st. It feels better to be back in sequence. I was getting myself confused. Hope it did not disturb you.

As we climbed up the hill from the Sifurberg Country Resort, actually a small guesthouse, we were immediately engulfed in fog with a temp of 11c, until we were over the hill and down in the next valley. The temp rose to 15c and then by noon it was 18c. Very comfortable.

Icelanders buying vegetables. Not so plentiful and varied, but adequate.

We stopped to buy gas and lunch things in the small town of Egilsstadir and then began what is called the “Diamond Circle” loop enroute to Lake Myvatn.

Rjukandi Falls

Right away we came upon a large waterfall beside the road and stopped with a bunch of other tourists to see it. While hiking up to the view point we met up with two couples from Isreal, who offered to take our photo. We had a pleasant change and I learned how to add captions to the bottom of photos. Nice trick. The falls are called Rjukandi.
Then we headed for the first stop of the Diamond Circle, Dittifoss waterfall.  It is considered the largest falls in Europe with a volume over 400 cubic meters per second. It is small compared to Niagara Falls which is 212,000 cubic feet per second. You do the conversion. It was a good hike to get to the falls and they were well worth the effort. The path was crowded with people coming

Dettifoss waterfall. Largest volume waterfall in Europe.

and going. About a kilometer down the road we cam on a much smaller falls below Dittifoss, called Hafragilsfoss. To get to Dittifoss we have traveled 28km on a dirt road and we continue another 30km on dirt to get to the next stop, a canyon called Asbyrgi, which was very interesting and difficult to photograph.

Sitting next to Dettifoss.

It is a huge box canyon created by a volcanic eruption and massive flooding that moved through the are in 2-3 days eons ago. Amazing how scientists can figure these things out.

On a separate note, we both have noticed and commented on road and driving conditions. First, all the roads are narrow, with no shoulders. Most are paved and in good condition. Gravel roads are in good shape for what they are. There are so few trees that it is easy to see long distances and pass as often as needed. Speed limits tend to be low, and Mark exceeds them much of the time. So far we have seen only one cop and he was busy with someone else. The most curious thing is that we see many cars and lots of people at every tourist attraction, but when we pull out onto the road there are almost no cars and we can travel quickly. This has been the case every day and we are still wondering how they all get from place to place.

Mark in his clean, dry zodiac suit.

The third stop is Husavik, a harbor town known as the whale watching capital of Iceland. We got there in time to have a late lunch of fish and chips. Yep, I finally ate some cod. Must admit it was barely breaded and very tasty. At 4pm we showed up for our next zodiac ride. This time, the weather was sunny and warm, the sea calm, the zodiac large and well appointed and the program well organized.

Our waiting zodiac in Husavik Harbor. 12 seats are 2 abreast down the center. We straddle a seat like riding a horse and use our legs to grip. There is even a back rest.

We did climb into similar suits as on the iceberg trip, but these suits were clean and dry. Our experience was positive even before we started. Twelve of us climbed into the zodiac with a boat man and a guide, who spoke to us over an inboard speaker system. We could all hear every word he said. Lovely.

One of many Humpback sightings.

Mark and I managed to be in the front this time and were happy to be there. Although the driver did speed out to Puffin Island, we did not get a drop of water on us. We, of course, were supposed to see Puffins around the island and they were certainly flying everywhere. However, they were so small we could hardly make them out.

Beginning a deep dive.

Even when they were floating on the water, we could not get close enough to them to get a decent photo. We were not allowed to approach the island where 100,000 of them are nesting. We learned they can dive up to 60 feet deep to catch fish, but to do that they are built for swimming, not flying.

The surface finish to a deep dive.

They mate for life, lay only one egg per season, live at sea the first 5 years of their lives before returning to land to mate. They have hooks in their beaks to hold up to 45 fish. Sorry, I was not able to get even one good shot.

Another sighting.

After 20 minutes of “puffing around”, we turned our attention to humpback whales and had much better success. I will share several photos. Our guide thought we actually saw only 4-5 whales, but we saw each of them several times. No matter, we were happy to get so much time with them.

Flukes up. Looking for the perfect finish.

After 2.5 hours in the bay, we finally returned to the dock, thanked our boat driver and guide and headed for Hotel Laxa in Lake Myvatn. Mark had driven 377 kilometers in 5 hours and 15 minutes. A long day filled with great activity and sights.

My best fluke finish.

Hotel Laxa is quite large and take in bus loads of people. The dining room was filled with long tables set for crowds. Fortunately, we ate early at the head waiter’s suggestion and escaped the crush. We have a nice corner room with windows in two directions and a lovely view. There is room for our bags, but still no place to sit. We happily went to bed early, so no need to sit.

My favorite shot.  Had enough.

This morning we woke to a beautiful clear, sunny and warm day. The best day yet by far. The temp got up to 23c by mid afternoon and the sky stayed clear, sunny and warm all day. As we are staying in the same hotel tonight, driving will be at a minimum. Nice for Mark.

Hotel Laxa in Myvatn. Roof is sod as are many in Iceland. Distant crater is the one we hiked.

Lake Myvatn is located at the edge of the interior of Iceland, is pretty rural and has many lava, geothermal and natural features to hike and photograph. We settled on a few that sounded appealing to us and quite early.

The hotel surprised us by refusing to do our laundry, and the sink was so small we could not use it for laundry.   So our first stop was to the laundromat. It is located in a pretty, grass-covered, terraced camp ground. Camp receptionist instructions. Leave the bag of dirty things. Get your clean clothes in 4 hours. That was easy.

Krafla caldera with a small Viti crater and turquoise colored water.

Off we went to the Krafla caldera to see a volcanic crater with an opaque teal green lake. Just down the hill from the crater was a thermal power plant that was open to visitors. We met the guide, Susie, who had us watch a short video and then showed us the two turbine.

The Danish power station guide, Susie.

She was very charming and we ended up having a good discussion about land ownership and family feuds. According to her, most of the rural land is privately held by farming families with too many owners after many generations. If one member does not want to do something, nothing gets done.

The warm water shower near the power station.  An interesting novelty.

She used the example of out houses built for public use on private land. One family member can force the closure of the toilet, even if the other members want to keep it open. The public need does not count. Thus we see “out of order” toilets around. Interesting problem. Other toilet issues include people using them to clean their shoes after walking in mud. All outdoor bathrooms we have seen have flush porcelain toilets that empty into septic tanks. Just near the power station was an outdoor shower that constantly sprayed warm water. That would be a good place to clean one’s shoes.

Hiking up Hverfjall crater.

Looking inside Hverfjall cone crater. Seen at a distance in the photo of the hotel.

We made a quick stop at Namaskard Pass to look at a bumbling black mud pot. The place pales in comparison to Yellowstone so off we went to hike up to the top of Hverfjall, a huge tephra (volcanic ash) cone crater overlooking the whole area. It was very desolate looking, but we climb a steep hill to see it anyway. We had planned, once at the top, to walk around it, but having seen that the inside was just as desolate, and “boring” as Mark put it, as the outside, we took a few pix and hiked back down.

A Myvatn area scene including a grass covered volcanic hill, rough lava on the valley floor and ash hills in the background.

Nearby was the most popular sight, Dimmuborgir. It is a huge lava field with formations that inspire creative imagery. There are hiking trails with a wide range of difficulty. We chose a medium trail and enjoyed the dense vegetation that has grown up in and around the lava formations as much as the unusual formations.

Fanciful lava formation along the Dimmuborgir hiking trail. The name means “Dark Castles”.

Bus loads of tourists all in huge groups was too much for us. Off we went to find a quiet place for our picnic. We found a spot called Hofdi that had wooded trails leading to and around a river basin and a small car park. We grabbed our food and started walking.

The lush and lovely wooded forest we walked through to find a lunch spot.

What a pretty place-narrow wooded trail-pretty trees-purple and yellow flowers-crystal clear water, lava formations left alone in their spender and us. Having driven around the lake and completed the plan we set for ourselves, Mark dropped me off at the hotel and went to get the clean clothes. I spent the rest of the day catching up on the blog.

Lovely woodland flowers.

For dinner we drove half way around the lake to a place called Vogafjos Cowshed Cafe. Susie had recommended it to us. What a delight. The restaurant is attached to a dairy. We watched, through a glass wall, the cows being milked while we waited for our dinner.

Our lunch spot. Lava formations everywhere.

Apparently the woman milking the cows, with what looked like very modern equipment, owns the whole property including the restaurant and a guest house next door. Very creative way to make a living. Our waitress told us the restaurant is packed every night even in winter. As we happened to be there during milking time, we were treated to a small cup of fresh warm milk. Delicious.

Headed to dinner at Susie’s suggestion.

Good night.  Sweet dreams.

Cows waiting to be milked

The property owner milking her cows while we watch through a window.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (2)

Backtracking to the South Coast

July 22, 2017 – 11:19 am

July 22, 2017

Although I wrote about the East Coast in my last post, I must catch you up with what happened on the 19th, while still on the South Coast. We experienced another foul weather day.  Left the hotel in misty conditions.  The mounded moss we could see on the lava beside the road was 2-3 inches thick, like the moss on trees at the ranch in winter.

Hiking up to see Fjardrargljufur canyon.

We stopped at Fjardrargljufur canyon and hiked up to the ridge in the rain.  It was a lovely sight and worth a photo.

Fjardrargljufur canyon on the South Coast

In spite of the rain and wind, the temp is a mild 13c.  All along the road, with North Atlantic Ocean on the right and volcanic mountains on the left, we saw dozens of tall waterfalls, full from the heavy rain.  Spotted one unhappy couple with their car tipped off the road.  Couldn’t resist taking a photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of many waterfalls on the South Coast.

 

 

 

 

This is one way to get a closer look at a waterfall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Svinafellsjokull glacier. We walked to the toe. Small lake had formed there.

By late morning the rain let up and we could see sun peaking through the clouds to light up Svinafellsjokull Glacier.  We were able to walk to the toe of the glacier without getting wet.  Yeah!

 

Another shot of the glacier.

 

 

Mark on the zodiac in Jokularson lagoon.

Made it to our appointment at a place called Jokulsarlon for a zodiac boat ride to see ice bergs and the toe of another glacier in the lagoon.  We were issued “dry suits” that were soaked inside and out by previous users earlier in the day.  Smelly and dirty, they were better than the best thing available.  We dragged ourselves into them and waited for the other 10 people to get ready.  At 4:25 we all walked to the lagoon beach and climbed into our zodiac.  Mark and I ended up in the back of the craft and got splashed with lots of water as the driver went fast to reach the ice bergs.

Viewing an iceberg from a zodiac.

We looked at a few and then he really speeded up for a good couple miles to the toe of the glacier.  He slowed down again so we could try to get photos.  He said it might calve during the 10 minutes we were there.  Hmmm.   The boat was rocking every which way in the rough water.

Toe of Jokulsarlon glacier.

Sure seemed like the ocean to me.  Thankfully, our iPhones are water resistant so I took photos with reckless abandon.  Dumped a bunch later.  The lady next to me had to keep her good Nikon covered.  Bet she was not happy.

 

Recently calved Iceberg.

Then we blasted back to the dock so the next bunch of unfortunates could “slip” into our suits.  I was sure glad to be back in the car after that adventure.  On the black sand   between the lagoon and the ocean we found some ice laying around that made interesting photos.  The place is appropriately called Ice Cube Beach.

Ice Cube Beach. Very interesting.

We drove directly to our hotel for the night, Hotel Smyrlabjorg, and took long hot showers.  Mark had driven over 300km in over 5 hours.  Most days have been similar or even longer.

An ice cube on the beach.

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (3)

The East Coast – a bit of everything

July 20, 2017 – 5:19 pm

July 20, 2017

We stopped for the day at 4:30 in a small place called Silfurberg Country Resort in the Breiddalur valley in eastern Iceland. The setting is lovely and the place spotless, but very small. There is no room for our bags and no chair to sit in. Strictly a sleeping space and a small bathroom. Fortunately there is a living room sitting area and an outdoor hot tub near our room. I want to write about today before I forget things. I will write about the 19th when I can.

This morning we left the Smyrlabjorg Hotel and drove east into the east Iceland Fjords. The day started out a pleasant 14c under a pale blue sky. We even felt comfortably warm, especially after the deluge we suffered all day yesterday. Except for yesterday, we have had reasonably good weather in the low to mid 50’s with clear to overcast skies and little precipitation. However, light to heavy breezes seem to follow us everywhere. So in addition to along sleeved shirt, a vest and, often, a fleece, I have needed my wind breaker. Mark is wearing long pants everyday, not his usual get up, as well as a vest and sometimes his wind breaker. As usual, I brought way too many things. If I ever return to the same place, I will know what to do next time.

Th soil left from a receding glacier makes for good farm land.

A farm in an ideal setting.

Shortly after leaving the hotel, we saw more glaciers.  At one point we could count 4 at a glance.  All  are in retreat with lush pastures and farmhouses between them and the sea.

 

 

 

We drove to the small, ocean side town of Hofn to find a post office. After sending a few post cards, we drove out to the point and enjoyed the view and the calm air. From there we drove 250km through the scarcely populated, stark, yet beautiful, even spectacular scenes along the East Fjords of Iceland. As we drove along the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in. So much for our sunny day. We were grateful there was only a few sprinkles. The clouds made for some interesting photos.

About 11am we drove off the highway to a place called Viking Cafe. They sold coffee and tickets to visit a nearby aging film set for a “sometime in the future” Hollywood movie about the Vikings. The ticket was also an entry fee for the private reserve and black sand beach. The Viking film set was curiously interesting as it was quite different than the reconstructed Viking home we saw earlier.

Viking Cafe. Have a coffee and pay to see the film set for a Viking movie to be made sometime in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Movie set buildings for an intended future film about Vikings.  Hope it happens.  Id like to see it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we drove out to a lighthouse overlooking a long black sand beach to take photos and nearly got swept away, with gusts up to 30-35mph. Our picnic lunch was an ocean side, in-the-car affair with cheese, crackers, sardines and water. Really exiting. Cracker crumbs everywhere.   At least we did not spill the sardines. I suggested we buy something different for the next lunch and Mark suggested we stop at a restaurant. Novel idea, if we can find one on these lonely roads. At one point we drove through a tunnel that made a constant turn to the left for about 1km. We stopped several times for stunning scenery.  Occasional farms along the coast were photogenic too.

A huge black sand beach during a windy day.

 

 

Fog on the mountain looks live a crashing wave.

An awesome scene from our day on the East Coast of Iceland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-afternoon we reached a small village called Breiddalsvik. As we drove around the village, we realized that the wind had died down and the sky was clearing. A lady in a local hotel, gave us directions to a waterfall we wanted to see before reaching our hotel for the night. She told us the the East Coast often has high winds.

 

Mid-afternoon we reached a small village called Breiddalsvik. As we drove around the village, we realized that the wind had died down and the sky was clearing.

Beljandi Waterfall. Not so grand, but very pretty with lupine growing along its banks. Near our hotel for the night.

A lady in a local hotel, gave us directions to a waterfall we wanted to see before reaching our hotel for the night. She told us the the East Coast often has high winds and to look for better weather tomorrow.  Hope she is right.

The Beljandi Waterfall was in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road. Good thing we had directions. It was very different from the other falls we have seen in Iceland, but very sweet. No high hills, just a broad low land waterfall. A half hour later we pulled into the Silfurberg Country Resort. Once a large sheep farm, it has been converted into a 5 unit guest house. The couple who own it are very friendly and answered a number of my questions about Icelandic farms. We learned that all horses in Iceland are Icelandic horses. No new horses are allowed into the country and no horse that leaves, can come back. Apparently the horses stay healthy that way. They originally arrived as small horses with the Vikings in the 8th and 9th centuries and have been bred to be strong and long lived, Icelandic sheep are also very hardy. They get sheared twice a year regardless of the weather and do fine. By the way, winter in Iceland is not as cold as you might expect. It rarely gets below freezing and animals do very well outdoors. Now for the truth about the bales of hay. Our first informer was a 16 year old boy. Now we have the word from an elderly seasoned farmer. The color of the plastic around the bale makes no difference in the hay. Yes, pink and blue represent charitable donations. Otherwise, the grss is cut and spread on the ground for a day or two to dry out. Then it is baled and wrapped with plastic in one operation. The baled and wrapped hay remains fresh for up to two years.

Before dinner we had some Oban scotch Mark had purchased at the Duty Free.  Been nipping on it most every evening.  Enjoyed a delightful home made lamb dinner. Sat in the outdoor hot tub for awhile and are now in bed writing and reading.  The WiFi here is very slow.  Hope this get to you soon.  God bless you all,  Julia

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (2)

The South Coast-waterfalls, lava history and rain

July 19, 2017 – 5:12 pm

Near the end of the red trail in the highlands, we came upon this crystal clear, icy blue pond.

Butter cups in a highland wetland.

July 19, 2017

Am still playing catch up from July 17 and 18.  Found a couple more from our hike in the highlands that I want to share.  Near the end of our hike we came upon this glacier pond with turquoise ice and crystal clear, sweet water.

At the bottom of the hike I saw a patch of spring flowers I could not resist.

 

 

 

 

Now for yesterday, July 18,

We had enjoyed three mostly clear, even sunny days until we woke up to rain on the 18th.  We were grateful for the good weather during the days we had so much hiking and felt ok as we knew we would be under cover most of the time.

Seljalandsfoss. The popular falls that people can walk behind.

 

First stop was a popular waterfall, called Seljalandsfoss (60 meter drop), as it is possible to walk behind it and catch the view from there.  Many, like a 100 or more, people were lined up in a driving rain to do just that.  We watched awhile from the car and gave the walk a pass.   Lovely falls, even from a distance.

Next stop was the brand new (opened 2 weeks) Lava Center.  It is state of the art with wonderfully interactive displays in different darkened rooms.  In one room we could feel the intensity f specific large quakes that have taken place in Iceland.  In another the walls were backlit with the different major eruptions in Icelandic history.  Step on a spot in the room and one of them lights up with details about the event.  Point at a dot on the wall and more information lights up.  Very educational and fun too.

Lave Center display. Stand on a spot and point to a dot for more information.

People enjoying the interactive display, which is on three walls in the darkened room.

There was so much to learn and the learning was so much fun that we stayed for 2 hours.   Let it rain.

Then there was an older exhibit down the road called Eyjafjallajokull erupts.  It is about a big eruption in 2010 that caused a huge amount of damage, especially to the people who lived in the farms nearby.  One of the families set up a visitor center to help recover their costs.   We were shown a well done documentary about the event and the effects it had on their family and farm.  Afterward, we passed by their farm and took a photo.   You can see the farm layout even through the bad weather.  We saw farms like this one all through the South Coast.  They placed the buildings up against the mountain, well back from the ocean.   Several generations all live on the farm, which explains the multiple buildings.

The Porvaldseyri family farm near their visitor center.

As we continued east we came upon Skogarfoss waterfall.  It is one of the largest in the country at 25 meters wide with a 60 meter drop.  We did not have to get out of the car to see this one either.  How nice!!  It was still very blustery and hard to see through the windshield.

 

Skogarfoss waterfall. One of the largest in Iceland.

We pulled off to the side of the road and made lunch from fixings we are carrying.  Too miserable to get out of the car.  Still, we saw several more waterfalls.  They are everywhere along the edge of the mountain as we pass along the south side of the range.

By  2:30 we arrived at a nature reserve called Dyrholaey.  It is up on a bluff overlooking the coast.  Unfortunately, the view was pea soup when we got there, so no coast.   Back on the highway, we passed through the little town of Viking and were shortly at our lodging, the Hotel Katla.

A pretty waterfall dressed with flowers.

Another waterfall. This one blowing in the wind.

 

We rested for a few hours and drove back into Vik for dinner at the Berg Restaurant.  This time the food was reasonable, not great.  Guess it can’t be great all the time.

It is time to stop, even though I have not reported about today yet.  Maybe I will continue to be a day behind.  Need to get to bed.  Mark is snoring away.

 

 

 

 

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (1)

A day in the Landmannalauger Highlands

July 19, 2017 – 12:20 am

Heading out to the Blue Mountain Volcano. It is the mound on the right. The one on the left is 50,000 years old and the middle one is 10,000 years old. The cavern volcano has been dormant for only 4700 years.

The small opening above. The cage was built to fit.

An interesting iron formation in the volcano cavern.

Rising out of the volcano.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 18, 2017

For those of you who wanted more info on the volcano on the 16th, it is called the Blue Mountain Volcano.  The colorful walls are made of iron, copper and sulphur that oxidize into the many colors you see.

Hay fields with covered bales. White and green plastic is usual for cows, sheep and goats. Black to warm horse fodder. Pink and blue plastic, when used, is purchased as a donation to cancer research.

Typical low land scenery with grass, water courses and volcanic hills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty bridge along the way

 

 

The next day, yesterday, July 17th,  we headed out early on a round trip adventure to the highlands, an area called Landmannalaugar.  Near sea level, where we started, the land was lush, green and full of recently cut hay all baled and wrapped in plastic material.  We learned that white and green plastic were commonly used for animal fodder, except horses.  Horse fodder is wrapped in black plastic so it will get warmer.  Does it sweat more and get mushy?  If you horse friends know the answer, please tell the rest of us.  Now and then we saw pink and blue plastic and learned that farmers buy plastic in those colors as a donation to cancer research.  I have included a couple more pictures of the landscape to give you a better idea of the place.  Where the ground is level, the soil is lush and creeks and streams are everywhere.  The hill sides are generally volcanic rock.  Gradually we began to climb and the grasses gave way to exposed rock and volcanic ash.  Here and there we saw small forests of planted evergreens.  Here is a small cluster near a charming one lane bridge.  As time goes by there will be more and more forest as there is a push toward environmental consciousness.  For example, we have seen no disposable plastic water bottles.  All the water is potable here, and in Greenland, and is served from glass carafes.

Along the way we stopped at a Viking Chieftain’s farm from circa 950AD.  It has been painstakingly reconstructed from foundation and other materials found under many layers of ash from a huge eruption in 1004.   Think Pompeii.  The structure is sculpted from many layers of sod and requires constant care to keep it from rotting away.   There was also a chapel near the house, as the Vikings converted to Christianity in 1000 AD.  Inside the building were several rooms: an entry chamber for removing working clothes, a large room for sleeping, hanging out and staying warm, a similar, but smaller room for the women to weave and make clothes, a food preparation room, a storage room and a large lavatory with drains along the side walls.  No one bothered with doors or privacy.  In addition to the Chief and his family, there would be workers who lived in the house with the family.  There was not enough room to lay down, so everyone slept sitting up with their clothes on.  Can’t imagine living that way.  There was no running water.  No way to be warm or clean and dry.

The reconstruction of a ninth century Viking Chieftain’s sod home. Created from eleventh century volcanic ash ruins, much like Pompeii.

 

The reconstructed chapel next to the sod house.

The charming Farmer’s daughter, who is studying to be a bio-chemist and works at the Viking farm in the summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main room in the sod house was used for the men to sleep and hang out. The women had a separate room for themselves, weaving and making clothing. A side room was used for cooking and storing food.

Carefully placed sod layers in the walls of the reconstructed house.

 

Very near the Viking house was a small waterfall called Hjalpparfoss.  It flows through solid basalt rock.

Hjalparfoss Waterfall near the reconstructed Viking Chieftain farm.

 

 

 

 

Then we began to climb more until the ground was more dirt and rock than green grass.  When we were almost at the Landmannalaugar camp ground, we saw that we would have to ford a river to get there.  As many cars had already made it, Mark moved ahead and forded the stream without trouble, while others watched and wondered if they could make it.  The alternative was to park and walk across a foot bridge.  We had an all-wheel drive car, so felt confident.

The scenery was spectacular and other worldly.  My photos do not do it justice as we had fairly flat light.    The terrain was extremely rugged and the basalt rocks very sharp.  We hiked only 3 miles on two trails (one delineated by white markers and the other by red ones), but it seemed like more as we had to pick our way carefully to avoid stumbling and the path was not always obvious.  We eventually climbed to an elevation of 2281 feet.  As in the volcano, it was step a few, stop, look around and step a few more.  We started the hike from the parking lot without thinking about getting information, a map, water or anything except our fleece.  We expected a short walk about, but once we got into the trail, we thought it would be shorter to keep going than to retract our steps.  Man were we wrong.  We passed many people going the other way, but they were mostly tourists who spoke little English and did not know much more than we did.  By the time we got back to the car, we were very thirsty and hungry.   Never mind.  It was a very interesting hike that topped out at a large thermal steam vent.  Heading down hill on the red trail, we felt more confident that we were headed in the right direction.  In the camp ground were hundreds of people camping all together in tents, buses, RV’s.  They were mostly European tourists.  We crossed back over the river and looked for a quiet place to picnic, marveling at the scenery we had just experienced.   As we headed out of the highlands we stopped at one more scenic spot, Lpotipollur Crater.  It had the same wonderful colors on the side walls with deep blue water in it.  Reminded me 0f Crater Lake in Oregon only much more colorful.  By the way, in case you are wondering how to pronounce these Icelandic words, I cannot help you.  They are impossible to say even when an Icelander says them slowly.   I have given up trying.   After the crater, we headed for a restaurant by the ocean we had heard served great langoustinos.  It took almost 2 hours to get there from the highlands, but we enjoyed the meal, a good Icelandic beer and headed for the barn, about 2o minutes away.  The rain was just starting as we went to bed.

Driving into the highlands.

Snow remnants in the highlands above 2000 feet.

Very interesting rock formations.

Hiking up the white marker trail into the Landmannalaugar lava fields.

Landmannalaugar – colorful lava and ash fields.

Hiking the red trail through Landmannalaugar

Landmannalaugar – red trail through lava fields

Landmannalaugar-colorful lava fields

Fording the river to depart the Landmannalaugar camp ground.  People on the other side are trying to make up their mind about making the crossing.  Water came up higher on the car than we would have liked on the way in, so Mark took a different line on the way out and we fared well.  Others jumped in their cars to follow suit.

Pjotipollur Crater, another colorful sight.

 

 

 

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (3)

Volcanos, Waterfalls, Divergence, Lava Fields and ……

July 17, 2017 – 6:11 pm

July 17, 2016

It has been a whirlwind since I last had time to write.  We landed in Reykjavik at 7pm, went directly to the Residence Hotel and checked into our B&B room.  The driver waited and then drove us to the Blue Lagoon, 45 minutes out into open countryside, for the hot water soak we missed when we arrived a day late.  There was an ultra modern restaurant with delicious food on site, so we had dinner first and then went to the lagoon on full stomachs.  The water was warm and full of silica and was a chalky color.  We kept our heads above water and moved around on the smooth but uneven ground, some places 5 feet deep, other places shallow enough to sit on the bottom.  The lagoon is very large and freeform in shape.  There were at least 200 people in the water with us.  It is reservation only, so the size of the crowd can be controlled.  A station in the middle had a man offering chalky goop to put on your face.  It was supposed to be a cleanser.  Finally, I got Mark to agree as so many other faces were white too.  We looked silly along with everyone else.  After 10 minutes, we wash that off and put on another layer of green goop that is supposed to be a moisturizer.  I will admit that our faces felt softer once we washed it all off.  After an hour we had had enough with goop and people watching.  We were cleaned up and ready to leave at 10:15pm.  Fortunately, our driver was waiting and returned us to our room.  We happily dove into bed, totally exhausted.

In the cage to descend into the volcano

In the morning, July 16, we were up and out to the Enterprise office to get our rental car.  By 9am, we were headed to our first stop of the day, a tour called “Into the Volcano”.   It was supposed to start at 10am.  We were the first to arrive and learned that the tour, we expected would take 45-50 minutes, would take 3+ hours.  Apparently the time in the volcano takes 45 minutes, but it takes an hour+ to walk the 1.8 miles to the volcano, time to get prepped to go into it, time to eat some soup afterward and time to walk back.

A wall of the volcano on the way to the bottom.

The walk was rocky, the terrain hilly and rough,  but it was good exercise.  Although it was windy, overcast and threatening the sky did not open until just as we entered the warming hut to prep for the trip.  Great luck.  The time in the volcano was a super experience.  The opening was very narrow, but gradually opened up as we descended 400+ feet and was the size of a ball room when we got out at the floor.

Descending in the cage

The lighting was wonderfully done so we could see the colorful walls and walk around the hall without lights in your eyes.  I had a hard time as I couldn’t walk and look without stumbling.  So it was step, stop, stare, step, stop, stare.  Our guide was very knowledgeable and made the tour very interesting.  All too soon we were back on top and eating a delicious lamb and vegetable soup, home-made by the warming hut manager.

We make it to the bottom.

Mark and I dashed back to the car as fast as we could, knowing we still had a long day ahead of us.  Fortunately, the rain had stopped and the sun was parting the clouds.  The rest of the day was sunny and pleasant, if windy.

 

 

 

 

 

A colored stone wall

 

From the volcano, we made a self drive tour of the “Golden Circle”, which is composed of three important sites in Iceland that can be visited in a day from Reykjavik

Our first stop is the Pingvelier National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that encompasses a large lush valley, that for centuries of human settlement has been an important gathering place from the Viking chieftains first meeting on the plain to the Pope’s visit, for the 1100th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity, in 2000.

Mark standing at the divergence of the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. They are separating at a rate of 2mm per year.

It is also the place where people can see how the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates are diverging.  There is also a small, but attractive waterfall called Oxararfoss.  Mark did not want to bother to climb the hill to see it, so I went alone.  I raced along as we still had much more to see.

On the way to the second stop in the Golden Circle, we stopped at at Geothermal spa to buy the recommended “hot spring bread”.  It was still warm from having been underground 24 hours baking.  It is very tasty, moist and dense.  We are still eating it.  The second stop was the Geysir Spouting Spring, where we saw “Stokker” spouting like Old Faithful every few minutes.  Not as impressive as Yellowstone, but nice not to have to wait an hour to get a second chance at a photo.

Stokkur Geysir doing its thing nicely for us.

A short distance passed Stokker, we arrived at the third and final stop on the Golden Circle.  One could almost call it the main event as it is reputed to be one of the 10 most beautiful waterfalls in the world.  It is called Gullfoss and consists of 2 drops of 11 meters and 22 meters for a total of 33 meters.   It has an average flow of 140 cubic meters per second.  It was lovely to see.  Even at 6:15 when we left, there were still people arriving.  Having long hours of daylight sure allows for more activity during the day.

Gullfoss Falls

We arrived about 7:30pm at the Grimsborgir Hotel, our home for the next two nights.  We had another super meal at the hotel dining room, a soak in the hot tub near our room and then to bed.  So far we are pleased with our accommodations and the meals we have been served.   I am doing my best to avoid cod, which I do not like.  One bite of Mark’s cod dinner was enough to confirm my memory.

A selfie with Gullfoss Falls.

Good night.   Another big day is planned for tomorrow.

 

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (9)

Icebergs around Ilulissat, Greenland

July 15, 2017 – 6:02 pm

 

July 14, 2017

You all have asked for more photos so here are some of the best of the day’s take.  The day was all about icebergs around Ilulissat.  There is more to tell than these photos, but I need to go to bed.  Will write more tomorrow.

Walking the boardwalk trail to see the icebergs flowing down Jacobshavns Isfjord.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around the bend and further up the trail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite iceberg formation of the hike. A guide said it had traveled over 100 meters in the last 24 hours while it looked so stationary.

Map of the area showing Jacobshavns Isfjord where the local icebergs flow from the largest glacier in the Northern Hemisphere, Sermeq Kujalleq, “Fast Glacier” in English.

Afternoon “berging” by boat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This formation looked like a squirrel and its hole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A colorful formation appears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lovely turquoise ice reflects in the sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saw birds resting only on this iceberg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Humpback whale swam with us for awhile. This was the most exposure it gave us.  Glad I got it. A super bonus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This berg looks like Half Dome.

The shine on the ice gives an indication of how fast it is melting.

Heading back to town, Ilulissat is most charming from the sea.

The local Lutheran Church, dwarfed by two large apartment complexes. behind.

The Ilulissat Hospital

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 15, 2017

We are in the air flying over Greenland back to Iceland. The ice cap below us is 3000 meters thick and is the highest point in the country. The cap is so heavy that the ground underneath it has been sinking for eons. Melting glaciers on the west coast are causing the land there to rise—very slowly. The currents on the east side are very cold and flow south, while the currents on the west are warmer and flow north. There is very little settlement on the east side due to the cold air, sea and snow and rough terrain. Settlements are plentiful all along the west coast, including Nuuk, the capital in the southwest. The southern part of the island was occupied by the Vikings between the 800’s and 1200’s.

Remember Eric the Red. Turns out he was not lying about the place being green as I had been told. During those years Vikings settled the area and raised cattle, sheep, and other food products. They never traveled north so did not encounter the Inuit, who did not travel south. By the 1200’s the climate had changed and become much colder. Those Viking who did not die, moved away, just as the Inuit, who liked the colder climes moved south. Thus the two cultures never met of mixed. The Danes did not arrive until the late 1700’s.

Our time in Ilulissat was delightful. The weather was warm and sunny our first day, sunny and a bit cooler yesterday and overcast and cool today. No rain, no freezing temps. While there we managed two good hikes along the glacier fields of Jacobshavns Isfjords, a very pleasant boat ride among the icebergs flowing out of the glacier, during which we saw many icebergs, a humpback whale and had a long conversation with the boat captain, who happens to be the German step father of the Sri Lankan waitress who served us lunch the day before. No wonder the girl was so charming. Her step dad was very engaging and knowledgeable about the area, having lived in Greenland for 30 years. HIs Sri Lankan wife owns the Inuit Cafe we enjoyed so much and her daughter, due to her eclectic family background, speaks 5 languages: Danish, English, Greenlandic, Sri Lankin and German. What a rich heritage. Makes me wonder how many other people in the area have such interesting backgrounds.

Ilulissat, Greenlandic for “Icebergs”, lies slightly north of the 66th parallel, which demarks the Arctic Circle and the land of the Midnight Sun.

Midnight sun on Ilulissat from our room.

So we had no darkness while there, but slept fine anyway. Too tired to notice. I included photos of Ilulissat, our hikes and the boat ride to give you a fuller picture of our experience.  Here are a couple more from our second hike the next morning.

 

Mark on the path of our second fjord hike.

Although the town is small, the place is very hilly so we got a lot of exercise walking around. We visited the local museum, which showed the history of the Inuit people who have lived in the area for centuries. We saw the oldest building in Ilulissat dating from 1741 and built by Jacob Severin, who received permission from the Danish King to developed a trade monopoly with the Inuit. We saw the largest fish processing plant in Greenland next to the harbor and learned that halibut gravitate to the area and are very plentiful, along with cold-water shrimp. As we wandered around and chatted with people we learned that native residents speak Greenlandic and most also speak Danish, but little English. Danish transplants all speak English, including a number of college age Danes in town for summer jobs. We had no trouble communicating.

Map showing the retreat of the Sermeq Kujalleq Glacier since 1850.

Out on the boat, our captain shared a lot about the life of the glacier and the fjords. The glacier is named Sermeq Kujalleq, which means “Fast Glacier” in English. It is the largest and most productive glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. Jacobshavns Isfjords refers to the flow of Icebergs from the glacier. It has been in recorded retreat since 1850. During the last forty years it went from retreating 22 meters per day up to 40 meters by 2011. Since then it has slowed down, but it is not known why. Also, the icebergs were twice as large when he first arrived in the area and are not getting smaller.

Icebergs that have smashed together on the shallow ground near the mouth of the fjord. Slowly they will work their way to deeper water and pull apart.

The icebergs at the mouth of the glacier field get bunched into a large mass as they scrape the bottom of the shallow inlet and get stuck until enough pressure pushes them into deeper water. When jagged bergs become top heavy, they will roll over and expose their smooth bottom. When this happens they create a small tsunami that can capsize small boats that happen to be nearby.

An iceberg that has flipped over exposing its smooth bottom.

Since the glacier has been in retreat since long before global warming became an issue, he is inclined to believe that the forces of nature have played a larger role than anything else. There is evidence, he said, that the glacier has gained and retreated several times during the last 10,000 years.  As far as we can tell, there are no trees on Greenland.

There is only a tiny bit of soil, with mosses and small alpine-like plants covering the volcanic rock and large exposed granite boulders, which blew out of the earth during the many volcanic explosions.  We saw a couple of cemeteries that looked like dirt had been brought in to make graves.

A cemetery on a rocky hillside. It looked like dirt was brought in to build the graves.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (4)

First stop, Ilulissat, Greenland

July 13, 2017 – 7:14 pm

July 14, 2017

After 2 hours on Alaskan Air from Sacramento to Seattle, a 2 hour layover there, and 7 hours on Iceland Air, we passed through the old, extremely crowded, Reykjavik International Airport at 0630 on July 13th and met our driver, who had our documents, but knew nothing about our itinerary. She did talk about points of interest we passed and told us that the population of Iceland is 340,000, that the country is 75% Lutheran and that part of people’s taxes go to support the church. If you don’t want your tax money to go to the church, you can direct it to education. No other choices. Iceland gained its independence from Denmark in 1944. Just a few things you can learn during a 40 minute transport drive. Soon she deposited us at the Domestic Terminal, which was totally empty.

Our onward flight was still 2 hours away. And to think we would have been luxuriating in the thermal waters of the Blue Lagoon by then, if it had not been for the date snafu. “Stay cool” I reminded myself. In our documents was a cell phone for us to use while on this trip. So I made a local call to the woman Lance’s family nicknamed “Icy”, when she stayed with them 30 years ago as a 19 year old Rotary exchange student. Her real name is Gudgborg, but no one could pronounce it properly. She was expecting my call as we had been in contact planning a visit. She helped me make a new plan to visit the Blue Lagoon when we return from Greenland and we confirmed a date to get together for dinner.

East Coast of Greenland

The sky in Reykjavik was solid overcast with very low visibility, and grey dreariness. Once in the air and away from Iceland, the sky cleared and we had a lovely flight across Greenland to Ilulissat on the west coast. Greenland is 81% Ice-capped.

 

Glacier paths visible near east coast of Greenland

Once we passed over the volcanic peaks with glaciers coursing down them to the ocean, the inland area was totally white with snow cover that appeared flat to gently rolling. As much as I wanted to close my eyes to nap, I could not keep from staring out the window and snapping photos. The flight took 3+ hours in a slow 37 pax plane. Greenland is only 5 hours ahead of home, while Iceland is 7 hours ahead, so we arrived only one hour after leaving Reykjavik. Wish that made me less tired.

Icebergs on Greenland’s west coast

So how did this inhospitable ice and snow covered island get its name? Turns out a ninth century Viking Chieftain, called Eric the Red, wanted to populate the island and increase his authority, so to promote the place he called it “Green” Land. People from Scandinavia believed what he told them, came and got marooned there. His marketing scheme worked…sort of. The population, after many centuries, is only 57,000 and shrinking. Danish colonization began in the18th century and Greenland was made an integral part of Denmark in 1953. In 1979 the island was granted limited self governance. The Greenlanders voted for increased self-rule in 2008. Denmark continues to exercise control over foreign affairs, security and financial policy.

Mark an Julia at enter Ilulissat air terminal

Shortly after landing we met a young man who told us he was from Chester, California, only 30 minutes by air from Grass Valley. After telling him we visited Chester only a few days ago, we were launched into conversation. He is a Producer for National Geographic and enroute to a NASA base in far north Greenland. We hopped a ride with him and his partner to The Arctic Hotel about 2 kilometers from the airport. Although the hotel, which overlooks the town and harbor, looked very pleasant as we checked in, we were denied the pleasure of a room. It was not ready. Bummer. What to do? So we walked into town to check it out and find a place to get some lunch.

Ilulissat Harbor – Iceberg in background

The town is really a village of about 5,000 souls. The buildings are all colorfully painted and perched on treeless volcanic hills that overlook the perfectly protected natural harbor, which is full of fishing boats, that catch, mostly we are told, shrimp and halibut. Paved roads meander around connecting the buildings to each other. Outside the village, there is no where to drive as there are no roads to anywhere. All the towns are on the coast and accessible only by boat or plane. Each place is a self contained island, complete, in Ilulissat’s case, with grocery and clothing stores, school, sport and cultural center, post office, hotels, hospital, churches, museums, cemetery, restaurants and cafes. I can say that our first meal in Greenland was excellent. The street side menu mentioned curry soup, so we gave it a try with prawns for me and chicken for Mark. The meat was tender and the soup spicy and flavorful. Our waitress is a Danish citizen, who was born in Sri Lanka. She lives here with her Sri Lankan mother, who owns the cafe, and her step-father, who is German and operates a tour boat from the harbor. She was charming and cute. The good food coupled with a beer put us in the mood to sleep. When we got back to the hotel, the room was almost ready. Another short wait and we were in bed …. in the middle of the day.

But wait. There is no night here. We woke up at 6pm to full on daylight. Wide awake, I started typing, while Mark read. It is now 10pm and the light is mellowing mellowing. We hope to go back to sleep soon.

By adventureswithjulia | Also posted in 2017 (2) July: Greenland / Iceland | Comments (4)