Tag Archives: Sandler

13 August 2019:
Fowey, Cornwall:
Out to Lunch

August 13, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

We sailed out of sprawling, cosmopolitan, ultra-hip, skyscraping and monumental London and made our first port of call at little, stubbornly uncool, and decidedly old-style Fowey, Cornwall.

This is not a bad thing.

Agatha Christie was born not far from here in Torquay, and with her success lived in a fine Queen Anne estate on the River Dart in Devon. If you are a fan—like my wife—when you visit Fowey you keep expecting to find Miss Marple sitting in a window seat with her knitting and watching every passerby.

Cornwall forms the southwestern tip of the mainland of Great Britain. A bit further west, off Penzance, are the Isles of Scilly which catch just enough of a warm ocean current to be one of the most temperate climates in the U.K.

This part of Britain was inhabited as long ago as the Palaeolithic era of hundreds of thousands years ago.

I went today with guests for a ride on the Bodmin and Wenford Railroad, the oldest steam-powered standard gauge line in the UK. After checking out the coal-fired firebox, we chugged through the countryside with a proper Cornish Cream Tea on the table of the first class compartment.

**All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved**

The name Cornwall comes from combining two different terms from separate languages. The Romans called the Celtic tribe in the region the Cornovii.

It could come from a Celtic or Latin words meaning horn, a reference to the shape of the peninsula in one theory, or to their worship of a “horned god” in another.

In the 6th and 7th centuries, the name Cornubia was given a suffix by the Anglo-Saxons: Wealas, meaning “Romanized foreigners.”

Corn-wealas, or Cornwall.

And it is from the same word, Waelas, that we get the name for the region of England now known as Wales.

It was the place of the foreigners.

Today it is the place of the Cornish, although sometimes overwhelmed by the visitors who come by ship, car, and other conveyances.

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Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

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10-11 August 2019:
London to London:
Circling Great Britain and Ireland

August 11, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Silver Wind arrived at London Tilbury port on the River Thames after a day at sea in a howling storm, in gale force winds and high seas.

Tilbury was not our original plan, but when the winds blow things change.

Our captain wrestled with the issue of getting our ship through the London Flood Barrier and through the Tower Bridge at London. Ultimately, it was the river pilots who made the call: Tilbury.

*Silver Wind* at the pier in Tilbury today

In case you were wondering its location, here is World’s End just downriver from the Tilbury dock. This pub has been in operation, in one form or another for about 300 years and was mentioned in the diaries of Samuel Pepys in the 17th century. All photos by Corey Sandler

Sorry, but safe, we thus completed a lovely cruise that began in Reykjavik, Iceland and visited several ports of that island nation and then continued to the Faroe, Shetland, and Orkney islands and on to the big island of the United Kingdom at Scotland.

Here are some photos from this cruise:

**Edinburgh Castle. with the stands set up for the Military Tattoo extravaganza**

From here, we’re off on a circle route, stopping first in Fowey, Cornwall. From there we visit the independent nation of Ireland with calls in Cobh, Bantry, and Galway. We’ll continue to Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, to visit Londonderry, Belfast, and Dublin.

Continuing our circle we’ll call at Holyhead in Wales before making a morning passage through the Tower Bridge back here in London. I hope you’ll join me in these pages. Here’s our plan:

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8 August 2019:
Edinburgh (Leith), Scotland:
Castle on the Hill

August 8, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Edinburgh has been recognized as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, and is the location of the Scottish government within the United Kingdom.

The city’s Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the Monarchy in Scotland. The palace is at the bottom of the Royal Mile, at the opposite end from Edinburgh Castle, which occupies the high ground above town.

Holyrood Palace is a setting for state occasions and official entertaining. Mary, Queen of Scots spent most of her turbulent life in the Palace. Mary’s 16th century Historic Apartments and the State Apartments which are used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public throughout the year, except when members of the Royal Family are in residence.

Queen Elizabeth II spends one week in residence at Holyrood Palace—usually from the end of June to the beginning of July, carrying out official engagements and ceremonies.

Holyrood week begin on the forecourt of Holyroodhouse with the traditional ‘Ceremony of the Keys’, with the Queen officially welcomed to the city of Edinburgh.

Why she needs keys, and why she needs them again and again, I don’t know.

Today I went to the National Museum of Scotland. The building combines a truly grand old design, dating from 1861, with a great collection and modern presentation.

The view from the rooftop is also grand, Edinburgh on display.

Here’s some of what I saw today:

**All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved 2019. Please contact me if you would like to obtain a copy**

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7 August 2019:
Kirkwall, Orkney:
A Distant Echo

August 7, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Kirkwall is the capital and largest settlement of Orkney, between the Shetland Islands above and the top of Scotland below.

Like the Shetland and Faroe islands, Iceland, and much of the far north, its recorded history begins with Norse settlers.

There are about 70 islands, 20 inhabited. The largest island is called Mainland or, confusingly, “The Mainland”, while the country that lies about 16 kilometers or 10 miles below is referred to as “Scotland.”

Some elements of Scotland, like tartan, clans, and bagpipes have made their way to the islands but they are not indigenous to the local culture.

The islands have been inhabited for at least 8500 years, originally by Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes and then by the Picts, believed to be a Celtic tribe that inhabited northern and eastern Scotland. A charred hazelnut shell recovered in 2007 in Tankerness on the Mainland has been dated to 6820–6660 BC.

The village of Skara Brae, Europe’s best-preserved Neolithic settlement, is believed to have been inhabited from around 3100 BCE. The Ring of Brodgar is a Neolithic henge or earthworks, a stone circle about six miles northeast of Stromness on the Mainland island in Orkney.

In the heart of Kirkwall is Saint Magnus Cathedral, dating back more than a thousand years and including elements of Catholic and Protestant elements with Viking and Nordic overtones.

The southern group of islands surrounds Scapa Flow, a place used for centuries as a safe naval roadstead or road, a sheltered stretch of water where ships could ride at anchor.

Scapa Flow was a Royal Navy base that played a major role in both World Wars. It was the staging point for the major sea battle of World War I, the Battle of Jutland at the end of May 1916.

After the Armistice in 1918, what remained of the German High Seas Fleet was brought to Scapa Flow while the Allies tried to decide how to parcel them out to the victors. On November 28, German sailors opened the sea-cocks and scuttled all the ships. Most of the ships were later salvaged, but the remaining wrecks are now regularly visited by divers.

With the outbreak of World War II, the Royal Navy once again used Scapa Flow as a gathering place for many of its ships. One month into World War II, a German U-boat entered Scapa Flow and sank the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak.

**The ship’s bell of HMS *Royal Oak,* recovered from the bottom of Scapa Flow and on display at Saint Magnus Cathedral**

As a result, it was decided to erect barriers across the gaps between some of the islands, limiting access to Scapa Flow to allow for better defense. They became known as Churchill Barriers. Four were built, with a total length of 1.5 miles or 2.4 kilometers, and they are still in use.

The barriers were partly constructed by 1,200 Italian prisoners of war who were brought from North Africa to Orkney during the war. One poignant side story of the POW camp was the construction of what is known as the Italian Chapel by the prisoners; it was built from scavenged military huts and bits and pieces of equipment and supplies.

**The Italian Chapel in the Orkney Islands today.**

Lerwick

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6 August 2019:
Lerwick, Shetland:
Ponies and Sweaters

August 6, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Lerwick is the main port of the Shetland Islands. It is not quite the mainland of Europe, or to be more precise, not the mainland of the United Kingdom.

Lerwick is a piece of Scotland roughly 200 kilometers or 123 miles off the north coast of the United Kingdom, roughly equidistant between the Faroe Islands (228 miles or 367 kilometers) to the west, and about 222 miles or 357 kilometers east of Bergen, Norway.

In Shetland, we are as close to the North Pole as parts of Greenland or Alaska.

The Shetland Islands—about 100 in total—cover about 566 square miles or 1,466 square kilometers, and the total population of the 16 inhabited islands is about 23,000.

We went today for a walkabout in town. Lerwick in many ways is frozen in time, with Georgian and Victorian stone buildings and old fishing piers and equipment. Here is some of what we saw today:

**All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved 2019**

The main island is helpfully known as Mainland. Other inhabited islands include Yell, Unst, and Fetlar, which lie to the north, and Bressay and Whalsay, to the east. The uninhabited islands include Mousa, known for the Broch of Mousa, considered the finest preserved example in Scotland of an Iron Age broch.

The northernmost point of the British Isles is the desolate uninhabited island of Out Stack.

Why did the Nordic people and the Vikings come to these islands? Anthropologists believe that the rapidly growing population of Scandinavia outstripped available resources there, and the Norse shifted from plundering to invasion and colonization.

Shetland was colonized during the late 8th and 9th centuries, with little left of the indigenous population before them.

One of the major events of the year nearly everywhere in Shetland is Up Helly Aa, which brings a hot time to the old town during the cold and dark nights of winter. It is a fiery salute to mark the end of the yule season.

The name comes from Old Norse. Up is used in the sense of something being at an end. Helly refers to a holy day or festival. And aa probably means “all.”

Up Holy Day All.

The largest festival takes place in Lerwick, with as many as one thousand guizers. What’s a guizer? They are the modern descendants of the Mummers, troupes of amateurs, usually all male, who gather to act out old fables and stories.

A bit of drinking is involved, I believe.

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5 August 2019:
Torshavn, Faroe:
Retracing the Route of the Vikings

August 5, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

From Iceland, we sailed east to a place of great reputation not often visited: The Faroe Islands, a trip of 311 nautical miles, equivalent to 358 statute miles or 576 kilometers.

The Faroe archipelago consists of 18 islands and islets of varying size that are about midway between Iceland and Norway. Over the past 14 centuries or so, they have come under the influence of Irish and Scots, Nordic people including the Vikings, Denmark and Norway, and the Brits.

Not much grows here on these isolated rocks. There are not many people, and even fewer trees. Oh, and fog and rain visit for extended periods of time.

Today I went with a group of guests up to the north end of the main island to Vestmanna, a set of dramatic nearly vertical cliffs populated with sheep hanging on for dear life. The captain of our boat navigated into narrow sea caves and between sea stacks as if he were driving a rental car. Here is some of what we saw:

Torshavn

The greater metropolitan area of Torshavn, a rather grandiose description, is home to about 21,000 people. The town itself, about 13,000.

That makes Torshavn one of the smallest capital cities in the world.

The Norse established their parliament on the Tinganes peninsula in AD 850. The Vikings established parliaments, called tings, in different parts of the islands; the tings were supposed to be located in uninhabited places to maintain neutrality.

Near Torshavn, the Vikings would thus meet on the flat rocks of Tinganes every summer. That old part of town is still made up of small wooden houses covered with turf roofs.

The Viking age ended in 1035, but Tórshavn has remained the capital of the Faroe Islands ever since.

Denmark is a member of the European Union but does not use the Euro. The Faroe Islands is a self-governing nation within the Kingdom of Denmark, but it is explicitly not part of the EU. Is that foggy enough for you?

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3 August 2019:
Seyðisfjörður, Iceland:
Trapped in a Pearl Shell

August 3, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

We have rounded the top of Iceland and reached Seyðisfjörður on the east coast, one of Iceland’s most picturesque towns with a collection of 19th century wooden homes, surrounded by beautiful nature.

Poet Matthías Johannessen called Seyðisfjörður a “pearl enclosed in a shell.”

It exists because of its protected harbor established by foreign merchants, mostly from Denmark. It’s a small town of about 665 people, spread across 82 square miles or 213 square kilometers.

The town sits at the end of the fjord. A road over a mountain connects to the rest of Iceland, about 17 miles to the Ring Road.

Here’s what we saw today, on a beautiful (and scarily warm day) in town and up and over in the central valley.

Seyðisfjörður was one of many places used by British and American forces during World War II and some of the elements of the bases can be seen around the fjord,including a disused landing strip.

And this was one of the few places that saw actual combat, or at least an attack, during World War 2. On February 10, 1944, the British oil tanker El Grillo, at anchor in the harbor was attacked, by three German FW-200 Condor bombers flying from occupied Norway.

The captain chose to scuttle the ship, still laden with bunker oil and defensive weapons. El Grillo, Spanish for The Cricket, is still on the bottom. It was not until 2002 that most of the remaining oil and its weapons were removed. Today it is one of the most popular dive sites in Iceland.

A popular restaurant in Seyðisfjörður—one of only a few in town, but nevertheless said to be one of the best outside of Reykjavik—is called Kaffi Lara, and within it is the El Grillo bar. And they offer a craft beer named after the sunken tanker.

Every week the car ferry MS Norröna of the Smyril Line comes to Seyðisfjörður from Hirtshals in Denmark and Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands.

Which brings us to murder and mayhem. In 2015 the Icelandic television series “Trapped” was set in the town, and partially filmed there.

A very engaging, low-key murder mystery, the show begins when a partial corpse is found in the harbor as the ferry arrives. Across ten episodes we come to know the intense, tormented police chief and his small staff, and also what seems like almost every other resident of town.

The cold and wild winter of Iceland is essentially another character, as a powerful storm cuts off the town from Reykjavik.

The TV series stars Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, a hulking teddy bear of a man who has become Iceland’s unofficial and unlikely hunk. Olafur Darri was born in Connecticut in the United States, but moved to his family’s home country of Iceland and has become the nation’s best-known actor in films and on stage.

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2 August 2019:
Akureyri, Iceland:
Small Town Big Island

August 2, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Akureyri would be a small town of little note almost anywhere else, but here in Iceland its population of about 18,860 makes it the fourth settlement in the country, and numbers two and three are part of the capital district of Reykjavik.

They’ve got a golf course, a bowling alley, a ski hill, a shopping mall with 35 stores, and a police force of about five officers. Oh, and Vífilfell, the largest brewery in Iceland, with about a 30 percent market share nationally, mostly for its Viking beer. Skál fyrir pér! Cheers.

Its ice-free harbor has supported its economy back to ancient times for fishing and trade.

Akureyri’s architecture shows strong influence from Denmark. Seasonal residents were here in the 9th century, but permanent settlement by 12 rugged people started in 1778. In modern times, fishing and tourism support the town.

The morning was foggy and dark; we went for a visit to Godafoss, a substantial waterfall fed by snow melt from the huge glacier on the east side of Island.

**Painting with light, on a dark morning at Godafoss**

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1 August 2019:
Ísafjörður, Iceland:
The Ring Road by Sea

August 1, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Sailing out of the capital city of Reykjavik, we’re off on a partial circumnavigation of Iceland and from there to the islands of Faroe, Shetland, Orkney, and the United Kingdom.

Ísafjörður, the Ice Fjord, is the furthest north port we will visit on this cruise, at 66 degrees 4 minutes North, 23 degrees 7 minutes West. That is just 55 kilometers or 34 miles below the Arctic Circle.

It’s a pretty small town—most places in Iceland are—with a population of about 2,559 close friends and sisters, cousins, and aunts.

We arrived this morning to a glorious day under blue skies and a warm sun. Here is some of Ísafjörður without the ice:

Vigur Island and The Birds

I went with a group of guests on a boat trip deeper into the fjord to visit Vigur Island, a privately owned speck of land that is home to three families…and tens of thousands of birds.

We saw puffins and guillemots and eider ducks, who were quite well behaved. And then there were the terns, who don’t much like people or other birds; they are very protective of their nests. It was straight out of a scene from The Birds.

Alfred Hitchcock (and British author Daphne du Maurier, who wrote the novelette on which that great movie was based) would have been delighted, or terrified, or both.

**A well-behaved puffin, posing for us**

**And a pair of zealously protective terns coming in for a strafing run**

We will cross the Arctic Circle—while at sea—on Thursday night after we depart Ísafjörður, and then drop below it to Akureyri. After we leave Akureyri we will go back into the Arctic for a few hours as we round the northeast corner of Iceland early Saturday morning.

A month from now, our plan calls for us to cross back over from London to the east side of Iceland and then to Reykjavik. In doing so, we will have accomplished an aqueous circle of Iceland.

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31 July 2019:
Reykjavik, Iceland:
Back on the Island

July 31, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Welcome aboard.

We are back on Silversea Silver Wind for a series of loops that will begin in Iceland, which is an anglicized version of the Icelandic name, Island.

There is ice in Iceland, up in the glaciers and snowfields year-round and most everywhere in winter. But in summer, it is a very green, very large island, the second largest island of Europe after Great Britain.

It is also a hot place, in places. At the place called Geysir–the source of the word geyser–people come from around the world to wait for eruption of a plume of water. Elsewhere on the island of Iceland, people wait for or watch for or hope to avoid the fairly regular eruptions of the many significant volcanoes.

A bit less dramatic, but an easy close-up thrill, is a visit to Geysir to see the geysers. They burst forth every few minutes, starting with a little burp and then rising to a hot fountain. Each time is slightly different from the one before, and so we all stand there for a few dozen episodes.

We leave the capital city of Reykjavik tonight and make three stops along the coast of Iceland before heading east on our tour of islands to visit Torshavn in the Faroe Islands, then Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, and then to the United Kingdom to visit Edinburgh, Scotland.

The last scheduled port of call on this cruise is London, and we are due to arrive late at night at the capital city and sail through the Tower Bridge.

I hope you’ll join me here. Here’s our plan:

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6 July 2019:
Copenhagen, Denmark:
The Third Loop Completed

July 6, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

We’ve completed our third loop of the summer: London to London by way of Norway; London to London by way of France, through the Kiel Canal to Scandinavia, and this cruise from London to the top of Norway and then down and around to Copenhagen, Denmark.

It’s time to head home for a change of socks. We’re due back on Silver Wind in a few weeks for explorations of Iceland, the United Kingdom, and then a transatlantic crossing to Canada and the American Northeast Coast.

Safe travels to all. See you again here soon.

Copenhagen

The Little Mermaid is smaller than most people imagine, and she receives almost no privacy at all.

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4 July 2019:
Bergen, Norway:
The Hut of the Hall of the Mountain King

July 4, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Bergen, the second city of Norway, is a gem that has managed to hold on to much of its character even as it becomes more and more popular with cruise ships and overland visitors.

It is one of our favorite places to walk: from the cruise terminal to town, from town up one of the seven hills, into the university district, and into corners and neighborhoods off the tourist track.

Grieg’s Troldhaugen

On this trip, I went with guests to Troldhaugen, the former home of the great composer Edvard Grieg, best known for “The Hall of the Mountain King”, “Peer Gynt”, and other masterworks.

It was a beautiful day, a beautiful trip, a beautiful conclusion to this cruise. In addition to touring his home, we also enjoyed a concert of works by Grieg, performed by a young Japanese pianist who won Bergen’s Grieg competition in 2018.

Here is some of what we saw today at Troldhaugen:

**Grieg’s composing hut, down by the water. The diminutive Grieg would often sit on a thick volume of music by Brahms to reach the piano he had here.**

The Beauty of Bergen

We’ve been in Bergen winter, spring, summer, and fall. Here are some of the city sights:

**The Bryggen district, former home of the Hansa merchants in Bergen.**

**Winter in Bergen, on a previous trip**

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3 July 2019:
Olden and Loen, Norway:
The Sky Above, The Fjord Below

July 3, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Norway is a relatively small place, but Olden…well, it’s a tiny place in a grand setting.

Think of the Halls of the Mountain King and glaciers and trolls.

Olden is a village in the municipality of Stryn at the mouth of the Oldeelva river on the southern shore of the Nordfjorden, the North Fjord.

On this visit we anchored offshore of a nearby tiny village called Loen, which two years ago came onto the world stage with one of the most spectacular mountain gondolas in the world.

The Loen Skylift rises 1,100 meters or 3,317 feet from sea level at the fjord to a wonder world up above. Opened just two years ago, it is one of the three steepest gondolas in the world, with the last stretch nearly vertical.

Each of the two cabins can accommodate 35 people, and the trip takes about five minutes in each direction. The cable car also serves hiking trails and winter ski trails.

We began on a light drizzle at our ship and ended up in a snow storm. I’d like to show you some beautiful views of the fjord and the glacier, but you’ll have to settle for a whiter shade of pale. On July 3…

Nordfjorden is one of the longest fjords in Norway, with its main arm extending eastward from the sea about 106 kilometers or 66 miles. The fjord starts as runoff from the Jostedalsbreen, Europe’s largest mainland glacier, in the east and it flows west.

That said, the glaciers of Norway are mere shadows of their former grandeur. The Briksdalsbreen glacier, a popular hiking destination, is located about 25 kilometers or 16 miles south of Olden; just a decade ago it was a broad blue belt of ice. Today it is more like a dirty string tie.

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1 July 2019:
Hammerfest, Norway:
Everything Old is New Again

July 1, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Hammerfest is very Norwegian, with the same sort of end-of-the-world feeling as most of the other places we visit in northern Norway, inside the Arctic Circle.

And yet it also feels different.

500 kilometers or 312 miles inside the Arctic Circle, this is a place of very severe weather.

Hammerfest is an old settlement with evidence of inhabitation going back 10,000 years, the ancestral home of the Nordic Sea Sami people, and beginning in the early 19^th century a settlement of European and then North American traders attracted to the ice-free harbor that is tempered by a finger of the Gulf Stream.

This is not a town of old clapboard houses and time-worn storefronts. You’ll find contemporary office and apartment building, state-of-the-art oil and gas terminals, and a church on Kirkegata shaped like a space rocket.

All right, not really a rocket ship: it is supposed to pay homage to the traditional triangular drying racks for stockfish or bacalao.

It is also home to the famed Struve Geodetic Arc Monument, a point of measurement along a meridian line from the 19th century, one of the first scientific efforts to determine the size and shape of the globe.

But why is Hammerfest so relatively modern?

The first reason is that old Hammerfest has had a very hard time over the years. The town has been knocked down, burned down, and bombed and rebuilt many times.

The second is that it is the recent beneficiary of massive investment by oil and gas producers working even farther north, in the Arctic.

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30 June 2019:
Honningsvåg and Nordkapp, Norway:
The Far North

June 30, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

We’ve reached the top of Norway.

Honningsvåg is the northernmost city on the mainland of Norway.

There are a few gotchas in that description. Mainland, not on an island. City, not a town or village or settlement.

Honningsvåg has only about 2,484 inhabitants, which is below the Norwegian definition of a city as a place with at least 5,000 residents. But its status as a city was grandfathered in place.

Searching for a northeast passage to India in 1553, British navigator Richard Chancellor—among the early explorers of the far north—came upon a jut of rock 307 meters or 1,007 feet above the Barents Sea.

Chancellor named the dramatic landscape North Cape.

A small fishing village near the cape was totally destroyed by the Germans in 1944 and never rebuilt.

What today is called Nordkapp, North Cape, arose in 1950 as the northernmost municipality on the mainland of Europe.

The steep cliff of North Cape at 71 degrees 10 minutes North Latitude is about 2,102 kilometers or 1,306 miles from the geographic North Pole. But it is not the northernmost piece of land in Europe to purists like me.

The tourist attraction at Nordkapp includes a metallic sculpture of planet earth a display of art and artifacts, plus a gift shop.

Nordkapp is just across the bay from the actual northernmost piece of land in Europe.

So why is the gift shop there?

Because Nordkapp has a road, a parking lot for buses, and plumbing and electricity.

Neighboring Knivskjellodden Point, just to the west, extends about a mile further north. But that place is a rather difficult hike and has no parking lot or plumbing.

But actually, since both of these points are situated on an island, some purists will maintain that neither is on the mainland of Europe.

And so, they point to Cape Nordkinn (Kinnarodden) about 70 kilometers or 43 miles to the east. It’s not quite as far north, but it is on the mainland of Europe.

*Silver Wind at the pier in* *Honningsvåg, the big fish in a sea of fishing boats.*

*Repurposing some of the tools of winter with hopes of summer.*

*Nordkapp, which is near the northernmost piece of mainland Europe. The actual northernmost finger of land is almost inaccessible and doesn’t have space for tour buses to visit.*

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29 June 2019:
Tromsø, Norway:
Churchill’s Northern Obsession

June 29, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Tromsø is the largest city in Northern Norway, 350 kilometers or 217 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

It is the second largest city within the Arctic Circle, behind only Murmansk, Russia. (Some of you may be preparing to look up the population of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. Let me save you the trouble: Reykjavik is a sizeable city about twice the size of Tromsø, but only a small slice at the northern end of the entire island nation of Iceland is within the Arctic Circle.)

Back to Tromsø. Please don’t expect Paris.

Even though at one time this city of 50,000 or so did claim the nickname “The Paris of the North.” It earned that title because successful merchants in the late 19th and early 20th century developed a relatively significant trade with France and brought back a few of the niceties of Paris.

Today I went with guests to see the striking Arctic Cathedral and then to ascend the cable car to the mountain above for a view of the island city. Finally, we visited the Polar Museum, filled with artifacts, photos, and charts of the early explorers and hunters of the far north.

Just as I had promised the guests, we had all four seasons in the course of one day. Starting with rain, moving to a brief glimpse of sun, then snow squall, and back to gray skies.

It is still a very remote place, quite cold and dark in the winter and chilly and not dark at all in the Midnight Sun of summer. Summer solstice came a week ago, on June 21 so locals and visitors will not see the sun fully drop below the horizon for another month.

By the end of the 19th century, Tromsø was a major base for Arctic expeditions. Explorers like Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile and Fridtjof Nansen picked up supplies and often recruited their crew in the city.

As the Germans advanced northward in 1940 early in World War II, Tromsø briefly served as the seat of Norwegian government. Tromsø escaped the war without major damage, although this part of Northern Norway was one of the most closely watched places in the world.

It was just outside of Tromsø the great German battleship Tirpitz was finally bottled up and destroyed by the Allies after serving as the northern obsession of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill because of the threat it posed to Allied convoys and military vessels in the area.

*Tromsø in winter, on a previous visit.*

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28 June 2019:
Leknes, Norway:
Pastoral Times

June 28, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

Leknes, a bit more than two square kilometers or just under one square mile, is home to about 3,200 people. Plus the occasional hundreds who descend from cruise ships who come to this beautiful part of Norway.

It is hard to think of a part of Norway that is not beautiful. Leknes has a leg up because of its location in the geographical middle of the Lofoten archipelago on Vestvågøy island.

I went with guests to visit the Lofotr Viking Museum in Borg, near Leknes. Europe’s largest Viking longhouse, a chieftain’s farmstead, it was discovered by a farmer in his field.

We saw re-enactors practicing old Viking trades and enjoyed a version of a 1,600-year-old recipe for lamb soup.

Out in the country you’ll see some old cabins, called rorbuer.

Along the water in the islands there still stand more than a few old rorbu, a traditional type of seasonal house used by fishermen. One end of the structure is on land, the other end stands on poles in the water allowing easy access to vessels.

They’re not much used for their original purpose anymore; instead they are used as vacation homes to fish money out of tourist’s pockets.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE ANY PHOTO OR AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

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27 June 2019:
Brønnøysund, Norway:
The One with the Hole in the Mountain

June 27, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

The small town of Brønnøysund, population about 5,000, sits just below the Arctic Circle.

It has managed to hold on to an economy based around fishing in the open sea and in many fish farms, agriculture, the largest limestone mine in northern Europe, and our guests and most of the readers of this blog: tourists.

It also is home to the Fort Knox or the Tower of London of Norwegian government documents, the Registry. Marriage licenses, birth certificates, divorce decrees, tax filings: the essential detritis of society.

Bronnoysund is about 75 miles below the Arctic Circle, which means there is a short period of twilight between about 1 and 4 in the morning on the day of our visit. But not to worry: they have lights inside the Registry.

About 9 miles of 14 kilometers south of town, on the island of Torget, is Torghatten Mountain—Square Hat Mountain. That name for the place that rises like a colossal castle of sheer granite is apt. But the fact is that most people will remember Torghatten as the “one with the hole in it.”

The hole is a tunnel about 160 meters or 520 feet long and 20 meters or 66 feet wide. There are trails that lead to it, but most visitors see Torghatten from ships approaching or departing town.

According to legend, the hole was made by the troll Hestmannen while he was chasing the beautiful girl Lekamøya. When the troll realized he would not get the girl, he released an arrow to kill her, which is certainly not appropriate.

In any case, the story says the troll-king of Sømna threw his hat into the path of the arrow path to save her. The hat turned into the mountain with a hole in the middle.

If you don’t buy the story about the troll and the girl and the arrow, scientists say the hole was formed during the Scandinavian ice age, about 11,000 B.C.E. Ice and water eroded looser rocks, while the harder ones in the mountain top resisted erosion.

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26 June 2019:
Ålesund, Norway:
In a Reflective Mood

June 26, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

In Ålesund, it’s nearly impossible to avoid slipping into a reflective mood.

This handsome city includes an interior harbor for small vessels, surrounded by a handsome collection of Jugendstil buildings, the Germanic version of Art Nouveau style.

Like many built-up cities of its time, Ålesund suffered from a great fire; the one here came in 1904 and reconstruction was partly funded by and absolutely influenced by German kaiser Wilhelm II.

We have been to Ålesund many times and it is always a place that gratifies me as a photographer. The trick, for me, is to find a new way to reflect on its appeal.

You can see more photos from our visit of two weeks ago in the blog entry for June 4.

Bales of hay in the countryside; some local wags call them Troll Eggs.

Today I went with a group of guests on a day-long trip inland to lunch at a spectacular restaurant atop Mount Stranda, a substantial ski resort about 3,400 feet above the fjords.

We traveled by coach, ferry, and ski gondola in each direction. Here is some of what we saw:

**All photos by Corey Sandler, 2019. All rights reserved.**

For most of our time we were above the clouds, but there were brief intervals of clearing and reflections of yet another wondrous part of Norway.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE ANY PHOTO OR AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

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25 June 2019:
Flåm and Gudvangen, Norway:
Up and Over and Around

June 25, 2019 Corey Sandler

By Corey Sandler

We arrived early this morning in Flåm, one of the busiest tiny places in Norway. There is not much here except for the base station for the extraordinary train that climbs up the mountain range…and a rather good craft beer brewery that for some reason set up shop here.

We were last here on June 5, and you can read more details about the train and the town in the blog entry for that day.

After about two hours at anchor, Silver Wind went around the corner to Gudvangen through one of the most handsome fjords in Norway…which is about as high praise as I can offer.

I went with a group of guests on an all-day excursion that began with a tender into Flåm to meet up with the morning sailing of the Future of Fjords catamaran to Gudvangen. The name of the vessel reflects the vision of its owners: it is an all-electric boat, made of lightweight carbon fiber and powered by battries that deliver 450 kWhr of power to each of the two propellers. It glided at 16 knots through the fjord, leaving no smoke and only wake in its path.

Aboard the futuristic *Future of Fjords* boat.

*Silver Wind* at anchor, reflected in the glass of the *Future of Fjords.*

From Gudvangen we went by coach up into the mountains and then onto the mainline of the Norwegian railroad that connects Oslo to Bergen. We rode across from Voss to Myrdal, and there transferred to the famed Flåmsbana railroad that descends down to the sea.

At Kjossfossen (the Kiss Waterfall) a hyuldra lures.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE ANY PHOTO OR AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

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Around the World with Corey Sandler

Tag Archives: Sandler

13 August 2019:
Fowey, Cornwall:
Out to Lunch

10-11 August 2019:
London to London:
Circling Great Britain and Ireland

8 August 2019:
Edinburgh (Leith), Scotland:
Castle on the Hill

7 August 2019:
Kirkwall, Orkney:
A Distant Echo

Lerwick

6 August 2019:
Lerwick, Shetland:
Ponies and Sweaters

5 August 2019:
Torshavn, Faroe:
Retracing the Route of the Vikings

Torshavn

3 August 2019:
Seyðisfjörður, Iceland:
Trapped in a Pearl Shell

2 August 2019:
Akureyri, Iceland:
Small Town Big Island

1 August 2019:
Ísafjörður, Iceland:
The Ring Road by Sea

Vigur Island and The Birds

31 July 2019:
Reykjavik, Iceland:
Back on the Island

6 July 2019:
Copenhagen, Denmark:
The Third Loop Completed

Copenhagen

4 July 2019:
Bergen, Norway:
The Hut of the Hall of the Mountain King

Grieg’s Troldhaugen

The Beauty of Bergen

3 July 2019:
Olden and Loen, Norway:
The Sky Above, The Fjord Below

1 July 2019:
Hammerfest, Norway:
Everything Old is New Again

30 June 2019:
Honningsvåg and Nordkapp, Norway:
The Far North

29 June 2019:
Tromsø, Norway:
Churchill’s Northern Obsession

28 June 2019:
Leknes, Norway:
Pastoral Times

27 June 2019:
Brønnøysund, Norway:
The One with the Hole in the Mountain

26 June 2019:
Ålesund, Norway:
In a Reflective Mood

25 June 2019:
Flåm and Gudvangen, Norway:
Up and Over and Around

Cruise Photos and Stories by Corey Sandler