We left Dublin this morning and headed out to Cork Ireland. Our hotel was near this cathedral so we walked over to take a look. It is an impressive building called St Fin Barre Cathedral.

St Fin Barre Cathedral

After the Cathedral we headed out to Blarney Castle. This site has many stories to tell from Druids to Witches to Kings and invasions.

The site encompasses 60 acres and is impossoble to see in one day so we split up and optimized our photo shoots.

There is a ledgend that kissing the Blarney Stone at the top of the tower grants “the ability to deceive without offending”. Unfotunately, there was a 90 minute wait to climb the tower with the sheer number of people wanting to kiss the stone.

While wife was kissing the stone, I walked the grounds, gardens and rock formations eaxh with their own lore and history.

Garden pathway

There are many interesting and beautiful plants in the garden including many of these giant plants.

There is also a bee keeper on the premises that while I didnt get to see, I did see plenty of bees.

There is a rich history and mythology around the castle grounds.

We spent three hours on site and sadly had to depart as it shuts down at 6 pm.

The site is well worth the visit for the history, lore, mythology and beauty of the grounds.

Tags: Blarney Castle,Cork,St Fin Barre
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We left Norway and landed in Dublin late yesterday.

This morning we had a lunch meeting with some very dear friends at a great Irish eatery called Fallon & Byrne.

The food was absolutely amazing. We had scallops, smoked salmon and Hoke.

We then did a walking tour with a student from Trinity College.

The campus is home to an amazing library which will be shutdown for renovations next year for a decade. The image below shows most of the books removed.

The university has many unique buildings including the building below where geology is taught that feature Connemara Green Marble – a rare Unesco protected stone.

There are two museums on campus dedicated to the Book of Kells and the modern museum features a very impressive and immwrsive 3D presentation that is worth visiting.

After departing the university we headed to see the Dublin Castle. An impressive structure featuring an amazing interior and exterior.

We will be leaving Dublin for the west coast of Ireland.

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71° 10’ 21”

Today we started the day in Honningsvag and took a bus ride to the North Cape at 71 degrees, 10 minutes, 21 seconds.

Kjollefjord

After leaving the top of Norway we headed to Kjolleford where we met an amazing Sami family that talked about their life in Norway.

The sign says “kissing bench.”

Our Sami hosts started by offering us jerky made from Reindeer meat. the Sami survive in the remote arctic by herding Reindeer and fishing.

The Sami traditionally lived entirely off the land using every resource in their environment such as using the bark of willow trees to water proof shoes and leather created from reindeer skins.

The willow tree bark also has medicinal properties.

Grass is used to pad and insulate shoes, as it absorbs moisture from feet.

Feb 6 is celebration day for the Sami as that’s when the tribes in Norway, Finland and Sweden created a unified front.

Sami have 300 words for snow and a similar number to describe deer.

The Sami were never concerned or interested in climate change until they started seeing and experiencing changes to their own environment.

The normal dry coldness for weeks and months are gone.

It now rains more during winter, rain turns to ice which covers grasses reindeer use to eat and makes them unable to get food from under ice. This has caused the Sami to have to provide food for them to eat which then makes the reindeer dependent on the Sami for food.

Many stories about how the Norway government and church did not allow the Sami to play their traditional drums or speak their traditional language. Fortunately things have been turning around for the Sami in recent years.

After our stay we headed back to the ship to get some rest. Tomorrow is our last day in Norway, it’s been quite an adventure.

Tags: Norway,Sami
Categories: Norway
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We started the day with a lecture at the conference room about the history of the long sea routes across the Norwegian coast. Our host Howard was funny and entertaining. He gave us the history of how the cruise line industry came to be in Norway and how the two cruise lines, Hurtigurten and Havila came to be. Here is a quote from one of his stories, “When I was a kid, we were told that if we studied hard and did well in school, someday we could get a job on a Hurtigruten ship but today kids are told that if they don’t do well in school they may end up working on a Hurtigruten ship, how times change.”

Another interesting point and a core issue we’ll discuss in our final review of the ship, is the ongoing labor shortage for skilled sailors on these cruises. We’ll tell you how this impacted our experience on the cruise in our final review.

Lunch

After the lecture we headed over to the fine dining restaurant for lunch.

I asked our attendant if she and the crew ate the same food we were being served but said they had a different menu consisting of items such as burgers, pizza and salad bars.

Our first excursion was a bus ride to the gondola station and a climb up to the mountain overlooking the entire city of Tromsø. It has an impressive view of the city and there be trolls here.

Trolls?

Arctic Church

Our second excursion stop was the Arctic Cathedral which features a unique triangular shape.

Full Steam Museum

Our third and final stop on our excursion was the Full Steam museum which features the history of the fishing industry in Tromsø.

As usual fish are hung out to dry here after the harvest which runs from January through March.

We also learned about the Sami people of Northern Norway. An indigenous group of people that have been left marginalized by the broader Norway community. This group of people have tens of thousands but have no representation in Norway’s parliament. Sad.

Dinner

For dinner, we skipped the fine dining and ate at the regular restaurant and I was a bit disappointed with the steak below. Havila Pro Tip: Stick to seafood dishes for optimum culinary satisfaction.

Veggie plate served with our entrees.

Jacuzzi

After dinner, we spent most of the evening in our Jacuzzi as we sailed from Tromsø to our next stop. We should be reaching our final destination tomorrow and it’s been a great trip in Norway.

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Lunch / Dinner

We had a late start today and our first real stop on the ship was the dining hall to eat fabulous meals.

Lunch consisted of lamb sausage, Norwegian fish soup and tomato salad (image below).

Dinner – A three course meal with the usual seafood theme. The bowl has some type of mushroom soup.

Baked Cod (image below) – main course

Veggies

Our ship dropped us off in Stamsund and we took a bus to Lofoten and stopped at a small town along the way called Torvdalshalser where we took the photo below overlooking the whole valley.

Our next bus stop was Lofoten which features a museum and an art gallery of a local resident, Kaare Espolin Johnson. The photo below is right outside the museum.

Kaare Espolin Johnson

Local artist famous for artwork in books and magazines. Wikipedia page here.

Art exhibit in museum

After the art gallery we headed over to the Lofoten museum. The museum tells the story of how the family which owned most of the land in the area was built as a “company town” and the family that owned the land also owned the general store, the houses fishermen would live in when they came in to fish. The owners would eventually also buy all the fish from the fisherman.

The working and living conditions of the fisherman were abysmal.

There were tens of thousands of pounds of fish processed each fishing season. Image below shows fish being hung to dry, much like the fishermen.

Typical living conditions except there would be 14 or so people packing into a room like the one below.

After our site visit, the bus took us to the next port over called Svolvaer which is considered the “capital” city of Lofoten but our tour guide insisted that was a lie because it’s not a capital, just the biggest city in the area.

We got back late and the ship had porridge treat along with some type of exotic hot drink.

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We spent the day at Trondheim today. This is Norway’s third largest city with a population of 225,000 people. We got in at 9 am and proceeded to get on a bus to visit Nidaros Cathedral.

This is the front and main entrance of the church. It does look a bit like Notre Dame.

After the cathedral we visited the top of the hill to get a scenic view of the city and coastline. The church can be seen (green steeple).

Lunch

After the tour we got back to the ship for lunch and we had another round of fine dining that blew our taste buds away. Havila has bridged gastronomy like no other cruise line has and we are very grateful they have taken a different approach than most cruise lines. Last year we did a Greek cruise and were disappointed that the cruise line shipped all of their industrial processed food out of Miami. You can read our disappointed rating for the cruise ship here.

Havila has already earned an A+ rating on food a mere three days into the cruise.

Dinner

Dinner at Hildring (fine dining) today was a five course meal. The first dish was King crab from Varanger served with arctic ponzu. Very nice.

Second dish – Scallop from Hitra served in its own shell with horseradish vinaigrette and herb sprouts. Absolutely scrumptious!

Third dish – Pan-fried turbot in butter sauce, caviar and crispy crudite of leaf thin fennel slices. Exquisite flavors perfectly complemented.

Four dish – Rack of lamb from Dovrefjell with caramelized carrot puree and borettane onions. I prefer my lamb medium rare and this was served medium but it was good.

Fifth dish – Sea buckthorn cream with cloudberries and herb crumble. A nice juxtaposing of texture, rich creamy and saucy. Smooth yet crunchy, sweet yet savory, delicious and yummy.

Desert – Dark chocolate confectionery.

The chocolate eye is astonishing and amazing. A great way to finish the evening but you have to ask for the Sea Eye!

You may be wondering how much this meal cost and the answer is we don’t know. We were given the menu below but then the host said it would be double the price for some unknown reason. So we were expecting the bill to be 600 krona. After we finished our meal, the hostess said there would be no charge and it was included in our suite package.

We’ve had situations like this all throughout our journey. There is a cafe that sells pastries, coffee and other items in between main meals. Sometimes we are told our purchases are free (part of suite package) and sometimes we’re told there will be a charge. No one seems to know when or why we will be charged or when items are included in our suite package. We call it “Havila lottery” and sometimes we win big and other times we don’t. This cruise ship doesn’t have a casino but you still gamble with the cost of things during your journey.

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Rough seas in the North Sea last night. Our ship rocked up and down and rolled left and right the entire night. It was at least 15 to 20 foot swells!

After today we will head to the Norwegian Sea so hopefully sailing will be smoother.

We spent most of the day sailing and while the weather is dreary we still had spectacular views.

There isn’t much to do in the ship. There are no entertainment venues except for the expedition expert that gives a daily lecture.

Lunch

We had lunch in the fine dining restaurant and the food was excellent.

The portions may seem small but the food has high dense nutrition. All the food on the ship is sourced locally and fresh and it is amazing.

There is no buffet on this ship as it leads to enormous food waste so all servings are modest but it is possible to ask for more food if you are still hungry. We haven’t asked for any extra portions yet.

Excursion

We headed out to Geiranger for our excursion and the views of the fjord were amazing.

The only catch was it was a long bus ride to the site and an even longer bus ride to the next stop.

Our second stop Andalsnes had a gondola you can take up to the top of the mountain. We had dinner at a restaurant at the top.

It is worthwhile mentioning that our ship dropped us off and Geiranger and we will re-board in Monde. This means that we will travel bus and ferries to meet our ship at its next destination. We left at 2 pm and won’t be back on the ship till 10 pm.

We will be getting back dead tired.

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We were told to check in at 3 pm but the ship hadn’t unloaded passengers from last sailing and we had to wait 45 minutes to check in.

Strangely enough, for a budding new cruise industry, the building we checked in had no signs and we weren’t sure if we were in the right place. The photo below is what it looks like.

While we were allowed to board after checkin we had to wait till 6 pm to get into our cabins so we had to lounge around.

We also walked around the ship.

When we finally got to our room a bottle of champagne and other goodies was waiting for us.

After unpacking we headed to dinner.

Dinner

Fine dining wasn’t available on the first day (Saturday) so we ate in the general dining area. There is a three course meal with a starter, main course and desert.

Sashimi starter was ok.

The poached salmon (above) and lamb shank (below) were excellent.

Side of veggies was also excellent.

The unusual deserts were very good as well. Unique ingredients that we hadn’t had before anywhere.

Overall food was excellent but service was slow. Took a very long time in between dishes to get the next dish.

Earlier in the day we had an orientation and the host mentioned that there is a shortage of engineers and experienced officers and that may have extended to crew i. the kitchen and dining areas but not mentioned specifically.

After dinner we headed straight to our jacuzzi to watch the coast as we sailed out.

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We arrived at Bergen around 1 p.m. from a one hour flight from Oslo and once again we shocked at the high cost of transportation from the airport to the city center. It was a whopping 850 krona ($85) to travel 21 miles via Uber! We did not bother to check prices with taxis given our experience with them so far.

Bergen is a nice city. The weather here in mid August was about 71F/21C cool and overcast with periodic showers. The wind blows steadily and that can add a chill to the ambient temperature and a light jacket is definitely needed to stay warm.

Our first stop after checking into our hotel was to walk over to the harbor and we were surprised to see a very busy open air market selling a variety of fresh seafood and other food items such as sausages, honey and ‘exotic’ meats such as moose & reindeer burgers and hot dogs.

We opted to try fresh seafood and noodles at one of the stalls. The plate & coke below cost $30 so lunch for two was about $60. The dish contained calamari, two types of shrimp, veggies, and noddles.

After lunch we took a Fløibanen funicular up to the top of a mountain with a spectacular view of the city center below.

After our long stay walking around the top of the mountain, we descended back down and stopped at the world famous hot dog stand called 3-Kroneren This stand sells a variety of hot dogs from different types of meat including the formerly mentioned reindeer, moose, and wild game varieties. We were skeptical but the hot dog we shared was amazing.

After our hot dog stand visit we headed to the Bryggen Wharf and bought some gloves for our fjord cruise we’ll be boarding tomorrow. The wharf is a historic district with distinct shops that have been in existence for hundreds of years and not much changed over that period of time.

Norway Pros & Cons

After having spent a couple of days here now we can conclude a few pros and cons about the country.

Pros

Debit/Credit Cards Accessibility

We haven’t had a single problem with using our credit or atm cards anywhere in Norway. Debit/credit card use is actually preferred by many vendors and some look at us funny when we try to use cash to pay for items because it is very inconvenient. Almost everyone here pays with card by tapping the terminal and quickly moving on and it works flawlessly.

Food Variety

We are large city dwellers and we have become accustomed to having every variety of food available to use including our favorites such as Indian dishes (Korma, Butter Chicken, Biryani), Japanese (sushi, ramen), Vietnamese (Banh Mi) and so on and we were concerned we’d be stuck eating seafood in Norway for most meals but that has not been the case. Oslo alone has a large multi-cultural community that features food from all over the world and were happy to fill our bellies with great food.

Weather

The weather is spectacular. One of the reasons we chose to visit Norway this year was because we got roasted in Greece & Italy last summer and the few years before that in Spain and other European locations near the Mediterranean. We wanted cool and fair weather and Norway has delivered.

Cons

High Cost

We did our research and we knew Norway was on the more expensive side of the ledger but we did not expect it to be far higher, on average, that what we would normally pay in the United States for similar items.

Transportation

The most glaring cost outlier is transportation. Taxis and Ubers are very expensive compared to other places in Europe and United States. A taxi driver in Oslo wanted 2000 krona ($200) to take us from Oslo city center to the airport. We laughed and told him we’d Uber but the Uber cost for that trip was 1000 krona ($100) so while we saved half the cost, we still felt the pain. The only two other places that come to mind for similar costs are London and Switzerland.

Food

We are staying at hotels and they don’t have kitchens so we’re having to eat out for all of our meals and that normally isn’t an issue unless you’re in Norway and paying 20 to 30 percent higher food costs than you would in the United States or other parts of Europe.

Traffic & Over Crowding

The traffic, in general, has been bad. Norway does have a decent public transportation system but it seems buses and trains are full. The airplanes we have flown in have also been full. Traffic in city centers is congested and slow.

We saw cruise ships in both Oslo and Bergen and it doesn’t help when these large ships drop off 3000+ people onto the city and we all have to compete for the same limited sights and resources.

We stopped by a local fjord cruise to inquire about a short excursion and we were told they were all sold out.

Categories: Bergen
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We decided to head out somewhere nice and cool this summer so we’re in Norway. So far so good and we have a few tales to tell. First and foremost, DO NOT TAKE A TAXI anywhere in Norway, they will rip you off! I should have done some due diligence but I figured Norway is a nice country, highly regulated, so this shouldn’t be an issue right? Wrong! We made the mistake of asking for a taxi ride a short distance and were charged $75 for the short trip. DO NOT TAKE A TAXI IN NORWAY!

The taxi situation is so bad there is an entire thread on Trip Advisor about it. The ONLY exception to the DO NOT TAKE A TAXI RULE IN NORWAY is if you can get it from a machine like the one in the picture above. There is a set rate and you know what you will be paying when you order a taxi from these terminals but the best thing to do is take an Uber, train, bus, bike, walk, crawl or hitchhike. DO NOT TAKE A TAXI!

National Museum of Norway

Our first stop was the National Museum of Norway. We were really impressed with the wide range of artists featured in the museum. Some of my favorite artists included Karel Appel, Arne Ekeland, Bendik Riis, Kai Fjell, Alf Rolfen, Teddy Rowde, Finn Faaborg, Charlotte Wankel, Thorvald Hellesen, Aage Storstein, Theodor Kittelsen, Edward Munch (see image below), Harald Sohlberg, Dirck van Baburen, Johan Christian Dahl, and Hans Gude amongst others.

GOL STAVE CHURCH

Our second stop was the Stave Church and it’s located in a large park surrounded by many different historical buildings and museums. It’s officially called Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. It’s worth a visit to take in how people from the older eras lived and experienced their day to day life.

Inside the church (image below)

Triple Museum – Fram Museum, Ship Museum, Kon-Tiki Museum

After the Stave Church we headed to the triple museums of Fram, Ship, and Kon-Tiki. Each museum showcases the naval expedition and exploration of Norwegian history.

We stopped and had lunch nearby at the Fjord Cafe (image below). The cost of that plate of salmon with egg was about $20. The total cost of the a meal for two was $50 including drink.

Norway Is Expensive

The most expensive place we have ever visited was Switzerland. The SECOND most expensive place we have now ever visited is Norway. Our hotel breakfast for two was $50 at the hotel we’re staying but it does include a buffet style breakfast with plenty of food.

Our first night we stopped at a Chicago style pizza pub place inside our hotel and the cost for one medium pizza, one beer and a coke was 464 krona ($43).

We stopped at a pharmacy to pick up Meclizine (Postafen) and it cost $28. It is $6 on Amazon back in the U.S. A coke zero at a shop at a museum with cost $5, a bottle of water $3.

We’ll be headed to Bergen tomorrow so we’ll see if that location is any cheaper than Oslo.

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