We are an adventurous couple in our 70s who love to travel, meet new folks, take lots of pictures, eat great food, drink delicious wine, and enjoy the outdoors.
The inland passage, somewhere a little north of the Arctic Circle
We don’t take cruises. We don’t go on tours. When it comes to travel, we like to “roll our own.”
But we did take a cruise recently. It was good. It was very good!
It all started with our wanting to see the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. We’d both seen them, long long ago, on our separate adventures in Alaska. And we wanted to experience them again. We considered a winter-time camp in Sweden, but COVID squashed that idea. More recently we found out about the 12-day passenger ferry that travels up the Norwegian coast…
Every day a ship leaves Bergen, in southern Norway, and makes its way north along the fjords, islands, and coast, arriving in Kirkenes (near the Russian border) six days later. Along the route it makes 32 stops—often for only 10 or 15 minutes—dropping off and picking up passengers, packages, and cargo.
When the Hurtigurten Line started this route in 1893 it was the only service available for the isolated coastal communities. Today larger cities have airports, and there is an extensive road network (we passed under many highway bridges!), but the ferry is still important part for these communities.
The territory: Norway. Each red dot is a town where we stopped, however briefly...
Our boat, seen from a street near out hotel. Would we make it?
Tourism has gained in importance, and the ferry is now a cruise-like experience. We chose the Havila line, a new service established in 2021. Havila promises a future free passage if no Northern Lights are seen!
(Spoiler alert: we saw the Lights!)
The big question was when to go? A ship leaves every day of the year. We wanted daylight to see the landscapes; we wanted night to see the Aurora; we wanted a taste (just a small sampling) of winter weather. Ah! The spring equinox, when day and night are equal. Perfect!
The logistics were a bit complex, but Paula sorted it out: we took the train to Pairs, spent the weekend wandering around, then flew to Bergen on Monday. We had all day Tuesday in Bergen before the evening departure. And as it turned out, having that extra time in Bergen was a Very Good Thing.
Because we arrived in Bergen to an unfortunate reality: I woke up at our hotel quite ill, with fever and chills.
What to do, when you’re traveling and get sick? It’s a problem we’ve rarely had to face, but we knew the best thing is to lay low and rest. Except, our cruise left that evening! There was no doctor on the ship; so, if I got worse, I might have to get off at one of those small towns to seek medical care. But the thought of returning home to Montpellier was unpleasant: Paula did a quick check, and a trip home would involve another day or two in Bergen plus a whole day in planes and airports. (Plus, of course, missing the whole trip!) What a terrible dilemma!
Then the lovely lady at our hotel suggested we see a “concierge” (private) doctor. Fortunately, there was one a few blocks away: Dr. Dropin; although as it turned out we had to make an appointment. But we did see the doctor, who did a quick blood test, asked me a lot of questions, and wrote a prescription for antibiotics. Then he walked us to the clinic door, pointed across the rain-drenched town square, and said, “There’s a pharmacy.”
A private medical clinic, in Bergen, Dr. Dropin!
A half-hour later we were enjoying a wonderful bowl of soup at the cute cafe next to our hotel. I was inexpressibly relieved: my dilemma was resolved. We had done exactly the right thing in seeking local medical care. We were going! And I will long remember the moment I unlocked our cabin door a few hours later to be welcomed by soft, warm indirect lighting—and a cozy bed.
YES! We got on board!
What a welcome--and welcoming--sight!
I was still sick, but I got stronger. I did spend a lot of time in that oh-so-comfortable bed. But we had a window, and we found the wide-screen TV in our cabin would display a navigation chart showing our current position; another channel showed the video from a camera on the bow. It wasn’t like being there, but we weren’t isolated!
Our Window on the World (without getting out of bed!)
And so the days continued. I felt better and better. I missed the stops the ship made those first few days, preferring to rest, but Paula did get off to visit the cities of Alesund and Trondheim.
Alesund
The town has an unusually consistent style, thanks to a massive fire in 1904 that destroyed most of the buildings. Over the next decade it was rebuilt in stone and brick, in the Art Nouveau style.
Street scene in Alesund.
Some buildings Paula photographed during her walk through Alesund
The canal, Alesund.
The stop in Alesund was long, 10 hours, to accommodate a supplemental fjord boat excursion that took eight hours. Paula had plenty of time to explore this picturesque city; I had plenty of time to rest!
Trondheim
The next day we stopped for four hours in Trondheim. Again, I rested; Paula went exploring...
View from Gamle bybro, the Old Town Bridge, in Trondheim.
The Ørekonkylie ("Ear Conch") sculpture, downtown.
Nidaros Cathedral, 1300: burial place of the patron saint of Norway, King Olav II.
Paula and the façade of Nidaros Cathedral, the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world.
A strange sculpture in Trondheim!
He Led the Way: statue of Leif Eriksson in Trondheim Harbor. According to legend, Leif sailed out of this harbor in the year 1000 and founded Vinland, known today as North America. (The statue is a gift from the city of Seattle.)
This is Part One of our Norway blog; Part Two, North of the Arctic Circle, will be along soon!
Munkholmen (Monk's Islet) at the entrance to Trondheim harbor. Today a tourist attraction, it has been a monastery, a fortress, a prison, and a WW II gun station.
What have we been doing in the two months since we got back from Seville? Oh, not much! Mostly just waiting for the winter to fade away… which it has, mostly. We’re seeing more of the sun, but we’ve still got some cold, overcast days.
Soon, though, we’ll be away from here, and off to someplace where the weather is very different: Norway! (Oh, it’s going to look so warm here in contrast!)
But first: what about Seville?
We were happy to go, and very excited to arrive and experience the wonder and beauty of that magnificent city. Re-visiting the by-now familiar streets and squares, seeing our favorite buildings, and, of course, drinking that first caña, the cold bubbly tickling the throat as the liquid slides down… All wonderful!
Ah, nothing like that first sip of beer!
An old-school tavern where we enjoyed a pause during a long walk through Seville.
No matter how often we see La Giralda, the bell tower of the cathedral, it's always a joy to find it again.
A joyful Christmas along Av de la Constitución.
We were very pleased to see our old friends (and family!) again. Karen and Rich once more hosted their fabulous Christmas dinner. It was particularly satisfying to see all the “kids,” the daughters and sons of their adult friends, now graduated from high school into university and “real” jobs.
The real treat, though, was spending time with our daughter, Nina, and her sevillano husband, Riki! (While they currently live in Los Angeles--the one in California--they come to Seville every year to visit Riki's family).
Nina and Riki.
And those fabulous Christmas lights, always a joy, were as good this year as ever. Here's a quick slide show with some Seville highlights:
But Seville was packed. It’s clear the so-called “revenge travel”—tourists making up for travel lost to the COVID years—has not ended.
A very crowded Plaza de España. Still astonishing, even packed with people!
Yet, right nearby, the Parque de Maria Luisa was surprisingly empty.
A pond in the park, near C. de los Patos (yes, Duck Street!)
A cute building in Maria Luisa Park showing heavy Moorish influence.
But as the days went on and the streets remained packed we grew weary of the constant crush of people. New Years came and went; at first we relished the thought of joining the crowds at Plaza Nueva for the midnight countdown, gulping down the grapes at midnight with each strike of the clock. The plan was to accompany Riki’s brother and sister and their families, as we did pre-COVID. But… that didn’t happen. People were sick; other’s couldn’t make it. We contented ourselves with going up on the roof of our building and watching over the city at midnight. Oh and we ate our 12 grapes and made our wishes for 2024.
No, not the view from our rooftop; Christmas angels in front of Palacio de San Telmo, a regional government building.
We did meet Riki’s family for a special treat, though: a night along the river for a special event, a “Sound and Light” show that took the concept to a new level.
Such shows are quite popular in France. The ones we've seen are quite impressive, consisting of high-quality video projected onto public buildings, accompanied by music and dialog. But this show on the Guadalquivir River in Seville accelerated the concept: this extravaganza used the river itself as a projection screen! Here’s a video of the show, which apparently presents a history of Seville.
Ah, but Spain far behind us! We’re looking forward now to Norway.
Yes, Norway in March. Not exactly full-on winter, but certainly not summer, as it was the last time we were there. Why March? Because we’re going there to see the Northern Lights. And while the Aurora Borealis occurs all year, it can only be seen at night (Duh!). And March seems to be a good balance between the chill of a full-on winter night and the never-dark day of the midnight sun. To maximize our exposure to the night sky while minimizing discomfort we have chosen to travel by boat; specifically, a marine ferry cruise up the west coast of Norway and back.
Much of our time since our return from Spain has been spent preparing for Norway. Clothes have been a concern. We found some good winter things at Human, our favorite thrift store in Seville. Local stores rounded out our cold-weather wardrobe. We don’t really know what we’ll need in Norway. But we want to be ready for whatever happens!
The cold weather gear, ready for the suitcase. Still to be added: all the regular clothes, like pants, shirts, socks, underwear...
We'll be arriving in Bergen, Norway, in mid-March. We'll have much more to say then!
We’re back now, back in Montpellier from our excursion to Paris. Four days, what a difference! The trees fronting our terrace that held off the fierce rays of the sun all summer long have few leaves now, and none of them are green.
Ah, but this blog is about Paris, where we’ve just spent four days feting our birthdays, Paula’s this month, mine a few months ago (August). We had no clear idea of what we’d do, but we’ve been to Paris any number of times so that didn’t matter, as there is always something interesting going on!
Window display at a Paris shop selling pétanque balls; the "tree" is made of the small cochonnet balls.
We took the train; it’s 3-1/2 hours from Montpellier to Gare de Lyon. (We’ll note here that there are five train stations in Paris, each serving a different part of the country, so where, exactly, you arrive in Paris depends on where you’re coming from.) Arriving in the rain (yes, it rained!) was not pleasant, but we found the right bus and were soon at our cozy apartment, home for the next few days.
A rainy day: boats in the Bassin de l'Arsenal, where the Canal Saint-Martin meets the Seine.
A Visit to the Cemetery
Our apartment was in a quiet neighborhood, close to the famous Père-Lachaise cemetery; and that was our first stop. A cemetery? Yes! We enjoy wandering along the wooded alleyways, appreciating the finest in 19th-century funerary architecture, and examining the names and dates on the tombs. We missed Edith Piaf (well, her tomb), but I always make it a point to find Oscar Wilde. (I remember visiting it in the early 70s, where my friend from high school and I marveled at the wild stone angel, and the many lipstick kisses that covered it. It has been cleaned, and these days is protected by a high glass barrier. Wilde—or at least his tomb—seems to be very popular with young ladies.)
Scenes in Père-Lachaise
It's very quiet at Père-Lachaise...
The tomb of Oscar Wilde with it's strange angel; now protected from random lipstick kisses by a glass shield.
Inscrutable face of the angel.
Christmas in Paris
This being the start of the Christmas season, we expected the major department stores—Au Printemps, Galleries Lafayette—to have their windows decorated. So that afternoon we headed there to see them.
Au Printemps at night.
The metro exits in front of the Palais Garnier, the classic opera building built in 1804. And as we came up the steps to street level there were some German tourists looking very excited (as well they might! It’s a magnificent building.) But when we turned towards the building itself… scaffolding! Oh dear. Some of the finest sights we’ve gone to see on our travels have been covered in scaffolding. But this was, er, different. The screen covering the construction was painted to look like rock, but open in the middle, suggesting a… cave?
Opéra Garnier on a sunny day (not when we were there!) (From Wikipedia)
Opéra Garnier with scaffolding.
It was only later that we found what this was about, thanks to a blog posting by Chris O’Brian, an American journalist living in France. It was a stage setting for a dance routine ("Chiroptéra") that, apparently, was done only once. For the full, interesting story, including a video of the routine, here’s a link to Chris’ blog:
As for the store windows… well, they weren’t ready, the big unveiling would be at 6PM. So we took the many escalators to the roof of Galleries Lafayette for the fine views of the city. Along the way we enjoyed the wonderful decorations of the huge interior space under the Galleries Lafayette dome.
The magnificent tree under the dome at Galleries Lafayette.
The tree-topping angel.
The, er, nut cracker?
A... flower?
Sound and Lights at the Atelier des Lumières
Some years ago we visited a truly remarkable light show experience at an abandoned quarry a few hours from Montpellier, the Carrières de Lumières near the historic town of Les Baux. (Read about that trip here Carrières de Lumières at Les Baux.)
Huge interior space at the Atelier des Lumières, a former foundry in Paris.
Thanks to its success, other such shows have opened, including in… yes. Paris: the Atelier des Lumières. Which happened to be just a few blocks from our lodgings. There were two shows; we opted for a morning with Chagall.
Title page for the show.
Yeah. That's a real guy sitting on a cable spool; the show is projected on the wall behind him.
You've gotta show the Tower if you are in Paris!
We can’t say we really know more about Chagall now than we did before, but we sure did like being immersed in the lights and colors of his works! Our preference remains the much vaster space at the quarry near Les Baux, but the show in Paris was well worthwhile.
For a more dynamic view of the show, check this brief video sampler:
Classic Paris: Concert in a Church
L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine on a normal sunny day. (Again, from Wikipedia)
La Madeleine as we saw it, at night in the rain (and from the back... at least, no scaffolding on this side!)
To celebrate the Christmas season we wanted to attend a concert in a church, of which there are a great many in Paris. We were particularly drawn to revisit L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (or simply La Madeleine). From the exterior it resembles a Greek temple, with 52 massive columns, each 66 feet high, surrounding the building. This night, though, it was dark and rainy, and the front was covered in… yes, scaffolding. But the concert was wonderful, five women violinists and a cellist playing Vivaldi’s "The Four Seasons." The acoustics in these huge stone churches is fantastic, and we really appreciated the event.
Interior of La Madeleine, ready for the concert.
The altar, and the musicians.
And Finally, a Church on a Hill
A distant shot of Montmartre and Sacré Cœur from the roof of Galleries Lafayette.
From the roof of Galleries Lafayette we had caught a glimpse of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, the huge white cathedral topping the hill of Montmartre. It had been a good long while since we’d been there, and that became the goal of our final outing.
It was stunning...!
...as were the crowds!
It was stunning to come around the corner and see the basilica, huge and white and gleaming in the sunlight. It was also stunning to encounter all the tourists! The neighborhood around our apartment is pretty low key; most of the people we saw were locals going about their business. We hadn’t visited any of the usual tourist locales, and, after all, it was November, cold and rainy.
The wet but still crowded Place du Tertre, behind Sacré Cœur.
And if there's crowds, there's artists selling their work!
The domes of Sacré Cœur seen from the Place de Tertre.
But Montmartre seems to be a draw all year round. We wandered through the crowds on Montmartre, reminiscing of our last visit when we’d run into an excellent pizza restaurant (it was a great find then, as we were hungry and everything seemed to be closed!). Was it still there? Could we find it again?
Wandering through Montmartre.
And it's still there!
Yes it was, and thanks to Paula’s excellent memory and unerring sense of direction, yes we could. And, just as we paused to congratulate ourselves on having found it, the sun vanished and raindrops began to fall, instantly answering the question if we should eat there or not. No sooner where we settled at a table inside than the rain began in earnest, and the few people outside popped out umbrellas and hurried for shelter.
So very glad we were sitting inside!
We were very pleased to… well, first, to be out of the rain! But also to have found this same restaurant, so many years later. Talking to the server I learned that while the place had a new owner, the head cook had been apprenticing under the former chef. As our waiter put it, it’s all the same food!
And...same place, same food, different name: December of 2015.
Our final view of Sacré Cœur.
Our train back to Montpellier left the next afternoon; the day dawned overcast and wet. I braced the elements and brought back croissants and pain au chocolat (by now we’d found the best boulangerie in the neighborhood), made some coffee, and spent the morning reminiscing about the last few days
The bus ride back to the Gare du Lyon train station was now familiar and simpler. Being a bit early we snuggled into the café at the station for a coffee (bad, overpriced coffee! But the seats were comfortable...).
Before long, though, we were settled on the train and speeding through the overcast but still very pleasant French countryside. And I do mean “speeding:” for long stretches we were moving at 300 km/hr (185 MPH!). Our trip was a bit over three hours; it takes a good seven hours in a car!
And after a quick walk, we were settled back home in our apartment in Montpellier.
Up next: our daughter Nina is visiting us later this month; we are very excited to welcome here here!And after that we will be flying to Sevilla for our usual end-of-the- year stay.
