Stockholm

After a quiet night in the harbour we rise this morning in the heart of Stockholm, which we were already able to explore a bit yesterday afternoon. This morning offered more possibilities to get known with this city: in addition to the two excursions there are quite a lot museums and other sights awaiting visitors. Vasa Museum, Skansen, Art gallerys or just a walk through Gamla Stan. After lunch we left Stockholm and cruised once again through the archipelago.

Stockholm

In the morning we reached the outer part of the Stockholm archipelago, and had a wonderful 4-hours cruise through this lovely world of islands. And once again the weather was just great. Passing the old fortress of Vaxholm we slowly approached the city of Stockholm. We took our anchorage in the very heart of town, just at the waterfront of Gamla Stan, 2 minutes walk from the castle and in view to the major museums of the city. Great place to stay!

Rønne, Bornholm

After a cloudy, cold and wet day in the channel yesterday, we were surprised to open our eyes today on a completly sunny, warm and calm baltic sea. So we had the most beautyful weather to explore Rønne and other parts of Bornholm. Great start to our voyage!

Kiel-channel

We left Hamburg in the early morning and reached the lock for the channel at 8:00. On our way towards the baltic we had to cross Schleswig-Holstein on this world-most-frequented waterway. Slowly we travelled through the fields and enjoyed the views on settlement, bridges and passing ships.

Hamburg

In the morning we sailed up the Elbe-river, passing little villages, lighthouses and flowering orchards of apple-trees. In Hamburg this cruise came to an endand we took up new passengers for the baltic cruise.

Amsterdam

One more time in a big city far away from the coast ...
our guests walked through this lovely town with plenty of channels and bridges or went on long excursions to get a real glimpse of this land of windmills, cheese and tulips!

Antwerp

During the early morning hours we sailed up the river Schelde. We had to chase away a river-cruiser from our mooring, but than we were once more in the very heart of town, just a 5 min walk to the great cathedral and the famous old town-houses.
They have a marathon in the city today, so it is not so easy to cross every street as planned, but we had the honour to start the two major runs with our ships horn - so our purser Line let it yell loud through the city!

London one more day

We had our breakfast next to the Towerbridge and could enjoy real english weather in the morning: slightly pouring rain ...

But it cleared up again soon and we had sunshine when the bridge once again was opened for us: the pilot called the bridge and they immediatly stopped all traffic and a few moments later we passed by whilst hundreds of tourists enjoyed this spectacle and waved us farewell.

So we went down the river Thames passing noble, old fashioned Greenwich and the skyscraping glasstowers of new financial district before the Millenium Dome and the Thames barriers.

Now we are out on a very calm channel heading for Zeebrugge, where we will pick up our pilot after midnight.

Our mooring at the old warship HMS Belfast

Old and new side by side

London

We crossed the channel during the night and found ourselfes in the wide mouth of the river Thames at breakfasttime. Outside the windows we could see offshore-windparks and some strange, smaller tripod-structures wich were explained as old anti-aircraft or anti-missile fortifications from the second worldwar.

Slowly we went up the river and the shorelines came closer as we approached London. We passed the great post-modern-shaped and incredible expensive flood-barriers just outside the city and crossed the zero-latitude-line at the Greenwich observatory.

Finally we reached the famous Tower-bridge and it opened just for us, for we took our parking position on the other side of it, now lying side-by-side to the old warship HMS Belfast.

It is great to be so in the very heart of town with our Fram!

Everybody is out on deck to celebrate this unique moment!

Something you don`t see for often ...

Rouen

We had an early breakfast at 7:00 today, for the city-tours started at 8:00. First the busses took us to a hilltop aside the city to offer us a splendid view over the town and towards our tiny little ship. Than we walked through the very heart of the town with lots of very old framework-houses and a some unique gothik churches and the cathedral, of course. Finally we visited the old market-sqare, where Joan of Arc was burnt in 1431.

View of Rouen

The heart of the gothic cathedral

Back in France

In the dark of the night we reached Le Havre at the mouth of the river Seine and started our next rivercruise. The seine was winding a lot and it took us some hours and 120 km to reach Rouen, the capital city of the Normandy. The Fram followed the steps of their norwegian ancestors which raided in this area around 1000 years ago. We had lovely riverbanks on both sides of our vessel with steep chalkcliffs, beautyful manors, little villages and green forrests.

Finally the Fram sails through green land again!

In the afternoon some excursions started to see more of the Normandy. Some went to Honfleur at the Seine, a nice mediavel town, whilst others drove to the tiny village Giverney and visitet the famous garden of impressionist painter Claude Monet.

"Spring in Europe" - thousands of flowers in Giverney!

Sark and Guernsey

For sure, this was one of the Highlight-days of the entire voyage: For the first time since Antarctica we could use our polar-circle-boats again - and all expedition-team was quite happy about that. So, with some special expedition-feeling we visited the tiny island of Sark in the morning. And that was a surprisingly beautyful place: In a way you stepped back in time, for they have no cars on the whole little island, just using bicycles and horse-carriages. There were some nice paths along the coast-cliffs, wich offered really breathtaking views over the rough rocks and towards the other islands of this archipelago.

Normal taxi on Sark

The view from the cliffs

In the afternoon we did a landing in Guernsey, wich was a big and crowded place - compared to Sark. A lot of our guests participated in guided busexcursions, and could so get a good overview over the different types of lovely landscapes and enjoy the very british way, in wich the charming villages were built.

One of the smallest chappels in the world - and

completely covered with broken plates and small

stones - unique!

Towards the North

We left Bordeaux yesterday evening and are now heading for the britisch Channel Islands.

The sea is absolutley calm, and after some cloudy fog in the morning - wich offered great opportunitys for the lecturers - the sun came out and so you could find a lot of guests sunbathing on the open decks. We let the day pass by with some winetasting and waffles, and in the evening our norwegian tourguide performed a really great Frank-Sinatra-Show!

Bourdeaux

In the late night we went up the river Gironde and around 5 o`clock we took our place at the pier in the very heart of the city of Bourdeaux. So we could enjoy our breakfast with a unique view over the promenade towards the lately restored beautyful houses along the riverside.

A lot of effort was taken in the last years to clean the buildings and so we could explore a really nice city during our guided citywalks in bright sunshine. During lunchtime some clouds appeared and shortly afterwards a heavy shower with hale let all spectators dissapear wich took a close look on the first passengervessel this year during their sundaywalk ...

The Fram lies in the centre of the city and

our guests explore the town