Spring at the Polar Circle

 

Around noon we crossed the Northern Polar Circle, passing by the monument, a globe, which marks the Latitude 66°33’N. Later on we arrived at the old trading post of SelsØvik. By Polar Circle boats we covered the short distance between ship and landing side. All 9 school children awaited us with their teachers to welcome the guests of MV Fram. After chatting along with the locals and checking out the historical trading post most of the guests took the opportunity for a walk on the island. It seemed that spring had just arrived here, spring flowers blossoming everywhere. For most guests, coming from Germany, it was the second time to experience spring this year.

Our afternoon stop brought us to the Svartisen Glacier. Already from the ship we had gorgeous views of the glacier; however a big number of guests made the hike to the glacier front, returning to the ship with unforgettable memories.

Norway at its best

The morning we spent in FrØja, an archipelago of more than 5000 small and tiny islands. As the weather was good, many passengers spent the early morning hours outside on the various decks or in the panorama lounge. At 8 o'clock, just after breakfast Anja, the expedition leader, went ashore by polar circle boat to meet with the welcome committee of FrØja. Only minutes later she returned with the Mayor of FrØja, his daughter and the Director of Tourism. They met the guests of MV Fram for a warm welcome to the port of FrØja; where MV Fram touched down for the first time. The citizens organized and planned our visit. Everywhere we enjoyed warm welcomes. Our visits included the culture center with a movie about town, a salmon tasting with drinks, shopping in the center and a highly interesting visit to one of the largest salmon farms of the world. The friendliness of this community has impressed us and with fond memories we return to MV Fram for further exploration. Cruising through narrow passages, passing by rocks eroded by glaciers during the last ice age covered partially with tundra vegetation and boreal forest we head direction polar circle. The weather and the landscape present Norway at its best.

The day ended with another highlight, the one and only MV FRAM Crew Show. Guest and crew enjoyed it alike and surprised each other with hidden talents, dancing, singing, laughing ...simply, the best!

Pentecost in Andalsnes

Welcome to the dramatic nature as More and Romsdal. So we start our excursion trough Romsdal
with Raumabanen directly from our ship because the railway station is opposite.
The Rauma Railway is operated by NSB, the state owned Norwegian train operator. This trip
offers our passengers a unique opportunity to experience one of Norway's most spectacular
natural regions. The train follows the river Rauma, runs dead-slow, to allow travellers time to
photograph such attractions as the famous Trollveggen, Europe's tallest vertical rock wall.
Later the train crosses the river at Kylling Bridge, Norways most impressive railway bridge.
It is here that the Rauma River is perhaps at is most dramatic.The Rauma Railway's bridges and
horseshoe tunnels are a tribute to the skill of the engineers who built it, and passengers will appreciate
why it took a full twelve years from the start of construction to the official opening of the line in 1924
by King Haakon VII.
Another highlight was our second excursion to Molde,the town of roses and jazz and the Atlantic Road,
a strech of road on highway 64 in Nordmore and Romsdal. The road is 8,274 meters long an goes from
Vevang in Eide to Kårvåg in Averøy.The construction includes eight bridges, and replaced the ferry
connection between Ørjavik and Tøvik. The road cost 122 million kroner at 1989 values and was partly
financed by road tolls. The toll was removed in June 1999.
Back on board there was a presentation of Vingården Tuen, the most northerly winegrower of the
world. Johan Setnes, the owner offers desert wine and wine-aperitiv in our panorama-lounge.

The nightcap in our daily program: we were ships passing in the night - two times! MS Fram traded cheers, waves, banners and fieworks with the MS Nordkap and MS Midnatsol, two other ships in the Hurtigruten fleet.

Olden, Nordfjordei and the Bird Island of Runde

On our way from Bergen to Olden we passed in the evening narrow sounds and hundreds off tiny islands. In the early morning we reached the Nordfjord, which is the sixth longest fjord in Norway. At 7 a.m. MV Fram docked at the pier of Olden. Our excursions for the day included a boat trip on the Lake Olden and a overland-tour to the Briksdal Glacier and Nordfjordeid. The helicopter flight over the glacier was due to the low clouds not possible. At 1:30 p.m. MV Fram reached the capital of the municipality of Eid; Western Norway. The ships Polar-Circle-Boats were put on water for a transfer service to Nordfjordeid where the passengers explored the scenic city. At 8:30 p:m. another high light of the day the Bird Island of Runde. Runde is famous for its enormous amount of birds. About half a million or more seabirds  inhabiting the island, most of them are to be found in the cliffs.

The Hurtigruten Grieg Event in Bergen

At 8 a.m.  MV Fram reached the second largest city in Norway, Bergen. On her way through the bay the MV Fram was escorted by another famous Hurtigruten ship, the MS Lofoten. The MV Fram docked in the cruise ship terminal close by to all the main attractions of Bergen. The Norwegian coastal steamer service Hurtigruten starts in Bergen heading northwards to Kirkenes.
Good and dry weather conditions.During the morning we offered our guests a city tour of Bergen. In the afternoon all guests were invited by Hurtigruten to enjoy a special event at Trollhaugen. The motto of this special event was "Grieg". Trollhaugen was the home of the famous Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. To experience not only the musik but also to see where Grieg lived can only be regarded as a high light of the cruise. A superb piano concert was given by professor Signe Bakke and the museum curator Eilif Løtveit enlightened us with interesting information about the life of Edvard Grieg. The entire event was absolutly fantastic and faboules!

To end the evening an onboard fashion show was held. The crew and staff members in an unusual role as models performed beautifully in the observation lounge on deck 7.

A sea day

Our second day on board MV Fram was spent at sea. Most thought that it would be a relaxing day at sea with a long sleep, relaxation in the Panorama Lounge or bathing in the sun. However, wake up call was at 08:30am by Anja. Now even the last passenger realized that we are not on a so-called "love boat" but on board an expedition vessel with a great programme! At 09.00am the first groups started to see the captain on his bridge before our lecture series started. After lunch there was some time to finally sit in the sun before the lectures continued at 02:30pm- there is so much to learn!
After dinner Antonio played the piano  in the Observation Lounge and then we had it- a little feeling of the "love boat" when crew members were singing some songs for us.

One man's meat is another man's poison!

It's our last day. Hamburg welcomes us with grey and deep hanging clouds. We can't believe, that this wonderful trip went so quickly. After an early breakfast we left MV FRAM, our beautiful home during the last days. In the harbour the busses were waiting for us, a last good bye from the expedition team, a last hug to new friends and than everybody started his individual trip home.
One man's meat is another man's poison. In our case it meant, leaving passengers had been very sad, that a beautiful trip came to an end, but the new incoming guests were looking forward to a trip, they have been waiting for since weeks or even months.

After all checking in formalities MV FRAM left Hamburg at 6 pm. The sun came out during we were sailing on the river Elbe into the direction of the North Sea. First the harbour buildings, later on very nice houses and a beautiful landscape were passing by. Our trip couldn't start better!

After the safety drill - a required course - our Captain, Rune Andreasson, welcome us in the Panorama Lounge. Whilst he introduced his officers to us, Anja, our expeditionleader, introduced her expeditionteam.

Full of new impressions we went to bed, looking forward to the next day.

SCOTLAND'S GOLD - SINGLE MALT WHISKY

Our Scottish Whisky Expert Bernard (Bernie) McGee, resident in Berlin, Germany, conducted Whisky Tastings on three evenings in the Observation Lounge of the MS FRAM.
The idea was to present as much a wide range of tastes as possible from different regions of Scotland.
The first evening consisted of the Speyside/ Highland Region of Scotland with whiskies from the AN CNOC, Murray McDavid LINKWOOD and GLENFARCLAS Distillery being presented. On the second evening the ARRAN, SPRINGBANK and LONGROW whiskies from Southwest Scotland were presented and on the final evening, mild and very peaty whiskies, viz. BRUICHLADDICH, Murray McDavid BOWMORE and SMOKEHEAD were tasted.
Our passengers were taken with the amazing range of tastes from very light to peat monsters and learned from Bernie how to appreciate whisky using the eye, nose and palate.
During the course of the cruise, Bernie supported the expedition staff of the FRAM by escorting passengers as a Whisky Expert on visits to the Jameson Distillery near Cork, Ireland and the Glen Garioch Distillery near Aberdeen, Scotland.
To conclude, our guests have now become Malt Whisky connoisseurs and were fascinated with the vast range of tastes found in the world of Malt Whisky.

Aberdeen- the Silver City

Whoever is responsible for the weather- please step forward!! You are going to stay permanently on board Fram! It was our last port of call today- and again it was great weather! No matter where we were on this trip the weatherforecase often said rain. And then we reached the places- and it was beautiful (except a really tiny rain shower on Iona- but that does not count)! Honestly, we can not complain!

Even in Aberdeen we had fascinating weather today. Our Captain had to go into the harbor backwards for quite a while but that meant that we had a berth nearly in the town center. Only a short walk up the road and you were at Union Street, THE shopping street in Aberdeen. All buildings seem to be built out of granit, hence the name "The Silver City". It is quite an impressive place, that is for sure. It seems to be bustling with life, around 10% of the inhabitants are students and you can really feel it. The university is from 1495 and is the third oldest in Scotland and the fifth oldest in the UK. Many just enjoyed the day in town, others went on excursion to a distillery, or to see the highlights of Aberdeen and Crathes Castle or experience the area of River Dee. Crathes Castle is absolutely impressive - it not only has a beautiful garden, but it is one of the nicest tower houses in Scotland.

And as we leave Scotland, here a few Scottish sayings for you...
"A Scot, half human, half God."
"Don`t marry for money, you can borrow it chepaer." (I like this one!)
"There is always life in a living man." (Fancy that!)

The pictures today are from the excursion "Royal Deeside".

Norwegian Flag and Harris Tweed

Today we celebrated the Norwegian National Day on board the MV Fram. It is an important
happening in the homeland of our ship. A big parade by the crew and guests marched along the hallways and through the entire ship with music, flags and singing the Norwegian hymn. Later on the dinning hall was opened with a big Norwegian buffet and from 10 pm Friederike presented the vegetable and icecarving-show of our philippino crew.
But we are faraway from Norway. In the morning we visited Lewis, the largest island of the
Western Isles or Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Lewis contains the only town Stornoway, and three
quaters of the population of the Western Isles. Here in Stornoway we docked and started
our excursions to the importent gaelic points of the island.
The Callanish Stones are situated near the village of Challanish. Construction of the site took place between 2900 and 2600 BC, though there were possibly earlier buildings before 3000 BC. The 13 primary stones
from a circle about 13 m in diameter, with a long approach avenue of stones to the north, and shorter
stone rows to the east, south, and west. The overall layout of the monument recalls a distorted Celtic cross.
Another importend attraction are the Black House a traditional type of house which used to be common
in the Highlands of Scotland and the Hebrides. The buildings were generally built with double wall dry-stone
walls packed with earth and wooden rafters covered with a thatch of turf with cereal straw or reed.
The floor was generally flagstones or packed earth and there was a central hearth for the fire.
There was no chimney for the smoke to escape though. Instead the smoke made its way through
the roof. The black house was used to accommodate livestock as well as people.
People lived in one end and the animals lived  in the other part with a separation between them.

A lot sheep of different breedes crossed the narrow streets- time to talk about Harris Tweed. It is a type of tweed that is only from the Outer Hebrides.Harris Tweed is a fabric made of pure virgin wool that has been dyed and spun and was woven by hand by residents of the islands of Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra in their homes. Tweed has been produced since ancient times in Scotland. During the time of the industrial revolution it became uneconomical to weave by hand  and Looms replaced the Loom. Only on the remote Outer Hebrides, at that time already known for the quality of their tweeds, manual production methods have been retained. But there was no time to buy the fantastic tweed products with the different colores.
So we look for shopping time tomorrow, the last port on our voyage.