Fjordland morning, garden day

If you announce the early-morning turn into a scenic passage the night before, you usually expect a handful of people to overcome the break-of-dawn laziness and step outside in the morning chill. Not so today: Well before seven the front deck was pretty busy, and a mesmerized crowd witnessed the entrance into the Lysefjord. And the reward was immanent, a clear, nordic sun greets us as we thrust into this steep-walled waterway. A little further down a famous cliff comes in sight: Peikestolen, or the Pulpit Rock, a flat rock table, some 600 meters above the water. Some are not contented by just lying flat on their belly to gaze down, but simply jump the cliff with fast-opening parachutes. Or not so fast opening; the number of lethal accidents is considerable. Luckily, nobody makes an attempt while we pass by, and the water lies smooth as a mirror.
After a beautiful morning cruise and our subsequent progress to Rosedalen, it is time now for some land excursion. FRAM goes to pier like an overgrown ferry in front of the little village, and so we do not even need our Polar Cirkel boats. Several excursions are competing against each other, most of them are close enough to be also walked to on your own accord. Take the Baronie, for example. This beautifully set garden surrounds the only chateau apart from the Royal Castle in Oslo, significantly smaller, ok, but featuring nice old trees that just start to show the first sprouts. After that we proceed to the famous Stone Garden, a really surprising complex, consisting of an old, water-driven sawmill and a truly magnificent array of rocks, carefully chosen, polished and set up in the pittoresque landscape, which itself is a nature-made zen garden of overgrown boulders and treetrunks. The final act of this sunny day is the old stone church, dating back to 1250, most probably built by an english mason, showing the good trade relations between western Norway and England/Scotland. The sun sets in shades of yellow and turquoise while everybody is enjoying a post-dinner drink in the observation lounge, basking in the memories of another great day.

Oil and the city

When a Norwegian ship is sailing home to Norway, you would not expect it to be nice and warm, but rather fresh and slightly chilly. And indeed, the morning - although spoilt with a nice scenic ride into Stavanger - drives most of us from the outer decks into the observation lounge, which certainly deserves this name today. Captain Rune makes our arrival quite a spectacular entrance for the bystanders on the pier by turning our ship on the spot in the tiny harbour basin, making FRAM seem to be a big building smack in the middle of smaller houses. Many were holding their breath, but we turn around without a noise, without a scratch, but finally with many "oooh"s and "aaah"s from everybody. 
And just as a reward for this masterly parking maneuver, the skies clear up and a warm breeze sweeps the chill away. Now it's the time to go out and discover! To many a surprise the "Oil Capital", as it is nick-named, turns out to be a cosy, charming town with beautiful wooden houses, lakes and trees and a very pretty church in the middle. The guided tour also leads to the tin can museum. This may sound a little odd, but the invention of a contraption that could make food last for weeks and months was a major step to catering and trade from the Norwegian coast. In the evening a huge full moon rises besides the old watchtower and a marvellous first day in Norway comes to an end.

The lazy ocean

So, this is the fierce North Sea? Hah! Smooth as a silk cloth, mild as springtime in the garden, these alledgedly rough waters present themselves from their best side. 

So, holiday it is - sitting outside in the sun, only disrupted by the occasional lecture or the luring smell of freshly made waffles that is wafting across the decks, encouraging the effort to get up and fetch one from the bar. And then it is already time for dinner...phew, rough day!
Around sunset we get a first impression of approaching the beating heart of the Norwegian petroleum industry, more and more oil rigs appear as ghostly silhouettes in the distance. But the port presentations, given by Karin, Corinna and Christelle, do reassure everybody: Apparently Stavanger has much more to offer than just oil and gas. So, let's glide through the night, with a moon so bright that it outshines the stars.

Check-out, check-in

It is in the nature of man to think in chapters, divide life into episodes. Obviously for everyone who leaves us today in Dover, it is a chapter to end. Glad to hear that so many of you liked it tremendously! No reason to be sad, there is always something else to come. Well, that's easy for you to say, might be your comment, you are staying on. True, but also for us, time is sliced. 

We also turn a leaf over when a trip comes to an end. New faces, new itinerary ahead of us, new weather forecast, a new program. An only a few hours inbetween. Which are usually filled to the brim with activity, so it doesn't feel that abrupt. It is only when the (loooong) day is ending that we find the images of the last episode wafting through our memory. That's how it works, everywhere. Life goes on and on, unstoppably. Isn't a ship a good symbol for this?

So, let's float on. The start could hardly be any nicer: A mild afternoon wraps Dover in a bright sunny haze, the white cliffs are gleaming as we pull out the harbour and travel along the coast for a little while. The new arrivals (some of them good ol' customers, though) obviously are enjoying themselves, after having done all the necessary check-in formalities. And again, being on a ship is so metaphoric: Casting the lines literally means severing the ties with your every-day's life. You are officially on holiday now!

Pearl and Oyster

The protagonists in "Les Amants de Pont Neuf" in Paris would certainly not think about the river Seine the way we get to see it here at the Normandy mouth of the stream as we make berth in Le Hare: It is wide and lazy and not meandering at all. And it sits in a very, very useful spot if it comes to infrastructural requirements. So it is no wonder that over the last 50 years the area has been converted into one vast industrial zone with refineries and shipyards and silos and everything that looks all but romantic. However, Le Havre is not without charme, in fact it is a UNESCO world heritage site for its fully untouched 20th century architecture.

Those who are more in for the beauty of the really old days will instead jump onto the shuttle bus and be driven to Honfleur, just on the other bank of the river. After a 20 minutes ride, industry and harbour cranes are left behind and the utterly pittoresque buildings of Honfleur are waiting to be discovered. On foot, of course, the narrow alleyways literally ask for it. It is a little hard to comprehend why this superb little gem is not yet a dedicated car-free zone. Apart from that, time seems to have stood still: old timber-framework houses are leaning towards the cobblestone streets, old masonery does the rest. It was a pirate nest, a fisherman's central, all from the medieval times on, it was a spritual hub for artists like Eugen Boudin and Monet later on, and the city still lives it: 

On every corner we find galleries, art shops, or at least allusions to the pirate era. A wonderful old-fashioned atmosphere lies on the place, the natural speed is the stroll, the natural expression is that of sheer awe and curiosity. And who can withstand all these temptations that come in form of Normandy bread, Normandy cake, spices, Calvados and Crêpes? No mistake, this is a hidden pearl, in the embrace of that concrete-and-steel world of today's industry. Good to know it is there.

And now - it is time to say good-bye: Captain's Farewell Cocktail is held in the Observation Lounge, because tomorrow morning we will dock in Dover and - sorry to say that - this trip is over. But as it seems, all had a really, really good time and leave unwillingly, but happy. Have a safe journey home!

Two Islands Dressing

A long day lays ahead of us, when the heavy anchor chain of FRAM is rattling in the morning, for the first time during this trip. We are about a solid mile away from the tiny little harbour of Sark, certainly one of the most unusual Islands in Europe. Situated in the English Channel, but not too far from the Normannic side, this remarkable rock sits like a steep and cragged, but also lush and colour-boasting obstacle in the sea. It is time now to enter our Polar Circel boats and ferry over, while sun and clouds fight for their right in the morning sky. On approach we can see many gaping dark cave mouths in the cliffs. They are excellent hideouts, which is one of the reasons why the Channel Islands used to be the realm of Pirates in the old days, a wild place indeed. 

We, however, feel all but threatened by the friendly welcome they give us. Tractor transports bring us uphill where we have the choice to be happy, independent cyclists or equally happy passengers in the horse-and-carriages, that take us across the car-free roads of this very peaceful place. Those who venture over to Little Sark, a smaller appendix of the "big" island, only connected by the narrow bridge "La Coupée", experience a world outside the world; no noise, no rush, no worries. No streetlamps, either. This is why Sark has been appointed the worlds first "Dark Sky Community", only as of February this year. The Serquois, as the inhabitants of this bilingual evironment are called, are mighty proud of this darkness, that you otherwise find only in much remoter places, like a desert camp, for example.

Way too fast the hours pass by, but finally the bikes have to be returned, the carriages have to be left alone, and then we climb back into the boats to get back to FRAM, across a choppy sea. This was a visit in another world, everybody agrees.

It takes only a good hour to hop over to Guernsey, much bigger, much more traffic and with a real "skyline". But we should not forget that this used to be "Pirate Central" in the times of Brigantines and buckaneers, and in fact, some of the islanders are proudly claiming to be the descendants of former privateers. And who knows? Today it's ferries and busses and nice shops in a narrowly winding arrangement of streets that feel as if the cobblestones have just been taken away. On arrival, most of us jump on the coaches that leave for a three-hour extensive city tour with excellent guides who inform us about all the aspects of the island's history, from piracy benefitting from the huge tidal range (that we only can see manifested in a submerged landing pier), to the role of Gurnsey during WW II. So, everybody returns to FRAM tired, but happy and full of new information. A day to remember!