Celtic France

Yesterday we passed by the Channel Islands of Alderney, Guernsey, Herm and Sark but due to storm-force wind conditions, we could not land in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. As a result though, our passengers had a taste of what expedition cruising is all about! 

The winds continued overnight and made for a bumpy sleep.  Again, our passengers experienced “expedition cruising” at its best!

By early morning it was clear that either the winds had calmed down or we were in sheltered waters. This was a nice relief. The calmness in fact was a result of us entering the estuary that contains Brest, our next port of call.

Brest is the largest city in Brittany or en français- Bretagne. The name gives away a clue- Brittany was inhabited by Celts and then celtic Britons moved to this western outpost in France to escape the Anglo-Saxon hoards after the Romans left Britain (as did the Welsh and Cornish when they moved to their respective, current lands). So Brittany is a Celtic enclave in a Latin country.  The Brittany language shares similarities with the extinct Cornish language and the very much alive Welsh. It was interesting to see many street signs in Brest, written in French and the Brittany language. A sad program to quash the Celtic culture in Brittany was mounted by the French in former times, but it was totally unsuccessful in killing the language and culture.

Place de al Liberté

Brest's modern tram

People have lived in Brittany and Brest for 1000s of years and the city is old- the Romans were there 2000 years ago. However, you would never know its age by looking at it. During the occupation in WWII, the Germans built an important submarine base there, which attracted the interests of the Allies, who eventually bombed the city to oblivion. Very few old buildings exist. One, the castle-like “Chateau” was too strong to be destroyed, although the Allies attempted it.

Two interesting excursions were offered today. Your faithful blogger was lucky enough to accompany the “Panoramic Tour of Brest and the Mythical Coast”.  Here are some images from the tour to give you a flavour of what we did and what we saw.

The lovely harbour of Portsall at low tide 

The ruins of Saint Mathieu Abbey 

The anchor from the famous Amoco Cadiz. The oil tanker ran aground near
Portsall on the Brittany coastline on 16 March 1978, spilling a vast amount of
oil into the sea. Much of this oil found its way to the Brittany shores.

The Land of Beer

Wine is to France what beer is to Belgium. And here we are in Antwerp, a beautiful city in the Flemish part of the country. It seems there are more types of beer in Belgium than there are leaves on the trees. Each town seems to have it’s own specialities and some are really way out. Take the Lambics for example. They are brewed in open vats where the natural yeast from the River Senne around Brussels settles onto the malt sugars and starts the fermentation process. Then there are the blondes, the dubbels, the trippels, the Trappiste ales, and so it goes on. Some bars boast over 300 varieties and all have to be served in their own special glass. I’ve heard that is the law in Belgium!

We sailed up the River Schelde towards Antwerp in the early morning. The mouth of the river is actually bordered on both sides by the Netherlands. Once we sailed into Belgium we found ourselves amongst a large industrial complex, dominated by oil refineries. Indeed, Antwerp has the largest oil refining facilities in the world next to Houston, Texas.

Once we docked we could see that we were very close to the old centre of the city, dominated by the Catholic Cathedral of our Lady spire.  Many of us took advantage of a guided walk through the old city, a highlight of which was the Rubens mansion. Here are a few images to give you a flavour of this amazing city.

A prominent feature of the central square is the bronze statue of Brabo. Legend has it that the giant “Antigoon” charged for passage across the river and those who did not pay had their hand cut off and thrown into the river by the giant. Brabo, saved the day by doing the same to the giant. The bronze features the young hero Brabo holding the hand of the giant, throwing it away into the river. The coat of arms of the city features two hands to commemorate this legend.

Amsterdam!

We are really hitting the highlights of continental Europe! Today we found ourselves in Amsterdam, the capital city of the Netherlands. Unusually, the city is not the seat of government for the country; this is The Hague. In the early morning with started sailing up the North Sea Canal. On each side we past fields, highways, houses and then more built-up and industrial areas of the city.

Amsterdam is a joy. The city really shows off the golden age of the Netherlands, when the city was the richest in the world. It got that way over a few hundred years first as an exploring and whaling nation and then as a trader in spices and other valuable commodities in the east and west indies. Over this time the country acquired many colonies overseas. Many of the buildings in the central part of the city reflect this richness.

Many of us took part is a very interesting tour of the city by coach and canal boat. This is a great way to get a sense of the real character of this place. With over 100km of canals Amsterdam is rightly referred to as the “Venice of the North”. Public transport by bus, street car and rail seems to be very popular as is travel on bicycles, of which there are 800,000 in the city, or about one for every person in Amsterdam proper (“metro” Amsterdam boasts a  population of about 1.5 million inhabitants).

Anne Frank was a native of Amsterdam

Of course, the Netherlands is noted as the world capital of bulbs. Here is a tiny selection for sale in the floating flower market.

One noticeable feature of almost all the buildings in the inner city was the hoisting beam sticking out of the top floor of each. Old warehouses on the shore line of course would need these beams to hoist goods from a ship or the dock, up into the building. The existence of hoisting beams on residences is a little puzzling however. It turns out that the stairways on these old residences are often so narrow that furniture and other large items need to be hoisted up to the upper floors, as if they were barrels of fish, salt or whale oil!

Helgoland- a little German rock in a big sea

We had a real treat today. We visited a small German island called Helgoland. For many of us, this was the first visit to these two little islands. First visits are always an extra-special treat! Helgoland is in the German Bight, an area of water in the North Sea, with Denmark to the east and Germany to the south. It consists of two islands, one fairly high and made of red sandstone, and the other low-lying and made of sand dunes. A few thousand years ago the islands were part of a much larger island, but erosion and sea-level rise have reduced the landmass to the current small size. And they are very precious to Germany being their only truly offshore marine island. The geology of the area is interesting. The red sandstone would normally be below sea-level but it is underlain with salt. Sea water intrusions into the salt layer led to its expansion which caused the sandstone above to uplift above sea-level.

The main island is clearly a place where tourists visit, there being many shops and restaurants along the small streets. Helgoland is a tax-free zone, so items that are usually taxed heavily, like alcohol, are a lot cheaper. Helgolanders are obviously very proud of their gardens!

The architecture is modern because the island was virtually destroyed in WWII. The island is very well-known to birders for being a hotspot for rarities. As birds migrate north for the summer and south for the winter, many take a rest on Helgoland, and some take refuge there if they are blown off course.

While we were there, a species of warbler from Siberia was seen. During our hike over the top of the island, we saw many Northern Wheatears, which were clearly on migration south.

Around lunchtime we all came back to the Fram and continued our voyage, this time to Amsterdam, where we will be tomorrow. Along the way we sailed by several marine windfarms supplying power to Germany. 

And on the way we picked up some stowaways in the form of about a dozen Barn Swallows. They will likely hitch a free ride all the way to Amsterdam!

Hamburg!

So today we found ourselves sailing down the River Elbe towards Hamburg, the largest city in Northern Germany and the second largest in the country as a whole, behind Berlin. As an indication of the size of the River Elbe, we started sailing down the river at 03:00am this morning and only reached Hamburg at 09:00am. 

As we sailed we pasted some huge cargo ships, underlining the fact that Hamburg has the second largest port in Europe, next to Rotterdam.A mist hung over the shores of the river. 

Hamburg is a good “segway” from Bergen, our last port of call, as they were both important Hanseatic Ports. In fact the official name of Hamburg is “Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg”. The Hanseatic League was a cartel of merchants and the market towns from which they traded.  In a sense it might be considered an early form of free trade. Yesterday was a holiday in Germany and today many people we out and about in the bustling centre of the city. Whether on foot or on a bus tour the splendour of this city shone. This is remarkable since it was almost completely destroyed in WWII.