We sailed out of Amsterdam Saturday evening. It was a beautiful, warm evening, and everyone was out enjoying it.

Note all the people on the observation deck of the tower.

Ferries going back and forth, small boats, and cruise ships (i.e., us).

Pretty boat harbor, off the main harbor.

Notice how the highway suddenly disappears and goes under the harbor.

Our pilot boat.

On Sunday, we sailed through the Wadden Sea and headed for the mouth of the Elbe River, which would take us to our date with the Kiel Canal. We were scheduled to head to the entrance lock to the canal around 1:00pm. We attended a morning lecture about the importance of the canal and were all primed to be there.

Whoa! Not so fast.

About noon, the captain came onto the loudspeaker to tell us there had been an accident in one of the two larger locks. That meant the two-way canal had just become a one-way canal. Even though the Viking Sea had been sailing full-steam to get there, there were four ships ahead of us in the queue. We were going to have to drop anchor and not enter the lock until 10:00pm. Most of us thought we must have misheard him. But, alas, no.

Since it takes an optimistic 11 to 12 hours to transit the canal, we obviously weren’t going to be in Warnemunde (port for Berlin) for everyone’s planned excursions early in the morning. In fact, we wouldn’t be arriving in Warnemunde until 5:00pm. Hmmm….

So the decision was made that we would stay overnight Monday in Warnemunde and do all the planned excursions to Berlin and elsewhere on Tuesday morning—as planned, but 24 hours later.

The only problem with that was we just lost Copenhagen from our itinerary!

There has been some grumbling, as you might imagine. In fact, according to our captain’s update this morning, there have been a number of comments on social media, some people asserting that this was an accident from back in February (hence Viking should have known about it). He assured us that while there was an accident in February, the one causing our problems occurred in the early hours of Sunday. And the Viking Sea had been scurrying ever since learning of it to try to be as close as possible to the front of the queue to ameliorate our problem.

We dropped anchor in the Elbe River, and this was our view for the next 8 hours.

About 6:00pm, the captain announced that one of the ships in the queue ahead of us had some technical problems and ceded their position in the queue to us.

The queue.

We entered the lock about 8:00pm.

At the lock in Brunsbuttel, the entrance lock going our direction.

Our nighttime passage through the Kiel Canal.

Monday morning, the captain called our Kiel journey a miracle passage, which we made in only 9 hours. We were accompanied by the most spectacular lightning storm I have ever seen. It went on nonstop for about 2 hours.

We emerged from the Kiel end of the canal early this morning and are sailing on calm seas in the Baltic now, heading for Warnemunde.

 

One of the things we wanted to do when in Amsterdam on this trip was get out of the city and see some Dutch countryside. We’d spent 6 days in the city in 2015. We’d seen the key museums. We’d wandered the streets of the canal ring. We’d cruised the canals a couple times, one time in a historic wooden boat. Our only venture out of the city was taking a train to Delft, where we spent the day in the town and visited the Vermeer museum.

We were ready to see some countryside.

So on Saturday, we headed north of the city to see the polders. Polders are the “low lands reclaimed from the sea and protected by dikes.” I wasn’t sure they’d be particularly scenic, but we loved seeing this interesting land of canals and dikes. There were lots of waterfowl and some charming towns. It would be hard not to fall in love with all the tidy little houses with canals on one or two sides and their pretty gardens.

As we got further out of the city, we came to farming country, and typical farmhouses with their pyramidal roofs started to appear.

We stopped to visit a family farm near the town of Alkmaar, which is known for its traditional cheese market. Natuurlijk Genoegen is an organic farm. The husband and wife, Joeren and Rosalinde, their three kids (8, 6, and 4), and the farm’s sheepdog entertained a group of 35 of us. Jerry kicked the ball for the insatiable dog. Others threw the ball for him. He had no sheep to herd, so the farmer told us he would consider us his herd.

We got to meet lots of cows. There are 150 cows on this farm, half of them milking cows. The farm sells its milk to a cooperative. We met some 4-month old calves and the resident bull.

We saw some newborn sheep.

We walked out to the fields and saw the area where they rent out camping sites. They’re very entrepreneurial. They also grow apples, plums, and walnuts. The young farmer shared his plans for improvements and expansion. At €60,000 per hectare, expansion doesn’t come easily. They have 80 hectares now.

We soft visitors were offered plastic booties to put over our shoes as we walked through the cow barn and out into the fields. The kids? They were running alongside us barefoot!

We could see one functioning windmill just across a field and another defunct one. Joeren said there used to be 52 windmills in this area, the Schermer. Now, there are 11.

We were now in the Beemster-Schermer Polder, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We stopped to visit a group of three windmills (or water mills). If they are in a group of three or more, they are known as a gang of windmills. We were able to go inside one and see the mill at work. It is a museum, so we were also able to see how a miller’s family lived in the lower floor.

Our next stop was in the former fishing village of Volendam. It once was a thriving fishing community. After severe flooding, they made the conscious choice to drain the land around them. They now are situated on and behind a dike, but they lost their fishing livelihood. Some stayed and changed career, so to speak; others moved away. It is now one incredibly touristy little town. Still, it was interesting to see its situation on the dike, its view out to the isle of Marken, and to walk its below-sea-level streets.

The calm and quiet residential streets, about 20 steps below the dike.

The bustling main tourist area, near the boat harbor.

The houses on the dike, looking out over the now freshwater lake.

We had lunch while in Volendam. It may not be known for its fishery anymore, but it is the place to get fresh fish. We started our meal with some local shrimp. This was followed by beautifully prepared haddock, and a little glass of Heineken to go with it.

Our last stop was at a cheese farm. They make Gouda from cow, goat, and sheep milk. We got to look at their aging room and taste all their different cheeses—different milks, different flavors, and different ages. A yummy stop.

As we headed back south to Amsterdam, we got to see a few fields of colorful tulips.

This was a rather long day, and parts of it were a bit touristy feeling. But we got to see some beautiful countryside, meet a nice family, see windmills in their natural environment, see tulips and dikes and canals. And we could take away dreams of the beautiful little canal  houses, some of the prettiest suburbs we’ve ever seen.

We arrived in Amsterdam around 8:30am Friday. We berthed at the cruise terminal, located just beyond the area where we had berthed when we were last here, at the end of our river cruise from Budapest. There must have been around 20 river ships in port, whereas we were one of only two cruise ships in port.

We would be in Amsterdam 2 days, and we planned to spend this first day on our own. We took the tram to Centraal Station, and from there took a tram to Westermarkt.

The Beautiful: After a prolonged cold period, Amsterdam was having a bit of a heat wave. Everyone who could (and many who shouldn’t) were out in short shorts and other skimpy paraphernalia. Everybody was out to enjoy the sun.

We visited Westerkerk, which was a favorite landmark when we stayed 6 days in this neighborhood after the river cruise in 2015. Then we wandered around the nearby canals.

The Sad: After a month of checking the website daily for tickets to the Anne Frank House (the ONLY way to get tickets during the current construction, which is now scheduled to go through July 1), I managed to get lucky just a few days prior and snagged a pair of tickets for the day we would be in town. That was our only planned/timed stop, and we purposely decided we’d make this a pretty low-key day. Westerkerk, Anne Frank, lunch, strolling the Jordaan neighborhood.

We arrived in plenty of time for our visit to the Anne Frank House. What a zoo of people. This is such a busy and highly visited site. We slowly made our way through the house and the hiding place. There are so many people going through, it is hard to truly absorb where one is. Nonetheless, it was very affecting to be in the long-past presence of this family. A sad reminder of a grim piece of history.

Back to the beautiful or at least the happy: We found a little neighborhood koffee huis that we had enjoyed before and had pannekoeken—Dutch pancakes that are like a very thick crepe with a choice of savory or sweet toppings (melty ham and cheese for us).

We walked through the streets along the canal and lusted after some of the Delftware we saw in the shop windows. Eventually, we decided it was time to head back to the ship.

We caught a tram back to Centraal Station. So far, so good.

But the evil transportation pixies decided to play with us.

The Challenging Bit: We tried mightily to find our tram #26 back to the cruise terminal. After 30+ minutes of trying and failing, we discovered the problem: the track for that line had been taken out of service. We found someone who told us to walk to the back side of Centraal Station (easier said than done I might point out) and to look for bus #326 on platform H. We navigated our way through the vast Station, going down a level and then up a level, never quite sure if were interpreting signs correctly. We found platform H. After a half hour, the bus appeared. But of course a lot of people were now interested in this bus. We both managed to get on. Trust me, this was not a given.

The bus made a loop to leave the big terminal, headed down a ramp, and came to a stop. Looked initially like a red light. But then we sat there and sat there. The driver made a long announcement (in Dutch, of course). There appeared to be a problem, though the specifics were lost to us.

Someone who knew we were trying to get to the cruise terminal (she had helped us squeeze onto this ill-fated bus) told us the route was blocked somewhere ahead and the driver didn’t know where to go. She suggested that since the cruise terminal was within sight, we would probably be better off getting off the bus and walking, which is what we did. As we got off the bus, the driver—who was also off the bus—said in English (!), “This is one giant hell of an improvisation!”

In 80 degrees and a strong sun, our 30-minute walk to the ship reduced me to a bit of a puddle. We made it back to the ship, and obviously we would have been better off just walking from the outset. Let’s just say it certainly wasn’t as straightforward as it should have been. That’s what happens when you get smug and think you know your way around the tram system!

 

Note: Something truncated the post. Text and pictures were deleted. I have tried to recreate it here.

 

 

…or so it calls itself. Le Havre is France’s largest international seaport and is located at the mouth of the Seine, on the English Channel.

In fact, many of the people onboard our ship were taking excursions to Paris. Two+ hours by bus, 3 hours in the city, and then 2+ hours back.

We had opted not to do that. We love Paris, but….

Instead, we went north of Le Havre to the Normandy coastal town of Fecamp.

We first visited the Holy Trinity Church and the adjacent ruins of an abbey, once a major pilgrimage site. It was an impressive church.

Then, also in Fecamp, we toured the Palais Benedictine, a grand Gothic confection of a structure. We walked through the streets of Fecamp toward the palace. When we rounded the corner and saw this brick eye candy, all we could do was gasp. The town is filled with lots of brick and flint houses, but nothing else like this.

After basking in all the art and architecture, we also got to visit the Benedictine distillery and cellars. It was interesting to see how this legendary liqueur is made. We each got to have a taste. Made with 27 herbs and spices, it’s pretty potent stuff.

Twenty minutes further up the coast, we got to wander the dramatic shoreline of Etretat. It was a beautiful day to be on a beach. It was warm and sunny, and there was no wind. (When we visited Etretat in 2009, I had to hang onto the parking meter as I figured out payment, in order to avoid being blown over.)

On our way back to the ship, we went through the center of Le Havre. Months after D-Day, even though Paris and other parts of France had been liberated, the huge and strategic port of Le Havre was still occupied. The Allies commenced 2 days of bombing and destroyed 85% of the city. Reconstruction lasted until 1964. Our drive through the center gave us a chance to see the modern rebuilding, designed by Belgian Auguste Perret and now a UNESCO World Heritage Center.

Today, we are sailing north through the English Channel. It’s slow going. Sometimes we have to stop, presumably to get a place in the queue.

Sea days can be rather quiet. So the captain ordered up some entertainment for us. Just kidding. But we did get some unexpected excitement. A helicopter kept circling around our ship. We were stopped, and soon people were starting to worry we had lost someone overboard. Then the helicopter stopped, turned to face us directly, and hovered in place. It had a rather menacing look to it.

At this point, the captain came onto the loudspeaker and announced that the helicopter on our port side was a “friendly craft.” He told us the helicopter was Coast Guard and had requested our assistance in a search and rescue training exercise. As the captain said, we never know when we might need their assistance, so the Viking Sea agreed to participate. The captain explained that we would be closing our retractable swimming pool roof and that a person would be lowered onto our sport deck and then retrieved. We actually had two people serially lowered and retrieved.

Here is the second fellow joining his compatriot.

And here he goes back up again.

There’s just no end to the entertainment opportunities on this cruise!

Next stop: Amsterdam