Just Saying: Northern bound

It’s always interesting how these decisions get made, but, lo and behold, we recently went on another ocean cruise, this time to Holland, Iceland and Norway.

We’ve been on several of these voyages, but this may be our last. These cruises aren’t for everyone, but some years back for a wedding anniversary ending in a zero, we flew to Venice and sailed off to the eastern Mediterranean. We had a blast.

Some of these ocean liners are ridiculously huge, carrying up to 6,000 passengers. We prefer the smaller versions with 1,000 to 2,000 passengers, which is a nonstarter for lots of folks who feel hanging out with that many people on a boat is the antithesis of a vacation. Different strokes for different folks. The food is quite impressive and the crew, in all its facets, is superb. We like the fact that you unpack once and see a bunch of places you’ve never seen before with various choices of excursions at each port of call.

This trip started in Amsterdam, a place I’ve wanted to visit my entire adult life. We got there a couple of days before departure to get a feel for the old city with its canals and notable architecture. Just like Paris, Amsterdam lives up to the images that over the years get burned into your brain. The mandatory canal tour was somewhat scrambled by the Gay Pride parade, one of the largest and most vibrant in Europe, but still was quite wonderful despite a cranky boat captain.

You have to admire the Dutch. They ruled the oceans hundreds of years ago and established New Amsterdam, which happened to become New York City. Chocolate, tulips, the list goes on. Oh yeah — Heineken.

The main allure of this particular cruise was Iceland. After cruising at sea for two days, we pulled in to Reykjavik, the underwhelming capital. But the countryside is fabulous. In the middle of oceanic nowhere, Iceland sits at the confluence of the Eurasian and American tectonic plates and is literally being torn in two. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are commonplace. The whole place is warmed by geothermal hot water.

The abundant snow is melted away by (mostly) underground pipes in the streets, and homes and businesses are all heated by geothermal energy. The above-ground pipes, running everywhere, are fitted with wheels to accommodate the ever-shifting ground. Our excursion took us past miles of ancient lava beds, smoking sulfurous pools, volcanos and a rift where the island is pulling apart.

It is a tough place to live. Very expensive, everything imported ($30 T-shirts for the grandkids) and harsh weather. But the Icelanders we met, tour guides and merchants, exuded pride in surviving in their rocky, treeless land. Fun fact: Icelandic horses, highly valued for their mild nature and fondness for humans, have five gaits, not the usual four: walk, trot, canter, gallop and the fifth — I forgot to inquire.

Our itinerary called for two other ports of call, but a strong gale led the captain to bypass the second and race to the third, which was more sheltered. Very glad to have gotten to know Iceland a bit, but don’t need to go back. On to Norway.

We had two ports of call: Alesund, a pretty town on a fjord, and Bergen, a more commercial city on the coast. Unlike Iceland, I would love to return to Norway for an extended visit. (A former boss married a Norwegian and is buying a house there to go with the woodland cabin they already own.) I would say the chances of a return visit are slim to none, but you never know. We headed back to Amsterdam where I had some of the best oysters in my so-called life. The waitress said they were from Ireland, which seemed preposterous, but why would she lie?

To save a few bucks, we elected to take an interior stateroom. With the lights off, it was like the black hole of Calcutta (wherever that phrase came from). We kept the bathroom door slightly ajar with the light on to avoid utter sensory deprivation and the attendant madness we would surely descend into. It made for some fine sleeping, once you got the hang of it.

We flew into Newark and the trip back to the apartment is always destabilizing. New York, what a crazy concept. I want my Norway back.