Gouda and Kinderdijk

Yes, that Gouda.  Those are plastic cheeses, and that's us, standing on a giant medieval cheese scale. In addition to at one time being the wealthiest city in the Netherlands, Gouda is also known for clay pipes and candles.

The GPS gave us a back roads route from Gouda to the Kinderdijk.  It included this surprise ferry. 40 percent of the country is below sea level after all.

Kinderdijk, Unesco world heritage site. Debates on where the name comes from, child labor, small dike, man with many children as one of the head millers... you pick.

Originally 20 dikes from the mid 1600's all working to elevate water over 1 meter to maintain farmland from being claimed by the sea. The windmill's energy is used to turn and Archimedes screw that moves the water. The tops of these windmill's can be rotated to best position the sails. Families used to live in these things.

There was no wind on our visit, so I had to push.

Too many days in Holland for you all to have to wait for the required wooden clogs photo

Look, National Geographic thinks my visit is cover-worthy!

Thoughts on the Netherlands

Bikes are everywhere.  It takes longer to cross the bike lane than it does the actual street because the cars will stop for you but the bikes won't.  Also, it's pretty easy to end up in the bike lane accidentally because it often feels like an extension of the sidewalk.  Haven't been hit yet though so that's good.

You don't ever really pronounce the letter g in Dutch.  It either goes soft and turns into an h sound or you pronounce it like you are disgusted with something like CCHHH.  Lots of streets end in "weg" which is pronounced "vecchhh" so that's fun but after a bit it makes you kind of thirsty.

Rotterdam

Frite and Frickendel (with mayo and curry ketchup)

View of Rotterdam harbor during World Port days from the Euromast (185 meters). The elevator ride to the top was sound tracked by Lenny Kravitz.

Light and boat "water ballet" for World Port Day festivities.

World Port Days fire works show, sound tracked with Cydia Lauper's True Colors and MJ's Thriller

Reactions to Art

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Oslo

On our first day out and about in Oslo, Jim bumped into a game store he wanted to peruse.  Turns out it was a game store that specializes in game play with custom painted figures. They let us paint our own figures, and for free, it was a welcome creative endeavor.  This is my elvin warrior, photographed standing guard at Ackerhaus (the standing fort in Oslo).

The preserved in alum ,Oseberg find at the Viking Museum in Bygdoy

A portrait of nautical archaeologists uncovering the Oseberg find in 1908

 Smelling the roses at the Vigelands park

Vigelands  sculptures (this one reminds me of Hobbes' Leviathan)

The only known viking helmet find on display in the National Cultural History Musuem

Just to be clear on Norwegian hierarchy when riding public transport. Note, dogs and bicycles must pay,  but your pram or skis ride free.

Fjord!

Fjords are long narrow inlets cause by glacial erosion. You may remember reading about them in your 5th grade geography text book and thinking, how can this be any different from a river? Or  a mountain stream? This must just be a funny Norwegian way of describbing waterways.  Well, turns out there's nothing quite like it.  With water as deep as the cliffs are high and undulating in black, green, and blue, they are breathtaking. We  cruised the Sognefjord from Bergen to Flam and also caught a glimpse of the Aurland fjord (a Unesco world heritage site).  Take a look.

View of the Aurland fjord

View from the back of the ship, Jostealsbreen glacier

Waterfall

Our boat docked in Flam, where had some time to explore the small mountain town, and then catch the Flam railway, with 20 tunnels, and a 20 degree grade, it takes and hour and provides breathtaking views while lifting you above the tree line.

That zig zag road was the original construction road used to build the railway. Now it's a bike path.

The Flam railway dropped us offor at Myrdal station, in the middle of mountain nowhere, but that was okay, because this was the view from our Oslo bound train.

Fjell-hytten

Our last day in Bergen we took the Floibanen funicular up Floyen where there is a great view of the city and several walking and hiking trails.  We just picked one at random.

It ended up being a little bit more of a hike than we were planning on:

And when we got to the top, this what we found:

It turns out that Fjell-hytten means mountain cabin in Norwegian and we had arrived at the mountain cabin.  There are no roads to it so who knows how it was built.  This was a thought that would continue occurring me as we saw the houses along the Sognefjord which is the deepest and longest fjord in Norway.  Fjords are crazy and wicked cool, but more on that later.  We were also rewarded with this view:

The pictures we took don't really do it justice.  In conclusion, Bergen is awesome.