Stavanger

June of 2012 found us in Stavanger, Norway for Kate's annual KBS conference. Here's a photo album of our visit.

Stavanger is an old port city on the south west coast of Norway. North Sea oil fields are nearby and account for some of Norway's financial stability. There's a lot of industry here to support the ships on the oil fields. We had been to Bergen (another old port city) and Oslo on another visit many years ago but this time we flew in and out directly.

We stayed at a Havly Best Western near the city port. Kate's conference was out of town a bit at the university. Around the hotel and port it's mostly a pedestrian mall of quaint older buildings with a rabbit warren of lanes to explore. There are some new modern buildings and shopping malls interspersed but most of my pictures are of the wooden buildings - often painted white, often painted in colorful pastels. We were lucky to arrive during a Music Festival so there's quite a few band pictures. On the other side of the port from us is an even older part of town called Gemle and there are mostly white washed homes there.

I did lots of hiking around the town while Kate was at the conference.

One adventure/hike that I went on was to take a ferry to Tau (a short ride away), then a bus and then a strenuous hike over rought terrain up to Pulpit Rock (Preikestolen in Norwegian). It's quite a long hike but a stunning view when you get to the rock. It's a flat square of level rock (approximately 24m or 82ft square) which stands over 600m (1,982ft) straight down to the long narrow fjord below! Some folks would sit on the edge of the rock, or peer over the edge. I couldn't compel myself to get anywhere near the edge. It scared the bejesus out of me! Since then I've found clips on YouTube of people base jumping off the rock with a wing suite and flying down to the fjord below. That scares me even more!

I found the hike up a bit strenuous with the shoes I was wearing. I suspect the poor arch support made it all the more difficult. Some of the KBS conference group went there for the Wednesday afternoon social adventures and I understood that someone twisted their ankle on the hike and had to be carried out -- no fun! For the KBS banquet event we took a boat up the fjord to see Pulpit Rock from below.

There's another famous rock over a fjord to hike to in Norway -- Kjerabolten is a small rock wedged into a crevice some 984m (3,228ft) straight down to the water below! It's a way further north, not near us at all.

The small harbor is often busy with a couple of cruise ships stopping here as a port of call while exploring the fjords. The "Costa Fortuna" (is the sister ship "Costa Lotta"?) is the funniest name I've seen on a boat.

Pulpit Rock

June of 2012 saw us in Stavanger Norway for Kate’s KBS conference.  It’s a pretty historic harbour town with lots of pedestrian friendly areas. That’s Kate and I at lunch at left – note that we’re dressed for the cooler weather. Nearby I went on a boat trip and hike to “Pulpit Rock” (Preikestolen) which overlooks this huge fjord (Lysefjord) Preikestolen (The Pulpit Rock) and the Lysefjord Preikestolen (The Pulpit Rock) and the Lysefjord, Norway Photo: Terje Rakke/Nordic Life 2011Preikestolen (The Pulpit Rock) and the Lysefjord, Norway Photo: Terje Rakke/Nordic Life 2011Preikestolen (The Pulpit Rock) and the Lysefjord. The rock is a viewpoint of about 30m square that sits 600m over the fjord with a sheer drop down to the water. Lots of folks would sit on the edge of the rock; others would stand near the edge or lie on their tummies and look over the edge. I could do neither; the vertigo was too much for me.  I did find several YouTube videos of fellows doing base-jumps off the rock. Very scary!  Friends tell me there’s an even scarier spot you can visit further up the fjord. There’s this big round boulder (called Kjeragbolten) stuck in a crevasse that you jump onto (sic!). It’s 1000m over the fjord so if you miss the jump you’re toast.... I can’t imagine doing that.

The hike to Pulpit Rock takes about 2hrs each way. There’s a vertical rise of 300m (you take a bus to a lake side resort in the mountains) over a distance of about 4km. Most of the hike is over rough scree that’s very hard on the ankles. When I came down off the hike my knees and ankles were exhausted. Of course there’s several pretty Norwegian 20-somethings running up and down the trail as you stumble along. They’ll be sorry some day when their knees and ankles wear out prematurely.

Stavanger is a pretty historic town. I have posted a photo album if you are interested.

Florida Road Trip

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In late March of 2012 we did a short driving trip to the Florida Keys via Nashville and Cocoa Beach. It was a short trip in terms of time – we had only given ourselves 10 days (leaving Friday, returning Monday next) – but a long trip on the road. We like long drives and hadn’t done one in a while. Nashville is a bit of a diversion but there’s some music there we really like – we went to the “Bluebird Cafe” for music in the round on both ends of the trip. In Cocoa Beach (that’s Florida near Cape Canaveral) we visited with Joan (who stood up for us at our wedding) and Ron who rented a condo for the month. They do that every year and have always asked us if we’d like to visit.

In the Keys we went snorkelling on Looe Key off the Bahia Hondo state park near Marathon – that’s about half way down the keys. It’s a short boat ride out to the reef and one day the weather was good enough for us to get out onto the reef. It’s a bit disappointing as we have snorkelled a bit in Australia where the reefs are in much better shape. Nevertheless we saw some fishies including sharks (which are a bit scary but apparently common). We rented a “cabin” at the nearby Seashell Beach Resort (that's a heron photo from the "beach"). The naming is a flight of fancy that doesn’t hold true -- there's really no beach and it's not much of a resort. Nevertheless we had fun in the area. We ate lots of seafood – shrimps in our cabin, stone crab claws and “Lobster Reuben”.

A notable adventure in South Miami Beach on the way back.... we love the restaurant strip on Ocean Drive in the heart of the art-deco area of South Beach and had booked the Cardozo hotel (expensive, refurbished and quite nice but mind the cock roaches) so we could enjoy an evening stopping at different funky spots for drinks, noshes and an evening of people watching. All within a short walk of our room. As we’re starting the “greeter” at the Cardozo catches us with a two for one drink deal which we ought to have refused. We ordered a couple of caipirinha’s with the idea of having a quick sip before heading out to see more. The drinks were huge ($32 for the two – if we’d known the price we might have guessed the size) and of course we had to finish them. This meant we were quickly quite tipsy and couldn’t negotiate much of the strip. Saner minds prevailed and we went to our room with the idea of having a little nap and exploring things later ... when we awoke at midnight. There’s a lesson there, probably several.

Anyways, I have posted a photo album if you're curious.

Phoenix AZ

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We were in Phoenix AZ for some meetings and then some vacation time. For the first part of the trip we stayed in the Hyatt Regency a downtown high rise hotel hosting Kate's meetings. Later we stayed in Scottsdale (a suburb of Phoenix) in a colorful and funky low rise hotel called the Saguaro with a lovely pool and nearby entertainment district.

I fell ill in Phoenix (food poisoning I think) but we did manage some side trips with Kate's colleague Sam. We drove out to the Casa Grande National Monument. It's a very large ruin of an old Pueblo native village constructed out of adobe. Oddly it's in the middle of some very flat land but I suppose that's where they were able to divert the river and farm the land. If you're looking for the ruins hugging cliffs that's in another part of the state (eg. we visited Canyon de Chelly many years ago). We also did a drive out to Tortilla Flat (if only for the name). You see lots of desert country, cactus and rough mountains out there and some water too. The Salt River is dammed to form Canyon Lake for boating and water supply to Phoenix (I seem to recall that the bulk of water for Phoenix comes from the Colorado River but I could be wrong).

Anyways, the Saguaro was a delightful hotel for a visit to Scottsdale. You're far away from the towers of downton Phoenix and close to an entertainment/market district that they call Scottsdale Oldtown. Hanging out at the Rusty Spur and watching the dancers was fun. There's tourist shops with shaded verandas over the side walks, adobe churches and and old time feel. There's a waterfront area in Scottsdale as well -- that's more chic than they cowboy centric old town.

We took a day trip and headed north to Sedona (it's midway between Phoenix and the Grand Canyon). That's an interesting area with distinctive mesas and trails to explore them. It's at a mcuh higher elevation and we met some snowy weather. I understand that Sedona is a good place to get away from the summer heat if you live in Phoenix.

Here's an album of photos from our visit for those who are interested.

Mediterranean Cruise II

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 I have posted some photos taken on our Mediterranean Cruise back in November, 2011. It was a fun adventure in very scenic spots so there were a lot of pictures to go through. The picture at left was taken at Oia on the island of Santorini. We missed a conference on Santorini back in 2004. And we had plans to go there back in 2005 -- we had to cancel when Kate broke her ankle. So we finally made it and are pleased to report that it's a stunningly beautiful spot. But so too are the other ports of call. For more photos see the Photo Album of our Mediterranean Cruise.

We did our part to save the Greek and Italian economies and we even did our bit to change the governments -- both Berlusconi and Papandreou resigned during our trip! Coincidence?

Mediterranean Cruise I

Kate and I are just back from a Mediterranean cruise on the Star Princess. The photo is Kate at Katakolon -- a gateway port to Olympia (which we did not visit) in Greece.

We left Rome (actually the port of Civitavecchia) in early November with stops in Naples, Santorini, Rhodes, Kusadasi, Mykonos, Athens, Katakolon, Corfu, Dubrovnik and finally Venice. Nights were spent travelling between ports, days were spent touring -- each day was sort of a "20 minute Louvre" where you dash in and try to see it all. We did a couple of organized tours but most ports we explored on our own. We have a lot of photos to organize.

The weather held for us. We had sunny days and no rain. The day in Mykonos was very windy. We had hoped to go swimming there but it was far too windy for us. Although I did some a couple of brave souls in the water.

We were well outside the tourist season. On Santorini and Mykonos most of the restaurants were closed. But we were surprised how busy things were. It must be really crazy during the heights of tourist season. I have a sense that travelling in late September through early October would be a good time to visit the islands. Perhaps on our next trip.

See also Photo Album of Mediterranean Cruise.

England

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In November of 2011 were were in England for a few days. Kate had a meeting in London so we arranged some holiday time around it. We took a train from Pancras Station and visited with our "No. 1 Son" Christopher in Nottingham where he's a student and I tramped around the city of London while Kate was at her meetings. After England we went on a Mediterranean Cruise of the Eastern end.

Nottingham is a pretty old town with canals and locks from the industrial age. Christopher took us to a couple of very old hotels. The "Trip to Jerusalem" (1189 AD) at the foot of the castle is supposed to be the oldest still standing inn in England but then we bumped into another, The "Bell Inn" that made a similar claim *(oldest in Nottingham, but isn't the other one in Nottingham as well?). Nottingham is of course famous for Robin Hood, Maid Marion and all that.

In London we stayed in Bloomsbury, not far from the British Museum which we both enjoyed. The Parthenon Marbles are found there and are an irritant between Britain and Greece. On the one hand the British say they've saved them, on the other hand the Greeks say they were looted. Our hotel was right across the street from Tavistock Square, there's a statue of Ghandi there.

I tramped around the city quite a bit. Kate's meetings were near Trafalgar Square and I walked from there down the Mall to Buckingham Palace. Lots of pomp and circumstance there. Then to see the horse palace, changing of the guards and a walk along Whitehall to Big Ben and Westminster Palace.

Here's a photo album if you're interested.