After a glorious day the good ship Koningsdam set sail for Amsterdam early last evening. In Amsterdam this cruise will end and we will turn around for the next one. Stavanger had provided us with a cloudless day and made Norway look at its best. (And there are not that many days when Norway looks… read more of “21 July 2018; At…”
Stavanger is the oil capital of Norway and although North Sea oil operation is a little bit in the doldrums at the moment, it is still an important part of the economy. It made Stavanger very rich and created very good living circumstances for the locals. Hence there are sufficient hotels to stay in and… read more of “20 July 2018;…”
It was not really the plan to do a blog today as I did not expect much excitement apart from sitting on the Hop on Hop Off bus. That excitement died away quite quickly as the Hop service only runs when there are cruise ships in port. Today there was one cruise ship in port,… read more of “19 July 2018:…”
The weather front was much slower in passing by than had been forecast and the rain predicted for the very early morning hours was still lingering over the sea when we approached. All the dark clouds did disappear very quickly though while we were docking and the remainder of the day was sunny and very… read more of “17 July 2018:…”
The route from Katakolon to Naples takes us straight to the West across the Ionian Sea, then south of Italy into Messina Strait, then into the Tyrrhenian Sea and from there up the coast past Capri. We were very fortunate with the weather today as it was very calm and the Oosterdam provided a smooth… read more of “16 July 2018; At…”
Katakolon, (The Greeks translated this into English as Katakolo) is located on the southwest side of the Peloponnesus and nicely tucked away on the inside of a mountain ridge; sort of in the same way as Sarande. Only here the natural bay it has created is much deeper and provides much more shelter. But because… read more of “15 July 2018;…”
Sarande is a resort town in Albania just north of the Greek border. When are in the port you can see an island straight across the bay / channel and that is Kerkira / Corfu which we visited last cruise. The Albanian spelling of the name is more like Sarande with “.. on the top…. read more of “14 July 2018;…”
Today we called at Dubrovnik although we are docking a far distance away from the city itself. This area is called Gruz and it is where most of the cruise ships go to. Here were originally only ferry docks but the pier has been extended and can now take three medium sized cruise ships. (If… read more of “13 July 2018;…”
