Articles with travel

The Lonely Svalbard Islands Reveal Their Desolate Terrain

Much of our cruise up the coast of Norway has included visits to islands. Our final experience would also be on an island, a large island some distance off the coast of Norway and much farther north. We would be crossing the Barents Sea to reach the Svalbard Islands and the town of Longyearbyen The crossing of the Barents Sea was the challenging part. First we experienced more rocking of the boat during the crossing. Fortunately we had pretty good…

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From Beautiful Honningsvåg to the Famous North Cape

We arrived in Honningsvåg in early morning so by the time I was up and ready to go, the ramp was down so we could begin to explore this town. From what I had heard, I didn’t expect Honningsvåg to be very large, but it was actually larger than I anticipated. When we walked out, the first thing we saw were drying racks for the cod. That was unexpected. I wasn’t sure if it was actually fish on the racks,…

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Unique Experiences in the Lofoten Islands of Norway

Friday our ship docked in Reine in the Lofoten Islands. The islands are off the coast of Norway and are connected together by bridges and ferries. We didn’t get a chance to explore the town of Reine as we had booked a bus tour of two of the islands. After loading up on the bus, we set out for our first destination which was an old church. Along the way our guide told us a lot of information about the…

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Norway’s Unique Mountains, Treina and the Arctic Circle

As we traveled our way north up the Norwegian coast, we continued to encounter beautiful scenery at every turn. Today we passed a number of significant points of interest before we finally had an opportunity to disembark from the ship in Treina (Træna). When we arrived in Treina, we were ready to get out and move. Our day ended crossing the Arctic Circle and experiencing the midnight sun. The morning began fairly early at about 8:00 when a crowd began…

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Åndalsnes, Our First Stop on the Norwegian Coast

We woke up Wednesday morning to find that our ship was docking in the town of Åndalsnes. While we ate our breakfast, we looked out over the city. It seemed pretty small. We knew there was a gondola ride to the top of a nearby mountain, but that was about as much as we knew. The first thing we did after getting off the boat was see how much the gondola ride would cost. It turns out a round trip…

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Time to Start Our Cruise Up Norway’s Remarkable Coast

Tuesday dawned cloudy and gray as most of the days in Bergen have been. That was OK as we are used to that living in the Seattle area. However, today would be different as we were going to board the cruise ship that would take us up the coast of Norway. We were ready for the change. According to the information we had received, we were to check in around noon. The cruise company, Hurtigruten, didn’t want people to show…

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Discovering More Interesting Places in Bergen, Norway

Monday was our final full day in Bergen. it was a chance to see some of the things we had missed to this point. We wanted to take full advantage of our time so we were up and ready early in the day. Our first order of business was to figure out where we were going the next day to board our cruise ship. We mapped out the route we would take and then followed it. It turns out the…

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Amazing Birds and Beasts of Kenya’s Famous Lake Nakuru

After two days in Maasai Mara, it was time to travel to our next destination, Lake Nakuru. We had to get up fairly early again as it was a five hour drive there, and we needed to be there in time to spend some time in the park. We tried to pack most of what we needed the night before. The resort staff came and brought all our luggage to the front where Rafael packed it into the Land Rover.…

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Once in a Lifetime Experiences at Kenya’s Maasai Mara Reserve

After our first successful day on a safari, it was hard to imagine what could top that day. However, we woke up on Tuesday morning hoping for another exciting day out on the savanna. We are exploring the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The landscape is pretty sparse. It’s mostly grasslands with some lone trees here and there. The Mara River passes through the reserve, and along its banks grow shrubbery and trees. The landscape can seem pretty bleak so it…

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