A crafty cruise

Here’s something rather different from our usual blogs!
Liz and her husband John had a fascinating voyage a little while ago, and have sent some photos. What does a crafty person do on a cruise ship?  To say nothing of in Amsterdam (where the trip started), Norway and Iceland?

Amsterdam is famous for its canals but that’s not all – the Rijksmuseum was not to be missed. It has a wonderful collection of dolls’ houses: this one belonged to  Petronella Oortman, around 1690.

The Tapestry Room proved interesting.
There are craft shops in Amsterdam of course –

This is one of the best, and it was full of temptation.

Soon it was time to embark on the Holland America Line ship Rotterdam. How did Liz fill the days at sea? She had her tiny Electric Eel spinning wheel.

She also made squares on a pin loom

and assembled them on her bed in the cabin.

As well, there was no shortage of crafty decorations on the ship to enjoy. Here are a few of them – this wall hanging in wool

and four very striking embroidered moths.

And look what Liz found on her bed after one of the cabin steward’s morning tidy–ups:

The first port of call was Bergen, in Norway – a lovely city. They took a funicular railway up Mount Floyen for a superb view of the harbour and their ship,

and then walked down. They saw Bergen’s historic old wharf area, and a lot more.From Norway they sailed to Iceland, where the first stop was Akureyri right up in the north. There was a trip into the countryside –

John comments:
There were few large grassed paddocks compared with NZ. There were only narrow strips of better quality land and an awful lot of high country, lava fields and low scrub. Most homesteads had small conifer plantations – these are subsidised. The trees are not high. There is a local joke that goes, “What do you do if you get lost in the forest?”
“Stand up and take a look around.”

They saw some horses, those special Icelandic horses which are the size of ponies – but are always called horses! They are used for recreation, meat, and export.

(A note from Mary –To keep the breed pure, no horses at all are allowed to be imported into Iceland. The same is true of sheep.)

They saw the spectacular Godafoss waterfall

and the Hverir geothermal area.

There was another stop even further north, in a little place called Isafjordur very close to the Arctic Circle. It had a wool shop …

There looks to be some natural-coloured wool yarn in the shelves on the left.

When they reached Iceland’s capital Reykjavik, there was lots to see. The next three photos are at the Kolaportid Flea Market, which is huge and is popular with locals and tourists alike. It’s notable for the large number of Lopapeysa (the typical Icelandic style) jerseys on sale, some new and some second hand.

On trips into the countryside, they went to Thingvellir where they walked in the rift between the Eurasian and American continents.They saw puffins,
plenty of volcanic scenery including this crater,
and another splendid waterfall.
John comments that the geothermal areas they saw in Iceland were not in the same class as New Zealand’s. However, Iceland’s waterfalls beat ours hands-down.

After Iceland, there was a big disappointment – the scheduled stop in the Shetland Islands had to be cancelled because of bad weather. There was some time spent in Scotland, but sadly, Liz came home with much less yarn than she’d hoped to buy. Still, it was clearly quite a trip!

Thanks John for the fascinating photos and descriptions!