This is the place to find the updates on our travels: where we've been and (in due course) a little bit about the places.
Just a change of one letter: Iceland to Ireland! I’d only been to Ireland once before and that was a brief work visit to Belfast, and never to southern Ireland. The differences between northern Ireland and southern Ireland and between UK and EU were therefore a mystery. After quizzing several locals about this, my conclusions is that the strongest identity still lies in coming from Ireland as a whole. The concept of Eire is little used and residents feel more of a connection with their country overall (Ireland) then they do with the EU, even in southern Ireland. It is all somewhat confusing.
The route and places visited can be seen here
Although spread across 2 sailings, my first visit to Ireland on this occasion was to the port of Belfast from where I was able to take a trip to the Giant’s Causeway, some 2hrs away on the north eastern coast. Having seen many pictures of this UNESCO world heritage, I was keen to get my own views. The Causeway itself is actually about a mile down a tarmac path from the car park and the National Trust visitor centre which opened in 2012 to cater for the ~1m visitors each year. The 40,000 basalt columns also extend over a smaller area than I had imagined and in July, they were teeming with tourists. Apparently, to get the stones to yourself and to better feel the power of the ocean, a visit in February is a better choice. Legend has it that these stones were laid by 2 warring giants – Finn McCool on the Antrim coast and Benandonner who lived on the Scottish island of Staffa, with the Causeway extending between the 2 locations. But then there’s the geological explanation of a ‘tessellated pavement’.
Views of the Giant's Causeway and Belfast port can be seen here
My next view of Ireland was from a sailing around several scenic coastal areas: Lough Swilly (with care about where to put the ‘s’), Tory Island, Arranmore Island and the Slieve League Cliffs. The weather was unfortunately poor for the first 3 but brightened the following day for the Slieve League Cliffs and the visit to Killybegs.
Views of the northern coastline can be seen here
And Slieve League Cliffs here
Killybegs is Ireland's largest and most important fishing port, famous for its bustling deepwater harbour. The day started with a walk through the Irish countryside to see the farming and sheep rearing activity followed later in the day by a self-tour around the town of Killybegs including its impressive fleet of modern fishing vessels as well as its connections to the fate of the Spanish Armada in 1588, many ships of which were wrecked along the west coast of Ireland in storms after a failed attempt the attack England.
The Killybegs Gallery is here
After Killybegs, we called at Galway, a much bigger and lively city that Killybegs and home to several festivals including the International Arts Festival which happened to be on at the time of visit. The Latin Quarter in particular is very colourful and vibrant with many pubs and restaurants and like Killybegs, Galway has links to the Spanish Armada with 300 Spanish sailors buried on their Forthill Cemetary.
Galway gallery is here
Some 50km from Galway is The Burren National Park, a vast porous limestone pavement through which water has drained over thousands of years to create extensive cave systems. We were lucky to see one such system - Aillwee Caves and this together with the surrounding landscapes and villages can be seen here.
Lastly, we called into Cobh (pronounced 'Cove' as Gaelic, from which the name comes, has no 'v' sound). Cobh is the main port to the city of Cork but is extensive with its own cathedral and well known for its multi-coloured houses in its own right. It was also the last departure point of the Titanic before she set sail across the Atlantic and the White Star booking and departure building on the harbour front remains and has been converted to a museum of 'The Titanic Experience'.
The Cobh gallery is here
Following the Faroe Islands, we sailed further north west to Iceland, headed first for the town of Akureyri at the end of the fjord ‘Eyjafjörður’. We had previously only ever been to Reykjavik and was expecting the northern coast of Iceland to be much more remote and sparsely populated and whilst that was true to an extent, the main towns and surrounding villages were quite well established with local industry based unsurprisingly on fishing and perhaps more surprisingly on sheep farming. From Akureyri, it was possible to visit 2 relatively local waterfalls and in doing so to experience the surrounding landscape: Goðafoss Waterfall, a 45 minute drive from Akureyri and Dettifoss Waterfall, another hour and a half from Goðafoss. Views of these 2 falls, the surrounding landscape and the town of Akureyri itself can be seen here.
After Akureyri, the next port of call was Isafjörður – a town in the far north west of Iceland (the Westfjords). This town sits in a dramatic valley between 2 steep sided fjords and again the local attraction an hour’s drive away is a dramatic waterfall – the Dynjandi Falls which cascade 100m down the mountain in a bridal veil formation. Unfortunately, the sun was behind the falls at the time we arrived and so photography was not ideal. As for Akureyri, all of these falls attract significant numbers of visitors, particularly in the summer and at these peak times, literally coachloads of tourists (ourselves included) arrive to see the sights which can be viewed here.
The town of Isafjörður (population 2,700) is also surprisingly well established with its roots in the fishing industry and now summer and winter tourism (skiing). For such a small population, the Icelandic government has invested in local infrastructure, drilling a 9.2km long tunnel (Westfjords Tunnel) through the mountainside to provide access to the next valley when winter snow made the overland road habitually impassible.
Most of the population (~60%) of Iceland are Lutheran though with immigration, those following the Catholic faith are increasing (~4%). In Isafjörður, there was no Catholic church and so a house was converted – now said to be the only church on Iceland with an integral garage.
The most famous church on Iceland is of course the Lutheran Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavik, our next port of call. The classic tourist route from Reyjavik is the ‘Golden Circle which takes in the Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park, the Gulfoss Waterfall and the Geysir Geothermal area, but we visited all these places, along with the Blue Lagoon, last time we visited around 15 years ago and so this time was an opportunity so see the city of Reykjavik in a bit more detail, including a trip to the top of the Hallgrímskirkja church tower which offers a panoramic view of the city. On this occasion, the weather was kind all day too. Reykjavik sights are available here.
The last area of Iceland to view were the Westman Islands archipelago and in particular the islands of Surtsey and Heimaey on the south coast. Heimaey in particular is quite large with a population of 4,500 inhabitants and contains an active volcano which erupted in 1973 threatening to destroy the town. The locals pumped seawater on the advancing lava to solidify it. We didn’t stop on this occasion but passed a Holland America ship which was at anchor there. Westman Island views are available here.
And of course, Iceland is well known for whale sightings. It’s not generally the case that you can just look over the side of the ship and they are there although that does happen occasionally (as it did one evening for us.) More usually though, one joins a special whale sighting trip on a smaller boat which can go in search of them. The usual sighting is a minor breach of their back from the water. Sometimes they will blow but the photographic ‘holy grail’ of a breach of the whole mammal from the water or even a substantial tail slap are rather more rare. On this trip, I preferred the greater certainty of landscapes (also not a given with the very changeable Icelandic weather).
Summary of gallery links
My next trip as the title of this Blog suggests was again north of Scotland: not Norway this time but up past the Faroes to Iceland. The first scenic cruising was up past John o' Groats and Duncansby Stacks (where the weather was predictably poor) and then the Orkneys where it brightened for a while just in time to see the stack of rock called the Old Man (of Hoy). For a while there was some great light which showed the interesting rock structure in relief. From a ship, the Old Man didn't actually look that tall but at 137m it's high enough and 20-50 people make the ascent each year.
The next stop after the Orkneys was Tórshavn (pronounced Torce-shawn), the capital and largest city of the Faroes and located on the island of Streymoy, one of the 18 islands of the Faroes, of which 17 are inhabited with a total of 55,000 people. What did I know about the Faroes? Not a lot to be honest but I do now know that they a self governing land of the Kingdom of Denmark although half the islanders would rather be independent and although Denmark is part of the EU, the Faroes are not.
The language of the Faroe Islands is Faroese, with Danish taught as the second language and English the third. Like northern Scotland and Iceland, the weather is very changeable with the statistics stating 210-280 measurable days of rain per year, plus a lot of wind and frequently overcast.
Our final main destination was Konstanz, a medieval city on the shore of Lake Konstanz (Bodensee) and right on the border with Switzerland, featuring a historic old town with winding streets. Our original plan featured a long drive of 380km from Zell am See in Austria but on closer inspection, Google Maps had routed us through Austria and Switzerland to get there. On further investigation, Austria requires the purchase of a 'vignette' to travel on their autobahns (but not on standard roads) and Switzerland requires a road tax permit at a cost of about £40. As Austria's speed cameras felt particularly aggressive as well, we decided avoid this administrative complexity and return to Germany via the shortest route, but then take the longer route to Konstanz through Germany. The total distance from Zell am See ended up being about 480km which with rest stops, road works around Munich and charging time, took 9 hours.
Whilst Lake Konstanz and the surrounding area however is very pretty, our accommodation was a little difficult to find. An address of '14K' seemed odd and indeed it turned out to be a unit in the middle of an industrial estate. This unit in fact was an office and shop for a wine and spirits distributor with the guest and owner apartments above it! This reminded us that the area is a significant wine growing region in the Rhine valley, producing Müller-Thurgau and Pinot Noir varieties amongst others. A bottle of the owner's branded white wine 'Wolf Weiss' (named after the owner, after Hellmut Wolf) helped to reduce the shock on arrival.
The top things to do in Konstanz are a visit to the historic and pretty old town, a day trip on the lake, stopping off at some of the equally pretty towns along its shoreline and particularly the island of Mainau which is a botanic garden set up and managed by the aristocratic Bernadotte family, complete with its own palace and ornate church.
To keep matters orderly, Konstanz images as divided into 3 galleries (links are in the titles):
Our furthest destination from home was Zell am See in northern Austria, some 1600km or 1000 miles away. This location was chosen to complete the transition from the fairytale castles around Füssen to the mountains hosting Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's nest) in Berchtesgaden, to the true alpine scenery in Zell am See with the Schmittenhöhe Mountain and its views of over 30 mountain peaks over 3000m.
The journey from Berchtesgaden to Zell am See was relatively short at 80km and should only have taken an hour and a quarter but there were some admin hurdles to overcome in crossing into Austria. A 'vignette' is needed if you drive on an Austrian autobahn and there are some particularly notorious speed cameras en-route to our destination. Some very careful planning therefore had to be carried out to ensure that our route avoided autobahns (and other special tunnels) and that the locations of speed cameras were carefully identified in advance.
So far, so good but on entering a small village along the only road to our destination we came to a standstill. Only a few minutes ahead of us a truck had left the road and was perched precariously at about 30 degrees to the vertical. The emergency services were called who closed the road and it took 3 hours to clear it. In the meantime, I struck up an interesting conversation about British cars with a Swiss resident who was driving back from a 'Mini' convention (the International Mini Meet), this year in Poland.
Eventually we arrived in Zell am See, which as its name implies is a town on the lake Zell and as we discovered, is a massive winter ski resort with some 60 ski lifts, a small number of which operate during the summer for hikers, paragliders and general tourists. We only had one full day here which required a trip up the Schmittenhöhe Mountain, followed by a tour of the relatively small town. Even in the summer, this is absolutely full of tourists with the town centre mainly composed of hotels, restaurants and tourist shops. Still, it has history dating back well over 1000 years, is very pretty, especially when the sun comes out, and 3 times a week, the local council puts on a free music and water show on the edge of the lake. It also happened to be a religious holiday and some locals were out in traditional costume, though unfortunately the opportunity to capture these with the camera didn't arise.
Images of Zell am See and the views from the Schmittenhöhe Mountain can be seen here.