Canadian Sunsets Sept 23

                    

 

                       

 

    

 

                                                              

St. John’s, New Foundland Sept 22 Part 1

 

When we arrived in St. Johns, we looked out out balcony door and saw nothing.  We were fogged in.  As the fog lifted we were able to see to see a beautiful, colorful town.

                          

We decided to take a taxi tour of the island.  As we talked about it, another couple asked if they could join us, so off the four of us went to see this island.

The first place we went was to see the cliffs and rocky coast, but the fog had not lifted on the cliffs

                                          

Even though we couldn’t see much, what we did see was pretty neat.

             

We continued on, back down to sea level, to a small fishing village

       

  Duane taking a picture of me taking his picture 

We got to the town and found some fishermen cleaning cod fishes, since it was fishing season,  We were hoping that we could go out fishing with one of the fishermen, since they can only keep 6 fish per person, we could go along and they could keep 12 more fish, but it didn’t work out.  They were already going to take some of their friends with them on their next outing, oh, well.

                                                                    

                                  

                                                             

We picked up fish and chips here, since our driver said they were the best on the island, and they were great.  Nothing better than fresh fish.

We then went to a brewery to try a couple of types of local beer.  We continued our tastings of local brews…..

Our driver dropped us off at Signal Hill, since we wanted to walk back to town.  Signal Hill is where, on December 12, 1901 Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal.  We didn’t know that happened here, did you?

                                                                      

                                                                          

                            

The view from up here is great, too.

    The lighthouse on the other side of the bay

There is the Emerald Princess, waiting to take us home to NY.  

St. John’s, New Foundland Part 2

 

 

After seeing Signal Point we started walking down toward town. While looking at the view, a nice local lady told us about some of the sights to see. She asked if we had seen the Basilica of John the Baptist. When we said we had not been there yet, she asked us if we wanted a ride. So we went to the Basilica.

                                                                       Thanks……

Every church we went to was closed to the public because of weddings. We did get a picture of the inside of the Basilica right before the wedding there.

                                                       

Some pictures of other buildings here in St. John’s

This is the only picture I have of looking at a stained glass window from the outside, lit from the inside.

A foggy sunset

Not Greenland, Sept 20

 

So, our next stop after Iceland was supposed to be Greenland.  That way we get to see both huge islands.   But it was not to be.

The captain announced that the forecast for our arrival in Greenland was for 35 to 45 foot swells and gale winds, so we were going to skip it and since we would then have missed two ports, we would be going to 2 ports in Canada instead.

So, we are going to see St. Johns, New Foundland and Saint John, New Brunswick.

Reykjavik, Iceland Sept 18 Part 1

 

One of the main reasons we went on this particular cruise was Reykjavik.  Greenland and Iceland were places on our “bucket list”.   Of course I wanted to see the volcano that caused all the air trouble, and we did see it, but it is just sitting there, no activity.  Iceland volcanoes are so active that they can predict, within a margin, when different volcanoes will go off.  The eruption that caused the trouble was a relatively small one.  It was the direction of the wind that caused the trouble.  We were told that a volcano near “the trouble maker” (notice I haven’t used the name of the mountain, because I didn’t write it down and it has a million letters and we don’t have any internet right now to look it up)  is actually expected to go any time.  It is late and when it erupts it will be much larger than the last one.

                                                 When this one goes, there will be floods from the melted snow.

Our stop in Reykjavik was to be from noon to 7 pm.  The day before we arrived I booked a tour through Grey Lines Tours that would pick us up and leave at 1pm.  Well the best laid plans can be messed up easily, or at least ours were.  We hit some heavy winds during the night before we arrive in Iceland, which set our arrival time back 2 hours.  Well, I freaked out when I found out the evening before our arrival.  I had to cancel 24 hours ahead to get our money back, and anyway, I didn’t want my money back, I wanted the tour.  I emailed the company, hoping that there were other people on our ship going on this trip and they would reschedule.  Well, that is exactly what happened and we went on a wonderful tour of the “Golden Circle”, the most popular tour on the island.

Our first view of the island gave us a glimpse of how active this island really is.

   

Amazingly, although the island is called Iceland, it is very green and fertile, in the summer.  It is also very volcanic which keeps the ground in some areas clear of snow all year. 

The first place we went was the Rift Valley.  There are only 2 places on earth where the tectonic plates are moving apart that under water.  One is in Africa and the other is right here.  We went to the Rift valley and stood in between the North American Plate and the Euro-Asian Plate.  That was a neat surprise.

On the left side is the end of the North American plate        There are some rocks that broke off from the plate on the right.

In the distance you can see the edge of the Euro-Asian Plate.   

The plates move apart on average of 3 cm per year, and no, we couldn’t feel it '

Another thing interesting at this location is that here, at the site with the flag, is the meeting place of the longest parliamentary government in the world.  Back when there were only tribes here, they met here and set rules and dealt with disputes in a peaceful manner.  Another interesting surprise.

     

    

From the rift valley,  we went to see a waterfall. 

    Nice waterfall, so we walked closer

And found we had only seen a small part of the beautiful waterfall.          It was very windy and cold…..and sunny

 

Even this picture barely gives an idea of the beauty of the falls.  When we get home, we can show you many more shots.  Iceland is a place where I could post dozens of photos, but unless you ask, I won’t.