Charles Engelke's Blog

Overlooking Longyearbyen

Now that I’m home and have decent Internet access, I’ve posted pictures from our Celebrity Constellation cruise to the Arctic Circle. We visited three Norwegian ports north of the Arctic Circle: Leknes (in the Lofoten archipelago), Honningsvåg (near the north cape and the Gjesværstappan bird sanctuary), and Longyearbyen (above, on Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago).

We also visited two Norwegian ports south of the Arctic Circle: Bergen and Ålesund (where we took a bus tour inland along the Path of the Trolls). And we spent several days before the cruise in Amsterdam, from which we took a day trip to the Hague.

It was all beautiful, and now I have an idea of the difference in degree between different arctic areas. All our visits were to seaside areas, but Leknes (at 68° 08′ N) is coastal and lush…

Leknes

… while the North Cape area around Honningsvåg (at 70° 58′ N) is much more sparsely vegetated…

House near Honningsvåg

… and Longyearbyen (all the way up at 78° 13′ N) is very severe, not only lacking trees but really without any plants more than few inches tall…

Guide at Longyearbyen

… and with polar bears, which is why our guide was armed with a rifle. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see a polar bear; fortunately, we didn’t get attacked by one, either.

Our hotel here in Amsterdam is on Apollolaan, which is part of Artzuid – International Sculpture Route Amsterdam. We were surprised when we got off the tram on the way in from the airport to encounter a man riding a giant golden armored turtle:

Searching for Utopia - Jan Fabre

As we continued the one-block walk, we passed by what seems to be an elephant on stilts:

Space Elephant - Salvador Dali

I really liked this kinetic sculpture. It only runs for five minutes each hour, but we just happened by as it was going:

Heureka - Jean Tinguely

I’ve got a one-minute movie of that sculpture, too. Maybe I’ll post it, if I ever figure out YouTube.

This afternoon we tried a different kind of Amsterdam art: microbrewed beer from a 300 year old windmill, Brouwerij ‘t IJ:

Brouwerij 't IJ at Windmill

I can confirm that at least three of their beers, especially the Columbus, are also works of art.