Day 1 after the vacation

The holiday mood is still there. However, I have already reviewed what I experienced and the impressions I had. Because it was and will be an unforgettable trip. It was almost incomprehensible to me that my two women had been planning this for a year. Because they never let it slip until the last moment. The only thing for me was a packing list that made me suspect that we wouldn't be going to the Caribbean.

Thank you very much, Sabrina and Patricia, for the great gift and the shared experiences. The two days in Amsterdam with an apartment on the ship and exploring the city.

I can highly recommend the seven days on the MS Finnmarken. But we were also lucky with the weather, which had already started with sunshine in Bergen (Bergen has about 300 days of rain) and reached its peak at the North Cape with 22°C and blue sky (it was the second day of summer). Even at the only beach at the North Cape, the locals were swimming in water temperatures of 6-8°C. The vegetation was similar to ours in March/April. The spring flowers were in full bloom. All the trees that grow here were planted because the natural tree line is about 150 kilometers to the south. Unusual was also the fact that since crossing the Arctic Circle, the sun no longer sets and has been showing itself in all its glory as the midnight sun.

The next highlight was taking over the motorhome (2.4m wide, 3m high, and 7.6m long) to explore the Lofoten Islands. Since Simon had joined us in the meantime, I let him take the first stage as he was more experienced with wide vehicles. But I also got along well with our motorhome. Since you can stay with the camper anywhere in Norway, we stayed overnight right in front of the ferry station on the first evening to make sure we caught it. But otherwise, we always had good pitches. It was also noticeable that time no longer played a role on the journey. Lunch was between two and three o'clock, and dinner was between ten and eleven o'clock at night (since it was always light). The encounter with porpoises and killer whales was also extraordinary. The porpoise comes to the water surface to breathe and then disappears into the depths of the sea for at least half an hour.

Although the weather got a little worse, we experienced highlights every day, as mentioned in my reports. For the people in the north, there are only two types of weather: "going out weather" or "not going out weather," as mentioned in the weather report. In the summer, there is only going out weather. With the return journey from yesterday, the unforgettable gift for my 60th birthday has come to an end. Thank you again, both of you.