Museums, Outings
April 2005: Roskilde Viking Ship Museum
Before we left shore, we drove to Roskilde, Denmark, to visit one of the two major Viking museums (the other one is in Oslo).
It was a great experience to see and experience and actually see the original old Viking ships they had excavated in the Roskilde Fjord, as well as comparing these with recently built copies of same. This was a first preparation for us sailing in the wakes of the Vikings, learning about the different kind of ships they built, why they were outstanding and what the corresponding types were used for.
15 June 2005: Vikings in Denmark
In Lysefjorden, we found a restoration of an ancient Viking housing as well as the Trelleborg of Aggersborg. Karolina's uncle Björn gave us a detailed tour, explaining the background of the Trelleborg and the strategically important place of the Limfjorden, open to both west and east with land routes going north and south.
A guided tour took us to historically interesting places on the south tip of Norway. Full story under "The Pathfinder of Lista".
The history of Dublin, ranging from the Vikings who founded Dublin as a trading post, to Dublin during the Middle Age, was shown in the museum called "Dublinia". It was all presented in a very pedagogic and child-friendly way, allowing us to actually feel how it must have been to live in the Middle Age Dublin. Jessica and Jonathan got a good understanding of the problems and possibilities to live in a medieval city at that time.
The Guinness Store House adjacent to the brewery went into detail how beer is brewed using the four ingredients malt, hop, yeast and water. Step by step we could follow how beer was made in the old days. From a historical view, it was also interesting to understand under which circumstances Arthur Guinness started the brewery 250 years ago. Especially of interest for Jessica and Jonathan was to learn how oak barrels were made by hand still in the 1950's.
The Domus in La Coruña is a museum of the human body, showing the miracle of the fantastic design of the human body, starting from DNA and chromosomes via birth to key parts of the body. The children could experiment by themselves, discovering their body, understanding how it all works together. Unfortunately only being presented in Spanish, we were fortunate enough to visit the museum with the crew of Sarah Grace. Chris, living and cruising with his wife Sophy and their two daughters onboard their boat, is a doctor. So we got a fantastic tour around the museum presented by a professional!
We take the bus to Santiago de la Compostela, which is an old historic town in Spain. Many pilgrims walk hundreds of km starting in eastern Spain close to the French boarder and walk all the way to Santiago in western Spain. In the impressive cathedral the bones of St James (on of the 12 apostles) are said to be found.
For Jessica and Jonathan it was an interesting experience to see all the pilgrims coming to see the relic in Santiago as well as experiencing the old beautiful town.
After having followed the Vikings in their wakes, we have now taken up the track of Columbus. During our sailing legs out at sea, with the autopilot taking us along the Spanish and Portuguese coast, I have been reading loud out of Herman Lindqvist's book "Columbus, var han riktigt klok" (Columbus, was he crazy?). We have been studying maps and tried to understand that it must have felt like flying into outer space in a space ship with a crazy person onboard, claiming that "if we fly further and further away from Earth in a space shuttle, we would arrive to another time era making us rich, famous and happy", or something similar.
In Bayona on the Galician Atlantic coast in north-western Spain, there is a replica of one of Columbus' three vessels from his first voyage, the Pinta. It was a fantastic experience for all of us to climb onboard, seeing all the things we have just been reading about. Pinta was small, just double the size of Regina in both length and beam, but instead of us four onboard, they were 30 or even 40 onboard sailing into the unknown. Reading the book, sailing our own vessel in the same waters, Pinta became very live and realistic.
Together with the crew of "Sarah Grace", we made a full day's excursion to Lisbon, strolling through the old lanes in the old town, as well as visiting the famous Gubenkian-Museum. Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was a successful entrepreneur in the early 1900's identifying oil as the fuel for the future. Making a fortune out of his oil business, being an art lover, he collected art in all forms during his life time. His collection was an eclectic mix which brought together Egyptian sculpture, oriental ceramics, manuscripts, books, incunabula, Syrian glasswork, French furniture, tapestries, textiles, Greek coins, Italian medals and, of course, paintings. He donated his entire collection to Lisbon, where he found a refuge in the Second World War and where he lived until he died in 1955.
On the small island of Porto Santo, we found a small museum in the house of Christopher Columbus. Not one of the major museums, it, nevertheless, gave a touch of reality to our ongoing "Columbus Project". By coincidence, the annual Columbus Festival was also held during our stay, with the replica of Santa Maria sailing into Porto Santo.
Within our project about volcanoes, we visited several volcanoes on Lanzarote, the highlight being visiting a lava cave and the Montaña del Fuego in the National Park of Timanfaya. The lava tunnel felt like going into a volcano that extinguished just some 4000 years ago. The beauty was beyond explanation and the grand architect César Manrique had done a fantastic job to highlight the tunnel. The Montaña del Fuego was maybe even more extraordinary, since this volcano was actually still hot after its latest eruption in the 18th century! César Manrique had designed an impressive restaurant on the top of one of the volcanoes where food was prepared directly over the hot volcano. This was as taken directly out of "The Little Prince" in St Éxupery's story, who was cooking his meals over the volcanoes on his planet.
César Manrique was an extraordinary architect who has done a lot for Lanzarote, while is work is known far outside the island. His prime wish is to use nature in general and the volcanic stones in particular and forms buildings around and with the lava stone. We visited several of his buildings, of which his own house was a highlight and an inspiration for anyone who thinks today's houses are dull and square. César Manrique was always present during the building stage, which often was done without any ready designs and was formed during the building. The paper work was not seldom handed over to the authorities first after the completion of the buildings!
He died in 1992 in a car accident.
With Koshlong, we rented cars on Tenerife and drive around the island, with a special highlight to hike around the highest mountain of Spain: The old volcano Pico del Teide in the centre of Tenerife. The scenery was magnificent, the hiking ground impressive. It somehow reminded us on Arizona but with the Atlantic closer by.
On Bequia, we took a local "taxi" looking like a pickup truck with a bimini to a "Turtle Farm", where baby turtles were "saved" and lived their first 3 - 5 years in basins before being let out into the nature again. How much influence this has on nature and the turtle population can be questioned, but it was great fun for everybody to do the visit as a land excursion on Bequia. The fact that we say wild turtles while snorkeling in the Tobago Cays made the experience even better.
If you want to see the island of Grenada, a tour with Martin "Cat Eye" Lawrence in his yellow mini-bus is well worth (e-mail: cateye@caribsurf.com, tel (473) 440-8032, mob (473) 409 0302). He takes you to the places you want and has good suggestions where to go and what to see. He is loved by the children and loves his Grenada from fruit to politics and is happy to go a long way to make his customers happy. Some of us yachties have gone on several excursions with him and we plan to go with him a second time as well to see some more.
Please click here for Museums and Outings we did after February.