That evening we dined in Restaurant 2. It was a “Signature” evening so the menu is
sort of the “greatest hits”. As Diane
had never dined there before it was the best night to give it a try. Although I have heard people say Restaurant 2
is getting a bit tired, the fact of the matter is the restaurant was completely
full, the service was excellent and the cuisine was top notch. All in all we had a wonderful time.
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| Svolvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway |
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| Svolvaer’s Wooded Racks for Drying Cod (Bacalao) |
What I discovered is a sleepy town that has huge activity
from January to April…when the cod run into the Lofoten Islands…and then pretty
much nothing. Despite all of my efforts
and being in the heart of the Lofoten Islands’ fishing fleet there was no fish
market in town. But all was not lost!
We found a bakery where I enjoyed a cup of coffee and a
typical Norwegian breakfast. I am not
sure of the name (Norwegian is hard to pick up on!), but it consisted of a
light pancake folded over a bit of Norwegian brown cheese – which is
addictively good.
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| Typical Norwegian Breakfast. The Brown Cheese is fantastic |
After meeting at the pier we drove to Svinoya Rorbuer and its
fantastic Borsen Spiseri Restaurant; located on a small island just out of
town. We were met by a wonderfully,
colorful and knowledgeable guide who took us back in time explaining the
history of the Lofoten Islands, when and how the cod fishery has become so
important, the lives of the fisherman and the women who processed the cod, and
the reasons why the cod fishery lead to enormous wealth, greed, hardships and
human tragedy.
As he was talking to us a truck filled with dried cod, literally
taken off the very racks I saw sailing in on the Seabourn Quest, passed us.
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| Cod Drying Racks, Svolvaer, Norway |
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| Goat’s Head, Svolvaer, Norway If you look closely you will see a mountain climber standing on the peak. Apparently the thing to do is jump from one side to the other! |
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| It is always great catching up with my dear friend Captain Geir-Arne Thue-Nilsen |
After visiting the private gallery of a local artist (whose
family essentially owned Svolvaer), our tour ended in a small shop typical of
fifty years ago. We were greeted with a
glass of Bollinger Champagne. I looked
up a Captain Geir-Arne and he said, with a gleam in his eye, it brought back
memories as it was exactly the type of shop he grew up with as a child… Perfect! Though I am sure champagne was not being
served.
We then headed through the back of the store into a
beautiful, antique, Norwegian dining room reserved for just our group where we
had a totally different take on the Norwegian culinary experience. You see in the sleepy little Norwegian town
lives an incredible chef, so we left ancient Norway for the modern day.
Our culinary adventure consisted of the Lofoten delicacies
including:
- Stockfish (cod) salad with quinoa and citrus, orange vinaigrette
- Smoked Arctic Char with a Stockfish brandade
- Confit Shoulder of Lofoten lamb;
- Norwegian Salmon with a wasabi crust
- Organic Goat Cheese from Aalan gård.
- Homemade bread
This was paired with the Bollinger champagne and then a
wonderful and rich Chassagne Montrachet.
Dessert consisted of an incredible Cloudberry Sonata and a
frozen Cloudberry mousse. Cloudberries
are incredibly expensive and, as Captain Geir-Arne explained, are difficult to
even harvest with one berry appearing here and another there. Cloudberries could be my favorite fruit…now
that I have eaten them fresh. What an incredible
and unique flavor. (And, of course, it
gave Chef Jes some inspiration and…of course…cloudberries are now appearing on
the Seabourn menu!)
It was then time to return the Seabourn Quest for a hot tub sailaway
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| Seabourn Quest Hot Tub Sailaway Svolvaer, Norway |
and then a spectacular cruise up the Trollfjord; a very narrow, but beautiful, fjord. The Seabourn Quest is the largest cruise ship that can maneuver into this fjord. (It was even more interesting as explained during our Goldring Travel event one of the areas most famous and infamous events happened in this fjord.)
That evening was a very impressive Norwegian themed dinner in the Colonnade complete with some of the best salmon I have ever tasted, gravlox, herrings, reindeer, moose sausage, local beers, and more. As a bonus, the weather was so nice that we were able to dine al fresco!
The next day the Seabourn Quest arrived in Tromso, Norway –
with another spectacular sail into port – where I hosted the Ensemble Travel
Group Ensemble Experience.
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| Tromso, Norway |
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| Part of the Welcoming Committee to Tromso, Norway |
We started
our tour at the Polar Museum which was, to my surprise, incredibly interesting
and really added a bit of historical perspective to this larger, but still
charming, port.
It was then onto the Mack Brewery, the northernmost brewery
in the world. The two most interesting
aspects of this tour were that the Mack Brewery is also the northernmost
bottler of Coca Cola products and, in its microbrewery, they play rock ‘n roll,
for each type of microbrew they create (with a heavy dose of Jimi Hendrix…one
of my favorite artists!). During the
tour we sampled the Mack Pilsner beer.
In a bit of how the world of culture and cuisine intermingle
I noticed bags of malt from Bamberg, Germany.
Just this past October in the 2014 Goldring Travel Food & Wine
Cruise we visited Bamberg, which was and is the malt capital of the world. To read about Bamberg and the fantastic beer
tasting (as opposed to the one we are about to have) you can read about it
here.
After the tour we headed to the Ohallen Pub for further
tastings of up to seven Mack brews (of course with a Norwegian snack). The pub actually has over 60 beers on tap. So much beer…so little time!
As the rain started to fall (a surprisingly rare event on
this cruise) we headed back to the Seabourn Quest for an early sail away
heading to Honnigsvag, Norway – the most northern location in Europe – and for
me and Diane our first Venture by Seabourn.
But as the Seabourn Quest was sailing away, I arranged a Private VIP Galley Tour – including, of course, champagne and caviar, but also
some of that wonderful Norwegian brown cheese and aquavit –
Oh, yes, it was then time for the Seabourn Champagne & Caviar Sail Away…
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| Our view from the Patio Grill at dinner wasn’t too shabby. |
and a fantastic dinner at the Patio Grill (where I sneaked up some Norwegian sausages Chef Jes was able to bring on board)…
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| Norwegian Sausages. Yum! |
and the realization that I needed to be up at 5:30 a.m. for
our zodiac riding birdwatching and hiking Ventures by Seabourn adventure.