As promised in a hundred conversations aboard ship off the coast of Alaska, we're planning a third and final Prairie Home Companion cruise for Norway July 13-23, and we are offering the cruise first to our old friends from the Alaska and the Canadian maritime trips. You were great companions then and we'd love to see you again.
The Prairie Goes To Norway cruise is a ten-day venture-you wouldn't want to try to see such a magnificent country in less time than that-and involves trans-Atlantic flights at the height of the tourist season, and so the cost is higher and the deadline is tighter. We'll be offering this to the general public on November 16th-that is the date when Donald Rumsfeld, Donna Summers, Don Everly, Sam Donaldson, Madonna, or anybody else will be allowed to book cabins-but until then, you faithful old companions have precedence. More details are available now on our web site at EMI. Previous cruisers may register for the cruise starting at noon EST on October 26th. We will make half of the cabins (in each price category) on the boat available to you, and will close registration at noon EST on November 2nd.
Much will be the same on this cruise and some will be different. Our radio show pals will come along, of course, but we'll also have some Norwegian musicians and an Edvard Grieg contingent-a string quartet from London led by violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved, pianist Aaron Shorr, soprano Maria Jette-so you can enjoy Grieg's ravishing music as we sail along the coast. We'll leave from Copenhagen and head north to Bergen and through Aurlandsfjord to Alesund, Trondheim (the capital of the Viking kings), and Hellesylt, and through Geirangerfjord, and a day and a half in Oslo. We'll see stone churches from the 13th century, the 5000-foot Seven Sisters waterfall, Grieg's home in Bergen, and the docks where the emigrants set sail for America, and cruise through fjords with rock faces 3000 feet above the sea. There are two sections of the cruise that offer you the option of travel by land or by sea. You can eat herring or not eat herring. We'll bring Natalie and Rich, our faithful naturalists, and other naturalists with specific expertise in the area. We'll have an easy-going experience, see things we'll remember for the rest of our lives, and come home happy and rested.
Our travel advisors tell me to tell you: the purchase of travel insurance is strongly recommended; you must have a passport that is good for at least six months past July 23, the end of the cruise; and you would do well to book flights early.
When I refer to this as the final PHC cruise, I simply mean that we have no plans for further ones. Maybe we'll do a transcontinental train trip instead. Maybe we'll organize a caravan tour. Maybe we'll bike across Montana. It's a big world.
Our same excellent staff, including Caroline Hontz and Albert Webster and Debra Beck, is handling this project, so you can count on things proceeding in orderly fashion. And we're on Holland-America, which is very well run. As for the host of the trip, I am who I am and you'll just have to make the best of it.
Garrison Keillor
More notes from GK:
June 20, 2007
May 31, 2007
November 5, 2006
October 17, 2006