A little bit of history of the Summer Palace because everyone likes a little bit of history just before they see all the pretty pictures and get some good old-fashioned wanderlust coursing through their veins.

The Summer Palace can date its origins back to the middle of the twelfth century although at that time it was simply the site of some minor palaces and temples taking advantage of the natural springs and lakes nearby for pleasing views. It wasn’t until the Qing dynasty and late into the eighteenth century that serious expansion of the lakes to improve water supply to the city took place and the transformation of the area into a collection of imperial gardens, palaces, and temples as the Summer Palace was completed. The design of the palace grounds was grounded in Chinese mythology with dragons and mountains represented, but maintenance of the complex was high and it soon fell into disrepair.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century French and British forces looted the palace during the Second Opium War. The nearby Old Summer Palace was burned down at this time on the orders of Lord Elgin (son of the other Lord Elgin, famous (infamous if you’re Greek) for his appropriation of the Elgin Marbles for the British government) in retaliation for the Chinese torturing and murdering European and Indian prisoners. The twentieth century saw the Boxer Rebellion cause serious damage to the palace (although it was restored soon after) and, after the Last Emperor (you might have seen him in the movie of the same name) abdicated, the Summer Palace became first private property and then a public park. For a short period after the Second World War the Summer Palace housed the Central Party School for the Communist Party.

The history lesson is over.

We arrived on the eastern side of the Summer Palace and our visit of a few hours was only enough to take in a very small section of the area. You could easily spend over half a day here if you were staying in Beijing. We started off with a visit to the Renshoudian. Also known as the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity this was a collection of buildings – temple, palace, halls with ancient artifacts – around a courtyard garden area filled with bronze sculptures and large rocks called Taihu Stones.

The Taihu Stones and their distinctive shapes are formed by the action of pebbles constantly rubbing on larger rocks through rushing water action creating holes in the larger structure, and were considered lucky. Many were brought to the Summer Palace at great expense.

A prominent bronze sculpture caught many of the tourists’ attentions. This was a Qilin. Often translated as “unicorn” the Qilin clearly isn’t one because I’ve got the ability to count horns and can reach the number two with consummate ease.

You’d be hard-pressed to tour an ancient Chinese site and not see some motif or relief work representing dragons and we weren’t disappointed with some of the stone decorations on show in this first section of the Summer Palace that we visited.

From the Renshoudian we headed roughly southwest towards the lake that makes up most of the Summer Palace landscape. This took us through the Wenchang Pavilion, constructed like a huge city gate and with a nearby hall containing more artifacts.

We didn’t stop at the pavilion as Kunming Lake was our destination. It’s possible to hire boats for personal use, either pedal or electric-powered ones, but there are larger vessels that can take groups of tourists on circuits of the lake too and it was the latter option that our Princess Cruises-organised tour directed us to.

A quick apology here for the state of the photographs of Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace. Beijing is well-known for its smog, although our 2008 visit to China not long after the Olympics meant that pollution levels were pretty low during our three days there. However, with this being November and the sun setting reasonably early in the evening and there still being some smog, even if it wasn’t particularly noticeable to us at the time, a lot of the pictures taken before and during our boat ride around the lake ended up shooting into the low sun coming through smog and reflecting off water. The result is what you’ll see below for a lot of shots: washed-out colours heavily leaning towards the yellow and orange hues, and very little dark detail. As the saying goes, it is what it is.

We boarded a boat not far from Wenchang Pavilion on the east side of Kunming Lake. Looking to the north we could see a large buddhist temple. South there was a long bridge with numerous arches, and we would soon be sailing past both of them.

Our pleasant, gentle circuit of the shallow, artificial lake took place in an anti-clockwise direction so the first sight we passed was the towering complex on the northern shore. This was Foxiang Ge (Tower of Buddhist Incense, or Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha). This building was one of those burned down by Anglo-French forces but later rebuilt and presently comprises three, eight-sided storeys on a twenty-metre-deep stone base. The temple houses a statue of the thousand-handed Guanshiyin Buddha.

West of the buddhist temple was a very unusual sight. This was the Marble Boat (also known as the Boat of Purity and Ease). Serving as a tea house with fabulous views over Kunming Lake now, this was originally a wooden structure on a stone base but like much in the area was destroyed by arson during the Second Opium War. Its reconstruction took place under the instruction of Empress Dowager Cixi and was likely through funds originally earmarked for rebuilding the navy. Despite its appearance and name, the Marble Boat is still made from wood but is now painted convincingly to resemble stone. It incorporates clever drainage systems that funnel rainwater through hollow columns.

The lake with three islands is important symbology in China and as we continued our scenic boat ride around the lake we saw numerous bridges connecting those islands. Interestingly, each bridge was very different in design. Of the smaller bridges that we saw the one that stood out most was Yudai, known as the Jade Belt Bridge. Made from marble, its shape is designed to resemble the simple bridges of the southern Chinese countryside but its unusually high clearance was a deliberate feature to allow the Qianlong Emperor to pass under it on his dragon boat.

The largest of the bridges on Kunming Lake is visible from pretty much any point along the lake’s shoreline. Shiqi Kong Qiao gets its name from its design, the literal translation being Seventeen-Arch Bridge. The bridge is one hundred and fifty metres long, making it the longest bridge in any Chinese imperial garden, and it connects the mainland to Nanhu Island. The railings on the bridge incorporate five hundred stone lions in different poses. A variety of halls, temples, and towers dotted the small island, each filling a scenic location on the landmass in which to enjoy the views of the Summer Palace in every direction, and as we gently motored past Nanhu on its north side we passed Hanxu Hall which directly faces the Buddhist tower on the shore of the lake.

Stepping ashore we had time to see one more interesting item before departing. The Kunlun Stone Tablet is inscribed with a poem written by the Qianlong Emperor and describes how the shores of the lakes changed during his years of coming to the Summer Palace and especially enjoying his time on and around Kunming Lake.

And that brought our time visiting the Summer Palace in Beijing to a close with just a short wait outside the main entrance while we waited for our bus to find us. It was a short visit of only a couple of hours that really barely scratched the surface of what there is to see at this tourist spot. If I were returning now then I’d like to have spent more time in the buildings looking at the artifacts on display and a look inside the imposing Buddhist temple would be a must too, but as a taster of what to see and as part of a combination of historical trips in one day in the pre-cruise package hosted by Princess Cruises then this was a fantastic trip.

We would have just one more day in Beijing before our cruise on Diamond Princess but it would be a very full one indeed.

At the waterfront area not far from our hotel we’d spotted a man standing at the edge of a jetty gesticulating and talking loudly. We sidled up nearby carefully before realising he was a preacher of some kind practicing his sermon to the water. At least that’s what we hope. For all we know his congregation were local Boston fish.

After wandering the waterfront area and stopping for some breakfast (eventually, after the person behind the counter couldn’t understand my accent and had to call for a manager) we crossed over the water via an old and photogenic pedestrian bridge.

Not wanting to get too far from our hotel and conscious that our travelling companion would possibly be awake by this time we looped back to our Boston hotel with me taking as many opportunities to snap a few photos of the city under the glorious sunshine as I could.

The buildings and signs of local life in and around Zhujiajiao were fabulously, authentically, traditionally Chinese. Much like our visit to the Beijing Hutongs the contrast with modern life in China was both wonderful to experience and exactly what we’d come to see on our Asian cruise.

While taking one of the photos of the rivers running through the water town I got talking to a young American couple also taking loads of shots of the scenery. It turned out that they took stock photography and sold them as a means to fund their travels. When we returned from our cruise I checked stock photography sites for several months to see if I could see anything on them that they might have uploaded but never did which was a shame.

One of our stops in Zhujiajiao was at a rice museum which showed an example of the Chinese windmill used in its preparation although I’m not entirely sure how any longer. I really should get into the habit of making more notes to accompany the photos of the places I visit.

Zhujiajiao is a water town comprising of several rivers breaking up the land into islands and 36 stone bridges joining them back up again. Getting around the town can be done on foot, by bike (if there aren’t too many other people around), or, as you could probably guess, by boat. Our excursion would naturally include a water taxi ride.

Just outside the walls of the town while we waited for our coach to return and pick us up were signs of more typically modern Chinese life.

Hanging around in a tour group while plenty of people went about their daily lives also gave me a great chance to sneak in a a few photos of the local Chinese people in and around Zhujiajiao.

With Shanghai being so large and Zhujiajiao being on the opposite side of it to where the cruise ship was docked the coach journey back took quite a while but did allow us plenty of time to see the sprawling city and the vast amounts of construction taking place. The disparity between what we saw from the coach windows and what we’d experienced in the water town was immense. In the video below you can see the Shanghai World Financial Centre in the distance.

I don’t know whether we arrived a day early or left a day late but on the day we turned up we were docked in the commercial dock area of the city – at Kwai Chung Container Terminal III by my reckoning of landmarks – which meant our first view of Hong Kong was somewhat industrial. Cranes and containers surrounded us and only the more distant sights were of the skyscrapers we’d been expecting to see. Still, the weather was gorgeous and there’s a type of beauty even in these commercial ports, especially when you’re on the other side of the world and experiencing them for the first time. I suspect that’s a minority view but it suits my contrarian nature.

The video below was shot from the top deck of Diamond Princess looking first eastwards then crossing over and looking westwards to show the views from this part of Hong Kong. What’s of slight interest (very slight; like so slight you might not even spot there’s any interest at all; we’re talking a sliver of slightness that practically disappears if you look at it edge on) is that you’ll be able to see that the Stonecutters Bridge wasn’t quite complete when we visited; there’s a gap in the centre of the award-winning bridge’s span over the Rambler Channel.

We’d booked a Hong Kong Island highlights excursion for our day in the city so it was just a case of waiting until we were due to head off – that usual gathering in the theatre with your tickets and assigned tour group number while watching people try to sit at the ends of the rows, causing chaos, or leaving before their row is due, out of some utter desperation to get on the bus first and mark them out to their fellow passengers as selfish tits – then trundling off the ship and to our designated means of transportation.

Victoria Peak

Our bus took us from the Hong Kong mainland onto the island and dropped us off at the station ready for a funicular train ride to the viewing platforms on Victoria Peak. It was incredibly crowded and quite chaotic waiting to board and I’m not convinced that everyone in our tour group managed to get onto the same train going up, but I’m sure we all made it eventually because there was no panicked stare in the ship’s representative’s eyes when taking head-counts during the remainder of the excursion’s activities.

A sculpture of local legend Jackie Chan caught our eye and it wouldn’t be the only time he would appear in some form on our two days in Hong Kong, with our tour guide pointing out his house as we drove past it later in the day, and with us seeing his star on the walk of fame the day after.

 The view from Victoria Peak was the classic one that everyone knows from looking for pictures of Hong Kong online, even if the haze from heat or pollution made the skyline photography a lot less than ideal. Some skyscraper landmarks we had pointed out to us included the Bank of China Tower (designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei) and Central Plaza, but you can also see in the photos and video from Victoria Peak below that there was a building under construction across the water, on the mainland, and that was the International Commerce Centre, the tallest building in Hong Kong.

Stanley Market

The next stop on our Hong Kong excursion was to the southern side of the island and a shopping trip at Stanley Market. We were assured that this was a great place to get good quality, cheap souvenirs and clothing, and that actually turned out to be true. We’re not shoppers when we travel but we did have some local currency on us – we like to spend when we’re ashore, helping the local economy in some small way, and we’ll judge you if you don’t do the same – so ducked into a side alley and were encouraged into a shop selling silk shirts by the owner there. He looked me up and down then reached back into a pile of shirts and pulled out a short-sleeved, dark blue, silk number, threw it into a bag, and asked for a very reasonable sum of money. We took a chance on not being handed something polyester, nine sizes too small, and I’m glad we did. It fit me like a glove, it felt divine, and I still have it now, even if it’s a little snugger around the waist these days.

Aberdeen

Our penultimate stop on this guided tour was Aberdeen, named for the 4th Earl of Aberdeen and former mid-nineteenth century Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon. The original name of Aberdeen was actually Hong Kong but foreigners mistook it for the whole island and by the time this was realised the misunderstanding had stuck. The locals now call Aberdeen Hong Kong Tsai which can be translated as Son of Hong Kong.

Aberdeen is famous for its floating village and restaurants and it was to a famous one of the latter that we had a quick bite for lunch. The floating village houses many boats and is home to the Tanka people, historically associated with fishing in Hong Kong harbour and with prostitution, though that is partly ethnic stereotyping of people seen as low caste across much of Asia.

Once our short stop for food was complete we then boarded boats for a ride around the Aberdeen waterfront.

The final stop was to see some artistic workmanship in a jeweller’s workshop. As always with these kinds of stops on these cruise ship-organised excursions there’s a push to buy merchandise too, and while we didn’t there were some in our tour group who did, which was good to see. It always helps when you’ve got plenty of wealthy Americans in your group.

Even though Diamond Princess would be in Hong Kong for another day, everyone had to be back on board by early evening as the cruise ship needed to move to an anchoring spot in Junk Bay. The timing of the ship’s repositioning to its new location in Hong Kong Harbour would mean we’d get to watch the famous Hong Kong Harbour Light Show from the water.

I always like being on or near the water (hence my love of cruises). Taking a river boat, even one through a city you know or have been through, gives a completely different outlook on the place. We found it interesting to see the opulence of the temples contrasting with the apparent poverty of some of the houses along the side of the Chao Phraya river

As you can see from the photos, it would be fair to say that I’ve seen clearer rivers than this one in Bangkok. When you see water this shade of brown your first thought is that it’s dirty and that may indeed be true but it’s also possible that the problem was one of a generally shallow basin and a lot of disturbed riverbed either along the stretch we cruised or farther upstream, or potentially run-off from dirt banks due to recent rain. I confess to not being an expert on rivers at this point and if you’ve found this page while looking for an analysis of the Chao Phraya in Thailand then I can only apologise for a wasted journey.

Our guided trip down Bangkok’s river took us initially southwards from where we’d embarked before turning around and heading north.

We stopped by a shrine at one point where bread was thrown into the river for the fish. This was something undertaken not just by us but by other boats too and was to bring luck. Or get rid of stale bread. The size of the fish showed that despite its murky colour the Chao Phraya seemed fairly healthy or the mud was full of growth hormones. Never rule anything out.

Our disembarkation point from our river boat ride was just on the north side of the Rama VIII bridge in Bangkok (that we had to travel under) which was fairly distinctive in appearance – and attractive to me – due to an asymmetrical design.

It’s difficult to keep me from snapping photos if the camera is in my hands even if I’d probably taken nearly-identical photos to those from the platform on previous Princess Cruises ships (or even the same one, as this was our second time on Crown Princess). You can never take too many photos, though.

We’re always fond of seeing or experiencing things that are the most or the least or the biggest or tallest or smallest, etc., so it was good to know that outside Asia the suspension bridge span of the Great Belt Bridge under which we would cruise was the longest in the world. There was a bit of haze on the horizon as the Crown Princess headed north between the two Danish islands of Zealand and Funen and it felt a little odd to notice the time ticking down when we were due to pass beneath the bridge yet still have no sight of it ahead. Slowly, the area on which we were standing in the shade started to fill up with more people.

Looking back at one point I noticed quite a bit of smoke coming from the stacks on the top of the ship. If you’ve seen many of my photos then you might be aware that I’m fond of the industrial feel in a photo; there’s a sense of brute force there and I think it forms a lovely contrast to a pleasant cruising picture. There’s no point pretending cruise ships don’t cause pollution, because they do. However, they’re vastly outnumbered by all the cargo transport systems around the world many, many times over so whenever someone moans about it using their phone or computer that will certainly have contributed to it all as well just roll your eyes and say nothing.

There was a noticeable buzz of excitement as the bridge started to loom into view and a sudden influx of more passengers onto the top deck and platforms of the ship. I’d selected my spot at the rear of the foremost, highest platform for a couple of reasons: because it was the highest, obviously, and because I quite like having some foreground interest in photographs. Whereas there seemed to be a lot of jostling for position and holding of cameras up high to take photos without obstructions I was more than happy to ensure people made up a portion of the pictures I was taking.

Cruising under the Great Belt Bridge was exhilarating. You can almost hear a whoosh! in your head as the concrete structure slips overhead surprisingly fast. You never really get a feel for how fast you’re travelling on a cruise ship at sea – especially one as placid as the Baltic – until you pass some static marker very close. And the underside of the bridge felt very close indeed. With the various masts ahead of us on the ship forcing the perspective somewhat there were gasps from people all around as it seemed like we only just cleared the bridge by a couple of metres; the reality was probably four-to-eight times that amount, but it still made for a fabulous experience and memory to treasure.

Another wonderful thing about an experience such as this one where a large group of strangers share a moment of amazement is the sudden sense of camaraderie that breaks out. Cruising with Princess over the years we’ve found that people who also enjoy our love of holidays at sea are generally sociable people anyway but you could see instantly far more talking amongst the groups who’d gathered to see us pass by the bridge. People were showing the photos they’d taken to everyone to compare and there was lots of small talk about how close the ship had been or how it compared to other under-bridge cruising that people had witnessed. I ended up speaking for some time to a solo traveller about photography in general who then turned out to live only a few miles away from us. Nice when that happens.

We waited for the stairs to clear a bit before making our way slowly down and back to the cabin to put away the camera, stopping for some shots of the busy top deck of the cruise ship. The day was young, there was a quiz coming up, and the lure of beers or early cocktails was starting to grow.

By the time we reached our room the Great Belt Bridge was starting to fade away into the haze in our wake.

To date this has been the only time we’ve passed under a bridge while on a cruise ship and it was a wonderful experience. Personally, I’d recommend getting where lots of other people are when it’s happening so that the excitement that emanates from your fellow travellers washes over you. I also think that if you can then try to get some people in the photos you take when you do something like this as they make for more emotive pictures to look back on later.

We had plenty of time as it was still early so decided to take a circular route back to the harbour area of La Rochelle through the nearby park as much just to take a stroll that would provide shade from the increasingly warm day as to see whether it had anything to offer. Leaving the Tour de la Lanterne we continued west a short way, passing through a doorway set into the remains of the city wall called the Porte Des Deux Moulins (Door/Gate of the Two Mills, though I couldn’t tell you why). In the photo now above you can see that gate on the left side if you follow the line of the walls.

This took us to a short bridge over a narrow river or stream coming out of the park and into the sea. The numerous drainage ditches and canals of the park itself are fed by two rivers, Lafond and Fétilly, though which one of these we were crossing I can’t say. What I can say, though, is that it reeked to high heavens here. The water was not exactly fresh and the reason for this becomes clear with a little more of the history of the park, coming up soon.

The other side of the bridge saw a small café area with some seating and some street art adorning its rear; not the best example but I always try to capture photos of local artistry wherever I go. It might be useful to know that you can get some food and drink at the southern end of the park, though, if you’re visiting La Rochelle.

This brought us to the park itself. No fences surround it, it’s open all year long and free to wander through at your leisure. The history of the park is fairly interesting. Originally, the land that now forms Le Parc Charruyer was marshland (hence that smell) and given over to military forces most of the time, stationed outside the city walls. In the late nineteenth century, Marie-Adèle Charruyer, the daughter of a local, wealthy shipowner, Étienne Charruyer, and heiress to the family fortune, bequeathed 100,000 francs to the city in her will to establish a public park at the exit of the city. The land didn’t actually belong to the family but after her death it was this area that was subsequently cleared, drained, cleaned up, and transformed close to how it appears today.

The park was very peaceful; the abundance of foliage on the trees soaked up any external noise nicely and the dappled shade as we followed a path along a river’s edge dropped the temperature to something very pleasant indeed. Cycling routes through the park have been added in more recent times and Le Parc Charruyer covers an area of around 40 hectares, providing a pleasant walk of around two kilometres across its full length. We only walked about half this distance electing to turn back towards the city roughly in line with La Rochelle’s cathedral a little after we’d passed under a bridge with some graffiti of questionable quality (and yet still I took some photos (oh, me!))

If you’ve got the time when you’re in La Rochelle and fancy some peace and quiet away from the hustle and bustle of the city then the park is a lovely little place to just absorb a touch of nature while you’re there.

Out of the park we headed back towards the waterfront area of La Rochelle. The direction we mostly wanted to head was southwards but the brightness of the sun directly ahead and the contrast from the cool surroundings we’d been in to the heat trap of the dry streets and stone-fronted buildings left us taking a zig-zag route to where we needed to be in order to jump into the shade of buildings or take a break from squinting at every opportunity. There wasn’t a huge variety in the architecture of the buildings we saw but the general style was very nice.

We eventually came out by the harbour at the Porte de la Grosse-Horloge, an attractive tower and gateway we’d seen across the marina when we’d first arrived in La Rochelle. A small square nearby with a number of attractive shops and a large mass of people shopping and just admiring the sights also sported a statue adorned with traffic cones, something statues appear to do worldwide.

The next thing we wanted to see – and the next post – would be La Rochelle’s aquarium, south of where we’d been dropped off at in the city. We braved the direct sunlight for a little longer and headed past the harbour towards it.

Gibraltar is a small place and it would be fair to say that it doesn’t have the hugest range of attractions to excite a visitor. Princess Cruises did have some tour options but there was nothing there that couldn’t be done on your own, for less money, and without much in the way of risk of missing out on getting back to the ship. Its biggest draws for the majority of cruisers were probably the impossible-to-miss Rock of Gibraltar and those duty free shopping prices.

On that last point it’s worth noting that we normally buy cigarettes for my sister-in-law on cruises because a) she can’t kick the filthy habit, and b) this saves her quite a lot of money compared to buying cigarettes in the UK. In the past we’ve had issues where the ship sold out of cigarettes early so we’d “been sensible” and “ordered” some on the first day aboard Emerald Princess. The nicotine cylinders of death are normally delivered on the last day along with any alcohol but we’d been surprised to find that there were no limits for their purchase and we could take them immediately. So we did. In hindsight, a poor decision that we should have been immediately suspicious of where it came to Princess’s treatment and of which we should have given more thought. To cut a boring piece of advice short: if you want to shorten your life or the lives of others around you while encased in a cloud of stench and your ship is docking in Gibraltar then don’t buy cigarettes onboard; far, far better prices in the little headland off Spain.

We weren’t interested in the duty free shopping; it was to the Rock that we wanted to go as soon as possible. Breakfast downed, we disembarked the ship and walked into the centre of Gibraltar, a simple job of following the road out of the port and going straight over three roundabouts to the walls and the Grand Casemates Gates.

This brought us into Grand Casemates Square, an attractive, open space with plenty of cafés with outdoor seating and pleasing views. A casemate, if you didn’t know – and I certainly had never heard of the word before – is a fortified gun emplacement, and with Gibraltar’s long history of being a strategic military outpost this square takes its name from the large defensive structure to the north of it. The square itself sits at the northern end of the main shopping area of Gibraltar which we fully intended to have a nose through once we’d seen what we really wanted to see in the place but for now we simply strolled straight through it.

The Rock of Gibraltar

The top of the 426 metres high, limestone Rock of Gibraltar can be reached in one of four ways.

• You can walk up if you are young and/or fit and/or tight with money. We are none of those things.
• You can take a taxi up its winding and narrow roads if you are boring. We have been accused of being boring but I’d like to think we aren’t and I can produce a Powerpoint presentation outlining evidence to support this opinion in a three hour show called Is Dullness Really In The Eye Of The Beholder? if you’re interested in knowing more.
• You can parachute in from the back of a Hercules transporter if you are James Bond and you’re filming The Living Daylights. I feel compelled to point out that neither of us is James Bond but that Timothy Dalton was for this film and he remains the best Bond ever and I will flick olives from a Vodka Martini at anyone who disagrees.
• You can take the cable car up if you are a tourist looking to do touristy things. As it turns out, we were tourists looking to do touristy things so this is what we did.

Ahead of the cruise we’d used the internet – everyone’s doing it these days – and bought tickets for the Cable Car and Nature Reserve. The benefit of buying tickets in advance is that you can skip what might be a long line waiting to buy tickets and join the long line waiting to get on one of the two cars heading up the promontory roughly every five minutes. There was no long line, however, as we’d timed our walk from the ship to perfection and arrived pretty much dead on when the first cable cars would start running. This didn’t mean we didn’t have to wait, though.

The thing you should know about Gibraltar’s cable cars is that one goes up while the other comes down, then the process is reversed. You might think that being in a queue to board a car means if you don’t get in the first one but you’re at the front of the queue then you’ll get in the next one. You might think that but you would be wrong. In addition to the queue for people who’ve just turned up or booked tickets online there is a second queue which snakes up a set of steps with No Entry signs around it and which jumps your queue. Surely not! That doesn’t sound very British! But yes. This is the queue for pre-booked groups so it might not be used normally but when a cruise ship is in and the cruise ship is arranging excursions then they get to steal half the cable cars capacity to the top of the Rock. Annoying when you’re near the front of the queue, a car is descending, you think you’re about to board, then a minibus full of passengers with their coloured stickers pulls up, debarks, and a crowd wanders past you. On the plus side the trip is a quick one so the wait isn’t too long but some people might be grateful for the very limited amount of seating in the waiting area if standing for a sustained period is an issue.

The video below (temporarily removed) contains highlights of the entire day in Gibraltar and includes some footage of the ascent to the top of the Rock in the cable car.

The views from the upper cable car station were lovely, the sea mist still clinging to the lower altitudes while the clarity of the upper reaches cast everything in a clean, crisp feel. We’d wondered whether t-shirts would be enough and whether it might be sensible to carry some layers but that sea mist is testament to the fact there was very little wind around at all and the early September temperature was near enough perfect for us.

Almost half of Gibraltar’s land area is classified as a nature reserve and it’s within that reserve on the top of the Rock that you can find much of the indigenous flora and fauna, plus those famous monkeys too. You might spot a monkey outside the nature reserve because they refuse to recognise man-made borders but if you want to guarantee a sighting then you’ll need to buy a ticket for that area. Incidentally, the Barbary Macaques on Gibraltar are monkeys and not apes as some people insist on referring to them as. It’s likely that people have looked at the absence of a tail in the past and decided that this makes them apes but people have a tendency to be wrong a lot of the time and this is one of those occasions. There is a lot more to biological classifications than physical appearance. If you’re a simian primate (site analytics indicate a strong likelihood for this) and are an orangutan, gorilla, bonobo, gibbon, or human then you’re an ape; anything else and you’re a monkey. I know you probably didn’t come to this post about Gibraltar’s tourist highlights with the expectation that you were about to get a lesson on primate definitions but that’s the kind of guy I am: I’m an annoying guy.

You’re warned before you make it into the reserve on the Rock not to carry plastic bags with you as the monkeys associate them with food. You also hear stories online about people having their sunglasses stolen or their phones swiped or being pressured into buying timeshares across the border on mainland Spain but we found the monkeys to be very well-behaved while we were there. We did talk to a couple later in the day who mentioned that while they were exploring Gibraltar’s landmark feature one of the Barbary Macaques had jumped onto the backpack that another passenger was wearing, swung upside down, unzipped a pocket, and snatched items from it but there’s no way to tell for sure whether that passenger had not previously taken those items from the monkey and it was simply retrieving its possessions. I don’t like to judge and I don’t think you should either without knowing all the facts.

We did get to see a female with child which was nice and generated a few “Aaaww!” sounds from people around.

I’m not an expert when it comes to monkey facial expressions (that’s right; I have some limits) but I’d like to think this monkey’s furrowed brow was from calculating distances to the horizon using trigonometry (an activity we decided not to do for a change on the previous day at sea) and not a sign he was getting infuriated at people pointing cameras in his general direction.

And it’s almost impossible to travel far in the western world in tourist-heavy areas without bumping into street entertainers so it wasn’t a complete surprise to discover this form of begging/non-taxable-employment had penetrated deep into the animal kingdom. We’re not huge fans of Shakespeare but it was a masterful performance of Hamlet’s soliloquy and very deserving of the cascade of fruit that came his way afterwards.

Navigating around the top of the Rock is typically just a matter of picking whether to follow the road that’s ascending or descending whenever a choice needs to be made. If you really want to get lost, though, then open up the map that is supplied with your entry ticket. Nothing is more confusing than trying to read a map of roads up and around a steep hill and trying to figure out which of the routes you’re actually on. In many ways this reminded us of our visit to Jiufen the year before where the map again appeared to be more closely an artist’s impression of the area as opposed to being of any practical use, only served to baffle us and numerous other people we bumped into with equally confused looks on their faces, and was soon ignored in favour of gut instincts and the occasional signpost. We figured we’d head roughly southwards from where the cable car deposited us and trust that we couldn’t really get too lost. Part of this walk took us along the Douglas Path, steep in places with some uneven steps to cope with but also plenty of photo opportunities to catch our breaths. The views from the batteries were spectacular even if the amount of rubbish that we kept finding in them was decidedly unattractive. Sort it out, people.

The Rock of Gibraltar effectively splits the territory into two with the overwhelming majority of businesses and residences located to the west of it. There is some inhabitation on the east side, though, and from our vantage point we could see directly down to a place called Sandy Bay at one point. How did it get that name? A mystery for the ages!

A popular tourist stop along the top of the Rock is the Skywalk, one of those glass-floored viewing platforms jutting out a little from the edge of the sheer cliff face. We arrived at it at the same time as a fair number of other people, most of whom decided not to walk out onto it after they saw one of the glass panels was taped off on account of the large cracks through it. We had no such qualms. It was okay, just not massively spectacular if I had to be honest. It could have done with more of a drop under the glass to really be effective. The nerds in us were quite pleased to see that the Skywalk had a plaque celebrating its official inauguration by Mark Hamill.

After completing the Douglas Path we started descending (which was very welcome) in the direction of St Michael’s Cave. This afforded us a lovely view to the African continent’s half of the Pillars of Hercules. It was fascinating to think that we were standing on a bit of Britain able to look north and west towards Spain and Europe while also gazing south to a completely different continent and the country of Morocco. While I’ve visited Morocco before, Africa is yet to be travelled within by my wife, something we keep saying we need to rectify but still haven’t got around to. One other thing we noticed was a warning sign about butterflies. I haven’t looked too deeply into just how dangerous the lepidoptera on Gibraltar can be but it’s worth noting.

St Michael’s Cave

Our cable car and nature reserve ticket also granted us access to St Michael’s Cave. The name of the place derives from the fact that it is a cave. No, wait, you’d guessed that bit already. The name is purported to be in reference to the Saint Michael Archangel Grotto in the Sanctuary of Monte Sant’Angelo in Italy. While the British tried for a while to use the name St George’s Cave (because the British just love any chance for a bit of jingosim) the name wouldn’t stick with the local inhabitants and the anglicised version of the Spanish name first noted in the sixteenth century retained its dominant position and appears to be here to stay.

With Gibraltar being limestone and thus fairly susceptible to water erosion it has a vast number of caves but St Michael’s is the most-visited by tourists with over a million visitors per year. It initially opens into a large chamber with seating arranged for concerts. The views in the caves are what you’d expect – stalactites, stalagmites, almost alien-skin-like textures that you just know H.R. Giger would have liked – but the lighting was a surprise with constantly changing colours illuminating the columns and ceiling. Initially interesting, this lighting soon proved to be a pain in the arse for photography with the camera making a best estimate of exposure time for a light blue scheme only to have the surroundings plunge into deepest red and screw everything up. Phone cameras struggled as well with the naturally long exposures these devices take in low light conditions occasionally capturing two or three colour changes in one shot. It all kinda looks cool, though, even if none of it was quite what I was after.

Descent And The Windsor Suspension Bridge

There’s a good opportunity to exit through the gift shop as you leave St Michael’s Cave which we duly did, picking up a few souvenirs on the way. We weren’t the only people in there and we weren’t the only species either with monkeys occasionally running in to snatch things while the shop owner swung brooms at them. Very entertaining.

We then had the choice of either ascending a little more to try the Mediterranean Steps route (described as steep and arduous) or making our way down. This choice was more-or-less made for us as my wife had aggravated an old knee injury at some point in our exploration of Gibraltar and, while she doubtlessly would have said yes and soldiered through the discomfort had I said I was keen to try the steps, she also would have harboured a deep grudge and I would have been killed in my sleep during the week. You don’t spend half your life with someone without learning to read the signs.

And so we made our way downwards, following the narrow and winding roads, avoiding the buses and taxis, hugging shade where it offered itself, and taking photos through gaps in foliage every now and then as that’s my way.

I feel I owe a public apology right here to the group of women who we’d found ourselves bumping into in numerous places along the clifftop walk thus far and who we spotted ahead of us and descending a set of steps. We followed after them as it was heading down only to then find them at the bottom, puzzling over the next-to-useless map in their hands.

“Hi,” said one of the women. “Are you heading for the suspension bridge as well? Is it this way?”

“Er, no, we were on our way back to town actually. But I’m pretty sure I saw a sign for it at the top of the steps and pointing back that way,” I gestured.

“Oh, this stupid map! Typical! Thank you!”

And with that they turned around and headed back up the long set of steps we’d all just come down. My wife and I carried on around a corner.

“Oh. Here’s the bridge,” I said absolutely pointlessly to my wife who could clearly see the bridge right in front of us.

“Maybe that sign you saw points to another way to reach it,” she offered.

“Yeah, well let’s just get across here quickly before they spot us and realise we sent them the longest way possible.”

Over 70 metres long and with a 50 metre drop to a gorge below, the Windsor Suspension Bridge was officially opened in 2016. Neither of us suffer from vertigo so the drop and the slightly bouncing, swaying motion as we walked across its length was not a problem for us. There weren’t many padlocks on the bridge but I suspect that will change over time as tourists do like to put padlocks on things. The activity was probably started by the padlock industry to keep them in business. We also noticed a sign at the start of the bridge instructing travellers to walk around the bridge (a path circles the gap) if any monkeys were on it.

Our descent continued steadily with no further major points of interest. We stopped in a battery on the way down, albeit very briefly after discovering two topless, burly guys in there, one of whom was watching something loud in Spanish on his phone while the other just stared at us. I can’t even hazard a guess as to what was going on there. We passed close to the cable car while one was passing overhead too but generally kept an eye on the ground conditions more than anything else as the steps down at this point were very uneven indeed and it was all clearly having more and more of an impact on my wife’s ability to walk without pain. It was a relief to reach sensible-sized concrete steps as we came upon the main town.

We headed back through the town with a tiny plan formed, that being to check out the shopping options, grab some more water as we’d run out of what we’d taken, then find somewhere to have a proper drink because that’s the sort of thing we like doing when we travel. And when we don’t travel too. We like to drink is basically what I’m saying here.

The duty free prices were good but we didn’t see anything that was so amazing we absolutely had to have it. We also knew that stopping in one of the pubs or cafés along the main area of the town would mean being immersed in a sea of people and we’re not really people people. However, our research into where we could potentially get a drink in Gibraltar ahead of our visit had already given us a decent location to head for.

Ocean Village, Gibraltar

Heading back out of Grand Casemates Square and towards the port we took a right turn towards Ocean Village. This was an attractive marina area with boardwalks and plenty of eating and drinking establishments as well as a ridiculous number of fish in the water. It was also pretty much devoid of any ship passengers as near as we could tell so if you’re looking to get away from the throng on a cruise visit then this is a nice little area to hit.

We were accosted on our way in by a saleswoman pitching dolphin boat trips – the Blue Boat Dolphin Safari to be precise – and while we declined the offer this time around because of time constraints, tiredness, and aches we also explained that we would be back to Gibraltar in June (unless some sort of viral pandemic stops those plans, haha) and it’s our intention to do that boat trip that time around. We’re actually hoping we bump into her again because we spent a fair amount of time talking with her and she came across as really pleasant.

We generally like to find something local to drink when we’re travelling but when it comes to beer there simply isn’t anything available in Gibraltar. We thought we’d found some in a shop in town only to see it was brewed and bottled in the Isle of Man. The prevalence of soldiers and British tourists in particular to the territory probably explains why if you’re not interested in lager then you’re going to struggle to find something palatable but we fell back to my heritage and managed to grab a couple of pints of Kilkenny in an Irish bar in the marina. It might have been nicer, sitting out in the sunshine with a drink and views of the boats and buildings, had they decided not to start drilling and cutting up part of the bar (I guess) while we were there but it was good to get off our feet anyway. During breaks in the maintenance noise the bar’s speakers pumped out Irish tunes and I treated my wife to a singalong with Seven Drunken Nights to her shock (as she’d never heard the song before) and embarrassment (for obvious reasons).

Gibraltar Port

We left Ocean Village and walked the short distance back towards the port and Emerald Princess. On the approach to the port area we could see other passengers returning ahead of us in small groups, all of them being stopped at the gated entrance where they needed to fish out cruise cards before being allowed in. With us having eyes and seeing all this happening way ahead of us we made sure to have our cruise cards in hand long before we reached the security checkpoint and we had them showing from tens of metres away. This earned us a “Yay!” from the security guard and a high five for probably being the first people in ages she hadn’t had to stop and ask for identification and wait while they rummaged through pockets and wallets accordingly.

We had one further and brief stop before boarding the cruise ship, that being to take a look at the duty free shop set up in the building alongside it. It was here that we discovered that while Gibraltar didn’t brew its own beer it did make its own small batch gin using botanicals found only on the Rock. Well, we had to buy it. You’re not allowed to open liquor you bring on a Princess ship; they confiscate it as you pass through security and return it to you prior to disembarkation. Well, they do if they spot it and if they’re not distracted by other people as you board; we sorta forgot to turn ours in even though we were told to because a load of other people arrived at the same time and heads turned in different directions. We didn’t plan on opening it on the ship anyway.

I can confirm on tasting the gin once we got back from this cruise that the Campion Gibraltar Gin has a very distinctive taste and it’s bloody lovely so we’ll probably pick some more up next year.

In the next travelogue in this series I’ll cover our departure from Gibraltar and the evening’s entertainment including some speciality dining in a new venue for us aboard a Princess Cruises ship, the Salty Dog Gastropub.

During the night Crown Princess had cruised northwards along the Norwegian coastline until it passed Holmengrå Lighthouse on its starboard side where it turned south into the Hjeltefjorden, the main shipping route from the sea to our destination of Bergen.

Despite late-night drinking (yes, we’ve been known to have the odd tipple) this cruise was our first experience of a balcony (and we’ve never looked back since; thanks for the huge upgrade, Princess) so the giddy joy that accompanied waking up in the morning meant we’d leap outside as soon as we were suitably dressed (not super warm on the North Sea and around Norway, after all) just to gawp at whatever we were passing. When you’re cruising along the Norwegian fjords you’re going to be passing rocks and hills for the most part and thus it was the case on this day. It was, unfortunately, raining, which meant grey skies, low clouds, and a damp chill to the air but that didn’t detract from the exhilaration of the experience.

At about quarter past seven in the morning the pilot came aboard although we couldn’t see this from our balcony. As we cruised past the small island of Sora Rotoyna Crown Princess turned to port and entered the south west arm of the Byfjorden for the final stretch towards the Norwegian city that we would be visiting.

Coming closer to some of the rocky islets in the fjords we could see that many were inhabited and in some cases the houses seemed astonishingly close to the water line. I can only assume we were either cruising during a high tide or that the water levels in fjord do not change by much. The houses along the fjord looked incredibly charming, would have had some spectacular views (and I can hardly imagine what the sight of a cruise ship passing by would look like), but I don’t think the isolated location requiring boat access is one I’d like. We love being near to the water but we’re still definitely city people at heart.

Before a ship can reach Bergen it needs to pass under the Askoybrua Bridge. I know this from the Log of the Cruise that Princess provide passengers with on the last day. I also know this from watching videos of people cruising in and out of Bergen online. I also know this from the photo below which clearly shows Crown Princess approaching the bridge.

So, do you remember passing under the bridge to approach Bergen?

We all stood up on the top deck, quite amazed at how close it all was, it was sunny, lots of people.

No, that was on Crown Princess, it’s true, but that was the Great Belt Bridge near Denmark in 2017.

Oh. Did we pass under it at night, then?

No, that was Diamond Princess leaving Yokohama in 2018.

Right. In that case, no, I don’t recall passing under the bridge near Bergen.

A conversation with my wife that confirms neither of us remember passing under the bridge. I’m going to blame this travelling lapse on our cruising naivety, this being for all intents and purposes a cruising virginity reboot for us and a time when we didn’t take anywhere near as many notes or invest anywhere near as much energy in researching trips. Despite my photo, I clearly had no idea we were about to cruise under the bridge near Bergen so we must have stepped back into the room or got breakfast and completely missed the experience. Bizarrely, since looking back at the photos since that point it turned out that we did watch the ship cruise under the bridge when we departed Bergen although I’d not bothered to document it originally on this site.

The rain had stopped so we made our way to the top deck of Crown Princess to see the final part of the cruise ship’s sail into Norway’s second-largest city, Bergen. The morning’s rain, the low cloud cover of the hills, and our high vantage point on the ship gave the place a compact and fairly drab appearance but that didn’t make a dent in our excitement levels and we looked forward to getting off and taking the free shuttle bus out of the port and into the city.

The next part of our Norwegian fjords travelogue series describes the sights of Bergen.

We spent a lot of time on our balcony on this cruise because it had been something we’d not expected to have. We’d only paid an inside price but had been upgraded substantially when we’d boarded at Southampton. The generally cool weather wouldn’t keep us from using the balcony every day and we’ve never booked anything less than balcony on any other Princess cruise since so it was a fabulous investment from the company. We still love balconies and we still use them every day, rain or shine; for us, with limited annual leave each year, there’s no point saving money for extra cruises we can’t take anyway so we may as well get the best we can afford.

While we waited for Crown Princess to depart Bergen we could look out not only across the water to parts of the city sprawling around the shoreline of the fjord but also straight down to where someone was most likely taking some tender boat driving lessons or refreshing his or her piloting skills.

Late in the afternoon Crown Princess let go her lines and slowly pulled away from the Norwegian city giving us a different view of the surrounding land than we’d had during the approach.

Crown Princess wasn’t the only cruise ship visiting Bergen on that day but while we’d been allowed to dock at the port the AIDA Sol had needed to anchor in the water and tender her passengers ashore. We’ve subsequently seen quite a few of these AIDA ships when we’ve been cruising and their hull designs are always a welcome sight.

We continued to make use of our balcony for the cruise departure from Bergen rather than heading up on deck. This limited our view to the starboard side only but, hey, it’s a balcony! That’s what it’s there for.

If you’ve read the account of our morning cruise into Bergen then you’ll know that cruising along the Byfjorden involves passing under the Askoybrua Bridge, a suspension bridge with a main span of over eight hundred metres and a clearance just over sixty. It was not something that made the biggest impression on us because neither of us could remember cruising under it on Crown Princess in either direction and it was only the act of taking a look back at the photos long after the event that we realised we had even watched it all from our balcony.

The lesson there is that it might be a more memorable event to see your cruise ship passing under a bridge from the top deck so if you’re going cruising for the first time or the first time in a stretch of water that requires you to transit beneath a bridge then get out of your room and see it from the highest point of the ship. The lesson might also be that there’s a good reason I take so many photos and write as much as I do and that’s because our memory is just utterly shocking.

As Askoybrua disappeared in our ship’s wake we spotted AIDA Sol chasing us along the fjord.

All that remained while the light was good enough was to watch the landscape pass by. Crown Princess followed the Byfjorden then turned to starboard and retraced its route of the morning up the Hjeltefjorden. Occasional boats and yachts and rocky islands caught our attention for a time but eventually the lure of showers, changing into evening wear, and some drinks became too much to bear.