We weren’t assigned a room until embarkation so had no idea where we would be on the ship. Having checked out the deck plans and pictures online of ocean view rooms we knew roughly where we might be on the ship and what the room was like so I was already puzzled when we were given our cruise cards and told we’d be staying on the Riviera deck in room R209. I couldn’t remember there being any ocean view rooms on that deck but didn’t express my hopes to my wife until we opened the door to our cabin. It was a lot brighter than we thought it might be.

“I think we’ve got a balcony,” I said.

“What!?” said my wife in a tone that carried with it an unsaid “Don’t be so bloody stupid” with it.

“I think we’ve got a balcony,” I said again, stepping into the room and heading straight past the bed towards the half-drawn curtains and fully-closed net curtain in front of the bright window behind it.

“I thought we were only supposed to get a porthole,” said my wife with a more puzzled tone as she too began to realise things didn’t look quite how we thought they might.

I pulled open the curtains. “We’ve got a balcony,” I said.

“You are fucking shitting me,” said my wife, but she knew I wasn’t.

“Yay! We’ve got a balcony! We’ve got a balcony!” I may have danced a little jig as I opened the door and stepped out.

With the benefit of hindsight we have to applaud the Princess Cruises people here because this single upgrade for us was directly responsible for us parting with far more money over the years than we otherwise would have had we not had it. We decided we really liked balconies as a result of this cruise and room, far more so than we liked trying to save a few quid here and there with cheaper selections. This is not to say that once we retire and find ourselves able to take more trips each year we might not consider less expensive rooms to make our money go further but while we’re of working age and limited in the amount of annual leave we can take we figure that if you’re going to have a holiday then make it the best you can.

As is nearly compulsory we went on an explore of the ship’s deck areas, finding it to be very familiar to us despite the half-decade gap between cruises on Princess ships. The small, adults-only Sanctuary Pool turned out to be one of our favourite outside areas providing a reasonably decent location for a quiet swim on most days. Quiet in terms of people being around, that is; when we had the current machine switched on to provide resistance for swimming against I think it would be best describing the atmosphere as anti-quiet.

Walking around the promenade deck became a regular event for us on the sea days or around dinner time in the evening. Some people use the promenade deck walk as a means to get fit or burn off some calories but I don’t think we ever achieved that critical pace that would enable either of those two results to have taken place. For us it was enough that we could look out at the churning sea and feel the wind in our faces and simply feel that we were right where we needed to be.

In terms of inside areas we spent a lot of time in the Explorers Lounge thanks to quizzes (we won some) and art auctions (we bought some art), and a lot of time in Crooners because of the ambiance and great cocktails.

Mostly the cocktails.

Our evenings always ended with us visiting the Grand-class Princess Cruises ships’ nightclub, Skywalkers. It took me a long time to realise that the name of the club was not referencing anything from the Star Wars universe but instead was because on the original Grand-class ships the nightclub was farther back on the ship and accessed via a travelator known as, you guessed it, the Skywalker. Later ship designs removed the travelator and shifted the club into the position it was in on Crown Princess for stability and improved fuel efficiency but the name stuck.

Skywalkers was prone to a little bit of vibration on Crown Princess. We didn’t mind it at all and it seemed to add something to the venue.

We’re not the world’s greatest dancers and we’re probably not even in the top 98%, nor do we actually dance unless we’ve had a lot to drink (has been known to happen) or something exceptional is played by the DJ (chance would be a fine thing). What we do enjoy, though, is listening to music and people-watching plus critiquing their dancing and coming up with back stories for them. Three people stood out for us on this Crown Princess cruise to Norway, all of whom were regular attendees in Skywalkers.

Firstly, there was the man who was perhaps in his sixties, bald, moustachioed, built like he’d fought a bit in his youth and potentially even recently too, clearly travelling on his own but gregarious with people he bumped into, always sporting his cruise card on a lanyard (a pet hate of ours) which showed he was Elite-level (a pet desire of ours). We called him Bronson on account of his resemblance to the prisoner and effectively assumed he was a similar character, just escaped from prison, and who had assumed the identity of a suite owner so he could get out of the UK and into the heart of Norway where he planned to join a wolf pack.

Secondly, there was a couple, in their forties. She was a former disco dancing champion who’d found the love of her life and tried to teach him her disco ways. He was a detective who was keen to ditch the life of criminal investigations in favour of dancing to the sounds of Chic and Kool And The Gang but on a final case he was attacked by a mysterious assailant which resulted in him needing crutches to move around. By day the pair of them pursued the attacker who had wrecked his dancing career, following leads that would take them to far-flung places such as the fjords. By night they would find a dancing joint where he would hobble and sway while she shook her tail feathers at him. We called them Crutchy And The Mandrill and if you know your MST3K as well as us then you’ll know where we got that name from.

A very quick recap in case you can’t be bothered to read about the trip so far: when we booked this cruise with Princess (fairly close to cruise date) it was nearly five years after our first and only other cruise leaving us in the position of having to learn what it is to travel by cruise ship all over again. We’d decided very early on that we’d be booking excursions as much as possible because we’re generally nosey people with a keen interest in history and culture but for this very first port stop in the very first foreign country we’d visited since our honeymoon half a decade earlier nothing jumped out at us. Thus it was that our first visit of a few hours to Norway would be on foot and with no firm plan at all. In later years we would be far more disciplined in researching just what we might be able to do on our own if the need arose but with us being travelling noobs all over again we probably didn’t make the most of our day ashore. There will always be another time.

Princess provided free shuttle buses to allow those of us not on organised excursions to get from Crown Princess into the city. We were dropped off by the city’s octagonal lake, Lille Lungegårdsvannet, made a note of when the buses would be returning to the ship, tutted mildly at the still overcast and lightly spitting weather conditions, and mostly followed the direction of more seasoned travellers also departing the vehicle to do their own thing.

Heading roughly west we crossed over a road and passed through Julemarked Byparken, a small public park with a few sculptures and statues as well as a prominent pavilion. Just beyond that was a modern, pedestrianised area lined with various upmarket stores and punctuated by stone sculptures and water features. The main square of Bergen, Torgallmenningen, was just off this area and it was through this that we next walked.

At the northern end of Torgallmenningen was the Sailor’s Monument, a large sculpture honouring sailors from different eras of Norway’s past.

Continuing on a straight line past the monument to sailors we approached Bergen’s fish market area which is unsurprisingly right by the waterfront area. My wife loves the smell of fresh fish, she loves seafood; I like fish, I can’t stand seafood, and the smell of fresh fish turns my stomach. We were never going to really stop at the fish market area because it’s not like you can buy some fish and take it back aboard the cruise ship to keep for a week until you’re home. Instead, we wandered past it and hugged the road along where the boats were docked, including a small Viking vessel.

The area of Bergen just beyond the fish market and opposite the water was called Bryggen and it’s a UNESCO World Cultural Site. Bryggen was the area in which Bergen was first founded in the eleventh century before expansion but its look and feel date to the middle of the fourteenth century onwards when this part of the city became a trading post for the Hanseatic League. What are now generally shops and locations for local craftspeople to work in were formerly warehouses and merchant houses for the League. The colourful wooden buildings still bear the signs of their previous lives and the narrow alleys and open spaces within the buildings, either lined with wooden boardwalks or cobbles, made for a lovely little wander.

We’re the sort of people who like to spend money in the places we’re travelling, not just spend it getting to and from them, so we were pleased to find a local jewellery workshop in this part of Bergen and my wife bought a hefty, silver ring. My wife tried the ring on, said it was lovely, acknowledged that she understood the stone wasn’t a diamond (for the price we were paying: well, duh!), said she’d love it, and the man there smiled and said he’d polish the piece of jewellery for her. This triggered a loud and indignant “Well, you didn’t offer to polish mine!” from an American woman who’d just bought something too. I guess we just bring out the best in people.

Our no-plan-just-wander tour of Bergen saw us next heading eastwards in a loop to get back roughly to where we’d been dropped off. We weren’t short for time but we were definitely still in a finding-our-feet phase of travelling. These days we would plan things a lot more, have set ideas where we’d want to be, make sure to spend as much time in port as possible, but back then we wanted to be certain that we’d be safely aboard ship in plenty of time.

Our walking route took us past some fairly uninteresting buildings and streets until we came out on Vetrlidsallmeningen where we were greeted by the sight of a long queue of – we assume – passengers from our ship waiting to board the Fløibanen funicular train to the top of the hill overlooking Bergen. On a clear day I imagine the sight is something worth seeing but with the cloud still partially obscuring the hilltop (although the light rain had ceased by this time) we were very glad that we hadn’t paid to do this on our own or as an excursion offered by the cruise line.

We cut through the line of people waiting to board the funicular and found ourselves in another old part of the city of Bergen. Wooden buildings and cobbled streets dominated, although there was more of an overall whiteness to the buildings rather than the varied colours of the buildings that had belonged to the Hanseatic League. This was Lille Øvregaten in the district of Vågsbunnen and it was one of the oldest parts of Bergen. In medieval times this was where you could find inns, goldsmiths, tailors, and booksellers, and it was also the home of cobblers until they found their own street in the fourteenth century.

Korskirken (or the Holy Cross Church) caught our eyes, its stone structure most likely being designed to do precisely that amongst all the wooden buildings that surrounded it. Its name comes not from its shape (although it is cruciform) but because it once housed relics of the True Cross (the somewhat unlikely alleged remnants of the cross on which Jesus was crucified) although these were stolen by Denmark who’d skipped the bit about not doing that in the commandments. The church was damaged in fires in 1198, 1248, 1413, 1582, 1623, 1640, and 1702 so not the greatest of track records when all’s said and done.

We continued heading roughly east and southeast through various streets in Bergen on our walk back towards the lake near where we’d been first dropped. There was a little bit of street art to be seen but nothing terribly good with the majority of work falling firmly in that unthinking graffiti category instead. One interesting moment was stumbling upon a group being filmed for something; it involved holding up cards with words on them then everyone waving Danish flags. Your guess is as good as mine.

Not far from the lake we made a stop at a bar with outdoor seating (as the weather was quite pleasant now) just so we could say that we’d had a Norwegian beer in Norway. Well, we can say that we’ve done it but it wasn’t a particularly nice experience in Bergen because social smoking was a big thing there. In later years (travelling in Europe in particular) we’d run into this problem with smoking in public a lot. Is it asking too much for smokers to simply lower themselves into a Pit of Shame whenever they want to light up? Anyway, we drank up quickly and decided to have one last short wander around before making our way back to the shuttle bus.

We made a quick circuit of Lille Lungegårdsvannet. Interesting pieces of art in the vicinity included Dansk Pige (or Danish Girl) by Gerhard Henning, and the fabulous, abstract, steel sculpture by Knut Steen to memorialise King Olaf Kyrre.

We had a quick look at the modern shops along the pedestrianised area we’d walked through earlier in the day but there was nothing to grab our attention.

With the weather being a little more favourable I took a couple of minutes to grab some additional photos around Julemarked Byparken once more. As public parks go it’s a pretty small one. To the north of the centrally-located pavilion was a statue to Edvard Grieg which we’d noticed earlier but on this second pass through we spotted an abstract piece of work that was more interesting to look at. This was a sculpture to another Norwegian composer, albeit a far less familiar one I’ll warrant, Harald Sæverud.

We decided to call it a day in Bergen at this point so walked through the Festplassen, the open air area beside the lake which often hosts circuses, amusement parks, festivals, and a regular pre-Christmas candle party. Best not to think too much about what the average Norwegian does at a candle party.

That concluded our walk around Bergen. We didn’t have long to wait until the shuttle bus returned us to Crown Princess. We had successfully negotiated our first day ashore on a cruise in five years and had the luxury of knowing that everywhere else we’d stop in Norway would include an organised tour meaning the chances of us getting left behind in any port were practically none.

First thing, of course, was to disembark the cruise ship and since Crown Princess was at anchor in Geirangerfjord this meant the use of tender boats was required. As luck would have it we were able to sit up top on this occasion which on days as gorgeous as this one was turning out to be offered not only the benefit that we’d be allowed off the boat first on land (for safety reasons) but that we’d have some uninterrupted views of the staggeringly beautiful landscape around Geiranger.

The tender boat ride to shore allowed us to see the other ships visiting Geiranger that day – Celebrity Eclipse and P&O Adonia – plus some lovely departing views of our home for the week cruising around Norway, Crown Princess.

Geiranger is a small village, highly reliant on tourism and at constant threat of disaster should there be a large landslide anywhere along the fjord leading to it. Part of the port guide provided by Princess stated that Queen Sonja of Norway camped in the mountains around Geiranger and wrote a book about her experiences. She and future husband Crown Prince Harald dated secretly for nine years on account of her being a commoner and it was only the threat to his father that he would never wed at all and end the royal family dynasty that allowed Harald to marry Sonja in 1968.

All safely ashore we boarded the bus waiting for us. From the description of the excursion:

Your tour begins with a scenic drive through Geiranger, passing the small, octagonal Geiranger Church and the largest hotel, the Union, some 300 feet up the hillside. A series of hairpin bends brings you to Hole camping site.

This duly happened and we gathered at Hole to await the start of our hike. In the map below you can see Crown Princess at anchor (marker A) and Hole where the bus dropped us off (marker B) as well as the two destinations we would be making for on the hike, the waterfall (marker C) and farm (marker D).

There was plenty of opportunity for us to take some photos back along the fjord to where we could see Crown Princess and all around us at the rolling and jagged hills and mountains.

It’s at this point that I need to make an apology for the state of these photos. So, here’s what happened: We’d booked this cruise at fairly late notice for us and knowing that there would be a lot of incredible landscapes and vistas to photograph I thought it would make sense to put some effort into it. Landscape photography isn’t really my thing but you hope that nature can do most of the work for you in these situations. However, I’d seen some people recommending a graduated, neutral density filter when taking landscape pictures in order to get more saturation into the land colours without blowing out the white levels in the sky. This sounded sensible so I ordered some filters and an adapter for my camera and right before our holiday they turned up which meant I didn’t really get much of a chance to test them out. I tested them out on this trip and… ah.

Graduated filters work well when there is a mostly distinct line between the land and the sky. Mountains, though, especially when you’re close to them, form large peaks and troughs and what you end up with is sky that doesn’t have blown highlights (good) but rock that’s essentially all in shadow (crap). Recovering detail is an expensive waste of time afterwards and introduces noise into the picture, halos will inevitably form between light and dark areas of the image, and when your filter is the cheapest of the cheap you can also discover that far from being neutral you’re going to introduce horrible amounts of magenta and purple into the blue levels of the image. In short: yuk.

So, yes, the photos will look a bit weird. There may be purplish hues, the blues will look all kinds of wrong and will leak into the shadows in the middle third of pictures, and I really, really need to go back to the Norwegian fjords so I can take some better photos. A plan exists to do this in 2021 but the world has a way of tossing spanners around so we’ll just have to wait and see on this.

Back to the excursion description:

Now your adventure begins as you hike for Hole to Storseterfossen Waterfall. […] The hike to the fall is at times somewhat steep and strenuous and takes approximately one hour. Dress appropriately, sturdy footwear, layered dress and windproof jacket are recommended. Bring a bottle of water.

Right. Let’s start with the word strenuous. The Crown Princess Norwegian Fjords cruise was the second cruise we’d ever been on. Cruises had been recommended to us originally by my in-laws and my wife’s uncle and aunt. Our first cruise had been the staggeringly awesome Diamond Princess cruise in Asia. Our experience on that cruise was that, yes, we weren’t fit, but we still climbed steps and took part in the moderately active excursion events while most of the ship’s passengers, like our cruise-suggesting relatives, were all far older than us, less mobile, and in many cases asleep by early evening. We made a bit of an assumption that when a cruise line therefore says “strenuous” they really mean “might take the old folk a little longer” and we’d be fine. A terrible assumption as it turned out. We had our first suspicion things were not going to be quite how we’d anticipated when we’d met up in the Princess Theatre ahead of the excursion and spotted nearly everyone else with backpacks, hiking sticks, rugged boots, and the determined look of seasoned fell-walkers. We glanced at each other. We grimaced. We shrugged.

Secondly, our day before this stop in Geiranger had seen us arrive in rain in Bergen. It hadn’t been warm. Norway is not known for being warm. We would be hiking into the mountains. Mountains are not known for being warm either. It had been recommended we wear windproof layers. On the day of our visit it was ridiculously warm; it was seven degrees warmer than Bergen had been and the hiking guides who met us at Hole remarked just how lucky we all were to be getting such lovely weather with blazing sunshine to accompany us all the way. Well, lovely weather unless you’re just about to exert yourself far more strenuously than you’d thought up a mountain.

We started the hike.

If you’ve read other travelogues on this site where we’ve gone off on a hike – we do it more often than we should – then you’ll probably already know that my wife has a long-standing set of injuries to her ankles and knees that make certain angles of walking painful. She perseveres because life is about experiences and just putting up with discomfort is part of the package. This did mean, though, that we very quickly started to lag behind the main group of hikers. I would frequently stop to take some photos of the Norwegian landscape and to check with my wife that she was okay (she wasn’t but showing concern infuriates her to the point of continuing anyway) and offering to turn around and head back on our own (and if looks could kill I’d have been blasted into atoms on a hill in Norway in 2013).

There were a couple of stops on the hike which mostly served to just let those who’d romped ahead have a break while we would clamber up a few minutes behind for a handful of seconds’ respite until the group all set off again.

We weren’t the only couple who were holding up the pace, though, and one couple had already realised the Geiranger hike was going to be too much for them and had notified the guides they’d head back to the ship. Since we had two guides and there was a core of hikers who could ascend with no difficulty at all one lot went on ahead with one guide while the rest of us took more time heading up behind them.

Almost exactly one hour after being dropped off at Hole (marker B on the map up the page) we caught our first sight of Storseterfossen Waterfall (marker C) across a narrow gorge. We could also see people above and walking behind it down a ledge to give it a sense of scale. We would soon be doing the same thing.

We had to walk a little farther up before crossing over the gorge and coming back down towards the waterfall. It was here that we caught up with the rest of our fellow hiking tourists from the cruise ship, sitting around on the grass and admiring the view. As numbers of people who could get behind the waterfall were limited and there were other hiking groups ahead of them it wasn’t us who’d held them up which was something of a relief. “Well, that was worth you all hurtling up the hillside at a breakneck pace then!” I thought, but didn’t say out loud because I don’t like talking to strangers – especially fit, active ones – and I was still a little bit out of breath.

My wife very much appreciated the chance to sit still and reduce the pain in her legs while I snapped photos from this high point of the hike, of the tree-covered hills, of the rocky peaks, of a mountain stream feeding the waterfall, and of the people we’d joined on this strenuous trek.

We finally got the signal from our guides and took the chance to head behind the waterfall. This involved a walk down a narrow and rocky ledge, not too tricky, not too steep, and with poles and a chain to prevent anyone from getting too close to the edge. Behind Storseterfossen there was a shallow cave, large enough to get a decent number of people in at once, and incredibly noisy as you can tell from the video below. It was also quite shocking just how fast and powerful the torrent of water cascading down the mountain at Geiranger was; when you see waterfalls at a distance they can mislead you as to how much force they hold.

From the hiking excursion description one last time:

After taking in the view, you’ll head downhill towards Westerås Farm, perched on a ledge above Geiranger. You’ll take a break at the farm for complimentary coffee or tea and waffles before your return hike to Hole where your bus awaits for your drive back to the pier.

We started on the downward return leg of the hike, covering part of the same route up. This was not considerably easier than it had been on the upward leg simply because my wife’s old injuries are actually more affected by downward angles when walking. In addition, the steps that we were able to use at points, which had been laid by Sherpas from Nepal (a task only completed the year after our visit to Norway), seemed to be at just that awkward height that makes every step down slightly jarring.

We eventually angled away on a different trail and it wasn’t too long before we came to Westerås Farm (marker D on the map). This was a small grouping of attractive, wooden buildings and plenty of sheep grazing on the hillside. One of the buildings housed a restaurant in which we could get the drink and snack we’d been promised, rest our feet for a bit, and take the obligatory handful of photos of the surroundings.

The “hike” back to Hole and our bus meeting point was, I’m happy to report, more aptly described as just a “walk” with the ground being mostly flat and only slightly downhill. Perfect for the end of a more-strenuous-than-anticipated excursion in our opinion.

I snapped a few photos on the walk back and a few more as we waited for the bus in our spectacular surroundings with its lovely views down onto Geiranger and along Geirangerfjord.

Reflecting on this excursion, we had a wonderful time and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. Yes, it was harder than we’d thought and that’s certainly something you should consider if you’re thinking of booking this during a cruise to Geiranger yourself, but it was all worth it. If you’re fit and you like hikes and you don’t have any impediments then you’ll love the views, and if you’ve never stood behind a waterfall before then it’s a fabulous place to do it. It helps to have nice weather, naturally, and we’d have appreciated it a smidge more if it had been a few degrees cooler but that’s such a small thing to mention.

We hopped back on the tender boat – an inside trip back to Crown Princess this time – and after freshening up (and we really needed freshening up) we enjoyed the early evening sailaway from Geiranger from our balcony. Yes, we’d seen most of these views on the cruise through the fjord earlier in the day but they’re not views you could ever get tired of seeing. We had another chance to see the Seven Sisters Waterfall and the perfect amount of calm beauty to observe to totally smooth out any stress aches and pains from the day’s hike.

The evening on Crown Princess was one that followed the same sort of pattern we enjoy on most cruise ships: food, drink, quizzes, and dancing (or people-watching) in the disco until the early hours. The next day of this Norwegian fjords cruise would see us dock at Olden where we were looking forward to a boat ride on a lake and a visit to see a glacier for the first time.

The bus from alongside Crown Princess took us initially up to Loen, a small village which these days includes a skylift as a popular tourist attraction for those who don’t want to stray too far from where the cruise ships dock. Travelling eastwards from there we drove along the Loelva, the river that connects the Nordfjorden to Lovatnet, a glacier-fed lake, and that would be the first stop on this organised trip.

Our cruise excursion would involve three parts: the first would be a boat trip on the Lovatnet with a snack at the end of that; this would be followed by a visit to a nearby glacier; the day’s activities would conclude with a bus ride back and a stop at a spot with traditional Norwegian buildings. Our boat hadn’t arrived at the lake when we arrived, though, so we had ten or more minutes to stand around and admire the gorgeous scenery in this part of the world.

With the sound of our boat approaching, all of the other passengers on this excursion started to wander back from where they’d been taking a look around. This whole taking a trip abroad thing was still pretty virgin territory for us at the time (there’d been such a long period between our first cruise and this one that we’d effectively reset the clock on it) so we’d stayed close to the bulk of fellow tourists during the wait, not wanting to be those people who stroll off and get lost or cause delays, and even sidled to where we knew the boat would have to stop in order to ensure we couldn’t possibly miss it.

We could see that the boat had seating inside and on top, and with me being the sort of person who likes to take photos of everything (it’s true) I mentioned to my wife that I’d like to head up top for uninterrupted views of the landscape. However, a couple of things scuppered this plan: firstly, there are a lot of selfish people in the world and, without wanting to dip my toes into the waters of stereotyping but being unable to avoid it, the older and whiter and richer American cruising demographic seems to have more than its fair share of them; secondly, I’m introverted (all the time) and polite (when I’m sober). This combination of factors saw our prime position near where the boat was about to tie up get overrun by jostling, careless, more experienced arseholes, and the pair of us shoved away to the back of the queue. We ended up sitting inside.

As it turned out, sitting inside the boat proved to be a positive thing. We could see the people who’d rushed forward and grabbed the outside seating were suffering quite badly with cold, lake spray, and the edge to the temperature in the exposed environment (it wasn’t very windy at all but it wasn’t warm by any means either) was forcing everyone to wrap up as much as possible and bury hands in pockets. It didn’t seem like the best place to take some photographs after all.

Our location in the boat put us close to the water level of the lake and with a window that could be slid open I was able to get some lovely shots of the view ahead and to the starboard side of the vessel.

Our boat trip took around forty minutes and as is the way with excursions we had not only the views to take in but also a running commentary to listen to. This covered geological and historical aspects of the location, and in this particular lake’s case those two aspects were firmly linked. Lovatnet is a glacier-fed lake (actually fed by two glaciers, one of which we’d be visiting next) which accounts for the turquoise colouring, and the surrounding mountainscapes have been prone to landslides in the past.

In 1905 a rockfall triggered tsunamis over forty metres high to travel along the length of Lovatnet. Two villages along the southern shore – Bødal and Nesdal – were hit with the loss of sixty houses, over seventy boats, hundreds of animals, a bridge, and half the population (over sixty deaths). One boat ended up being found three hundred metres inland. A monument was built to honour the dead.

Geologists concluded that such an event was unlikely to happen again so the villages were rebuilt and repopulated but in 1936 a far larger landslide occurred. The tsunamis this time reached a height of over seventy metres, washing away sixteen farms, destroying a hundred houses and other buildings, bridges, a power station, and all the boats. The boat that had previously been deposited three hundred metres inland was moved by the tsunami another one hundred and fifty metres. The 1905 monument was also destroyed, seventy four people lost their lives this time around, and the area was subsequently abandoned.

Our Lovatnet lake boat trip terminated at the southeastern end where a restaurant, Kjenndalstova, was located. This was an opportunity for those who needed to use the restrooms to do so and for everyone to enjoy some waffles. The restaurant itself offers a lot more than just waffles, including trout from the lake, and it’s possible to hire boats to head out and do your own fishing if that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat.

After our snack stop we made our way outside to wait for the bus to arrive and take us on to the next part of the day’s excursion. From Kjenndalstova it’s possible to look across Lovatnet lake and see a pretty impressive waterfall, Ramnefjellsfossen. While its height isn’t known exactly it’s currently considered to be the eleventh highest waterfall in the world.

Time then for the second part of our excursion and the main reason we’d picked this trip, but first an apology.

If you’ve read about our hike in Geiranger from the day before then you’ll already know this and I can only apologise even further for repeating myself. Then again, the likelihood of you having read about our hike in Geiranger from the day before is microscopic because people don’t use the web the way they used to so I feel fully justified in saying this again. Just prior to taking this Norwegian fjords cruise I’d made an impulse buy on the web for some cheap, graduated, neutral density filters as I thought they’d be ideal for getting properly-exposed photos of dark mountains against bright skies. A great theory flawed by not factoring in jagged mountain shapes and choosing the cheapest of cheap options from eBay. The result was dreadfully-exposed pictures with mountains half-under and half-over-exposed, and magenta tones flooding the highlights and shadows. It was also impossible to mount the filter on the lens without leaving a thumbprint somewhere so problems that already existed with a dirty sensor had extra imperfections added to the mix. Anyway, all this is to say that I’m sorry that the photos aren’t better here; I’ve cleaned them up as best I could in limited time and I’ve tried to desaturate the wrong colouring but to do a proper job would take months and the effort’s not worth the result. I’ll just have to go back and take better shots some other day.

Kjenndal Glacier – our destination – is an arm of Jostedal Glacier, which just happens to be the largest glacier in continental Europe. It was also the first glacier we’d ever seen (which, considering this was only our second trip abroad and the first had been to Asia, shouldn’t be that big a surprise). We’ve seen a few more glaciers since then.

There’s not a lot to say about Kjenndalsbreen (its Norwegian name) that you probably can’t guess or that you won’t get told if you see almost any other glacier in the world. The ice is retreating because the world is warming up so if you want to experience glaciers at their most impressive then you need to do it sooner rather than later. Kjenndal’s glacier is actually maintained by snowfall rather than low temperature but that means that any change in climate that alters snow conditions could affect this glacier more quickly than a gradual heat rise over time.

From the point where the bus dropped us off to where we allowed to walk to (we couldn’t get too close to the glacier because the risk of rockfall in the area was too great and the Norwegian authorities sensibly want to keep people a reasonable distance away from natural wonders that are susceptible to tourism damage) was little more than five minutes’ walk and our time in total at this picturesque spot was about forty minutes. This gave us plenty of time to take plenty of photos of the Kjenndal Glacier and the nearby waterfalls cascading over the egdes of the mountains but photography was tricky because the sun was behind the glacier for the most part. Dark rock in the foreground, blue-white ice on the peak, and sunshine diffused through hazy cloud behind was quite a challenge to work with and if you’re keen on taking some great pictures in this part of Norway then take some time to consider where the sunlight’s coming from at the time of day you’re visiting.

You can really get a sense of the difficulty in taking pictures in this video near Kjenndalsbreen, and you’ll also be able to get a sense for how the wind was being funnelled down the canyon leading to the foot of the glacier.

The walk back to the bus took us along a glacial stream. As has already been mentioned, Lovatnet lake is fed by two main glaciers; Jostedal (and its arm here at Kjenndal) being one of them.

While the Ramnefjellsfossen waterfall on Lovatnet had been remarkable because of its height I found the waterfall thundering off the northern face of the rocks near Kjenndal Glacier far more impressive.

With everyone back at the bus on time we then left Kjenndal Glacier behind and started on our return towards Olden where Crown Princess was waiting for us. We wouldn’t be taking the boat along Lovatnet for this as we’d be stopping in a small village along the way and that will be covered in the next post in this cruise travelogue series.

Stegastein Lookout

The Stegastein Lookout is a viewing platform jutting out 30 metres from the cliff edge and situated 650 metres above sea level. I won’t lie: the name Stegastein really appealed to me. I think the combination of dinosaurs and robots from 2000 A.D. comics I read when I was younger just works well to make me instantly like a place. As luck would have it, though, the view was fabulous regardless of the awesome name although, as you can tell from the photos below, it was absolutely throwing it down with rain when we hit the location. I always find it amazing just how many people will stay on the bus in circumstances like that. We never do; rain can make for some truly atmospheric pictures and always helps with memories – “Do you remember that time we got utterly drenched stepping out onto that viewing platform?” – and in this case the sight of low cloud in the fjord valleys was breathtaking.

Aurlandsvangen

At Aurlandsvangen we had a short stop to wander around at our own leisure. Many people headed straight for the souvenir shops but we made our way instantly for the Vangen Church, the largest of the medieval stone churches in its county in Norway, having a free-standing, wooden, bell tower. It’s not that we don’t like buying souvenirs but when you have the choice between a historical monument and a store selling soft moose toys in red and blue jumpers we just find ourselves leaning in favour of the former option. We’re weird like that.

Outside the Aurlandsvangen church we braved the Norwegian drizzle for a little while longer, grabbing a final photo, but coming to the conclusion that there wasn’t a whole lot of things to see or do in this village. Of course, if soft moose toys in red and blue jumpers are your thing then you’re probably covered.

Our day trip concluded with a return to the ship at the village and cruise port of Flåm.

Ullandhaug was the area of the city to which we first headed. There would be two components forming this part of the excursion and both from very different parts of Stavanger’s history. We started at the Iron Age Farm open air museum. The location of Jernaldergården felt a little anachronistic, being overlooked by apartment blocks on one side, and this did detract from being able to immerse yourselves fully in the history, but it was still very interesting to visit and the guides did a fabulous job of recounting tales of what life was like in the period between 350 and 550 CE.

We didn’t just wander around the exterior of the farm buildings like the sheep in the area, but also were taken inside one for some more iron age storytelling. The buildings were very interesting, set into the ground and with turf laid on the roofs to keep the places as warm as possible. They were, however, awkward to get into and out of without a lot of bending and risk of bumps to the head.

Staying in the Ullandhaug area we next paid a visit to Ullandhaugtårnet, a telecommunications tower and landmark overlooking the city of Stavanger. Built in 1964 and standing sixty four metres in height there were some delightfully brutalist elements to the design that I loved and that many of our fellow passengers on the excursion couldn’t stand. As a light drizzle accompanied our visit to the tower and there were steps involved to get onto its viewing platform, a fair number of people decided to stay on the bus for the short time of our visit as a result.

Other than providing some lovely views of the Norwegian landscape around Stavanger, the tower itself did not have a lot of history, although it was built next to the spot where another tower commemorating the Battle of Hafrsjord had been erected in 1896 but which had been mostly destroyed during the Second World War. Stone markers with Viking symbols indicated where the remains of the tower had been removed the year before the telecoms tower had been constructed.

We enjoyed the scenery and tutted a little at the mediocre quality of the street art decorating some of the walls before heading back to the bus which was waiting to take us back to Stavanger.

There were a few differences, though. Firstly, we’d taken advantage of a loyalty perk that came into play through cruises on P&O (since discontinued) and become Platinum level passengers. In addition to free internet time on board ship this meant we could skip past the queue of people waiting to embark. I have to admit that this was a wonderful experience. I would guess we bypassed at least a hundred people in order to get priority boarding. The second difference was that we’d selected an aft balcony for this cruise as we hadn’t done one before. Our cabin was D735 and was more-or-less identical to any other Grand-class cruise ship we’d cruised with but the balcony was considerably different. While it is described as “obstructed” as you can see from the photos and video below the obstruction (the metal beam) is barely worth mentioning; the depth of the balcony was enormous, though. We measured and you could get my wife laying down twice with room to spare.

With our balcony furniture looking a little lost in all the space available our table was swapped out for a larger one and we were given foot rests over the course of the next couple of days by our cabin steward.

The muster out of the way (nice and short, just how we like it, P&O take note please) we dropped off life jackets back in the room and I took the opportunity to snap a few shots as a tug boat, the Svitzer Bargate, moved into position to help the Crown Princess disembark Southampton.

There was a brief delay as we waited for the Ventura to pass us by.

The tug was then able to resume its job of helping our ship away from the dock where it could turn around and head away from the city.

We took advantage of our new Platinum level status to attend Skywalkers nightclub not long after that where some finger food and a discounted cocktail of the day were available for us and Elite passengers. While there the ship passed Portsmouth on its way towards our first stop of Belgium. A group of Americans nearby remarked that it appeared that we were passing between France and England; I felt obliged to be helpful and indicated that the landmass they thought was French was in fact the Isle of Wight. They then asked questions about the English Channel that I corrected them again on, letting them know it was the Solent we were still in. They persisted in pronouncing it So-lont despite numerous attempts to get them to listen to me before they became distracted by “The White Cliffs of Dover”. After I once again explained that we were nowhere near them, probably wouldn’t pass them until it was dark, and what they were seeing were the chalk cliffs of Portsdown Hill to the north of Portsmouth they decided to head off somewhere else. I like being helpful.

We returned to our room to shower and change for the evening and caught a lovely bit of sunset from our aft balcony view.

With breakfast out of the way we had a little bit of time before meeting up to take our excursion into Bruges and as we got our bags ready for the day we got to watch as the Oceania Marina reversed into the dock behind us from our aft balcony viewpoint.

I don’t know much about the Marina cruise ship but it did appear that amongst its passengers were astronauts. Weird.

After our very enjoyable day in Bruges there was time for a few more shots from and of our balcony (to show how large it is again; see also: Crown Princess, Aft Balcony, Departing Southampton) before we settled down to the important job of seeing how far we could progress through the cocktails in the various bars on board the Crown Princess.

We’d been told that the Little Mermaid was smaller than you imagine and had anticipated something quite tiny but it was fairly close to life size and I was quite pleased that you could get very close to it. The statue had been vandalised with paint shortly before we’d visited the country and it was vandalised again shortly after we left but for our stop it was perfectly clean. Some fellow cruisers remarked how lucky it was that we got to see it in pristine condition but from a unique photographic memory perspective I wouldn’t have been dismayed to have been there while it was the victim of mindlessness.

Although our next stop would involve us heading southwards and further into the Baltic Sea in order to make for Sweden we couldn’t pass under the bridge between Sweden and Denmark and so had to track northwards initially in an anticlockwise direction around the island of Zealand (we would pass under the Great Belt Bridge during the night but on our return journey get to experience the event in daytime). This meant that the cruise ship would pass between the two countries near Helsingør and would give everyone a chance to see and take photos of Kronborg Castle. We’d already visited there on our tour so I entertained myself with a few shots of the top deck and the people who ventured out but it was still good to see the stronghold from the sea especially as we’d only recently explored inside it that day.

The speed of the cruise ship was necessarily low and with little wind to cope with this made for a wonderfully tranquil transit through the thousands of islands protecting Stockholm.

One interesting thing to keep an eye on from our aft cabin balcony viewpoint was the Tallink cruise ferry that was following us and would continue to do so through the night as our next stop would be the Estonian capital to which it was also heading.

At one point we slowly overtook a yacht enjoying the pleasant summer sunshine of the evening in the Swedish waters.

It had been almost uniformly dull weather-wise during our day exploring Stockholm but we’d had a wonderful time there and seen enough to know that it would be a place we’d love to return to at some point. Having really nice weather to finish off our flying visit to Sweden and help us appreciate the spectacle of the archipelago was the icing on the cake.