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.

Most trips to Bruges invariably end with you finding yourself on the outskirts with a short walk into the city, typically over one or two bridges that span the many canals. The walk is no more than five minutes and the ground is level, though cobbled in places (reflecting the medieval heritage of Bruges) so care should be taken. Indeed, at the conclusion of our excursion one of our party tripped on a cobble and crashed to the floor, knocking herself out briefly. Her husband, a retired doctor, assured everyone she was okay but I hope she got some proper checking over by the ship’s medical staff once back onboard.

Bruges thrived from the 12th century onwards owing to its location that was a natural meeting point for several trading routes across Europe and its access to the sea via the canals for which the city is well known.

Bruges is one of the most well-preserved medieval cities in Europe. Despite its reduction in importance from the 16th century onwards it underwent several attempts to flourish by changing the industries and trades under which it had previously prospered. In the late 19th century the city was promoted as a tourist destination to wealthy Victorians. During both World Wars the city was occupied by the Germans and suffered hardly any damage at all. The city was liberated by the Canadians in World War 2 and a bridge in that country’s honour was pointed out to us when we finished our excursion.

One of the notable sights of Bruges included De Halve Maan Brewery, the oldest brewery in the city we were told, and still brewing its own ales. We fully intended to visit this place during our free time at the end of the excursion (as we’re fond of a local ale) but the place was absolutely heaving and we ended up finding somewhere else. We stopped many times to be shown sights of significant interest in Bruges such as the city hall, the Belfry, St Salvatore’s Cathedral, and the Groenerei canal. In the wide open expanse of the Markt (the market square) there was a statue of Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck, leaders of a revolt against the French in the early 1300s.

After around an hour we had completed our walking tour portion of our Bruges excursion and made our way to Mariastraat where we would be boarding a canal boat for the water-based portion of our day out in Belgium.

I wanted to get to the back of the boat for a couple of reasons: I’m quite considerate when it comes to not wanting to spoil other people’s enjoyment of an event so this would mean I wouldn’t have to concern myself with wondering if my camera was blocking someone’s view or the photograph they were just about to take; additionally, it’s quite nice sometimes to get other people in your shots deliberately from a composition and scaling perspective.

It was a lot cooler on the canal than it had been walking around Bruges, as you can imagine. If the weather is warm and you’re getting tired of walking around then a canal boat trip is a great way to rest your feet and cool down. For us, it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been piddling down with rain; it might be the naval port city blood in us but we almost always take a boat trip of some description whenever we’re travelling if the option presents itself.

The boat trip gave everyone a chance to look at some of the medieval architecture of Bruges either from closer than they otherwise would have been able to or from a different angle. In terms of information imparted to us on the tour, however, we did have a slight issue in that we appeared to be mostly going over the same ground and same buildings of interest that we’d covered on the walking tour. This wasn’t an awful thing but it would have been nicer if the day’s tour as a whole had taken this into consideration with far less of an overlap. For this particular tour arranged through Princess Cruises the duplication of content was a minor gripe on an otherwise lovely day in the Belgian city.

We eventually made it back to the starting point of our canal boat tour of Bruges where after some waiting around to let a few other boats navigate the narrow waterways we disembarked for a spot of free time in the city prior to our departure back to the cruise ship.

The brewery offers a tour of itself and one day when we hit Bruges with plenty of time to spare we intend to take one but for this occasion we made do with selecting from the beers on tap and enjoying something cool, refreshing, and local.

This brought our time in the city to an end so we wandered back to the Walplein where we were to meet up with the rest of our excursion group from the Crown Princess. My photos from this point on consisted of a lot of shooting from the hip, relying on the brightness of the day, a slightly raised ISO level, and a wider aperture to ensure fast enough shots and sharpness even while moving. As a result composition was something of a non-entity but I quite often like taking photos like this as it will produce pictures you wouldn’t normally think to take and they’re not always terrible. Often, but not always.

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.

Should we return to Denmark we’d probably explore its capital city but for this trip we’d booked a full day excursion that my wife had titled “Castles, Castles, Castles”. The first of the castles we were to visit was the home of the Danish Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle.

It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway in the early 17th century, replacing an older castle acquired by Frederick II and becoming the largest Renaissance residence in Scandinavia. Situated on three islets in the Slotssøen (castle lake), it is adjoined by a large formal garden in the Baroque style.

The castle building had suffered a serious fire in 1859, although most of the artwork inside had been saved. Reconstruction allowed the place to be opened up to the public around twenty years later and was undertaken due in part to donations from the founder of the Carlsberg Brewery, J.C. Jacobsen. The fountain in the courtyard was a replica produced at the same time, the original having been taken by Sweden during wars with the country in the centuries beforehand.

Many of the artefacts of the castles we would visit during this excursion had been taken by Sweden and the grudges were certainly still present. While our guide on the tour was Australian the driver was Danish and had taken the microphone on the coach at one point to ask if anyone on the coach knew what to do if they saw a Swede drowning.

“No,” we replied, assuming it to be a serious question.

“Good,” was his response.

As you can see we had wonderful weather for our visit to Frederiksborg Castle and we’d had a very easy drive to the historic location too, arriving in plenty of time to take a leisurely walk beside the gardens, stopping for a discussion of the history, then onto the exterior courtyard area to the rear of the castle. The museum part of the castle wasn’t yet open so there was a chance to grab some photos of the Neptune fountain and other buildings in the area.

Crossing a short bridge we entered into the walled courtyard part of the castle. This gave some in our group a chance to use the toilet and our guide to pick up the tickets for our visit. Other than a handful of pairs of tourists there was only one other tour group which got our guide quite excited as he’d never visited the castle when it wasn’t heaving with people.

The interior of Frederiksborg Castle is covered here.

The Chapel

The chapel in Frederiksborg Castle was the first area we ventured into. We entered on the balcony level and were taken around slowly in order that our guide could point out the main points of interest, those being the artwork on nearly every surface, the altar and pulpit, the organ, and the prayer chamber. While other parts of the castle had been gutted by the fire that swept through the building in 1859 the chapel had mostly escaped damage so most of what we saw were the original 17th century pieces.

The Audience Chamber

From the chapel we then headed to the audience chamber, a mostly bare room with at first only a single point of interest in the form of a piece of trompe-l’oeil artwork. This room encompassed some Baroque features into the other Renaissance style of decoration and our guide pointed out the motifs of the various kings of Denmark that adorned the walls and the base of the central dome.

Frederiksborg Castle Artwork

As we ventured through various other rooms and corridors in the musuem section of the castle we stopped a number of times to take a look at some of the artwork that had also survived the fire in the 19th century. It would be fair to say that beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder and time has a way of changing what’s considered attractive.

The Great Hall

By far the most impressive room in the castle was the Great Hall. The hall was almost entirely destroyed in the fire of 1859 but architectural paintings allowed for a complete restoration by 1880. Having the large room practically to ourselves helped to picture just how magnificent a place it would have been for entertaining. A balcony for musicians along one wall and a fireplace at the far end of the hall with a table, chairs, and a statue were the only elements in the room allowing for the ceiling ornamentation, wall decorations and tapestries, and beautiful flooring to really be appreciated.

We gathered back in the courtyard after this (and were briefly sprayed with water from the Neptune Fountain when it suddenly activated and the wind caught the jets just right) before heading back to our coach for the next part of our full day excursion in Denmark. I snapped just a few more photos as we departed Frederiksborg Castle but for the pictures of the building’s exterior you can see my previous post: Frederiksborg Castle (Outside).

Since there’s only limited scope for trying to reword what’s already available on the internet I’ll quote from Wikipedia here:

Fredensborg Palace is a palace located on the eastern shore of Lake Esrum in Fredensborg on the island of Zealand in Denmark. It is the Danish Royal Family‘s spring and autumn residence, and is often the site of important state visits and events in the Royal Family. It is the most used of the Royal Family’s residences.

With our visit taking place in the summer there was nobody home. Well, I don’t think so, anyway. This stop was a brief one just to hear a few details about the building and to hop out to take some photos for five minutes.

Architecturally, the building wasn’t the most impressive we’ve visited and with no chance to explore closer on this visit there wasn’t a lot to recommend. While we’re happy to have seen it I wouldn’t say it’s worth going out of your way to take a look although if you’re in the area, as we were, then it’s something to check off.

The only point of interest in our brief photo stop at the Danish palace was watching the lone soldier marching back and forth in front of the building. We were able to get very close to him. It was interesting to see his reaction when a car turned onto the road approaching Fredensborg; while he never broke step once his head and eyes were turned and locked onto the vehicle the entire time. Good to see that level of alertness.

As we left Fredensborg Palace and made our way back to the coach we passed a group of soldiers drilling off to one side.

But first there was a break for lunch. Billed as a traditional Danish meal it was… interesting. We were told that the meal contained a variety of different types of food in small portions and that this was something that, historically, the Danes ate. Well, as with all these sorts of things you have to accept that things are often played around with for tourists and talking to a Danish friend of mine confirmed that she had never tried most of the food we ate. On the plus side there was some genuine Danish ale to drink; a lager, which isn’t my first choice of drink (or second through twentieth for that matter), but it was refreshing and helped some of the food down. Why does anyone need two different types of pickled herring anyway?

Our coach dropped us off about five minutes away from Kronborg on foot and we promptly made our way towards the castle. Helsingør seemed to be a fairly interesting place from the little we saw of it and is probably worth a visit in its own right.

The approach to Kronborg took us past a scale model of the stronghold, through a couple of gates, and across two moats. The structure’s location and heavy fortifications were due to its proximity to mainland Sweden with whom the Danes had frequently been at war over the centuries. Indeed, when we would get to look inside Kronborg Castle we would discover very little in the way of art or sculptures due to many of them having been taken as spoils of war in battle long since gone.

Inside the courtyard of Kronborg we were introduced to an actor playing Hamlet’s friend, Horatio. He would proceed to take us on a tour of various locations from the Shakespeare play, recounting events from the tale as if they happened to him. I would imagine that if you’re familiar with the story then there was interest in seeing the locations whereas if, like me, you’re not then this provided a compact form of the play acted out by a single person; this turned out to be really quite entertaining and there were even some special effects such as the appearance of ghost at one point.

Our guide, Horatio, wasn’t the only Hamlet actor present. As we came out of one section of the castle and made our way across the courtyard to enter another area we saw several others. Entertainingly, they stayed in character while interacting with tourists in our group and in others. A tennis-type game broke out at one point with the ball getting carried on the wind towards some visitors to the castle; this was met with commands to return the object at once by the queen. Everyone found this very amusing.

Back inside Kronborg we finished up our visit to the castle with Horatio guiding us through the Little Hall and some of the few tapestries remaining from a series commissioned in the 16th century by Frederick II, the Chapel, and, finally, the paintings-lined Ballroom which had been the largest hall in northern Europe when it had been built.

While not the most visually impressive castle inside, Kronborg was architecturally very interesting and its layout of moats and gates to the entrance was particularly nice. The historical connection to Shakespeare was good to experience and as part of a full day including the other castle and palace we’d visited this was an excellent excursion for our day in Denmark.

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.