We made it onto Avenida 9 De Julio (July 9 Avenue), the widest avenue in the world, named to honour Argentina’s independence day. Traffic was particularly bad here but it meant we could inch past the Obelisco De Buenos Aires so it had its benefits. We eventually turned up Avenida Presidente Roque Sáenz Peña as the third coach in a convoy of four from the Star Princess but a side road was blocked off by police just as we tried to turn down it.

We were stuck there for a fair amount of time while our guide made calls back to the ship. Eventually, he secured the assistance of some crew to come out to us and help to escort us as walked the rest of the way towards what would be our next stop: the Metropolitan Cathedral. This meant we got to stretch our legs and get some fresh air – which was nice – and we got to walk down the middle of a major road in Buenos Aires with no traffic around and just the sounds of distant engines, helicopters, and the odd chant from unseen protest groups. Bonus!

But we wouldn’t be spending any time in Marseille as we had a full day’s excursion taking us into the Provence countryside and two locations, the first of which was the city and commune of Arles. Sometimes we’ll do a fair bit of research into a place we’re visiting, read the description of the excursion, try to read between the lines of what’s in the excursion description because they invariably gloss over elements, take a look online to see what other people have seen or thought of a place, that sort of thing. Sometimes we’ll see a pretty picture of an amphitheatre and go “Ooh! An Amphitheatre!” and that’s all that’s needed. Our decision to visit Arles was due mostly to the latter way of thinking but we did also factor in the time of year in order to rule out for now a visit to the slightly farther afield Avignon (although that’s on the list for the next time we take a trip to this part of the world).

Once our bus pulled up in Arles we found ourselves beside the river Rhône where we could see a Viking River Cruises boat moored (more on them in a little while) and a few people enjoying the pleasant morning sunshine including a local painter. This was our first chance to experience one of the things other than Roman and medieval architecture that Arles is famous for: art. Vincent Van Gogh lived in Arles for a year and it was here that he painted many of his most famous pieces of work. The city has a walking trail with signs showing some of the locations in which the artist painted and we would spot a few of them on our half-day exploring but while we like art our tastes tend towards the more modern so, yes, Van Gogh’s connection was interesting and a bonus experience but it wasn’t our reason for wanting to visit the city.

Walking southwards from the bus parking spot near the train station we passed the location where Van Gogh lived but only a painting of the house remains – The Yellow House – as the building was badly damaged by allied bombing in World War 2. With nothing to actually see we continued and this brought us to the remains of city walls and towers. These formed the Porte de la Cavalerie (Cavalry Gate) and are medieval, having originally been built in the 13th century for and by the Knights Templar and at one point used to house prisoners. Their damage cannot be attributed to planes dropping munitions but instead to deliberate attacks during the French Revolution.

Through the gate we immediately encountered a monument inspired by a similar one in Place Saint-Michel, Paris erected for a former mayor of the city. The Fontaine Amédée Pichot (Amédée Pichot Fountain), despite its name, is no longer a functioning fountain. The monument itself, though, comprises some interesting historical elements such as an Auguste Cain-designed lion profile, the fountain design by Joseph Flandrin, and the most prominent piece of all, the enamel medallion created by Paul Balze. The fountain doesn’t appear in any of Van Gogh’s works despite it being around during his time in the city and very near to his house so I’m guessing he didn’t think much of it but I liked the classical feel.

We followed the road southwards which rose slowly away from the direction of the river and which was flanked by tall houses. As we reached our first major stop in Arles, the amphitheatre, we stopped to take in the view and noticed that not all the shuttered windows we could see nearby were quite what they seemed. This would turn out to be a feature on a lot of buildings during this week-long cruise along Europe’s southern coastline.

Arles Roman Amphitheatre

Almost any photos of the city will include pictures of the very prominent tourist attraction of Arles Amphitheatre – it is what attracted us to this cruise excursion, after all – and it’s easy to see why. Already on a high point of land in the landscape its two arched tiers rise up a further twenty metres. The building was constructed a little later than the Colosseum in Rome (somewhere we’d not seen at the time of this tour) and is understandably not quite as grand in scale, designed to hold less than half the Italian capital’s capacity. Still, it could cope with over twenty thousand spectators, something that seemed completely at odds with its size because despite appearing impressive – the white stone especially bright under the clear, blue sky – I will admit to thinking it was a bit smaller than I’d expected.

We gathered at the entrance and waited to go in, our guide going on ahead to pick up the tickets. It was at this point that a tour group from Viking River Cruises strolled up. The members of the two groups eyed each other; some did so warily; some glanced and smirked. Some people started playing with the rings on their fingers and chewing imaginary toothpicks. Fingers were clicked. Music from West Side Story drifted across the concrete. A rumble was on the cards. Our gang were there first and we outnumbered the river cruisers with their fancy headphones in to hear their guide without her shouting but they had that cocky self-assurance and oozing smugness of superiority that river cruisers always have – I think it comes from paying too much per person per night and needing some way of suppressing that realisation – which made them dangerous opponents. Dangerous, yeah, but I wasn’t worried. We were the younger group overall and my wife and I are veterans of brawls with bullies. We could take them. It only needed a spark to set it all off.

Our tour guide popped her head back out and called us in. The Viking group tried to move at the same time but we kept our discipline and slipped past the ticket booth as the person manning it tried to count us off and keep the river cruisers from messing up the total. It wasn’t pretty but the Princess gang won.

Inside the amphitheatre we stopped briefly in the gallery where our guide was able to point out that the lower tier used wholly Roman architectural techniques but that the upper one borrowed Greek elements for strength and practical reasons. I’m sure you can probably tell that just from looking at the photo, though.

It was to the main arena of the amphitheatre we were then led where we could quickly bake under the sunshine from above and reflected off the sandy, dusty surface and the seating. Some of that seating was the original stone but there were plenty of modern though uncomfortable-looking benches and seats too. The reason for the latter’s presence was that Arles Amphitheatre is still used these days. It no longer plays host to bloodthirsty activities such as gladiatorial combat but instead embraces the more enlightened practice of *checks notes* tormenting animals into a frenzy before stabbing them for the entertainment of sadists.

Van Gogh’s painting Les Arènes depicts people in attendance at Arles Amphitheatre and was painted from memory (as no fights were taking place at the time) in The Yellow House just a few weeks before the artist’s famous ear-cutting incident. Maybe the idea of subjecting animals to needless cruelty played on his already somewhat fragile mind.

Not all of the Arles Amphitheatre is Roman in origin. The towers were later additions and were built when the amphitheatre was fortified further and a walled town grew up inside for protection following the fall of the empire.

The next stop on our tour of Arles was a few minutes away on foot and through some narrow streets to the amphitheatre’s southwest.

Roman Theatre Of Arles

To give it its French name, the Théâtre Antique D’Arles was constructed in the last years of the first century BCE and was one of the very first stone theatres in the Roman world. Like most Roman theatres this one in Arles consisted of three sections: seating for spectators (the cavea, with the higher-ups in society at the bottom and the general public above that, typically with men in the middle and women at the top), the stage (wooden, around fifty metres in length, housing mechanical apparatus for plays), and the back wall which was decorated with columns (two of which remain standing) and housed an awning which protected the stage and also allowed a curtain to be held in front of it and dropped as the performance started.

The seating capacity in the Arles Theatre was about half that in the amphitheatre which makes sense as the design was a semi-circle as opposed to an oval. Like the amphitheatre, the theatre is still used these days but you’ll be pleased to know that the French haven’t devised another way to torture creatures unless the music or festival shows they occasionally perform are offensive to human ears. And knowing them…

In the latter half of the first millenium CE the theatre, like the amphitheatre, was fortified for further protection for the people remaining in the city. The south wall of the theatre includes the Rotland Tower, part of those defensive additions. The land area inside the seating and where the stage once stood were turned into narrow streets and buildings were erected to form a fortified town, again just like in the amphitheatre. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the area was cleared and the historic space recovered.

With its use as an actual theatre stopping altogether following the decline of the Roman empire, stone from the spot was taken and used in other building projects around Arles, hence the more ruinous look to the place. Exploring the grounds of the theatre many of those stones have since been retrieved and returned as an indication of the workmanship of the time where it has been possible to do so.

While the amphitheatre in Arles is the more complete ancient site it was the theatre to me that felt more interesting. It may have been less easy to imagine the stage, the curtain apparatus, and the huge backdrop but there felt more a sense of a connection with history because of the state of the ruins, and the more evident, artistic elements of design in the stonework held a lot more interest.

Place De La République

A couple of minutes west of the theatre on foot was the Place De La République; effectively the town square.

The first thing to catch the eye upon entering was the Obelisk of Arles. Originally erected in the fourth century CE during the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine II who had been born in the city this twenty metres high monument was rediscovered in two parts and re-erected in the fourteenth century, this time on a pedestal. In the nineteenth century a fountain was added because adding fountains to things was apparently the business to be in during this period of time in France.

Important buildings surrounded the square on all sides but the key one was the former cathedral, The Church Of Saint Trophime. Trophimus was the first bishop of Arles, around the third century CE, but the cathedral’s construction didn’t start until the late eleventh century. During the first couple of centuries it was used on a few occasions to crown the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

The semicircular arches are strong indicators of the Romanesque architectural style used in the church’s design but it was the fine, intricate sculpting, especially in the tympanum and around the columns either side of the doorway, that really stood out. The theme depicted is The Last Judgement with figures shuffling from left-to-right and past an impassive deity, their clothes removed, chained, and with flames at their feet. It looks like beard-wearers are going to hell so consider your style choices carefully, hipsters.

Free Time In Arles

At this point in the cruise excursion we were given free time to look around Arles on our own, do some shopping, etc. All we needed to know was where and when to meet for the lunch that would be provided as part of the tour experience.

Guide: Okay, so we will meet at one o’clock at the Best Western Hotel Atrium. I will show you on a map. It is here. From the Place de la République where we are now you head down this alley, cross the road, and it is right in front of you.

Person walking up: Wait, what time are we supposed to meet?

Guide: One o’clock.

Couple coming back over: Is everyone going off? Where are we supposed to meet?

Guide: The Best Western Hotel, here on the map.

Another person leans in: Is the hotel through there? And what time are we supposed to meet?

Guide: Yes. One o’clock.

Person tapping guide on shoulder: One o’clock, but where?

Guide: It is this hotel on the map, see.

Person (loudly): Did anyone get the name of the place we’re supposed to meet at?

Me (to wife): Let’s get out of here before I kill someone or our guide does.

We don’t prioritise shopping if there are interesting historical and architectural sights to be seen but since we’d already visited a few we decided not to explore the interior of the church and make a beeline for a shop we’d spotted bordering the square. We tend to pick up specific types of souvenirs for ourselves when travelling, these being shot glasses, mugs, bookmarks, alcohol, and soap. The area of France in which Arles is located is well-known for its soap and it was to a shop that we saw stocking a lot of it that we ventured. The woman in Folies de Provence was very friendly and gave us too much change when we stocked up with our purchases (but we returned the money as soon as we realised because the English have a poor enough reputation as it is without us adding to it). You’ll notice we didn’t pick up anything with lavender in it. My wife associates the smell of lavender with old ladies peeing themselves. That’s all that needs to be said about that.

We had a slow stroll through Arles on a curving course towards a large area of greenery we’d spotted on the map. The only interesting sight spotted on the walk was the facade of a former Carmelite chapel, now privately-owned building.

Arles Summer Garden

Passing through a large street market (but not taking any photos because everyone looked like the sort who attend car boot sales and experience tells me they’re moody buggers) we entered the Jardin D’Été (Summer Garden). It was a very pleasant little area to walk around, especially on a gorgeous day such as the one we had, and the grass space was broken up with occasional statues and sculptures. The garden area to the east seemed to be more formal – a sculpture here, for instance, was to a Doctor Urpar, a former mayor of Arles – while that to the west had more modern pieces of abstract artwork in it.

The west side of the garden also had one of the occasional markers around the city’s Van Gogh trail showing that he’d visited and painted Entrance to the Public Garden at Arles in this spot.

The northern end of the western side of the Summer Garden butted up against the gate to the Roman Theatre and the fortified Rotland Tower. In front of it was an attractive pond with statuary.

We started to make our way towards the meeting point for lunch. This took us past the Arles tourism office where we were pleased to see an old carousel set up (though it wasn’t possible to take a nice photo of it in its entirety thanks to fencing around it) and some pretty decent street art adorning the building.

Lunch In Arles

Incredibly, everyone from our excursion group managed to find the hotel and only a couple were slightly late. Lunch was described as “traditional Provençal” but we’re not naive enough to believe that many people in the region dine in quite this way. The food may not look particularly appetising from the photos but we had no complaints; it was all cooked or prepared well and the servers were very engaging. Our company on this table was towards the superb end of the spectrum with – including us – one couple from the UK (that’s us there), one couple from Canada, one couple from America, and one couple from Australia. What brought us all together was that not one couple there liked the party or person running their own country (yes, that’s right, we did talk about politics; it started when we mentioned we were British and received a “Wow! What the hell are you lot doing with Brexit over there?” and rightfully so). It was interesting to hear the Canadian couple’s views about Trudeau but mostly a pleasant change to find Americans who despised Trump because they seem to be very much in the minority on cruises.

We were mostly keen to experience the red wine during lunch since we like to try local alcohol whenever we’re travelling and we’re big fans of red wine but we’ve yet to find a French one we like. Let’s be generous and say that it wasn’t the worst we’ve tried but we still cannot grasp the wide regards of the country’s production in this respect. Our Canadians, on the other hand, really liked the red wine. Really, really liked it. While we limited ourselves to a single glass they managed to finish that bottle, take most of another one from another table that wasn’t wanted, and persuaded the staff to open yet another for them too. The small coffee to finish was probably going to come in very handy in keeping them upright and awake in the next part of the day’s excursion. And, weirdly (or perhaps not when you factor in their love of alcohol), it would turn out that we would end up on the same excursion as this Canadian couple on each of the remaining days of the cruise.

Once lunch was over our bus arrived to pick us up and head off for the afternoon’s portion of the day trip, that being a visit to Les Baux-de-Provence, covered in the next post in this Mediterranean cruise travelogue series.

Sometimes on excursions you can find that you get to see all or most of what a place has to offer in that short trip but that wasn’t the case with Arles. It appeared to have a lot more to see that we simply didn’t have time for on this occasion and we’d love to give it a more in-depth visit at some point. I’d definitely add a few days exploring Arles into any itinerary you might have for visiting the south of France.

It’s fortunate that I’d thought to sling my older DSLR and kit lens into the suitcase at all – I’d harboured an inkling that maybe my wife would want to use it (nope) – because this did give me a fallback option to simply using my phone, but it just wasn’t the same.

This was the second visit we’d made to the United States in two years and both to similar geographical locations as the main purpose of the trip was to pay a visit to my wife’s sister who was living there at the time for work-related reasons. Our America 2011 trip saw us based in Virginia at my sister-in-law’s apartment with occasional hops across the state border to Maryland where her boyfriend was based. In 2012 we actually stayed with the boyfriend as his house was substantially larger (everything’s bigger in America) and we were also travelling with my in-laws this time since their US-based daughter was now pregnant. Both spots weren’t too far from Washington, D.C. hence us checking the place out both years.

When we’d seen the city in 2011 – Washington, D.C., 2011 – it had just been the pair of us and we’d hit museums and galleries because those are the sorts of things that interest us. For 2012 there was less of that as it didn’t interest others quite as much (plus we’d done it before, plus I was still fuming about leaving my camera at home), hence the following photos being mostly just external shots of some of the American capital’s tourist landmarks.

Brace yourself now for some photographs of the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial, just like every other person who visits Washington, D.C. While the material for the buildings and structures and general appearance looks similar and aesthetically-pleasing it’s interesting to see the different styles of architecture surprisingly working seamlessly together.

Those photos were obviously from a simple walk along the length of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and if you’ve never visited the city before then you can expect to do the same thing when you eventually do because everyone does.

During this trip we hit the city of Washington twice. On the second occasion we made for the Chinatown area in order to have a meal together; sister-in-law and boyfriend, parents-in-law, and my wife and me. The place we ate at was Tony Cheng‘s, an Asian restaurant, and while I can’t remember the specific details of why we ate there – it might have been because our anniversary and my in-laws’ anniversary had all been in that week but it could easily have also been to celebrate the pregnancy, or both, or none – and I can’t recall what we ate, I’m going to assume it was good because we didn’t really have a bad meal in America. I can tell you that some of us had Polynesian Grog cocktails, though.

This post – due to the amount of time between the visit and me writing about it on this site – will be a little light in detail because my memory, while never great, is even worse now. I suspect we wandered inside the main building and I suspect that photos at that time weren’t allowed. Consider this to be mostly a photowalk around Stourhead gardens. The pictures here will also be a little basic as photos would have been taken a lot (and possibly exclusively) in automatic mode on the camera, and its pop-up flash would have popped up on occasion, neither activity being conducive to the best of photography. However, it is pleasing to see some half-decent framing in these old shots, and I don’t think I or the camera did a bad job at all.

The estate on which the house at Stourhead was built had belonged to the Stourton family since around the thirteenth century. This was eventually sold to the Hoare family in 1717. Their wealth allowed them to build a house in the Palladian style in which to live and to amass an impressive art collection. The gardens at Stourhead were designed by Henry The Magnificent (if you’re going to have a nickname then make it a good one) and were heavily influenced by classical Italian paintings. The lake at Stourhead is artificial, formed from damming a stream, and the walk around it is punctuated by buildings and follies in classic styles.

The obelisk at Stourhead was erected in 1840, replacing another that had stood in the spot since the middle of the century before. It is made of Bath stone with a metal sun-face on the top.

The 1765 building through the trees and across the lake at Stourhead below is the Temple of Apollo. A similar building had appeared at Kew gardens just a few years before (based on a famous circular temple at Baalbek in Syria) and this was constructed mainly to simply be better. Everyone likes a bit of one-upmanship when it comes to garden and landscape design. It’s certainly lasted longer as the one at Kew was demolished following damage from a cedar tree toppling onto it in 1916.

You weren’t anyone with a country estate in the eighteenth century if you didn’t have a grotto. The shade and cool rocks offered sanctuary from summer heat. Stourhead’s grotto is a circular, domed area, built from brick then lined with rough limestone to more closely resemble a natural cave, and houses statues of a river god and a sleeping nymph beside a natural spring-fed cold water bath.

From the grotto the view across the lake shows off the Temple of Flora and Palladian Bridge close to the water’s edge, and St Peter’s Church just beyond.

Continuing around the lakeside path at Stourhead affords views back across the water to the largest and most important of the buildings in the gardens: the Pantheon. Inspired by its namesake in Rome, this 1754 building houses a number of statues to various gods and goddesses. A stove at the rear of the building provided heating for when the weather demanded it, and the Pantheon was used by the Hoare family for picnics and parties.

The simple, five-arched bridge in the Palladian style at Stourhead is ornamental, serving no other purpose than to appear practical. Its positioning was such that the views to and from the Pantheon would make it look as if the river into the estate flowed under it and that the bridge provided a means to cross from the estate to the nearby village. The design of the bridge was based on one in Vicenza, Italy.

The final monument of note in the grounds at Stourhead is the Bristol High Cross. As its name may suggest, this Gothic piece originally stood in Bristol but was removed and relocated twice owing to complaints from locals as to its location and threat to life (if it should fall) or inconvenience (in the way of a good promenade). In 1764 it was acquired by Hoare and transported to his estate to add a vertical accent to the views around the lake. Alcoves on tiers of the structure contain statues of monarchs.

It was customary practice to remove any old buildings that were in the way of the plans of eighteenth century landowners, but Hoare liked the idea of incorporating elements of the existing Stourton village into his estate. Not all the buildings survived, but those that were felt to enhance the picturesque views did. I cannot say for certain that we had a drink in the Spread Eagle Inn when we visited Stourhead but it would have been bloody odd if we didn’t.

This second half of the Lisbon tour features a short walk from where we’d emerged blinking in the sunshine from the reservoir tunnels down to where the bus would be picking us up. The relatively short but winding route did take us past some of Lisbon’s historical spots, though, so we picked up some information along the way and here you’ll be able to learn what we learnt and see what we saw.

We began our walk where we’d finished the water system exploration, and that was at Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara. This is a terraced spot with a large fountain, popular as a viewing location thanks to its elevation. The annual Web Summit was taking place in Lisbon during our visit and, yes, I too think it’s horribly ironic and clearly the brainchild of people of management levels and above that a summit about all things web takes place in person.

“Let’s get the brightest brains and interested parties to discuss the latest innovations on the internet!”

“Yes! Great idea! Let’s book hotels and auditoria and arrange for people to fly in from all over the world! Somewhere fairly warm. There ain’t no I.T. person like a sweaty I.T. person.”

“So we’re not going to host this online using the internet itself?”

“You’re fired Keith. That sounds horribly like the sort of common sense that comes from the lower echelons of the workforce.”

The most prominent sight from our vantage point was Saint George’s Castle (or Castelo de São Jorge) and it certainly looks like the sort of place that would be top of our list for a visit if and when we ever return to Lisbon. Prior to being taken by the Christians in what was arguably the only success during the failed Second Crusade in 1147, the castle or other fortifications on the hill had been used defensively by Celtic tribes, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Suebi, Visigoths, and, finally, Moors. Personally, after the defences had been overrun by the fourth of fifth group of people I’d probably have written this location off as indefensible or just plain jinxed and set up camp somewhere else, but that’s just me, your average know-nothing-about-military-matters Mark.

We began our walking tour, and just before leaving the terrace we passed a memorial statue to Tomás Quintino Antunes who founded the Portuguese newspaper, Diário de Notícias, in 1864.

Very close to the statue was the uppermost point of the Ascensor da Glória, one of Lisbon’s famous funicular railways. We’d seen photos of the funicular trains before, looking pretty and yellow and clean and always photographed in bright sunshine and with high saturation and oh my god no, no these ones were not like that at all. Grim is the word that springs to mind. You think that a narrow, steep incline between old buildings with traditional funicular carriages riding up and down them sounds quaint, and maybe you think that a little bit of street art might add to the uniqueness and touristic appeal, but then you get some truly appalling graffiti instead and you wonder if you’ve accidentally transported something out of the 1970s that might have featured in the movie The Warriors to Europe by mistake. Yeah, if you’re thinking of riding one of Lisbon’s funiculars then I’d pick something other than this one.

Our walking route took us towards Largo Trindade Coelho, a public square for want of a better description, but this necessarily brought into view something you see a fair bit around Portugal by all accounts: tiled façades on buildings. You could probably guess their purpose, but in case it’s not clear, while these are now and always were to some extent decorative, originally, their glazed surfaces provided additional protection from damp conditions that the materials used for the buildings couldn’t adequately supply. Aesthetically, I’m not sold on the look of the tiles, but I imagine that if you’re the sort of person who loves flock wallpaper then you probably have a different opinion entirely.

Into Largo Trindade Coelho next, and the purpose of this was to have pointed out the buildings around it and the statue and marker inside. On the north side of the square was the Jesuit church and museum of São Roque, which is possibly Portuguese for Saint Rocky, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in a number of movies. I can’t be sure as I’d wandered away from our guide to take some photos. The main statue there, though, of some local interest, was called O Cauteleiro and it’s a monument to the lottery ticket sellers, with the buying of lottery tickets once being a popular pastime for people desperate to escape poverty, and the country’s national lottery having been in existence for well over 200 years. The worn bronze on the hand and ticket of the statue shows you just how much people like to rub statues for luck despite any evidence of it working, and just how little people care about the transmission of germs or whether or not their hands smell like old pennies all day.

The other memorial in the square was the Consórcio de Dom Luís. This obelisk with circular crest was erected in 1862 to commemorate the marriage of Luís I to Maria Pia of Savoy. I’d like to say that they fell in love over their shared adoration of lollipops, hence the shape of the monument, but the truth is that Maria Pia wasn’t even Luís’s first choice for a wife. Following a number of deaths without heirs in the royal line of Braganza there was some rush to get Luís married and starting up the royal family baby production line. He narrowed some possible brides down from a list of noble houses around Europe, then asked his cousin, Queen Victoria, and his great-uncle, Leopold of Belgium, for advice. They both recommended Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria but her father turned down the marriage on the grounds that she was too young. Thus it was that Luís picked Maria Pia of Savoy instead, and that request for a hand in marriage was accepted even though she was even younger than her Austrian namesake.

More tiled buildings and streets and pavements led us to the next stop.

Largo do Carmo was another public square with two items worthy of note. On the east side of the square stood the white walls of the Carmo Convent with its impressive gothic doorway recessed into the stone. That’s another historical location added to our “to visit when we come back to Lisbon” list. Although built in 1389 for the Carmelites, much of the exterior architecture facing the square was reconstructed in the early twentieth century to fix some of the effects of the 1755 earthquake responsible for a lot of damage and loss of life in Portugal. I covered some of the ramifications of that earthquake in the previous post in this travelogue series. The convent itself is now ruins and a museum.

The stone structure in the square in front of the arched doorway to the convent is the Chafariz do Carmo, an 18th century public fountain that was part of the city’s aqueduct system. The quality of its construction allowed it to survive pretty well intact when other structures in Lisbon had collapsed in the earthquake of that century, and we could tell from the stylised dolphins that decorated it both that it was connected in time if not physically to the Mãe d’Água reservoir that we’d visited earlier in the day and that stonemasons really didn’t know what a dolphin looked like back then.

Our Lisbon walk took us to the southern end of Rua do Carmo and northwards and downwards along its length is where we headed. Our next stop was visible all along this pedestrianised road and only required a small detour around a couple of different busking groups to reach.

The Santa Justa Lift was fully inaugurated in 1902, and, like the funicular trains, was designed to assist the people of Lisbon with getting up and down the low but numerous hills that made up their city. It was originally powered by steam, but within 5 years it had been converted to use electricity. Featuring neo-Gothic designs in iron, the lift stands 45 metres high and contains two cars capable of carrying nearly 30 people each in them up the seven storeys to the viewing platform and walkway at the top that’s a popular tourist attraction. We’d very likely take a ride in the lift should we return to Lisbon because it feels like the sort of thing a visitor to the city should do, but there was no time on this day’s trip.

Equally as interesting to me as the engineering wonder that was the Santa Justa Lift was the street art near its base. This was Two Pelicans In The Heart Of Lisbon by street artist Artur Bordalo (or Bordalo II), part of his Big Trash Animals collection, made mostly from rubbish as you could probably guess from the photos. Impressive work and a wonderful contrast to the decorations that had blighted the Ascensor da Glória earlier on our walk.

We continued along the Rua do Carmo with a few stops so our guide could point out some old shops along the way. Do you want some gloves? There’s a glove shop! The designs of these buildings were early 20th century in the main, Neoclassical for the main part but with hints of Art Nouveau to me.

Our short walking tour of Lisbon was almost at an end now. Coming out of the north end of Rua do Carmo we emerged at Rossio Square, the popular name for Praça de D. Pedro IV. Pedro IV briefly ruled Portugal, and when I say briefly, I mean briefly. He ascended to the throne in March 1826 and had abdicated by May in favour of his daughter. The reason for this was that he was already Pedro I of Brazil and working two jobs in two different time zones was just never going to work out. I couldn’t do it now and I’ve got the ability to work remotely over the internet. Take note, Web Summit people. Pedro had an interesting reign, filled with suppressing rebellions, becoming emperor, abdications, and scandalous affairs, but he is credited with helping to bring representational governments to power in Brazil and Portugal in place of the absolutist regimes they’d previously been subjected to, and a popular, attractive, open space in the centre of Lisbon named in his honour is the reward for that.

These sorts of walking tours tacked onto the end of other excursions are of necessity fleeting things designed to eat up some time, point out a few things, give you a taste of where you’re visiting, and almost always spending longer than you’d like in one place and not enough time at all in another. You can’t please everyone. We’d have liked to have wandered into the main part of Rossio Square to see the waved mosaic flooring there or the monuments or the fountains but we merely strolled past it and got to admire some of the architecture around the area from a distance. On the north side of the square was the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II in the Palladian Neoclassical style. It sits on the location of what had been the Baroque-style headquarters of the Portuguese Inquisition who, unlike their Spanish counterparts, were never immortalised in a Monty Python sketch. The headquarters had survived the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 but burnt down in 1836. Shame. It was decided to rebuild on the spot a theatre and it was named in honour of Maria II, the daughter to whom Pedro had abdicated the throne, and another member of the Braganza Royal Family who had a life filled with adventure: married off to an evil uncle who usurped the throne in classic fairy tale style is just the start of it.

It’s all going a bit architecture crazy here at the end of this account of our meander through Lisbon’s streets for which I make no apology as it’s something I’m very keen on and this is my site.

And so, still heading northwards from Rossio Square, now to a style of architecture I’d never heard of before: Neo-Manueline. As its name implies, this is a revival of an earlier Manueline style that is a 16th century Portuguese take on Gothic. The revival period covers the late 19th century when this train station – the Estação do Rossio – was built. It’s impossible to gaze at its façade and not be mesmerised by the doorways formed from overlapping horseshoe-shaped arches. Absolutely beautiful work. This station was the site of the assassination of Sidónia Pais in 1918, another one of late 19th and early 20th century Portugal’s Interesting People. What does his story contain? Military background, politician who helped to create a constitution that he then completely ignored when mounting a coup, and afterwards, becoming de facto President in a country that had no established position for that role, watering down the separation of religion and state to get the support of the Catholics. I mean, damn Portugal! Was there anyone in that country in a position of power from 1800 onwards who didn’t wake up each morning and think “Insurrection? Affair? Subjugation of part of the population? War with someone? Or something a little more old-fashioned and murdery today?”

Our walking tour of Lisbon came to an end at the place where our bus was due to meet us. We were a little early or it was stuck in traffic, but either way that gave me a great chance to be suitably impressed by the building we were standing outside. If you like Art Deco – and what monster doesn’t like Art Deco? – then you can’t help but gasp just a little at the sheer beauty that is the Teatro Eden. Functioning as a theatre above an arcade of shops from 1931 to 1989 it is now a hotel, with only the front-facing elements of the original building surviving. Sure, I wasn’t a fan of the tiled fronts on buildings generally, but the rest of Lisbon certainly wowed me with some of the engineering and architectural styling we got to see on this day visiting the city.

Opposite the theatre, in the middle of Restauradores Square, was the Monument to the Restorers, an 1886 obelisk which commemorated victory at the end of the war between Portugal and Spain in 1668 that had seen Portugal gain independence and its own royal house – the Braganza family – after the union of 1580 had subjected the country and all its overseas dependencies to Spanish rule under the Habsburgs. The two statues on the left and right side of the plinth in the photos represent Victory and Independence respectively.

The final photo I fired off before boarding our bus back to the port was of the lovely lines of the Altis Avenida Hotel, mainly because it just looked pretty against the blue sky over Lisbon. Despite a far older appearance, this was built in the 1940s, but the architect, Luís Cristino da Silva, was fond of the Salazarist style of architecture which borrowed elements from Germany and Italy’s futurism leanings towards impressive, modern representations of earlier, imperial designs.

And with that, and a short bus ride – that had we realised it was going to be quite that short we might have skipped in order to walk back and spend more time in the city, possibly stopping for a beer somewhere (because we’re us and that’s what we like to do) – we were dropped off back by the cruise terminal in Lisbon. The long building opposite the ships was a government building and reviews on Google suggest that being typical of governments the world over it’s not a place where anyone has anything to positive to say about experiences inside. Outside it looked nice, though.

MSC Virtuosa and P&O Ventura looked lovely on the Tagus, and all that surface water at the port from the rain showers that had accompanied the morning part of our excursion had dried out in the very dry, sunny, and warm afternoon of our brief city walk.

Back on board Ventura we made our way to the top deck to grab some lunch and a few shots of the Lisbon city skyline from our cruise ship just in case it was miraculously any different from how it had looked before we’d disembarked earlier that day. Of course it was different. The sun was in a new position in the sky. The colours were brighter. The shadows were elsewhere. The National Pantheon still dominated the view, though.

The next part of this Ventura cruise travelogue series will conclude our port stop in Portugal’s capital city of Lisbon with our departure from the city at sunset, to include cruising under the Ponte 25 de Abril.

But first, briefly, Oslo. This would be our first visit to Oslo, but not our only visit in 2022, with another one taking place later in the year. We arrived to clouds and some gentle, occasional spitting of rain that was not enough to get us wet but just enough to be mildly annoying for someone who likes to take a lot of photographs. I can’t think who I’m talking about here.

The ship was docked alongside Akershus Fortress, and we had planned to pay it a visit if time allowed at the end of our full day’s trip, but there wasn’t quite enough time to do it justice so perhaps we’ll get around to that next time as we’re sure to return.

As I’ve already explained, the first of three planned highlights of Oslo we had booked was to be Frogner Park. The park was formerly part of a manor house estate but parts were sold off to the municipality and a large section was designated a public park in the early twentieth century. In the centre of that lies what is officially called the Vigeland Installation of sculptures, but as that section of the park is what attracts tourists it’s adopted the name Vigeland Park and that’s what I’ll be referring to it as from now on.

We entered from the eastern side of Vigeland park and were immediately greeted by a statue of the sculptor responsible for much we were about to see. Gustav Vigeland has another claim to fame beyond having a whole park of sculptures, and that is that he designed the Nobel Peace Prize medal. The front of the medal shows Alfred Nobel in profile but the reverse has a symbol of three men in a fraternal pose, and we’d be seeing a lot of that sort of symbolism and artistry in this Oslo park.

We approached The Bridge first. This area – which crosses a stretch of water in the park as you’d expect – contains fifty eight bronze sculptures of people of varying ages expressing varying emotions.

You’ll notice that the sculptures feature naked human forms and these have led to some suggestion that Vigeland had Nazi leanings as, for some reason, Nazis like nude men. To be more precise with that unfounded accusation, it’s the aesthetic of the more natural but well-honed (you know, because of the master race and all that crap) figures rather than abstract modernism, or what Nazis might have called “degenerative art”, as well as the age in which Vigeland lived that has preceded some people adding two and two together and getting it wildly wrong. It’s somewhat of a stretch to say that someone producing anatomically correct art is a Nazi, unless you’re also a proponent of the theory that Da Vinci was a proto-fascist, so we can pretty much discount that suggestion.

Incidentally, if you’re the sort of American Republican who approves of banning books that feature artwork that shows genitalia (there are a lot of you lot about these days) under some ridiculous notion that it’s porn and you’ve got to protect the children (don’t mention the guns, don’t mention the guns) then you’d best close this page right now and not scroll down any further. I’d hate for you be aroused by anything here and faint, adding to the likelihood that hitting your head will kill off a number of the clearly dangerously low quantity of brain cells you presently have.

By far the most famous of the sculptures anywhere in Vigeland Park is the one known as Angry Boy. His imagery popped up on plenty of souvenirs that we saw during both this and our subsequent visit to Oslo later in the year. According to our guide, Angry Boy was modelled after Vigeland had paid a visit to England and seen a child throwing a tantrum; Vigeland liked the energy and associated the sculpture with the English. He’s managed to capture my face perfectly.

In 2021 an attempt was made to steal the sculpture and you can see the mark where a saw was used on the left foot of it.

The oldest part of the sculpture installation at Vigeland Park in terms of its original design was The Fountain. Sadly, it wasn’t operating on the day we visited it but that did mean we could get a better look at the skill of the sculpting.

The Fountain, including the pieces around it, can be easily seen to represent life. Six men struggle to hold up the bowl from which life springs in the centre, while all around it are warped and somewhat disturbing tree sculptures intertwined with people of various ages through their lives representing a bond with nature. All the stages of life and death are further represented in reliefs around the base of the installation.

The final section of the Vigeland Park sculptures was The Monolith.

At seventeen metres high, the Monolith is at the highest point in the park, and it is a true monolith, sculpted from one piece of stone. It comprises one hundred and twenty one figures contorted and clambering up one another to the top. Although not known for certain, it is believed to be a representation of spirituality and a desire to be reborn.

Steps surrounded the Monolith allowing anyone to walk up and approach from any angle. Great for art fans, but less great for people wanting to take photos of the sculpture without members of your tour group in the way, posing for selfie shot after selfie shot then standing still and looking around or checking their phone without a care in the world. Seriously, people, have some consideration for others, just occasionally. Take your photo, by all means, and then bugger off.

On plinths radiating out from the central Monolith were thirty six sculptures in granite. These were of more naked human figures in varying poses. Youth and old age were represented, as was every stage of life in between, and there was a lot of emotion conveyed in the faces and the postures. These sculptures in Vigeland Park were the ones that impressed us the most. The skill of the workers who produced these to Vigeland’s designs is difficult to put over in words so you’ll have to go there and do this yourself: run your hands over the sculptures and you’ll feel the muscles beneath the stone surface. It’s astonishing artwork and the act of doing that will really connect you to the pieces.

So, we absolutely loved Vigeland Park, and while I’ve often mentioned on this site that I don’t really try to do recommendations as we’re all different people and you might not like the same things I do, I will recommend a visit here if you’re visiting Oslo, Norway. Even if you don’t think you like art sculptures you might like to run your hands down the thigh of one just to see if there’s something in it for you. At worst, it’s fresh air and some gentle exercise, so you can’t really go wrong there.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll be continuing our tour of some of Oslo’s tourist highlights with a short visit to Holmenkollbakken, a hill for ski jumping used in the 1952 Winter Olympics.

We had anticipated having to pay for the shuttle bus from the cruise port to the city centre. If you’ve read our experiences in Copenhagen from earlier in the year when we’d cruised to Denmark on Sky Princess then you might know that we got caught out by an odd shuttle bus arrangement that meant we were not allowed to use it one way because we’d taken a tour so ended up walking a considerable distance to get back to the ship at its conclusion (see: Copenhagen Walking Tour, Part Three: Street Art Between Skaal And The Cruise Terminal). This time we decided we’d pay for the tickets both way. Only this time the shuttle bus was free. No idea why it was different a few months apart on cruises operated by the same company. Still, at least it’s nice to know that there’s no consistent answer for whether or not you can get a complimentary ride to Copenhagen from a cruise ship or not, so that’s something.

In 2022 I can state that the location where the shuttle buses dropped cruise passengers off was right beside St Peter’s Church, but there’s no guarantee that this fact of the time holds true now.

St Peter’s is not just the oldest church but the oldest building in the main area of Copenhagen. Old buildings in nations with their fair share of warlike people or warlike neighbours or clumsy oafs have a tendency to burn down and it’s no surprise that the original church has done just that and been rebuilt more than once, but the history of the church goes as far back as the eleventh century. Most of the architecture that the church currently displays, though, can be traced back to the fifteenth century.

Across the road from where we were dropped off was another church: the Church of Our Lady. The present building dates from the middle of the nineteenth century as its predecessor was destroyed in the Second Battle of Copenhagen by British forces. The previous medieval design was given a neoclassical makeover complete with six-columned portico but lacked a tower originally (because towers didn’t fit the architectural style) until locals demanded one be added. A simplistic square form tower is the result. To the left and right of the main entrance to the church were statues of David By Jens Adolf Jerichau and Moses by Herman Wilhelm Bissen.

About a minute’s walk brought us to Gammeltorv, the oldest public square in Copenhagen, which housed the Caritas Fountain (or Caritas Well), the oldest fountain. That’s a lot of oldest things all in very close proximity. The fountain was built in 1608. On the monarch’s birthday (that’s changed since we visited) and a few other occasions each year copper balls covered in gold to symbolise apples are placed in the water of the fountain to jump under the streams; a tradition dating back to the eighteenth century. It was before television was invented and people were starved of entertainment. Don’t judge.

We headed through the streets of Copenhagen towards the City Hall Square.

We spent a few minutes admiring the architecture of the area around the City Hall and some of its odd sculptures, but didn’t go in the building itself. It apparently houses an impressive World Clock that with the benefit of hindsight might have been nice to look at, but we didn’t actually know that at the time. The main building is very early twentieth century, taking over the functions of a smaller building elsewhere in the city that been used prior to that.

If you like red brick buildings with tall towers then this is the square to come and see them, although it’s interesting to note the somewhat subtle differences in the architectural styles employed. The nearby Scandic Palace Hotel, for instance, built only a few years after the City Hall, has a few more curved surfaces and ornate ironwork than its neighbour, borrowing from the Art Nouveau movement.

We liked the bizarre bronze statues in the square that were apparently supposed to be dragons. Often when you see a painting or sculpture of an animal that looks nothing like it you can say with some authority “Ah, clearly made by someone who’s never seen one before” but when it comes to dragons you’ve got to give the artist a bit of leeway. Anyway, dragons with snouts that can blow water and extinguish the flames of dragons that breathe fire makes a sort of sense if you think about it.

Our short walk in Copenhagen took us along a little bit of Hans Christian Andersen’s Boulevard where, in addition to seeing one of the two statues of the author in the city (the other one is in the King’s Garden and we’d seen that earlier in the year on our walking tour of Copenhagen) we got good views of the entrance to Tivoli. Despite this being our third visit to Copenhagen we’ve still not visited its famous amusement park and gardens, mostly because we don’t think that the short trips to Denmark’s capital city so far would have done justice to the amount of time we’d like to spend inside this place. It’s in the back of our minds to take a city break to Copenhagen one weekend and perhaps give this location a proper look around then, but for now we simply walked on past. Also, it was closed at the time.

A very short walk from here brought us to a location around which there were three museums close to one another: a fine art museum, the national museum of Denmark, and the one we chose to visit on this occasion, the smallest of the three, the Museum of Copenhagen. This was a museum dedicated to the city with a look at its history and geography as you’d expect, but also hitting everyday life elements such as manhole covers or, my favourite, equipment and pictures by the street photographers who used to take and process photos of tourists on film with chemicals within their all-in-one camera and lab equipment. This was truly engrossing for me, although I suspect it’s niche enough that it won’t appeal to everyone. But we like different. Different is good.

We had an enjoyable time at the museum but had now reached the point for us to do the only thing we’d actually planned on doing during our free time in Copenhagen. This took us back to the City Hall Square, heading down a street just before we reached the Lur Blowers statue, a gift to the city from the Carlsberg Foundation.

The place we wanted to spend some time in was the Taphouse and if you know us and our love of craft ales, and if you know that Taphouse has 61 beer taps behind the bar then you’ll understand why we wanted to pay a visit to this place. Friendly staff and a great range of beers – but also spirits, wine, soft drinks, snacks, and free Wi-Fi if you’re looking for a good place to watch the world go by in Copenhagen – but the thing we liked most was the lights flashing red whenever a new ale was on tap. What can I say? We’re simple people who like simple things.

Taphouse catered for a lot of beer tastes, but we are fond of dark ales so we gave their flights a try, and if you’re interested in seeing the range of alcohol percentages and countries of origin then we’ve been awfully nice and shared print-outs of those too.

We spent a lovely couple of hours sipping drinks but then started on the walk back to where the shuttle bus would be. We don’t like to leave it until the last shuttle bus or tender boat when we’re ashore just in case there are queues, and it would have been all too easy to grab some more drinks and lose track of the time altogether.

On the walk we spotted a couple either posing for photos after marrying or posing for photos for a wedding or bridal photographer. We’ve seen quite a few wedding shoots over the years when we’ve travelled to places.

The last thing I paused to take photos of in Copenhagen was the Reformation Memorial, an obelisk commemorating four hundred years of the switch from Catholicism to the Lutheran faith, unveiled in 1943. On each face of its base were bronze reliefs depicting events of 1536 and 1537 when King Christian III confirmed the Reformation of Denmark.

A hundred metres further along the road was the shuttle bus waiting to take us back to the ship.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series I’ll be posting photos of Sweden from Island Princess as we left Denmark and cruised between both countries on the way to the next port of Oslo, Norway.

We’d been taken to the cathedral and treated to some traditional singing in the loggia by the town square in Trogir so if you’ve not seen the photos video or read that, or if you want to read a little about the history of Trogir and its eclectic mix of architecture then you can check that out here: P&O Cruises Excursion In Split, Croatia: Trogir And Cathedral.

But for this post, a very short walk to the southern part of the small island on which Trogir sits in the Adriatic and a wander towards Kamerlengo Castle – but not in it, sadly – with some pictures of this delightful Croatian town on a bright, sunny day for you to feast your eyes upon.

We emerged at the waterfront area between the Church and Monastery of St Dominic and the Petar Berislavić elementary school. The church dates from the thirteenth century with portions added to it through to the fifteenth century, but it required renovation in more recent times to repair damage suffered during the Second World War. The school’s architecture is arguably more interesting, showing off the Venetian Gothic style with its clear influence from Islamic architecture reflecting the trading history between the different cultures.

Kamerlengo Castle also dates from the Venetian rule period of Trogir. A fourteenth century tower on the spot was extended in the following century with walls and more towers to form the fortifications we see today. The purpose was to protect against attacks from the Ottomans but there’s no record of it ever being needed. A tale associated with the fortress associates the name with that of a governor who fell in love with a woman from Trogir but was not permitted to marry her. The woman died of grief and the governor’s wife gave birth to a girl who resembled the woman he’d loved, but she also died young and his wife left him. He then never spoke again. I didn’t say it was a happy tale.

Trogir-born Augustin Kažotić, bishop of Zagreb in the early fourteenth century, gets himself a statue in the town.

As our visit to Trogir took place close to Easter it wasn’t too surprising to see some reference to it in the form of large, colourful eggs.

As we left the small island on which Trogir was located and headed across the bridge back towards the car park we passed a sculpture to fallen soldiers in wars.

That concluded our short look around Trogir and it was a charming place indeed, and easy to see why it’s a popular spot for locals and visitors from farther afield alike. In the next post in this cruise travelogue series our day’s excursion will head back towards Split with a stop at a former mill called Mlinice Pantan for lunch.

It was a little overcast as Azura came into Trieste port early in the morning, adding a touch of coolness to the day that was a marked contrast to the one that had preceded it in Split, and a quick check of the weather forecast for the day’s excursion destinations indicated it was going to get cooler too, and likely damper.

Breakfast on the ship was an improvement on the days before but still poor. We boarded our bus not long after and headed off, quickly crossing the border with no checks required (thank you, EU (fuck you, UK)), and passed hilly areas, often passing through heavy downpours en route to Slovenia’s capital.

When we arrived in Ljubljana the rain, thankfully, hadn’t followed us. Our bus dropped us off at Kongresni Trg (Congress Square), an early nineteenth century plaza used for ceremonies and protests like all good squares. You might be wondering how to pronounce Trg but I’m afraid I’m not Welsh so have no real experience of saying words without vowels in them.

Baroque architecture featured very heavily in Ljubljana and I was immediately taken by the Ursuline church across the road from the square while the majority of people on our tour used the free public toilets situated in the square’s centre. The Ursulines are not lovers of bears if that’s what you’re thinking (I was); they are a monastic order of women who cloister themselves away from everyday life, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a fancy church.

Our visit to Ljubljana would incorporate a short tour with some free time to explore afterwards, as is common with many city visits. A question was raised by one of our fellow passengers about Ljubljana Castle which could be seen on a low hill overlooking the capital city: could we visit it? The response was that if someone were to set off right at that moment they would have enough time to touch its wall before needing to turn around and come back to the meeting place. So, no.

Once all those who’d needed to relieve themselves had done so our guide led us the short distance to the next square, Prešernov Trg, the main square of Ljubljana. The square is circular just to mess with the minds of literalists and geometrists.

A sculpture in the middle of the square depicts the poet Prešeren and some scenes from his works, and the most prominent of the buildings surrounding the square is the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation on account of its pink-toned façade. The square’s current design and a lot of the architecture surrounding it owes much to the redevelopment that took place in the wake of a destructive earthquake that hit Ljubljana in 1895 when elements of Art Nouveau became incorporated into the surviving Baroque parts of the city.

The river Ljubljanica runs through Ljubljana so the city is adorned with numerous bridges. We crossed the Triple Bridge as it connected with Prešernov Trg in order to reach the final location our tour guide wanted to show us.

The last of the squares we were to be shown was Mestni Trg (Town Square) where, in front of the Town Hall (the building with the flags in front of it above) there was the Robba Fountain or, more accurately, a copy of it. This twenty first century replica allows the original eighteenth century piece to be kept safe in the country’s National Gallery. The pool of the fountain is local limestone and the obelisk at its centre is local marble while the decorative elements are marble from northern Italy.

At this point we were told when and where we had to meet up again and we were left to have a wander around on our own. We initially had a walk along the banks of the Ljubljanica because if you know anything about us at all by now then you know how much we like the water. It did make for some lovely views even if the weather was overcast and seemed to threaten rain at any minute.

Our walk took us towards the Dragon Bridge because our guide had mentioned that this was an important symbol for Ljubljana, and the final spot of interest we passed before reaching it was beside Saint Nicholas’s Cathedral. The Baroque (naturally) building replaces an earlier Gothic church on the same site that itself replaced an earlier Romanesque one that (also naturally) burned down. Churches do that a lot.

Our time in Ljubljana was too limited to allow us to venture inside any of the churches we’d seen, but that’s pretty typical for any cruise tour, but what we’d seen of Slovenia’s capital city left us knowing that this was a place we’d love to come back to for a long weekend to do it justice.

Our wander around Ljubljana has been split into two parts because someone – and it might be me – got a little camera-happy around all the abstract pieces of public sculpture artwork in the city, so in the next part of this cruise travelogue series we’ll reach the Dragon Bridge and I’ll continue our walk through Ljubljana and show off some more of its sights before we depart for the second destination in Slovenia on this day ashore.

It was raining first thing in the morning so we waited a while for the worst of it to ease off before setting off for our day ashore. The views from the ship weren’t the best. Haugesund may feature in cruise itineraries marketed as visiting the Norwegian fjords but if you’re expecting stunning landscapes even under the best of weather conditions then you’re in for disappointment.

Haugesund’s rise to some prominence in this part of Norway is due to being located on a stretch of water between land masses that provided ships with a shortcut that avoided what could be troublesome waters in the open sea. Fishing and trade naturally grew up in the area and Norway’s first king lived near Haugesund and was reputedly buried near here too, but more on that in a bit.

Our cruise ship docked at one of two islands that group together with the mainland to form Haugesund. Getting to the town from Risøy involved a short walk past some lovely buildings to a bridge which was only completed in 1939. Prior to this point moving between Haugesund and Risøy required use of a ferry. You’ll see from the photos below that the water over which the bridge crosses isn’t too wide but you might notice that it’s quite a height. It’s a pretty steep bridge to ascend so consider that if you’re walking.

Haugesund might not have had the high rocky faces of the fjords surrounding it but it excelled in its architecture which was incredibly varied. Art nouveau façades, modernist concrete structure, and wooden buildings of indeterminate ages were around every corner as we threaded our way roughly along the coast northwards once we’d reached the mainland.

We passed by the bottom of a public area given over to some water features and a statue at the top. Unsurprisingly, the statue was of fishermen. If you travel to any port in Scandinavia you can more-or-less be assured that there will be a statue of fishermen. This particular statue was donated to Haugesund in 1920 and was sculpted by Sofus Madsen. When we’d made our very first trip to Norway back in 2013 we’d visited Bergen and one of the first things to have caught our eye in the city back then had been a statue of a crying boy which, it turns out, had also been made by Sofus Madsen. Always nice to find connections like that.

The most important figure in the history of Haugesund is Harald Fairhair, first king of Norway, and ruler from 872 to 930 CE. Allegedly. Details of the period are a little spotty and owe much to considerably later tales passed down through subsequent centuries. There’s doubt that he even existed. That’s just the way of things, and it’s not unique to Harald here. I’m sure you can think of plenty of people far more-widely-known for whom much has been written but who likely never existed at all. Rupert the Bear, for instance.

Harald’s name appears in several Norse sagas, and in the nineteenth century his name became more prominent in Norway during the country’s move towards independence from Sweden. Everyone needs a hero figure. It was around this time that the determination was made that Harald lived and died near Haugesund which was very handy for the town and future economic benefits from tourism.

Our walk was taking us towards the Haraldshaugen monument dedicated to the king but before we reached it we happened upon a statue to Harald Fairhair on the coastline that was surprisingly popular with visitors. We bided our time to grab a shot without anyone in the way. From this point we could also see our cruise ship docked nearby.

When you travel around Scandinavia a fair bit like we do then you recognise a Lutheran church when you see one. Skåre Church is a mid-nineteenth century place of worship built around an octagonal layout. Records dating back to the fourteenth century indicate older churches stood around this area but with Haugesund being fully established as a town in 1854 there was a need for a larger church for the community.

The nearby memorial statue to Haakon Storsteen is a little bit of a mystery. He appears to have been a local man, an engineer in the merchant navy, who died when the ship he was on sank in 1944. I would guess that his family or the nearby church raised funds for the sculpture since he doesn’t seem to be very noteworthy otherwise. You can’t just put up statues to everyone who dies, you know. The living wouldn’t be able to move.

More fabulously variable styles of architecture punctuated our walk as we continued towards the main memorial. I particularly liked the mid-century modern house.

We arrived at the open, grassy area that was Haraldshaugen but the first thing to catch our eye was a large, stone cross on a small hill, and because it was slightly closer and there were fewer visitors around it we took a look at it first.

This was Krosshaugen, one of the earliest symbols of Christianity in the whole of Norway, dating to around 1000 CE, and possibly erected when local farmers were flexible enough in their beliefs to switch deities to worship. It was good to be able to get up and close to a historical piece like this and the small hill provided for some nice views around the area.

The Haraldshaugen monument was erected and opened to the public in 1872, commemorating the thousand years since the formation of Norway as a single kingdom under Harald Fairhair. The site is considered to be the burial location of Harald but nobody’s really checked, and the monument consists of a seventeen metres-tall granite obelisk on a mound surrounded by twenty nine smaller stone monuments representing the historic counties of Norway. Fans of prime numbers will be pleased.

It was a cool, damp, blowy day when we visited Haugesund and walked to the national monument dedicated to the first king so we didn’t spend a lot of time there; just enough really to take some photos from a few angles, climb the steps to the obelisk, and take another look at the views across this part of Norway’s coastline. It was still possible to catch sight of our cruise ship from here.

We’d originally planned to walk further along the coast, and you can see some of that route in the photo above, but it had taken us a little longer to reach this point than we’d accounted for and we decided instead to head back to the main part of the town and see what we might be able to find of interest in it rather than simply admiring the views along the shoreline, lovely though that might have been. Had we had better weather then we might have chosen differently.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series I’ll cover our look around Haugesund before we’d need to return to the ship one last time and head for home.