The amphitheatre was fabulous; not massive, but sunk down below the surrounding circus and street level, with a lovely view of the sea. It must have been quite a place to visit in the second century. It was, however, a huge heat trap, eliminating any offshore breeze that might have cooled elsewhere in the city and we had to seek out a place selling cold drinks in the shade immediately after visiting.

One of the first things we noticed in the city were the statues; there were quite a few and they were quite varied.

Architecture in the city was quite varied too.

I do like to take photos of street art when I see it on my travels and although Tarragona did not offer up many examples the ones I shot were of pretty reasonable quality.

The scenery along the shoreline of Tarragona was beautiful, affording views out over the railway line, amphitheatre, and sea, as well as granting us some small amount of breeze to combat the bone-penetrating heat of the day.

Some of the more eye-catching sculptures were fashioned by Sophie Ryder.

In addition to a number of school classes exploring the park at the same time the other noticeable group of lifeforms were the sheep. We were acutely aware of where we were standing and did a pretty decent job of not treading in too many sheep droppings as I recall.

While it was still early in the year there was a little bit of nature on show to catch my attention as well.

As it was November it was cold enough to give everything a sheen of ice so we were quite careful on our first evening there but had a reasonable walk along part of the Icelandic shoreline before heading inland. We had no plans to visit anything at that time, just take in the lay of the land, make a note of anything interesting, and grab some shots of the varied architecture.

Water featured heavily in the town with rivers, a lake, and a reservoir in addition to the Atlantic coast.

We noticed a few pieces of art and sculpture and there was obviously some sort of street art scene going on in the area too.

On the final day we would discover Hellisgerdi Park and its abundance of artwork.

By the ocean’s edge I was quite taken with a piece of brutal architecture but I couldn’t work out what its function was.

A processed image of something that may have been art or may have been functional or may have been both.

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.

Our first stop was the most obvious landmark in Reykjavík, the Lutheran church Hallgrímskirkja. As we exited the impressive building we happened upon a wedding photo shoot taking place using the church as a backdrop. I made sure to take a few shots of the action as well.

After the church visit we walked the short distance down to the Reykjavík shoreline which provided some lovely views across the water to mountains around the Icelandic coast.

One of the features of the shoreline was the presence of a beautiful, stainless steel sculpture called The Sun Voyager. There were quite a few people hovering around, braving the bracing temperatures to take a photo or two and, unsurprisingly, I did the same. I also took a photo of an Icelandic man in front of the piece of art who drove up, hopped out of his car, and asked if I would. I’m nice like that.

Further along the water’s edge was the Harpa Concert Hall, an interesting piece of architecture that reminded me a little of the sand crawlers in Star Wars. We didn’t go in the building because there was a music festival taking place in Iceland in the week we were visiting and entrance was for ticket holders only.

We wandered around a little bit more after that taking more photos of Reykjavík’s streets and buildings as well as some of its street art while there was still light enough to do so before hunkering down in a few bars to grab some food and drink. Expensive, as you probably could guess with it being Iceland, but what we had was very good.

We ended up visiting a couple of museums while there. Photos from inside the museums were taken on the phone rather than with the camera. First up was a teddy bear museum.

We also visited a dinosaur museum in Dorchester. With the whole area of Dorset being somewhat famous for its found fossils it seemed the right thing to do, although there was some questionable science on display.

We popped into the Leeds Gallery next, mainly because one of us needed to pee. This gave us the opportunity for a bit of a look around (no photos though) and a quick stop to hydrate and grab a snack in the café. We were quite impressed with the tilework and general decorations of it.

We followed that up with a visit to the very good Leeds Museum (in a separate post) and with our cultural quotient filled we proceeded to explore the Yorkshire city on foot. As with a lot of big, old cities up north, away from much of the flattening that took place during World War 2, the architecture was fabulous and on a grand scale. Leeds city centre looked to be a quite well-to-do place, full of interesting shops and plenty of indoor shopping arcades.

One section of the pedestrianised shopping precinct in Leeds seemed to be popular with street entertainers including a Morris dancing side. We’ve got a soft spot for the traditions of the Morris so we stayed and watched for a little while, enjoying the interactions with other people.

Religious buildings were dotted around the city, as you’d expect.

Our walk back to the car park after we’d finished with nosing around some of the shops and stopping for a drink took us through more rundown, more modern streets and styles of architecture. There were still some gems among the bland buildings and even a few pieces of sculpture to punctuate that there was still some pride in these more industrialised areas.

A highlight of the trip was getting spotted with my camera by a local guy who then proceeded to pose and asked me to take a photo of him showing off his muscles. A little bit of street portraiture is absolutely fine with me so I was happy to oblige with a shot of this Leeds chap, whoever he was.

This is an abbreviated post of the New York walk with a small number of photos (for me) and with the original image processing when uploaded to Flickr. More in-depth posts covering the full walk along with refreshed photo processing will come along at some future point.

We were staying in a central location on Manhattan Island so decided to walk west towards the Hudson River, then follow the island shoreline as much as possible to the south initially.

We ended up passing through the financial area where the twin towers had come down and in which the Freedom Tower was under construction.

We knew we could use the Staten Island Ferry for free and that it purportedly gave one of the better views of the Statue of Liberty. This seemed to be true but I was more interested in the people on the ferry itself, each lost in their own world, none more so than one girl who danced to the tunes playing through her headphones as if nobody was watching.

After returning to Manhattan we walked more directly back in the direction of our hotel. With New York’s grid structure of busy roads this provided plenty of chances to take photos of not just the feel of the city’s roads and shops…

…but also some of its architecture…

…and the many people of New York going about their business.

We had to leave New York early the next morning (a Monday). It was here that we discovered that the so-called “city that never sleeps” does, actually, as none of the stores we wanted to visit before catching our bus were open. On top of that it was raining. Still, I very much enjoyed New York; the ability to lose yourself as a tourist among the crowds of a major city makes for great street photography.

• I took the photos in JPG mode, not RAW, and I probably took them with automatic settings. These days I’ll only shoot RAW photos, typically deliberately underexposed by 2/3, typically in aperture priority mode to control depth of field. That’s the sort of thing that comes from experience and style choice.
• Sensor dirt! Sensor dirt is the bane of my life and since upgrading to the Canon 5D Mark II several years back I assumed that sensor dirt was worse with the newer camera and not something that ever affected my first one; that turns out to be very wrong. From looking back at these old photos of mine I’m finding just as many dust marks on the pictures so it seems that possibly a combination of a more sensitive sensor on the newer model plus my gained experience at spotting sensor dirt is what’s really taken place.

The photos below showing off Southsea, the pier, the beach, the castle, and outside the D-Day Museum are not processed in any way other than to spot heal the sensor dirt.