Bergen, Norway

Our last stop was Bergen, which was definitely the largest city that we visited, and situated on a bay between several mountains.  The whole city worked its way from sea level up the sides of the mountains, which created a lovely stacked look.  Unfortunately, we didn't realize that we only had about a half a day to spend in Bergen, and the majority of that was spent doing our excursion.

Our excursion was a guided tour through the old city, ending at an ice bar across the bay.  Our tour guide was actually Norwegian, as opposed to French or German, and seemed reasonably knowledgeable (except that as a renter, he did not know the property tax rate, or any of the other increasingly complex economic questions that one of our group members asked).

Bergen has always been one of Norway's biggest ports, with dried cod being a major export, due to it's longevity as a foodstuff and its significant protein.  When the black death hit in the 12th century, the city was more or less decimated, and Norway's international trade fell to basically nothing.  Eventually, some German investors came and reinvigorated the trade, and we were able to see Norway's original stock market on our tour.  Also, the monument to Bob, a dried cod (see right).

We continued through the fresh fish market (interesting, but not really something that can be taken advantage of in a cruise cabin), and made our way over to the ice bar.  Real talk - I expected that the ice bar would be touristy and kind of stupid, because why would Norwegians need this thing?  Isn't the whole country an ice bar for half the year?  While I never got that question answered, it was cooler (haha!) than I thought that it would be, and we had a great time sipping our Norwegian liquor from our ice glasses in our thermal clothing in an ice cave.  Most of the walls had sculptures built into them, which were lit by different colored lights for kind of a cool effect.

Bergen was actually our shortest port of call, and we only had about six hours total in port, so I only had a few minutes to walk around and souvenir shop.  Ultimately, I only got one gift, for #babyboynoyes.

Shout out to Princess - Troy let the ship know that it was our anniversary, and they gave us a $50 gift certificate to the spa, which I used to book a massage.  So after the day in Bergen, we got lunch, read for a little bit, and I headed off for hot stones.  Definitely an awesome way to spend an afternoon :)

Geiranger, Norway

Today was kind of an interesting cruise day – we landed first at Hellsylt, Norway, so that people who had excursions starting there could get off.  We then departed again to cruise for a few hours into Geiranger.  We didn’t have an excursion today, so we used the additional cruising time to do exciting things, like morning trivia and laundry.

According to our adopted trivia friends (John and Mrs. John), who have done this cruise like a zillion times, Geiranger is pleasant to walk around, but didn’t have a ton to do (Mrs. John did bemoan that the town had allowed a campground so close to the water, because it just totally spoiled the view, but she just walks right on through the campground anyway).

We cruised into the town, which was set in the cove between two fjords, and it is absolutely gorgeous.  It’s like there are mountains rising out of the water on all sides, and the weather was perfect.  Snowcapped mountains, blue skies, green everywhere.  Gorgeous.

We took a tender from the ship into Geiranger, and decided to do the hike went up through town to the Fjordsenter.  Let me just say now.  If any of you are considering traveling to Norway, find your nearest 20+ story building, and climb the stairs a few times a day for basically ever.  Everything we’ve done so far has included pretty solid elevation gains, and the Geiranger hike was no exception.

We hiked (mostly walked up stairs) along a giant waterfall, and stopped at several viewing points along the way, where you could see the whole bay with the mountains and the two cruise ships that were in port.  As we got to the top, it started to rain (because of course it did), so we took some pictures, read some of the exhibits on fjords, and headed back down.  In case you were wondering, the campground did not, in fact, spoil the view.

Geiranger is a pretty small town, but happily, on the way back, I was able to pick up a Norway magnet.  Very important part of the travel experience.  The port time has been pretty brief on this cruise, so there hasn’t been much time for shopping, and there’s not much in between super cheap tourist crap and omigod expensive Norwegian sweaters.  Just crazy – hopefully we’ll have a bit more time to poke around in Bergen, tomorrow.

The evening was more or less uneventful – we went to the lounge on deck 15 and watched the fjord pass for several hours.  It’s totally mesmerizing to watch, and there’s a lot of variation in the fjord landscape, which kept it interesting :)

Bergen, Ho!

Olden, Norway

Olden was totally awesome!!  And given that 100% of our Olden activities took place in low temperatures with mild-to-driving rain, you know that I mean it :)

We had an afternoon excursion, so when we woke up (well in advance of 11:15, I might add), we had time for a leisurely breakfast, independent Olden activities, and some literary progress.  The rain didn’t look awful from our sheltered, inside breakfast spot, so we got dressed and planned to explore the little village, all of which could be seen from the ship.

Fake news, people.  Fake news.  It was basically pouring, so we explored the two souvenir shops directly across the pier, didn’t purchase anything, and scurried back to the ship, where we read and ate until it was time for our actual excursion at 2:15 (eating and reading are both par for the course on this trip, and it’s glorious).

According to the ‘Princess Patter,’ Olden is a land where the reindeer outnumber the people (year-round human population is between 498 and 1,500, depending on whether you ask the ‘Princess Patter’ or our tour guide).  The village is on the Nordfjord, which is the 6^th longest fjord in Norway.

Our excursion was a hike to see the Briksdal Glacier.  It started with a 45-minute drive to the base of the peak (sidenote: Mom, don’t book bus trips in Norway).  As I believe Troy’s summary post read, “Like in much of Europe, Norway is seeing a general decline in the Christian religion.  Despite this, 100% of Norwegian tour bus drivers believe in divine intervention.”  Very narrow, very wind-y roads, with a lot of stopping to see which vehicle is larger upon encountering oncoming traffic.

All that said, we survived the bus trip.  Our guide told us that if we wanted to skip most of the hike, there were vehicles that would take us to within 10 minutes of the best glacier viewing for an additional charge.  Troy and I felt like that would be cheating, and no way in heck would we be skipping the majority of the excursion.

And boy, am I glad we didn’t.  Despite the rain and the wind and the cold, the hike was absolutely gorgeous.  The scenery is a weird mix of Alaska and Yellowstone, only taller, with more waterfalls, and sheerer cliff drops.  And SO green.  Most of the hike was along a river that ran down from a pool that formed at the base of the glacier, and it was just lovely.  The hike was moderately challenging, and had a lot of variation in the scenery that we were able to get close to.  I really can’t wait to add photos to this post, because it was just amazing.

It took us about 45 minutes to hike to the pool beneath the glacier, with a fairly solid gain in elevation, and then about 30 minutes back to the beginning of the trail.  We were SOAKED.  Both fortunately and unfortunately, we were some of the more fit and hale folks in our tour, so we had a bit of time to kill before we headed back.  Luckily, there were pastries and warm beverages.  When we got back to the ship, we made a beeline for the hot tubs, which felt almost painfully hot after as cold as we had been.

The evening was also great, because after dinner we went up to the lounge on the 15^th floor and watched the scenery go by (sunset was at 11:24 PM) for a few hours.  The fjords are really, really neat to sail through.

Tomorrow, we’re in Geiranger, Norway!

Stavanger, Norway

First stop on the Norway cruise is Stavanger, Norway – a city that Troy has consistently referred to as ‘Strat-Avenger’ (which is hard to unhear, once he’s said it a few times).  Our excursion, to an iron farm and the national petroleum museum started at 11:45 and we arrived at around 7:30 AM – plenty of time to head out early and explore, in advance of our excursion.

Well, it would have been anyway, had we not slept in until 11:15.  Let me just say in our defense, our cabin is really, really dark.  And we lost an hour switching time zones.  And we didn’t have an alarm set (or an easily accessible clock).  Also, I’m tired, and Valerian left me with a lot of questions the night before.  It’s a thing.

So, ripped from the headlines (i.e. ‘The Princess Patter’), Stavanger’s clear skies and mild climate are sure to put a song in our hearts.  It is believed to hold Europe’s largest collection of wooden buildings, and we can hear the music of the land that has been sung since the 13^th century [end quote].

After a hurried breakfast of pizza, we met up with our tour group and headed to our first stop, which was at a monument constructed to honor the unification of Norway, which, according to our tour guide, was done for love.  You know the story – guy loves girl, girl feels like guy has less status than the other royal families in Europe, guy pledges to unite the 13 or so Norwegian states to prove his love.  Anyway, the monument was three giant swords, plunged into the beach.  Photos to come :)

The iron age farm (Jernaldegarden) was a bit underwhelming.  Squatly placed in the shadow of three apartment buildings (possibly college dorms), we saw two buildings that had been reconstructed from the iron age.  We were met by a docent dressed in 13^th century fashion, which led us to believe that he might also share some iron age knowledge.  Instead, he helped us to file into one of the buildings and never really said anything while we waited for something to happen.  Nothing really did.  We sat for a while and then filed out.

The next stop was much cooler – it was an abandoned telecommunications tower that we could climb up part of to get a sense of the countryside.  Great views, despite some blustery weather and low-lying clouds.

Our final stop was at the national petroleum museum.  Clearly, Norway has made some money through petroleum, as this was a very well-constructed, interactive, interesting museum (I will admit to not having especially defined expectations).  Lots of stuff to play with, lots of cool exhibits and models and whatnot.  Apparently, the petroleum industry employs about 13% of Norwegians, and a huge amount of the revenue from the industry goes straight to the country via taxes.  Norway has then used ~4% of that revenue per year to enrich the citizens (infrastructure projects, educational system, etc.).

After our excursion, we got some lunch and went to trivia.  Our winning friends found us again, and asked if we wanted to join them.  We did, but unfortunately our collective wisdom did not carry the day.  We got 15/20, which still feels pretty respectable.  The rest of the evening was more or less uneventful – dinner was good, drinks and live music were good, and despite sleeping a lot already, we called it a relatively early night.

Tomorrow, we’re hiking to a glacier in Olden!

Day at Sea the First

I think that this is the first time that our cruise has both started and ended with a day at sea, which is pretty great from a rest and relaxation standpoint.  The weather was cool and kind of blustery, but pleasant to be outside in for a bit.

We started the day with morning trivia, which we, despite excellent collaboration and our award-winning strategy of relying mostly on Troy’s gut rather than mine, did not emerge from victorious.  

My big plan for post-trivia was to go hunker down in the Sanctuary, which is a super sweet, adult-only quiet place on the top deck with big comfy lounge couches etc.  Unfortunately, my plans were cruelly thwarted.  Princess now charges you to access this space ($20/half day), which isn’t that much, but I’m opposed to on principle (it was free, and my favorite spot, on our Japan cruise).  Harumph.  So we read outside for a while anyway.

I participated in “Speed Watercolors,” in which everyone was given exactly five minutes to paint whatever they cared to.  I tried to use too many colors, and was unable to finish my painting as a result.  It’s currently living in our cabin closet, and will probably not be making the journey back stateside with us.

Afternoon trivia was better for us – we were adopted by the older couple who had carried their team to victory in the morning (they always seem to find Troy).  Apparently, they cruise several times per month, and may actually be the people on this ship who have spent the most time at sea (I don’t fully understand cruise ship status yet).  We were ultimately victorious at trivia, and scored some sweet Princess water bottles.

It was our first of two formal nights, so we got ready and headed off to that.  We were seated next to two other Americans (we’re a really solid minority on this cruise – seems like it’s almost exclusively British folks), and the gentleman actually went to Wake… small world.  After dinner we saw Princess’ show “Bravo,” which was described to us as operatic pop.  It was kind of pop, and also kind of opera, but never at the same time.  Definitely worth doing, but there were some solidly weird dances happening behind the singers.

We ended the evening with live music and then watched Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets.  It was an entertaining movie, but wow was there a lot going on, and a lot that didn’t really make sense.  Oh well!

Tomorrow we dock in Stavanger, Norway!

Southampton, UK

Good news, all!  Despite not blogging about it yesterday, we did manage to make it from London to our cruise ship, with basically no problems at all.  We had such faith in ourselves leading in to that journey, that we opted to sleep in and get a nice breakfast at one of the cafes near our hotel, and our faith (mostly in the state of public transportation) was totally justified.  From London Paddington, we took a 25-minute ride to Reading, then switched trains to get on a 40-something minute train to Southampton.  From there, it was a quick 6 GBP cab ride, and we were at the cruise terminal.

Now, as you may have guessed, from my description of our travel philosophy, I didn’t opt to print out luggage tags ahead of time (for some reason, I thought that Princess would email those to us, and when they didn’t, I assumed that it wouldn’t be a big deal).  I also neglected to print out any of our cruise confirmations or ticketing information (in retrospect, that would probably have been an okay thing to have done).  So, as you might imagine, I had a last-minute worry or two during our brief cab ride to the terminal.

But, my key takeaway was that I shouldn’t have even spent those 6 minutes worrying about it, because Princess has the embarkation process down pat, especially if you’ve already hooked your credit card to your account (which, I had done, because it’s the next screen after they take your passport information when you book the cruise).  We met a nice gentleman who wrote out luggage tags for us, went upstairs to wait in line for a few minutes, checked in next to a woman from Durham NC, and went through security, all in approximately 15 minutes.  Despite us showing up around an hour earlier than our assigned check-in time, our cabin was ready to go, and we had an hour and a half to kill before our muster safety drill.  So, check plus to Princess for embarkation :)

Our muster station was in the casino, and weirdly not very packed.  This ship doesn’t feel totally full, which is nice (I have yet to really get a feel for how many people are on board, but so far, there seems to be plenty of space.  On a second weird note, the muster drill was set to music, and that was… um… new and interesting (and also kind of awful).  Now we know.

Post-muster, we read/napped/walked around/read/drank a martini for a few hours.  Troy did discover that we have earned cruise “status” – we’re in the gold captain’s circle, which signifies that we have taken at least one (1) cruise with Princess before.  It entitles us to gold stateroom keys and a gold pin.  I believe that ends the associated “perks.”

Dinner in the dining room was pleasant – we sat with a father/daughter/son-in-law trio, and two other couples cruising together.  Everyone else was from the UK, and everyone had cruised before.  The food was good overall – I had enriched broth soup with tortellini, a cheese and leek tart, and crème brule, while Troy had a salad, prime rib, and a sundae.  Safe to say, we’ll be doing the dining room a fair bit.  Evening activities included checking out a few of the live bands/entertainers, one of which we enjoyed pretty well (the other was doing loud ABBA hits, and I guess it wasn’t quite what we were feeling last night).

Sunday is our first of two days at sea!  Just think of all the trivia :)

London! Day Two :)

Only 8.91 miles today - but SO many of those were stairs.

Today we had a leisurely morning and got Tube passes, with an initial destination of Westminster Abbey.  Unfortunately, the Abbey is closed on Fridays (possibly the downside of our commitment to the "First we show up, then we see what happens" travel philosophy), so we were unable to enter, but we did wander around the outside for a while.  From there, we opted to cross the river and make our way down to Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

First stop, lunch.  Second stop, photo op with the 94% covered in scaffolding Big Ben.  Third stop, London Eye.  Lunch was great, Big Ben was basically as expected, and the London Eye was stupid expensive for one circle around the Ferris Wheel, crowded into a capsule with your husband and 23 of your closest tourists - so we viewed it from afar and felt good about that decision.  We did make it to the Globe, but apparently tours only go through about noon, so, armed with that knowledge, we'll probably return next weekend, post-cruise.

Two strikes to our travel philosophy (which, coincidentally, was also Napoleon's battle plan), so we crossed back to the other side of the river and went to St. Paul's Cathedral.  Now, I did St. Paul's roughly two decades ago with my dad and other members of our family.  The first time, my grandmother and I stayed on the ground floor, instead of making the climb up the 528 stairs to the top viewing area.  I was upset (the fear of missing out was strong in 4th grade), so my dad and I went back the next day and climbed to the top.  I remember it being easier than it was today to climb up 528 stairs.  Ah, youth.  That said, I think that St. Paul's has done an awesome job putting together interactive, self-guided tour experiences.  Really, really good resources.

After St. Paul's, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and a show.  Dinner was good, and then we went to see Aladdin, which was so much fun!  Lots of great sets, lots of great costumes, and the Genie was awesome!  Definitely a great way to spend the evening, and they even came out at intermission with Haagen Daz, which is a pretty sure way to my heart.

Tomorrow we're off to Southampton to catch our cruise!  Super excited about that! Out internet is currently pretty awful, so I'll add some photos next time we have a more reliable connection.  Troy's color commentary on the day is below.

From Troy:

London by the numbers…

NUMBER OF BANNERS OUTSIDE OF PARLIAMENT LABELING THE ETERNAL BREXIT PROTEST SITE: 3
NUMBER OF PROTESTERS: 2
NUMBER OF PROTESTERS THEY WERE GOING TO NEED TO GET THOSE THREE BANNERS UP AND STRAIGHT AGAIN: Far, far more than 2.
NUMBER OF TIMES I HAVE SALUTED A TRASH CAN LABELED "GENERAL WASTE": All of them
NUMBER OF STEPS TO GET TO THE TOP OF ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL: 528

A SCENE FROM 1675:
CHARLES II: I do say, Sir Christopher Wren, the construction of this cathedral is coming along quite well.
CHRISTOPHER WREN: Thanks, current King of England!
C2: The colonization of the New World is also going quite well at this moment, but it occurs to me that, should things change at some point in the future, we might want to have a spot to hide from the Americans.
CW: Something with 528 stairs, perhaps?
C2: And tight spaces.

And scene. Much better than the stick fighting demonstration going on outside the Globe Theater, which would have been told to wrap it up if they were a part of a high school talent show and yet they were inexplicably allowed to defile that place for that amount of time.

Still enjoying London and noting that the Brits have to be the shrewdest monument makers I’ve ever seen. My current heroes are the 20 geniuses who went in together on a bench simply reading “To my love on the occasion of her sixtieth” and the architect of the Emmeline Pankhurst memorial who just tagged on a note saying “Oh, yeah, and Christabel, she’s… uh… she’s honored by the pillars.”

London!

*Insert thoroughly British opening that John Oliver would mock in "And Now, This."

We made it!  Guys, the travel was so easy!  And I can say that, having given basically zero thought to the logistics for this trip post-flight purchase.  Yesterday, we flew from Charlotte to Philadelphia, had a better-than-par dinner at a Mediterranean place at PHL, and made it to our gate with plenty of time to spare.  

Not a great picture, but we're on our way!

We did end up sitting on the runway for an hour or so, due to PHL congestion, but it gave me time to watch A Wrinkle in Time (in 8-10 minute increments, around departure "updates" from our captain).  The flight was smooth, Troy and I both slept at least a little, and we touched down at Heathrow around 9:45 AM.  Even customs was easy!  We bought fast train tickets from the guy selling them at the bottom of the escalator, walked onto the train, and made it to our stop approximately 15 minutes later, from which our hotel is about a block away, and we were able to check in when we arrived.

We're staying near Paddington Station, so after cleaning up a bit, we decided to explore Kensington Park/Palace, Hyde Park, and then head over to Buckingham Palace.  Really, this was a bid to keep us out of our hotel room and walking around, so that we didn't fall asleep for six hours and throw off our internal clocks even more.  With that as our established mission, Success!

Kensington Palace, across the pond

We ended up doing a big chunk of the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk, which, combined with the destinations listed earlier, led us to walk more than ten miles in around three and a half hours.  The weather was gorgeous and breezy, and the parks were very pleasant, though I do have a few lessons learned.  Lesson learned the first: if you start the walk by saying, "I'll probably regret wearing flip flops," stop and change your shoes.  Lesson learned the second: overcast and breezy does not exclude sunburns for me (though it does for Troy, so he has different lessons learned - go figure).  But, the parks and gardens were lovely, and Buckingham Palace is very... stately.

I will note that we went into the Buckingham Palace gift shop (though it's called something classier than that).  I was... um... underwhelmed by some of the "official" royal wedding gear/new royal baby designs.  I did consider purchasing some royal monogram seersucker pajamas for #babyboynoyes, but the smallest available size was 4-5 years, and #babyboynoyes may have pajama preferences by then.  Who can say? 

Made it to Buckingham Palace! (aka, last stop before down time)

Ultimately, we did come back to the hotel for a mid-length nap before dinner.  Obviously, we went to a British pub for dinner, and equally obviously, ate meat pies and fish and chips.  Real talk - it was a pretty much perfect way to end our transition day.  Now we're back and planning for tomorrow, which will likely include several of the attractions along the Thames, and maybe a show tomorrow night.  Troy is pushing for the puppet theater river cruise... we'll see.  

More tomorrow!

London and Norway!

T-minus eight-ish hours to vacation!

We're off to London for a few days, and then on Saturday we're sailing on the Sapphire Princess to Norway!!!

As of this moment, we have nothing planned.  No excursions, no activities, no list of things to do (I mean, other than the list of things to do for work and to get ready to leave).  We're taking the "first we show up.  Then we see what happens" approach.  It's my favorite approach, during times of limited mental energy (or when I've had four work trips in four states in the last eight days, all with flights taking off at o'thunderstorm-thirty).

So now, off to get ready (do work, buy books, buy snacks, pack some stuff).

$1 = .75 GBP

$1 = 8.02 Norwegian Krone