Tuesday

It’s good to be back in Québec City again. We always liked it. And we lucked out. Cold, yes. Snow, no. It was dry for all the time we were off the ship. The most recognizable site in Québec is of the Chateau Frontenac Hotel. Elaine and I stayed there one year on a road trip vacation to Montreal, Québec, and the Gaspé Peninsula. Here’s a view of it from this morning.

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Our tour wasn’t until 9:15, so I took a few snaps of artwork around the ship as well

Having already done Québec several times, we wanted a tour that did something different. So we were off on a bus to the Musée Huron-Wendat, the local First Nation people. They have a very nice presentation on the history of the Huron-Wendat.

Then you get to visit an authentic tribal Long House and see what life was like in them. Fires burned 24 hours a day in the long houses and they were burning when we entered. The fires were the only light, a fact which explains the reddish color in the photos. They used long poles to open vents in the top a few times at night to let out the smoke which made breathing in the house difficult and greatly shortened life spans. They could not vent them more often because the smoke would alert enemies to their location. The long houses were completely surrounded by fences for protection. And they rarely stayed for long periods in one long house, moving about frequently.

Very nearby is the Kabir Kouba Waterfall. It’s nothing as dramatic and magnificent as Montmorency Falls which are higher than Niagara and within easy driving distance, but it’s a nice site just the same. We’ve been to Montmorency Falls before. Here is Kabir Kouba:

Then it was back to the ship which is docked very close to old Québec, so instead of reboarding, we set out on foot to Place Royale in the heart of old Quebec. We had a nice walkabout around old town.

We had lunch in the Pub La Borgia, a nifty bar right at the foot of the funicular. I had wicked good Soupe à l’Oignon and some tasty Ailes de Volaille (chicken wings) Elaine had a delicious Croque Monsieur with a salad. And we both had local bières (beer).

We didn’t go up the funicular to the Chateau Frontenac. Been there, done that. We did stop and buy a “Canada Is Not For Sale” tee shirt. After our walkabout we headed back to the ship for rest. relaxation, reading, naps, cocktails, dinner, and after dinner drinks. And bed. We sailed at midnight as we slept. Back tomorrow.

Monday

After yesterday’s wind, ice, and snow, we awoke this morning to beautiful sunshine. But it is still COLD. It was 28º this morning. By later in the day the Captain had opened all the outside decks again. Not much to report today. And not many pictures. It was beautiful outside as we settled down to read in the same spot as yesterday.

My sister asked why the fireplace wasn’t turned on in yesterday’s picture. Not sure; maybe that one was malfunctioning. They have those “fireplaces” all around on the ship, like the one in the picture below. They are not gas fires. In fact they are not fires at all, but water vapor fireplaces. It’s all done with electricity and water vapor and LED lights. You can connect them to a water line or fill them with water manually.

Cocktails were in the Living Room at 5:00 pm.

Bel was our server. She’s great doing selfies so she did a few for us. Note her great facial expressions.

Dinner was in Manfredi’s. Elaine had Caprese Salad while I had my usual Pasta e Fagioli (it’s so good!). Elaine had a pork chop; I had the Bistecca Florentine. In the picture it may look burnt. It isn’t! It nicely charred and red on the inside – cooked perfectly rare. We skipped desserts.

Tonight we enter the St Lawrence River. This will be third (maybe fourth?) cruise on the St Lawrence. The previous ones were going up from Montreal towards Europe. This will be the first one down river. We’ll be stopping in Québec City tomorrow (snow predicted!) and then Trois-Rivieres on Wednesday. We’ve been to both cities on cruises and on driving vacations. (I actually skied at Mont-Sainte-Anne near Québec City way back in 1963 when I used to visit Québec for the Winter Carnival.) After Trois-Rivieres we will have a river/locks/lake day with no stops. We’ll go right through Montreal and then enter a series of five locks that will take us onto Lake Ontario. We disembark on Friday in Toronto.

Be back tomorrow with a snow report from Québec.

Sunday

First off, here’s a map of our cruise route except there is one correction – our cruise stopped in Halifax, not in Lunenburg:

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So today we are supposed to be anchored at Cap-Aux-Meules Island in L’Îles de la Madelaine, Quebec. Alas, it was not meant to be. We awoke to still fairly smooth seas but 25-35 knot winds and icy snow. Not good for anchoring. Definitely not good for tendering. So, port call cancelled. Today we will be comfortable at sea instead of freezing on a tour that was supposed to include a stop at a lighthouse, an oyster farm (with free samples), and a winery (again with free samples). Le Barbocheux Artisanal winery would have been interesting. It’s bagosse variety is often called the beer of the Islands, but it is really a traditional home-brewed wine.

This is what it looks like at our suite garden area, shared with three other explorer suites (click to enlarge to really see the snow):

So we spent the day on board eating, drinking, napping, reading, and watching the weather. The outside decks are closed because of the weather, but it’s comfy inside and the seas are not rough at all. I will finish my book today and start a new one. Here’s where we spent much of the day:

Someone asked in a comment how far out to see we cruised between ports. I can’t answer exactly, but we are far enough out to be in international waters and far enough out so that there is normally no land in sight. International waters is important for cruise ships selling booze and gifts on board. It’s also important on most ships for on-board casinos, but Viking has no casinos. When in Canada on the St. Lawrence River, a cruise ship is only allowed to have one bar open on each deck. That’s not a big deal for a small ship like Viking (with just 378 passengers).

We had burgers and fries for lunch at The Grill in the World Cafe. Dinner tonight was also in the World Cafe.

Back again tomorrow which will be a planned sea/river day as we enter the St. Lawrence River and head toward Quebec City.

Saturday

My sister made the 2,000.th comment! Thank you all for your comments and your interest in the blog. We anchored early this morning at Cape Breton Island in northern Nova Scotia. Once again, we are the first cruise ship of the season and the locals are happy to see us as we are a a sign that summer is coming. But it certainly isn’t summer today. It’s cold. 32º predicted high. And there is a scattering of snow on the ground. At least it’s dry. Mostly cloudy was the odd trace of sun.

Most of the excursions from the ship are to the Fortress of Louisbourg. That’s as it should be since it is a major attraction. But Elaine and I have done that. Yes, it was back in like 1985 when we took our first ever vacation together to Nova Scotia via the overnight ferry from Portland to Halifax. We spent 10 days driving around and visited Cape Breton Island and the Fortress of Louisbourg. It was impressive, but I suspect it hasn’t changed much. So instead we did the excursion to Historic Sydney. The guide, a local and former school teacher, was wonderful with a great sense of humor.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

Our bus journeyed around the Sydney area and made two stops. First stop was at a delightful little museum, the Whitney Pier Historical Museum. It’s off season, so the museum isn’t open yet, but they opened just for us! Basically, it’s just two floors of artifacts donated by residents from their lives on Cape Breton Island. There are a bunch of volunteer docents who were incredibly knowledgeable and friendly. And there were (free) delicious home-baked Scottish oak biscuits. As you can see from the photos, they are proud of their multi-culturalism.

Another short drive and we were at the very small Historic Fort Petrie Military Museum. It too opened just for us, and the curator was welcoming and wonderful. We had a nice time chatting with him.

Then it was back to the ship. It cleared up a bit and I got a few pictures of the lighthouse and the area near where we were anchored. The lighthouse is the second oldest in North America. The oldest is on Brewster Island in Boston.

Dinner was in the Restaurant. We both had Indian Tomato Soup (very good!). I had Dover Sole. I forget what Elaine’s main was. She had cheeses for dessert while I had Chocolate Decadence. The sun came out brightly before dinner and I got some nice pictures as we set sail for Cap-Aux-Meules, Quebec.

Friday

So yesterday we’re checking the weather in Halifax and find out it’s snowing. Not a good sign. We arrived at 7:00 am. It was cloudy but dry and the inch or so of snow they got had melted. By the time we got off the ship, it remained mostly cloudy, but there was a fair amount of sun as well. It was nice in the sun. The temperature only got up to about 52º. We are docked right near the center of town, but our balcony looks out the other direction and we see this ligthhouse. Quiz question: What residents of Halifax known as? Halifaxers? Halifaxians? Or something else? Answer below somewhere.

After breakfast we donned warm clothing and our special expedition-ship life vests for an hour foray on one of the two “special operations boats” on board. It’s hard to describe the whole experience, but here a uTube video of one of the boats on the Viking Octanis, Viking’s first expedition ship. Polaris, our ship, is the second.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

It was cold out there, and for wildlife we only saw a lot of ducks and loons and geese, but it was fun. There are a lot of huge expensive homes along the shoreline. The stone tower you see is in Sir Sandford Fleming Park. It is also known as Dingle Park or simply The Dingle, named after the town of Dingle in southwestern Ireland How appropriate! We’ll be in Dingle in just five weeks. Here are my pictures:

After our short ride we reboarded Polaris, dumped our life vests, and headed out on foot. We just stayed along the Halifax Harbourwalk which is very nice, but lots of stuff wasn’t open yet as it is very early in the season. In fact, Polaris is the first cruise ship of the year to dock in Halifax. There was a TV news crew filming about that fact, and I got interviewed. So if you happened to be watching local Halifax news on TV on Friday, you might have seen me. Fact learned on the walk: Samuel Cunard who founded Cunard Lines was from Halifax. So, the quiz answer is that he was a Haligonian. Pictures from along the walk below. See the lighthouse in the gap of the stone statue? That’s Sammy Cunard in the last picture.

We had a great lunch at Sea Smoke, a nice restaurant right on the Harbourwalk. It was nice enough to sit outside where we had our own fire pit. The local beer we had was called Frig Off East Coast IPA by Nine Locks Brewing Company. I had six yummy oysters and then fried calamari and fries. Elaine had fish and chips. Good lunch!

Then it was back to the ship for rest and relaxation prior to the daily happy hour with John and Donna. Tonight it was in the Living Room Bar and we later adjourned to dinner in the World Cafe. At 7 pm we sail for Cape Breton, further north in Nova Scotia, where we will be tomorrow.

Until then! Oh, by the way, the next comment made will be the 2,000th comment on the blog. Who will it be?

Thursday

Still at sea. Yesterday was sunny and cool. Today was rainy, windy, and cold. But the seas are smooth and we are trucking right along. We waved at Massachusetts today. We couldn’t see it as we’re too far out to sea. By the way, yesterday’s post was the 600th post of this travel blog (not counting our older original travel blog located here which had another 150 or so posts ending in 2013.) Who knew it (or we) would be around this long!

Quiet day. We had a nice lunch in the World Cafe at the grill station – very good cheeseburgers (mine with bacon) and French fries. French rosé wine to drink. We read a bit. And we attended a lecture on North American Predators focusing on wolves, coyotes, and black bears. Some pics including a bad selfie.

Dinner tonight was in Manfredi’s, the Italian specialty restaurant on board. I had pasta e fagioli again (best soup ever!) and seafood stew (with mussels, clams, fish, and a big langoustine). Elaine had mushroom risotto as her main. Wine was a French Cotes du Rhone. Gelato for dessert for me. Elaine’s dessert was better looking, whatever it was – I forget.

Pictures in our cabin including the tv showing the bridge cam.

A picture of our ship during its Antarctica cruise:

Tomorrow we land in Halifax. Back then.

Wednesday

We’re back at sea en route to Halifax, Nova Scotia where we will arrive on Friday morning. It’s interesting that Viking picked Charleston and Norfolk as the two ports in the USA to visit, bypassing New York, Boston, Portland, Bangor, et. al. Good for us though as we got our first visits ever to Charleston and Norfolk, and we very much enjoyed both. After Elaine moved to Boston back in 1983, Nova Scotia was the first vacation destination for us a couple. We drove to Portland and took the overnight ferry from there to Halifax and spent a 10 days driving around the island. We’ve been back to Halifax at least twice (maybe three times) on trans-Atlantic cruises on Oceania and Princess. But anyway, we’ll be at sea today and tomorrow.

We attended two presentations today. The first was about bird watching and reporting your finds to an app called eBird. Birders we are not, but it was interesting nonetheless. The second was a film called “Secrets of the Civil War” from the National Geographic Society. Remember learning about the Monitor and the Merrimac.in school? The Monitor was featured in this presentation. The basis of the films, one of a series, is about technology that lets one drain the oceans to see the state of the wrecks and provide theories about exactly what happened. The land battles of the American Civil War are well known, but it’s the war on the seas that shaped the outcome of the war. Maritime archaeologists and historians go in search of Civil War secrets, hidden deep underwater. Scientific data combines with computer graphics to drain the oceans to investigate the lost wrecks of the war. You can see the same series on Disney+, Hulu, and, I think, uTube. It’s very interesting. (On uTube here.)

Lunch was in the World Cafe. I had Chinese pepper steaks while Elaine had delicious calamari fritters. We both had beer.

Dinner tonight was in the Restaurant.

Random Pictures:

I found the picture of the Pig served in the World Cafe buffet. It was on my phone.

Better pictures of the sunset the other night. They were also on my phone.

Random shots of artwork around the ship: The first two are in our cabin.

Random shots from dinner last night:

Back tomorrow for another sea day. Cheers!

Tuesday

We are the girls from Norfolk
We Don’t Drink
Nor Smoke
Nor . . . .
OK, use your imagination. Our old friend Ed Wrenn (RIP) used to live here and often sang those words.

Cloudy morning, but quickly cleared to a beautiful sunny day. Temperature was 81 yesterday here, 62 today. Great day for walking about. So we did. We were booked for an afternoon “Panoramic Norfolk” bus tour, but we skipped it. We headed out on foot at about 8:15 am after breakfast and didn’t get back to the ship until after 3:00.

Views from the World Cafe while eating breakfast:

Our ship is docked right in downtown Norfolk. And it is right next to the USS Wisconsin, a Navy battleship that is now part of the Nauticus Museum Complex.

The museum and battleship didn’t open until 10:00 am, so we walked a bit and stopped in a Starbucks for a hot chocolate for me and a chai latte for Elaine. Then we walked to the MacArthur Monument and Museum. Yes, Douglas MacArthur is big news here and is buried at the Monument with his wife (second one). The museum and monument are very interesting and we spent a couple of hours poking about. Lots of pictures. Fascinating place!

Then we headed back to the Battleship Wisconsin. We stopped twice. First to walk through a somewhat boring market area (Selden Market) that is undergoing a rebirth. In that market there was a delightful exhibit of children’s artwork that was quite remarkably good as seen in the following pictures. (Hey Dee, the first picture is of a hat designed by kids that would be perfect for you for the Derby!)

Then we stopped at the Stockpot for lunch in the Selden Market. Great spot! I had spicy Vindaloo soup and a turkey on pita with chipotle. Elaine had the “best falafel I ever had”. Suitably nourished, we made it to the Nauticus Museum, a maritime museum with lots of interactive exhibits, and to the attached Battleship Wisconsin. Great view of Viking Polaris from the deck of the Wisconsin.

Some random views of Norfolk. Norfolk is home to the world’s largest naval base (no pictures). It is also the city of mermaids. The building in the last picture below is the Public Library.

Cocktail hour drinks tonight were in the Aquavit Lounge, aft on the ship near the small indoor/outdoor pool – warm water indoor (Tepidarium) and cold water outdoor (Frigidarium). As we drank, we set sail for two sea days before landing again in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Great sunset. Dinner was in the World Cafe Grill where I had swordfish and Elaine had shrimp skewers. After dinner drinks back in the Explorer’s Lounge. I went to bed when the discussion turned political. Pictures include some views of the Naval Base as we sailed by.

Be back tomorrow with a much more boring but highly enjoyable sea day (first of two).

Monday

First off, I added a couple of pictures and some commentary to the end of yesterday’s post. You can scroll down and read (if you want).

Monday is a day at sea en route to Norfolk, Virginia, our next stop. There won’t be anything exciting to report other than drinks, food, and maybe some ship pictures.

I didn’t like the book I was reading – Fake History – so i reshelved it and am now reading: Slow Trains Around Spain. I love reading travel books. By the way, the first of the ten great lies from Fake History was how Churchill, in addition to being a wartime hero, was also a bigoted jerk. The story was good, but I hated the author’s style.

Lunch in the World Cafe. Here’s a look at some of the stations in the Cafe. There is (unpictured) also a sushi station and a Grill station for steaks and lobster. I had carvings of dark meat off a big turkey. And (amazingly) just Coke Zero to drink. Yesterday we watched them putting a huge whole pig in the oven at breakfast. By lunch the pig’s head was staring out at as where the turkey was today.

We read for awhile in one of the lounges. Some people just slept. This is NOT us.

Cocktails in the Living Room. Dinner in Manfredi’s

That’s not the exact menu we had, but it’s close. Pasta e Fagioli for me followed by that Bistecca Florentina on the menu and gelato for dessert. Elaine had the calamari and a delicious pork chop. The wine from Burgandy was wonderful.

Then it was to the Explorer’s Lounge for after dinner drinks, music, and camaraderie. And, finally, bed. We’re glad it was a sea day because it rained, heavily at times, all day. There were tornado warnings in SC and NC, but we saw no sign of any as we passed by. The forecast for Norfolk tomorrow looks good. It was 81º there today but only 63º predicted tomorrow under sunny skies.