For no particular reason, here’s a picture of one of my favorite photographs posted on a wall on Saturn. Alas, the reflection from the windows on the glass take away from the beauty.

Today we are docked in Rosyth, a rather industrial port area and former naval base, about 30 minutes from Edinburgh. Oddly enough, Viking did not offer an excursion that goes into Edinburgh proper, a lovely place to visit. Having been there five or six times, we wouldn’t have taken that excursion even had it been offered. One reason for not offering an excursion there today is perhaps because it is Edinburgh Marathon Day and the city would have a slew of road closures.

Instead we picked an excursion to Linlithgow Palace and town. Alas, we finally hit a morning of heavy rain. An umbrella covered bag piper greeted as we disembarked the ship. Linlithgow Palace is a ruin – no roofs! No protection from the rain. We braved the brief foot tour of the Palace and then chose to chill in the bus rather than walk through a rainy town on Sunday morning when most everything was closed anyway. The Palace has a royal history (that will be of little interest to royal disparaging Mianne) and was home to Scottish Kings and Queens of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots (Queen from the age of 6 days old). But it has been a ruin for a long time and is only very slowly getting restored. The restored chapel is a popular place for weddings. We saw what we could while getting very wet. (Find wet Elaine in her blue raincoat – twice.)

We did get to cross the Firth of Forth bridges on the way to Linlithgow. The new one is a magnificent structure, but I couldn’t get a good picture from the bus. Here’s one from the internet that shows the old bridge (which we crossed going to Linlithgow), the new one (which we crossed going back), and the railroad bridge at the top.

We were back at the ship by 12:30. Our other choice for sightseeing would have been the shuttle bus into close-by Dunfernline (which has its own abbey). It had stopped raining but the skies still looked threatening and we opted to stay aboard ship. Good move because is was pouring again later in the afternoon. Dinner tonight was in the reservations-only Manfredi’s Italian restaurant. We ate their once before earlier on the cruise. They offer a very good Italian style ribeye steak. Elaine had the blackened pork chop. Yum. We ate as we sailed out of Rosyth under the Firth of Force bridges. We also passed by Cunard Lines’ newest ship, just christened recently, the Queen Anne. It joins the QE2, the QM2 and the Victoria in Cunard’s fleet.

The sail out of Lerwick last night was under bright sunny skies. These were taken at cocktail hour as we set sail:

And on Saturday morning we anchored off Kirkwell in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. It was cool (48º) and overcast. We are in port with Ambassador Lines Ambiance. Ambassador is a new UK based cruise line with just two ships so far. The Ambiance holds 1,400 passengers to our 928. After breakfast and once anchored with the help of the port Pilot, we tendered into port and boarded our bus for our introductory tour. The tour guide told us we were actually lucky because for the past two days her tours had seen nothing but the road five feet in front of them because of thick heavy fog. So, count our blessings. We saw more than that. Lots of cows on Orkney, famous for its cheddar cheese.

First stop on our tour was at the Ring of Brodgar. Everyone knows about Stonehenge. The Ring of Brodgar is even older. There’s been limited archaeological investigations at the Ring of Brodgar, so we don’t know its age for sure. In the absence of scientific dates, our best guess is that the main ring was constructed sometime between 2600 and 2400 BC. The surrounding burial mounds and stone setting likely date from between 2500 and 1500 BC. The Ring may have been involved in ceremonies celebrating the relationship between living and past communities. It’s also been suggested that the sites in the surrounding area were used for observations of the moon from the Ring of Brodgar, though there’s scant evidence for the activities Neolithic people did at the site, or why. It’s easy to see why Orkney’s Neolithic inhabitants might have set up a ceremonial circle on this spot – surrounded by hills and lochs, the site has a truly spectacular setting. Standing in its centre gives the sense of being in a natural amphitheater. Unusually, the ring has a truly circular layout. Of the original 60 stones, 36 survive, ranging between 2.1m to 4.7m tall. The stone circle has a diameter of 104m, and is encircled by a rock-cut ditch, or henge, measuring 136m across, making it one of the largest and finest stone circles in the British isles.

Next we stopped in Stromness (formerly Hamnavoe) located on an inlet of the Scapa Flow, We had a nice walkabout before reboarding the bus back to the ship.

You’ve got to love the variety of flowers we saw growing down just one little alleyway.

Lunch was on the ship, and we left port earlier than normal at 4:00 pm. The pilot was back on board for the departure and we sailed once the last tender had been uploaded to its berth. We are winding down now. We stop in Rosyth (near Edinburgh) tomorrow, have a sea day on Monday, dock in Greenwich (near London) on Tuesday, and disembark on Wednesday.

To prove we’ve crossed the Artic Circle, we have Viking issued certificates. We have on previous cruises been to Iceland, Nuuk in Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, but those are all just below the Artic Circle.

Dinner last night was in the Restaurant. We enjoyed the meal and a nice discussion with a couple from Taiwan who sat at the next table. Pictures of the appetizers and of us. The Caesar Salad with extra anchovies was great. Like the bolo tie effect?

We arrived at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands at about 7 AM this morning. Alas, Jimmy Perez, Tosh, and Billy were not there to meet us. They are three of the characters from the BBC series “Shetland” (based on Ann Cleeves books) that we have watched for eight seasons. Season nine is in production. It’s a great series and you can stream all eight seasons. I think maybe it is available via BritBox (which you can add as an option if you have Amazon Prime). We were greeted on the dock, however. I stayed away from Elaine with that axe in hand!

Anyway, it was a dreary and cloudy morning and that’s when our panoramic tour was, so the pictures are not great. We drove through downtown Lerwick and stopped at a couple of overlooks on the island. We saw Jimmy Perez’ house and the Police Station from the show. And we stopped at a Shetland Pony farm (ranch?). Besides Shetland ponies we saw cows, sheep, and golfers grazing about. Shetland has the UK’s northernmost golf course.

After returning to the ship, we took the shuttle bus into town and had a bit of a walkabout in Lerwick. Nice town. All our meals of late have been on board Saturn, so we decided to have lunch in town. We ate at No88 Kitchen and Bar, a pleasant little cafe/bar in the center of town. We both had very good Lerwick IPA and we both had delicious (best ever?) fish and chips. There are pictures of the beer but not of the food. The fork was quicker than the shutter finger. We bought souvenirs from the nice lady at the Puffin Republic store.

Then we returned to the ship. Later in the afternoon, the skies cleared and we had beautiful sunshine. Too late, unfortunately, for the picture taking sessions of the morning. But I snapped a couple from the stateroom balcony just to show you the difference.

Great pictures as we sailed out of Lerwick.

See y’all tomorrow.

Two sea days in a row. Good practice for our scheduled fall cruise when we wil have seven consecutive sea days between Dutch Harbor, Alaska and Sapporo, Japan. There was a mixture of sun and rain today. No big deal when you are at sea. And the weather is much warmer now as well. Today it was warm enough to sit outside and read when the sun was shining. The seas remain amazingly calm. You can hardly tell you are on a ship. No waves of note. No white caps.

On sea days you eat, you drink, you read, you nap. We did all those. We also watched a National Geographic film in one of the small cinemas about Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Endeavor journey to the South Pole. They never made it. The ship got trapped in ice and eventually destroyed. Amazingly enough, everyone on board was eventually rescued after Shackleton, ship Captan Frank Worsley, and Seaman Tom Crean took an agonizingly long journey in a lifeboat through the icy seas to get to South Georgia Island and its whaling station. Meanwhile the rest of his crew (22 men) remained stranded on perilous Elephant Island. A rescue mission sailed from South Georgia and everyone was saved after well over a year trapped in the ice. Tom Crean, you may remember, was a resident of Anascual on the Dingle Peninsula. We have oft visited the South Pole Inn that he established and ran in Anascual, and we have visited his grave located nearby the inn.

The ship has other activities and entertainment as well. There is some kind of show every night, but we usually skip them. There are trivia and “name that tune” competitions. We’ve participated a few times. There is an afternoon tea every day in the Winter Garden. Tonight there is a special “fish and chips” get together in the pool area. There is a lecture or two every day on some aspect of history related to the area.

Here are some random pictures around the ship that I took today. Note our “drinks package” magnet on the wall of our stateroom. It’s magnetized, and ship walls are steel, so magnets work. The sign is supposed to go on the outside of our stateroom door, but Viking’s steel room doors are coated with some not magnetic material, so it won’t stick there very well. (Best laid plans of . . . . .) See Elaine reading?

Back tomorrow from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. Who has watched the cable series called “Shetland”? Great show.

Our first of two consecutive sea days turned out to be bright and sunny. And, amazingly, the sea remains like a lake. After staying up until midnight, we slept in, arising at a late (for us) 8:00 am. After breakfast as usual we spent the day just relaxing here and there. I found a new book to read in the ship’s library – Stalin’s Romeo Spy. I’ll probably have to end up buying it on Amazon since it’s unlikely that I’ll finish it while on the ship.

Oslo/Norway Retrospective

Oslo is a delightful city. If they didn’t experience cold and snowy winters, it would be a wonderful place to live. It’s squeaky clean. The people are friendly. There is lots to do. The public transportation is great. Good restaurants (albeit expensive). It is pretty easy to understand why Norwegians are consistently rated amongst the happiest people in the world. Pretty much the same could be said for Bergen which has the advantage of being much smaller in size. Norwegians generally like their government despite extremely high taxes. And they don’t worry at all about health care costs as those are covered by the government.

Northern Norway is beautiful too. But the towns are much smaller and very isolated. And then there is the two months of never seeing the sun. Could you deal with that? I think it would be hard.

Now we are heading toward the British Isles. Tomorrow will be another sea day before we arrive on Friday in Lerwick on the Shetland Islands, part of the UK.

After cocktails in the Explorer Bar, we had dinner in the Open Table specialty restaurant. The concept there is that it is a fixed menu, no choices, based on a different theme each night. Reservations required. Our friends, Jim and Theresa, had reservations as well, but at a different time. We went together in their time slot, and the maître d’ arranged a table of four for us. The theme tonight was Korean.

Internet is very bad right now. See you tomorrow.

First off as I begin the 556th post on this blog, thank you all for reading and viewing everything we post. And thank you all for the comments. We read every one, but we don’t respond unless there is a question to be answered or something to be corrected. There have been 1,789 comments in all. Those numbers do not include posts and comments from our old travel blog which was discontinued in 2013 (but which remains on-line for posterity here).

We arrived in Honningsvåg at around 8:00 am this morning under partly cloudy skies and very cool temperatures. The highs for the day ended up being in the mid-30’s. After our usual nice breakfast in the World Cafe, we headed out into the cold for our bus trip from Honningsvåg to the Nordkapp (the North Cape). It was about a 45-minute ride. It was difficult to take pictures from the bus window because a) it was cramped quarters and b) the reflections from the windows. I managed one. we saw lots of reindeers grazing in the cold. The reindeer are owned by local Sámi farmers.

71º 10′ 21″

Then we arrived at Nordkapp. Now taking pictures was hard because it was freezing outside. But we persevered. Fantastic views. Latitude 71º 10′ 21″ – billed as the northernmost point in all of Europe. Actually it isn’t, because a small sliver of a peninsula that you can see from Nordkapp is actually slightly further north, but it can only be reached by a nine-hour hike. So 71º 10′ 21″ is the northernmost point in Europe that you can drive to and you can actually see the actual northernmost point. For two months a year the sun never sets here (including tonight). For two months a year the sun never rises. I suspect there are less tourists here then. The views from the cliffs are stunning.

In 1943, the Battle of the North Cape was fought in the Arctic Ocean off this cape, where the German battleship Scharnhorst was eventually sunk by gunfire from the British battleship HMS Duke of York and torpedoes from the Norwegian destroyer HNoMS Stord, and other ships of the British Navy.

The steep mountain cliff rises 307 meters above the Arctic Ocean, and marks the end point of the European continent. Nordkapphallen, the visitor center, has a rich variety of sights including a panoramic film that takes you on a journey through four seasons in a landscape full of contrasts, light and breathtaking scenery. There are dioramas of local birds that look pretty real. At the top level of the building center you will find a restaurant with stunning views of mountain plateau and endless ocean, a coffee shop and a bar. There is a chapel, a cave of lights (that wasn’t working properly), and a small Thai museum. (Weird?) And of course there is the obligatory (huge) gift shop. It’s quite a mélange.

The Globe Monument stands almost at the edge of the clifftop, this iconic sculpture has become a symbol of the North Cape and is one of the most photographed spots in Norway. See cold Elaine?

Then there is the Children of the World Monument. The sculpture features seven bronze discs based on clay reliefs made by seven children from different countries, symbolizing friendship, hope, joy, and working together. See me in the pictures – twice actually, one not very obvious?

Then it was back to the ship to warm up, rest up, drink up, and eat up. Tomorrow we leave Norway and will spend the next two days traversing the Barents Sea as we head to the Shetland Islands. So far the ocean has been like a lake. You’d hardly know you were sailing. We’ll see if that continues. Here are some pictures taken back at the dock. As we ate lunch the huge MSC Preziosa (3,500 passengers) docked next to us. Glad they all weren’t converging at the North Cape site when we were there. (See the avalanche/rockslide fences on the hillside?)

While shoving of at 6:00 pm to head to our next port, we met Jim and Theresa (from North Carolina) for drinks and then dinner and then after dinner drinks. As we dined, we passed by the North Cape (with the globe) that we had visited earlier in the day. It’s way up there on that cliff!

The Midnight Sun

This cruise is titled “Into the Midnight Sun”. So last night we stayed awake until midnight. Here is the picture from our room at the stroke of midnight. That’s the low point of the sun for the day and it will start rising again as we go to sleep. I’m not sure if that’s a ship way out there in the distance or an oil rig.

Be back tomorrow for the first of two consecutive sea days.

Wild weather day in Tromsø. Snowing briskly one minute. Sun shining the next. And repeat regularly. And it is cold. The high for the day was about 38º F. Today, by the way, is Whit Monday (Pentecost Monday), and it is a national holiday in Norway. Most everything except tourist oriented gift shops and restaurants were closed. Tromsø is a fairly large city, one of the largest above the Arctic Circle – population about 74,000. It is actually located on a small island connected by bridges on all sides.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures.

After a nice breakfast, we headed out on our 2½ hour “Panoramic Tromsø” bus tour. The first stop was at the Northern Lights Planetarium where we watched a show about the northern lights. It’s really rather amazing that they were seen in AZ just after we left for Norway. Now we are here and cannot see them because it’s the wrong time of year. Anyway, the planetarium was a fun experience. Photographs were not allowed in the planetarium. I considered cheating, but I didn’t. The view of the mountains outside was dramatic, and there is a ski jump nearby. The last picture is the planetarium building.

Next stop was at the Arctic Cathedral. Well, it’s called that but it is officially just an interdenominational church (Tromsdalen Church). But it is quite striking. We heard an organ recital while we were there. Note the dramatic bridge that we crossed to get there. And you could see our ship docked across the water on the island of Tromsø.

Then we drove around some more before returning to the ship which is docked right in the center of downtown Tromsø. Larger ships have to dock further out as they cannot fit under the bridge you see pictured near the cathedral. We had a walk about downtown, visiting a gift shop for a few trinkets. We took photographs of the area including a statue of Roald Amundsen (Tromsø was his home town) and the Cathedral of Our Lady (Church of Norway or Catholic? – different sites say different things). Did you know Amundsen was the first person to reach both the north and south poles? I think that’s right. See the flowers in the snow? See Elaine’s just purchased snow hat? See the snow outside the gift shop window? Oh, and the troll! Trolls are big in Norway. The last picture is the town’s modern new library.

Back on the ship for a late lunch, the snow really started to come down. And ten minutes later the skies were blue once again. Then it was quiet time for us until cocktail hour at 5:00 PM.

At 6:00 PM we set sail for our last port in Norway. After a nice dinner in The Restaurant, we went to the Explorer Lounge, the ship’s largest bar located at the bow over two decks. (The bartenders all know us by name – surprised?) After dinner drinks were accompanied by magnificent scenery on the sail out after we passed under the Tromsø Bridge.

Later!

So the stretch of fantastic weather came to thundering close today. The pictures won’t be very good. It was heavily overcast for most of the day although there were briefs views of the sun. And it rained in spurts. Temperatures in the 40’s. And the forecast for tomorrow is for SNOW. Yikes.

Alas, most of the spurts of rain came at stops on the Panoramic Lofoton tour. The tour was three hours long and started out with a boat ride from the Leknes Cruise Terminal to Henningsvær. From there we bussed back to the cruise terminal with a couple of wet picture taking stops. The boat portion was on some fairly rough seas, but it wasn’t unpleasant. And we did see a (faint) rainbow. On return we shopped a bit in the small terminal gift shop. Then we had lunch and decided to stay on board rather than take shuttle bus into Leknes (where most of the shops would have been closed on Sunday anyway). So it was a quiet day reading, napping, and attending shipboard lectures/movies.

A Map of the Tour

The sea route is not marked. Use your imagination. We took the dark blue road back

On the Boat

The blue patches of sky occasionally spotted were pretty much the end of blue skies. Can you spot Henningsvær’s Eiffel Tower? See the rainbow?

On the Bus Ride from Henningsvær to Leknes

The stops were cold and wet. See the cod drying racks? Dried cod and cod liver oil are big products here. Remember cod liver oil from childhood? Yuch. See the Viking Longhouse on the hill?

Back at the Dock

See my new Shelta Seahawk hat? Cool dude, eh?

UPDATE:

6:30 am Monday morning. We are sailing into Tromsø, well above the Artic Circle. It is snowing lightly. The high temperature today will be 38º. Brrrrrr.

Brief post, no pictures.

Saturday was at sea and the end of bright sunny weather. We saw glimpses of sun, but it was mostly cloudy and there was some rain. The seas, however, are as calm as could be. The Norwegian Sea is like a lake. You would hardly know you are on a ship.

We attended a lecture on Norwegian history and watched a National Geographic movie on Viking longboats. And, of course, we ate. The food on the Saturn is very good. It may be a tad less good than we used to experience on Oceania, but it all very enjoyable. We have breakfast each morning in the World Cafe, the casual dining venue. The choices are many. We’ve had lunch there as well and also at the Pool Grill. For dinners, we have dined twice The Restaurant, the main ship dining room. No reservations required. We had dinner once in the serve yourself World Cafe, and it was very enjoyable. They have plenty of sushi and almost anything else you could want. And we dined once in the reservations-only Italian restaurant, Manfredi’s. My steak was excellent. We have the “all-you-can-drink-of anything” package and are making good use of it. Very good wine choices. They make excellent vodka gimlets. And we normally have after- dinner drinks in the Explorer Lounge, the ship’s biggest bar.

I should add the full king-size bed is extremely comfortable and the pillows are great. Makes for good sleeping at night and at nap time.

Tomorrow we will be in the Lofoton Islands at the port of Leknes. More on that tomorrow.

UPDATE:

Now it is Sunday morning and we docked in Leknes. No tendering today; we can walk off and walk on. And I can add a few pictures of the town from our dock point. I get two weather forecasts – Accu Weather and Wunderground – they are quite different forecasts. Highs will be in the 50’s and either there will be some rain and some sun or no rain and no sun. Meh. It’s all good. You can see plenty of clouds and some blue patches in the pictures.

Ciao for now!

A fjord is a long narrow sea inlet. Ok, you knew that. So today we sailed up one of Norway’s longest and most beautiful fjords, the Geirangerfjord, to the small town of Geiranger (population about 250 or 3,000 when the tourists are in town). And today is May 17th, Norway’s Constitution Day celebrating their complete independence from Sweden. It’s a national holiday very similar to our Fourth of July. Most women and some men dress up in old traditional dress. There are parades and celebrations all over Norway. We tendered to the dock past the Norwegian Cruise Lines Prima (3,000 passengers to our 950). Geiranger had the local children’s band play and a lead a parade through the whole town with all the townsfolk following. It was great to see. I have some videos of the band, but uploading them won’t be possible with the ship’s limited wi-fi. But I have plenty of pictures. There is a great waterfall/river that flows right through the town. We took a two-hour bus tour that included a climb into the mountains to a mountain lake and then to Eagle’s Bend (Ørnesvingen) overlook. Then it was back on board for drinks and dinner and chat with our new best friends, Jim and Theresa. Sailing back down the fjord on the way back to the Norwegian Sea, we had a great view of the Seven Sister’s Waterfall.

Sailing Up the Fjord

Around the Town of Geiranger

The Lake and Eagle’ Bend Overlook

Sailing Back Down the Fjord and Seven Sister’s Waterfall

Sea Day tomorrow. And bad weather is finally coming our way, probably by Sunday. I may skip tomorrow on the blog as we will be at sea with not much new in the way of pictures. Or I might get inspired.