Norway Cruise In keeping with our unofficial schedule of going on a cruise every other year, we were off to Norway again. Our two previous cruises to Norway had both been on the adults-only ship Arcadia, so we decided to try something new and travel on the family friendly Azura. Fingers crossed.
Cabin Sunday - The weather on the drive to Southampton was terrible. Probably the worst conditions I had driven in for a couple of years. Fortunately the luggage drop-off area at the Dock Gate 4 Ocean Terminal is covered. So we handed our bags over to a nice man with a trolley and our car key to a nice lady with a computer and headed for check in.As we had booked a suite, the check in process was super slick and we were in the restaurant on deck 15 having some lunch around 15 minutes after stepping out of our car.After lunch we went to find our suite (we were supposed to be taken to our suite by our butler, but we couldn't be bothered to wait for him to turn up). This is a photo of the bedroom bit.
Cabin This is a photo of the lounge bit of our cabin.
On Deck Up on deck, at least it' had finally stopped raining. But as you can see, it was still heavily overcast. We were not scheduled to depart for another three hours or so yet, so we decided to have a bit of a walk about.
Theatre Judith getting comfy in a seat in the theatre. The shows and such were incredibly popular, so this place will be completely rammed every evening. Personally I'm not that interested in this sort of thing. Certainly not interested enough to turn up twenty minutes early to ensure that I get a seat.
Bar One of the many bars. I think this one is called the Manhattan.We departed pretty much on time and had a relatively un-scenic journey out of the Solent and past the Isle of Wight.We had dinner in the awesome Sindhu restaurant.
The North Sea Monday - In complete contrast to the previous day, Monday was gorgeous. It was chilly in the wind (we were on the North Sea in April after all), but pleasant if you could find a sheltered spot, of which there were many.
Scuplture There were several of these around the decks.
Abstract An interesting shot of the decorative piping that hides the ships funnels, against a heavily polarized sky.
Deck 19 On deck 19, the highest passenger-accessible point on the ship, there were bits that poke out over the side slightly, which provided for an interesting photo opportunity along the length of the ship.
Oil Rig We passed very many of these during the day. The most I was able to see at any one time from my balcony was thirteen!
Lunch As we had such a fabulous dinner in Sindhu last night, we decided to go back for lunch. You chose three dishes, which were served on one of these wooden platters. Mmmm, curry yummy.
Aft View The view from the back of the ship.
Balcony View This was the view from our balcony. A good spot to keep an eye on the bridge activities, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Sunset The end of our first full day and we were treated to a lovely sunset. We didn’t get a single one of these during the entire two weeks of our last cruise.
Sunrise Monday - I was up early to see the approach into Stavanger. There were only a handful of other people (all men) that had made the effort to get out and about this early. This would be the third time we had cruised into Stavanger and the first two times I woke up just as we were docking. So this time I had made a special effort to ensure that I was up to make the most of our first views of the Norwegian coast.
Pilot Here comes the pilot to guide the ship through the narrow channels into the port and ensure that we don't do a Concordia.
Pilot The pilot boat passing 150 feet under my deck 19 perch.
Helicopter About a mile away a helicopter was hovering over a boat. They were winching something off, but it looked a bit big to be a person. After a few minutes the helicopter flew away.
A Thing Initially I thought this was an oil rig, but now I'm not so sure. Still, it made for an interesting photo against the misty hills in the background.
Stavanger On the final approach into Stavanger. As you can see, the weather was still fabulous.
Gamle Stavanger The old wooden houses in Gamle (Old) Stavanger, looking pristine in the morning sunshine.
Azura We were finally ashore and got our first proper look at Azura. I'm still not sure about that flat-backed car ferry look that many new cruise ships sport these days. I'm much more of a fan of the elegant, tapered rear of ships like Arcadia.This shot does provide a good view of the deck 19 poking out bits where I had been taking my photos from.
Crow In Stavanger, a relaxed looking crow posing for photos.
Mosvatnet Lake We were not booked on any trips, so we decided to go for a walk to Mosvatnet Lake, which was a couple of miles from where Azura was docked. It was a nice walk through the suburbs of Stavanger to get there.
Mosvatnet Lake Judith on the trail around the lake.
Beer Back in in the middle of Stavanger a couple of hours later, I bought one of the most expensive beers of my life. It was slightly less than a pint (400ml) and cost 80 krona, which was just under £9! You can see why the Norwegians don't suffer the same sort of binge drinking culture as the UK. £9 pints would nip that sort of thing right in the bud.
Signs This was a tattoo shop the last time we were here. It appears to have changed hands, but the proud new owners have kept the previous owners' closed sign.
Valberget Tower Lovely blue sky above the Valberget Tower.
Azura Azura towered over the houses on the hill in Gamle Stavanger.
Gamle Stavanger Very picturesque.
Flowers Some flowers outside a museum in Gamle Stavanger.
Gamle Stavanger Judith walking down a street in Gamle Stavanger. I had to wait ages to get a shot with no-one in the background. Given that we were only a couple of minutes walk from Azura here, getting a photo of a completely empty street was a fairly challenging affair.
Azura Just in case you were wondering who owns Azura.
Dessert It was time for a bit of mid-afternoon dessert to keep us going until dinner. Judith was looking pretty pleased about it.
Leaving Stavanger It was finally time to leave Stavanger. Today we'd had by far the best weather of our three visits.
Party The obligatory sail-away party had started around Azura's main pool.
Seagull One of the many seagulls that felt obliged to follow us whenever we left a port. I'm not sure what they were expecting to happen when they fly alongside as I'd never seen anyone throw food to them (as we were strictly forbidden from throwing anything at all from the decks - even food for seagulls).
Sognefjord Tuesday - I was up early again for what was likely to be the most scenic part of the entire week - the journey up the Sognefjord to Flam. Unlike yesterday morning, when there were only a couple of people about, there were a few dozen people on deck taking photos.At around 160 miles in length, the Sognefjord is the longest fjord in Norway. Flam is located on one of the side fjords, around 110 miles in.
Forward Deck View From the forward observation deck, the view looking back was pretty good too.
Deck 19 View The view from my favourite spot on the ship.
Sun I've no idea how I got that interesting sunburst effect, which is a shame as I quite like it and would like to do it again.
Town If you look carefully, you can just make out a small town nestled on the shore right in the middle of the photo.
Clouds I'm not sure what sort of cloud that was supposed to be, if it was indeed a cloud at all. Looked fabulous though.
Approaching Flam We were only a couple of miles from Flam at this point.
Clouds Those clouds again, but looking in the other direction. This was the end of the fjord. Flam is just out of sight in the bottom of the photo.
Fjord Safari We were off on a fjord safari in a RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat). The first thing to do was get kitted out in our cold/wet weather gear. Despite the fact that it was pretty warm standing around on shore in the sunshine, we were advised that it would be pretty cold once we got out on the water.
Azura Our RIB passed the bow of Azura.
Self Portrait A self portrait with Azura in the background. I had to have four goes at that to get a half decent shot.
Waterfall Judith looked excited at the sight of a waterfall.Shortly after I took this photo, about half-a-dozen tiny porpoises surfaced right next to our boat. Unfortunately they were gone a few seconds later, so I didn’t get the opportunity to take any photos of them.
Ferry One of the many ferries that travel the fjords (two actually, as there was another one off to the right in the distance).
RIB There were two RIBs out on the tour today, ours and this one.Having survived our RIB safari, we popped back onto Azura for a spot of lunch before we headed out for a walk.
Azura A photo of Azura from the dock at the end of the fjord.
Azura A photo of Azura from a small beach in front of some holiday apartments on the other side of the fjord. This would be a really nice place to stay for a few days.
Walking We decided to do a short walk to a small church a couple of miles up the river. The views were fabulous.
Cow I wonder how it sees where it's going?
Church After an hour-or-so we reached the small church. We sat for a few minutes admiring the views before we headed back to Flam.
Train This is the train that we could have got to Myrdal. However, as we got the train to Myrdal the last time we were here (in 2010), we didn't think there was much point in going again. It was good, but it wasn't that good.
Agir Brewery Back in Flam, we had a couple of hours before Azura was scheduled to leave, so we popped into the Agir microbrewery, which was conveniently located about 30 seconds walk from the ship.
Beers A couple of IPAs. Interestingly the small one is 300ml and the big one is 500ml. Experience has taught me that small beers are usually half the size of big ones. These could also very well be the most expensive beers I've ever bought, at 165 krona for the pair. That's just over £18! And that's not even two pints!! They were very nice though. Nice enough that I stopped for an amber beer too (Judith had a blonde - neither of us were brave enough to try the porter).
Tree Outside the brewery and Judith had the obligatory rest against the spooky tree with the faces carved into it. As you can see, I wasn't kidding when I said the ship was 30 seconds walk away.
Azura A last chance to photograph Azura from the quayside whilst Judith bought some postcards.
Departing Flam An interesting (I think) ND10 shot off the back of Azura using a 30 second exposure. There was very slight vibration from the engines that you hardly noticed when you were just walking about. But when you were trying to take a photo with a 30 second exposure, it was comparable to trying to take a regular photo in a hurricane. I got this acceptably sharp effort at the sixth attempt.
Olden Wednesday - Up early again to observe the approach to Olden. Unlike yesterday, when there were dozens of people up and about taking photos, I pretty much had the decks to myself this morning. The bloke you can see in this photo is a crew member putting today's flags up.
ND10 Another 30 second ND10 exposure off the back again. It was good of the fellow at the railing to stand still for such a long time (it appears that he was waiting for the net to be removed from the swimming pool - you can just about make it out if you peer closely at the photo).
ND10 Another 30 second ND10 exposure, this time looking forward from my favourite deck 19 spot.
Olden The sky wasn't as clear as we'd recently come to expect on this morning, but it was still pretty nice.
Olden
Lake View Today we were booked on a tour of the region surrounding Olden. First stop was this lovely lake. No idea what it's called.
Mountain View Then we were off up into the mountains to visit a hotel that gets completely snowed in over the winter. They had literally just finished digging it out and I think we might have been the first people to visit this year.If I'd not seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it was possible to drive a coach up the road we had just been up.
Snowy This was right outside the front door of the hotel. As you can see, the snow that they've cleared away was pretty deep.
Tractor With snow that deep, a plough was really just not going to work at all. So apparently what you need is one of these. I would have very much liked to have seen this working.
Valley The road past the hotel continued up into the mountains to a summer ski resort. They don't use it in the winter because there's just too much snow to try to keep the road open.
National Park Back on the coach and back down the mountain to the Jostedalsbreen Nasjonalparksenter, which I think roughly translates as the Jostedalsbreen National Park Centre.
Lake View The centre is built on the edge of a lake with fabulous views.
Rocks They had an extensive collection of rocks that had been taken from the surrounding fjords and mountains.
Reflections Here I used a polarizing filter to remove some of the reflections from the surface of the lake so that you can see the rocks on the bottom.
Lake View We had a final look at the view of the lake before we got back on the coach.
Azura/Olden View On the way back to Azura, we stopped on the opposite side of the fjord for a photo opportunity. The colours are a bit washed out as I was taking the photo into the sun. Still, despite the washed out colours, it gives a bit of scale to the scenery.
Walking We had a couple of hours before Azura was scheduled to depart, so I decided to try to hike up to a view point a couple of miles away. This was the view of Olden from the trail/road.
Weather I'd been walking for about 50 minutes before the weather started to deteriorate. I was still about half-an-hour from the view point and Azura was leaving in about two hours. Having taken this picture of the view and the rain, I decided to play it safe and turn back.
Rain By this point it was raining pretty heavily. Although I was dressed for the rain, it was still nice to make it back to Azura.The weather continued to deteriorate for the next few hours, even to the point that it was necessary to cancel the sail-away party!
Approaching Bergen Friday - This was the last morning that I needed to struggle out of bed to see the views as we approached the day's port. Once again, I'd got the decks pretty much to myself, which was a shame for everyone else as the views were splendid again.
Deck View This morning's view from the forward observation deck.
Suspension Bridge Approaching the Osteroy suspension bridge (I think). From where I was standing (in my favourite spot on deck 19), it looked like we'd cleared the bridge with about 20 feet to spare. It would be fabulous to be standing on the bridge itself as a ship this large went underneath.
Suspension Bridge A view of the bridge as we sailed away, having safely not smashed into it.
Bergen Having safely docked in Bergen, we headed straight for the train thing that goes up the hillside, just in case it got busy later.
Bergen View Despite the overcast conditions, the view from the top was pretty good.
Bergen View This is what the looked like without all of the people in the way.
Train Back on the little train to town.
Buildings These buildings seem to be what Bergen is most famous for, since they appear on virtually every postcard.
Alley There are small alleys between some of the buildings. I had to wait ages to get a photo of one that wasn't cluttered with tourists.
Church A miscellaneous church thing in Bergen.
Bye Bye Bergen A 30 second ND10 exposure from our balcony as Azura backed away from the dock and into enough open water to be able to turn around.
Bridge Sneaking under the suspension bridge again on the way out.
Cruise Ship Saturday - It was another lovely day on the North Sea. There was a slightly chilly wind blowing from the North, but as we were travelling South at approximately the same speed as the wind, there was pretty much no discernible breeze on deck at all, which was making it positively scorchio in the sun.This is a photo of the first other cruise ship that we had seen all week. It appeared to be a Celebrity ship and a big one at that, but I couldn't make the name out from here.We spent Saturday just lazing about and enjoying the fine weather.
Dinner For our final dinner we decided to finish as we started - in the wonderful Sindhu. If you ever find yourself cruising on Azura, we can very highly recommend this restaurant.
Home Sunday - We were back where we started, at the Dock Gate 4 Ocean Terminal. The weather didn't appear to be significantly different to when we set out almost exactly a week ago.All things considered, we'd had a really good time and the weather had been super kind to us, particularly considering the time of year.