This year’s Europe trip involved a cruise through some of the west coast fjords of Norway. We left Southampton, UK, on a Princess Line’s ship, the Sapphire Princess, and headed north through the North Sea to Norway. We made our way as far north as Geiranger, which is far enough north that, had there been enough darkness, we might have been able to see the Northern Lights. Sunset was around 10:00 pm with sunrise at around 4:30 am. In between, it didn’t really get dark.
There were four stops on our tour of the Norwegian Fjords
There was plenty to see and do on this cruise. On some days, we took a quick tour to see a bit of the country-side and others, we just walk around town. On one day, we did both. Overall, we think this is a cruise worth doing again.
Here’s a video of some of the sights we found on the cruise, and after that, enjoy some of the images we made along the way.
The Fjords were not unlike the scenery we’ve seen in Alaska. We didn’t visit any glaciers on this trip, but it’s probable that we simply didn’t get far enough north. Up close, the trees were predominately deciduous, with lots of birch instead of aspens. We were expecting more pine trees but were told that most pine forests in Norway were planted from trees imported from Germany.
Last week we made a quick five day Caribbean cruise on the Princess’s “Caribbean Princess”. We left Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, November 29th and sailed to Nassau in the Bahamas. From there we made a stop at Princess Cays located about fifty miles east of Nassau, then back to Fort Lauderdale. There were two “at sea” days on this cruise. Continue reading →
