Viking: Into the Midnight Sun

We had only a couple of weeks notice for these two back-to-back 15-day cruises from Bergen, Norway to London and back. Someone had cancelled. There was quite a bit of preparation because, while we'd been to some of these ports, we'd not done presentations in this area and even though none of the presentations were new, we did quite a bit of editing to make them more relevant for this itinerary and we continued to modify some of the presentations as we gained more material.
But we pulled it off. Whew!

We flew into Bergen, went north from there well above the Arctic Circle, where at mid summer, the sun was shinning 24 hours. Very cool to wake up at midnight to see the sun. We then spent three days in London, the turn around point, and then back to Bergen. The other 3 lecturers changed, so it was also quite educational attending all those presentations. Even the Viking "Iconic" lectures with the same slides were different as given by two different resident historians.

The Viking Saturn is the same as the Viking Sea (Caribbean cruises 2023) down to the same art work and even the same window treatments. So everything was familiar. We were in the same room in the crew hallway. I gave 7 presentations on each cruise, which were well received.

We spend a lot of our onboard time in the Explorers' Lounge on the 7th deck above the bow. It's one deck above the navigation
deck where the captain and the ship drivers operate the controls. On some days the seas were quite rough. Such is the nature of The North Sea.

This is our favorite table in the World Cafe on Viking ships: the last table for two on the port side.
We eat most of our meals here and coffee is available 24 hours a day.

Since we visited the ports twice, I just combined our adventures in each port rather than trying to include a timeline.

Bergen, Norway

We'd traveled to Bergen in 2013 and again in 2023, so go back to see what we did then.

A very early sunrise in Bergen.

Bergen is beautifully tucked into the side of a mountain.

 
A replica of a Viking ship was in the harbor looking very much like the logo for the Viking Cruise Line. So we begin and end this assignment in Bergen, an iconic Norwegian city, which is also the capitol of Norway.

One day we took a public bus out to the Bergen Botanic Garden.

 
There are familiar and unfamiliar plants. The one on the right is an Asian magnolia.

The Japanese meditation gardens were a bit of a surprise.

A rugged picnic table was more of what we expected to find here.

Then we walked over a bridge and through a picturesque fishing village to visit the Arboretum.

The Arboretum had hiking trails along the shoreline.

A garden cottage was part of the scenery.

Much of Bergen is pedestrian friendly.

 
Bergen is noted for its ancient stone buildings. When we were here before, the old stone church was surrounded by scaffolding.

 
Of course, we did visit Bryggen, the UNESCO World Heritage site, again.

Looking back toward the water over Bryggen, the colors were perfect in the afternoon sun.

 
So we leave Bergen with its flowers both planted and wild in the hands of its trolls

Geiranger, Norway

This was a new port for us and was at the end of an impressive fiord with many waterfalls along the way.

This world-famous series of waterfalls is known as the "Seven Sisters." Only 5 are visible here.

Directly across from the Seven Sisters is a large single waterfall known as "The Suitor."

Here is the village from the ship as we approached.

On one visit, this floating, foldable, movable walkway was attached to our ship for easy access to shore.

The other time we were there, it was a tender port. A larger ship used the foldable, floating walkway.

On the first visit, we were out on our own and our goal was to climb the stairway next to the waterfall
in the center of the valley of this town and to explore from there. You can see the stairway in this photo.

Grass roofs similar to Iceland are evident as we walked through the town to get to the base of the falls.

Rocks are very much part of the landscape around the town.

This was an impressive flow of water and it was very loud.

Viewpoint at the top of the stairs.

 
We saw many solar-powered robot lawn mowers on this trip, like this one.
This odd sculpture was near a parking lot at the top of the lookout point.

 
Looking up from the parking lot, the waterfall's top is much farther up the mountain.

We headed through the Norwegian Wood to get to higher viewpoint via path ...

 
... and via stairs with beautiful flowers along the way.

Then we were on a path that was more or less level through some steep fields.

The goats were expected.

The South America llamas were a surprise.

The view from the top of the hill lookout point.

The other ship was a huge Norwegian Cruise Line ship, which probably housed at least 4,000 passengers.
But even with all those people in port with us, we did not see any of them on this hike to the top.

We stopped by this 1842 church on the way down. It also had a great view of the village.

The other time we were in Geiranger, we escorted tours.

Ginny escorted a tour to a goat farm, but the first stop was this amazing lookout point with a stream's flow
diverted over these green glass panels.

The view looking back toward town where you can see just one of the many hairpin turns
that our bus maneuvered to get to this point.

 
Here are some of the immature goats before they start working. Most of us stood outside the porch for the lessons on cheese making and more, but we headed inside for the cheese tasting.

Looking over the heads of the tour group at the picturesque valley.

Dean escorted a kayaking tour.

The view is different from the water.