Fjordland Wonders Cruise, Thomson Spirit, 3-10 August 2013

A series of articles about our one-week cruising the fjords of Norway. Perhaps a little bizarrely, it starts with a visit to Clacton-on-Sea. We were sailing from Harwich and got down there too early to board the ship!

Providing our transport for this trip will be the Thomson Spirit cruise ship. The actual cruise itinerary is Harwich, UK > Sailing the North Sea > Stavanger > Flam > Hellesylt and Geiranger > Bergen > Sailing the North Sea > Harwich, UK. Unusually for one of our cruises, it will include two days of rain - one of them very heavy rain.

Click each of the photos below for the corresponding article and more photographs of each day.

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Fire and Ice: Stavanger, Norway

Monday 31 July 2017. After leaving the Port of Tyne, we spent Sunday at sea, crossing the North Sea. It was a little overcast and we spent the day inside the ship apart from a spell of walking round and round the Promenade Deck wrapped in warm hoodies, to make up for all the scrummy food that was available!

By the time we get up on Monday, however, we have docked in Stavanger, Norway. It's a little drizzly, but we get off of the ship anyway to have a look round Gamle, the Old Town.

Fran, showing that the drizzle had just about stopped so we were in hoodies rather than raincoats. Her hoodie matches the blue bit on the flag of Norway! Respectful, that's us...

The old town has around 173 wooden buildings dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries. They are all painted white and with the cobbled streets and lack of cars it makes an appealing community.

Once at risk of demolition they were saved as an, albeit run-down, conservation area after the second World War by the efforts of the City Architect, Einar Hedén. Now spruced up, the area has since had a reversal of fortune, now being a desirable area for the trendy or historically-minded.

The view down to Vågen, one of many harbour inlets of Stavanger. Our ship's distinctive blue funnel shows just how close to the old town we are moored.

A little further along towards town and the rooftops of Stavanger's shopping streets and business centre can be seen. We will wander through there before returning to the ship. It takes just half an hour to cover the Old Town area and as we come to the edge of the wooden buildings we can see that someone has a birthday as a bunch of balloons has been tied outside one house! Apart from the cottages the area houses craft shops and museums including a canning factory museum.

Vågen and a view of Thomson Celebration moored on the very edge of the Gamle Old Town. The Fisketorget (left) is the fish market. Behind us are other market stalls selling some of those chunky Norwegian sweaters. Lovely, but I'd be sweltering even in Blackpool's winter winds!

There are a few other ships and boats moored in the Vågen. The Sandnes is a training ship of 1432 tons and was built in 1950.

The Rogaland was built in 1929. Badly damaged by a mine in Oslofjord in September 1941, the ship had to be towed to Oslo for repairs. Back in commission, in 1944 she was caught in a huge explosion on April 20 whilst moored in Bergen. The Dutch ship Voorbode, carrying 120 tons of explosives blew up causing the deaths of some 150 people including 50 German soldiers and around 5000 wounded. Nearby houses were set alight and the Rogaland sank due to the damage. The Germans naturally assumed sabotage but an investigation proved the explosion to be accidental.

Our cruise ship Thomson Celebration. This is the sixth cruise we have taken on this ship, which was built in 1984 as MS Noordam and operated as such until 2005 when it was leased to Thomson and became Thomson Celebration.

Since leaving Gamle we have walked through the shopping area to another harbour and are now walking back and around Vågen back to the ship. The sky is starting to get a little dark and we decide to get back to the ship before we get a soaking. But the Vågen harbour has something else to show us yet...

It's a jellyfish. Sheesh, but these are hard to identify even using the Internet. A lion's mane jellyfish seemed to be the nearest description but on this specimen the mantle is around 24 inches in diameter and it has long tentacles below with lots of filaments floating around it. The lion's mane jellyfish was described as being up to 6 feet in diameter and as being found in somewhat warmer waters. So if anyone knows what this is please let me know via the comments section below!

This monster of a ship was quite a way away and I had to swap to the telephoto lens for this shot.

It rained a bit during the afternoon and we sat in the Showbar, which had huge windows overlooking Gamle whilst I did this sketch. Lots of nice comments from people who passed and came to look. The figure is a statue of Admiral Thore Horve, who in 1940 captured a German ship loaded with troops about to attack Norway.

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Stavanger Old Town

Monday 5 August 2013. If you have been following our adventures on the Fjordland Wonders cruise (and if you haven't then you can catch up by checking out the last three entries) then you will know we have docked in Stavanger in Norway.

It had been a dull day. By the time we had finished our breakfast it was a very rainy day! This was taken from Deck 7 of the Thomson Spirit, looking along Skansegata. We decided that we hadn't come all this way though just to stay in because of rain! So we grabbed hoodies and went down to Deck 2 to the gangway.

Gamle Stavanger (Old Stavanger) was almost wiped out with the rest of the old wooden buildings of the city after the Second World War, when it was proposed to rebuild the city using modern materials. The City Architect, Einar Hedén, protested and the area to the west of Vågen - perhaps the seediest area possible - was chosen. There were 173 wooden houses dating from the late 1700s to the early 1800s.

Set against the slope down to the harbour at Vågen, every time we looked downwards the side and distinctive red and black funnel of Cunard's Queen Victoria met our glance. There will be a chance to see her in a bit more detail tomorrow, as she followed us into Flam.

The rain seemed to be keeping most of her passengers away though so we weren't subjected to massive crowds in Gamle Stavanger and it was possible to get a feel for the place. Today the seedy image has gone and in fact is turned round so much that the area is now considered quite a trendy place to live. The number of buildings has also increased to around 250. Most buildings are now painted in a uniform whitewash, though originally they were many different colours. The area is reputed to contain the best preserved wooden houses in northern Europe.

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Sailing into Stavanger

Monday 5 August 2013. After the sunshine of the North Sea, we wake early to a dull and overcast day on the approach to Stavanger, our first port of call on the Fjordland Wonders cruise.

The sun is not to be seen and there are spots of rain in the air as we glide past a series of docks and small huddles of houses.

A couple of small islands loom in front of us and we manoeuvre around them, admiring the red topped white lookout hut. We decide breakfast can wait until we have docked.

As we get closer to Stavanger there are some large industrial sites and some large ships docked. We glide past the Island Constructor along our port side. We pass the Rosenberg shipyard that started in 1896 building passenger and fishing vessels but went on to build many tanker ships.

Stavanger appears in front of us and we wonder where we will be moored. A large suspension bridge comes into sight to our left.

This is where we are heading for. The corner of Skansegata, where it meets Havneringen. To the right, the inlet is called Vågen. The new Cunard ship, the Queen Victoria, is docked on the opposite side of the Vågen. We shall glimpse her in the next entry and also will see her in Flam tomorrow.

There is a loud rattling sound. A diesel engined forklift truck appears, pushing a gangway along Havneringen. It enters the controlled area around the ship and the driver skillfully lifts one end up onto the ship. We're here. Now it's time for some breakfast before we get off the ship!

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