Cruises

Classic Cruise Voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes

Liz Gill — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 14:49:45 +0000

The passengers on the Classic Voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes, are normally a self-controlled, restrained sort of group: mostly middle-aged, well-educated professional types, seeking culture and history and the natural world.

Today, however, they are whooping and squealing like a bunch of school kids as they queue up to have the traditional induction of ice cubes ladled down the back of their necks.

Yes, that’s ice cubes down the neck, Not everyone’s idea of a good time but then not everyone has crossed the Arctic Circle and this old sea- faring tradition of dousing passengers this way lives on.

At precisely 07.37:47 our ship sounded its horn as we sailed past the 10 ft tall metal globe on a portside island of Vikingen that marks 66 degrees and 32 minutes latitude, the southernmost point at which the sun never sets at the summer solstice and never rises in the winter one — the Arctic Circle.

The winner of the competition to guess the time of the crossing will get a small prize and the dubious honour of being the first to be ice-doused by “King Neptune”. The rest of us follow, fortified by a hearty breakfast and lured by a shot of something hot, sweet and alcoholic and our Polarsirkel Sertifikat to prove we had been inducted: “Matte hell og lykke folge deg pa denne reise og i all din tid” which means “May good luck and happiness follow you on this voyage and forever after”.

There are some passengers, however, who pay no attention to all this malarkey. For them this is not a cruise ship but their public transport, car ferry and freight carrier. They will be hopping on and off at any of the 34 ports where the ship docks on its 2,900 mile round trip between Bergen and Kirkenes way up by the Russian border. Our ship is named by the founder of the Hurtigruten company, Captain Richard With who launched the Norwegian Coastal Express back in 1893 to serve the communities scattered among the fjords and islands.

The company now has 11 ships with a government contract to provide a year round daily service for 400,000 passengers, 34,000 cars and the equivalent of 10,000 truckloads of freight.

For remote populations it is both a link with the outside world and in winter when the mountain passes and the airports of the far north are closed it can be a lifeline.

Excursions include sea eagle safaris, quad bike tours, fishing expeditions and visits to the Sami people, formerly known as Lapps, to learn about their use of plants as food and medicine.

We did a fantastically exhilarating RIB boat ride where you bang across the waves at 30 knots from the port of Bodo to an area called Saltstraumen which has the world’s most powerful tidal current. It’s caused by millions of gallons of water being squeezed through a 90 mile long and two-mile wide space between two fjords resulting in massive whirlpools.

On the quayside we’ve been kitted out in head-to-toe waterproofs and life jackets and provided with goggles.
These seem a bit excessive until we clear the shelter of the harbour at which point we realise that without them we would barely be able to open our eyes against the force of the wind.

The 10 of us in the inflatable straddle our seats and grip the rails in front of us and as the vessels swirls and spins, soars and dips, the feeling is of riding some wild creature. For those who prefer their fjord experience to be rather more relaxing there is the trip up the spectacular Hjorundfjord which cuts into the massive mountains of the Sunnmore Alps. As we step off at the little village of Urke we’re greeted by a group of children waving flags and singing for us. Then it’s off by bus along one of the country’s narrowest valleys, stopping along the way at the historic Union Hotel, visited among others by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We also take in a lake caused when an avalanche blocked the river where you can still see drowned dwellings; and various dramatic rock formations named after Queen Victoria and polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

On the first day of a Hurtigruten cruise the scenery seems breathtakingly beautiful and special. It’s only when you’ve been sailing for a while that you realise that splendour is not rare. On the contrary it is everywhere you look: dramatic jagged mountains, snow-capped peaks, glaciers, waterfalls, hillsides covered with trees in every autumnal shade, clearings dotted with little red wooden houses with grass roofs and fishing piers and all, on days of limpid light, perfectly mirrored in waters as smooth and dark as molten liquorice.

For although bad weather is not unknown — the captain has experienced waves over 30 ft high — the time spent in the open sea is limited to a couple of hours at a stretch. Mostly the ship slips along sounds, the stretches of water between islands on one side and the mainland on the other.

The shore is rarely out of sight and though I sometimes put acupressure travel bands on my wrists, I never felt a moment’s queasiness.

Breakfast and lunch are lavish buffets and dinner is three courses often with a regional theme like grilled stockfish (dried for three months, matured for two, soaked for a week), poached Arctic char or the Norwegian blue cheese selbu bla with cloudberry.

We have tasted these sweet golden berries earlier when a market trader gave us a sample during a walking tour of Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway after Oslo and Bergen with a population of around 165,000 and a history going back to 997. It is home to the second most northerly synagogue in the world, which also houses a Jewish museum and a memorial to those who perished in World War II.

Just across the road is the great Gothic Nidaros Cathedral. It dates back to mediaeval times but its statues and gargoyles were restored and in some cases recreated at the end of the 20th century. Sculptors were allowed some artistic licence with the result that the St Michael who stands atop the north tower has the face of Bob Dylan.

Back on board the emphasis is on peace and quiet and apart from a piano player in the evening in the bar there are no activities or entertainments for the 600 or so guests, so it is a good idea to bring plenty to read, downloads or dvds for a laptop, playing cards, knitting or needlework as lots of people seem to have done.

Alternatively you can just cruise ‘n’ snooze. The exception to the peace and quiet is when the ship docks in the middle of the night which can be extremely noisy for the aft cabins. Guests are warned in advance which are affected and can book accordingly. I stuck with mine because, for me, being woken briefly at 2am or 4am to peep out of a porthole to see the lights and harbour- side activity of some far flung place just added to the sense that this was no ordinary voyage.

On board Marco Polo cruise ship with my mother

Sharron Livingston — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:55:37 +0000

If there is one thing that sends me hurtling back to childhood it is travelling with my mother. But she needed a break, and a five-night cruise sailing from Tilbury (no stressful airports) to Amsterdam, Rouen and Antwerp, seemed to fit the bill. And I thought I would take the risk and tag along.

So it was that I found myself sipping an afternoon cocktail in a hot tub on the top deck of the Marco Polo all by myself. The ship was sailing on the river Seine towards Rouen, and from my vantage point I could see pretty towns, a chateau or two, and the sheep looking non-plussed as they grazed on the landscape that inspired Monet. It felt indulgent.

The thing is, this was October and yes, it was a bit nippy, and that’s why my mother didn’t join me. Neither did she see the romance of sea air wafting through her hair while taking a cream tea on deck. She preferred the bingo.

In any case, I wasn’t worried. After all, the Marco Polo is not a big ship — just 22,000 tons (a midget compared to some liners). Yet it packs in two restaurants, five lounges, a library, card room, outdoor pool, three hot tubs and a spa.

This was our second day and by now many of the stewards, not to mention many of the other guests, were pretty well-acquainted with my mother. At our first dinner at the formal dining Waldorf restaurant, she had asked for an avocado. A look of disappointment when told there was none to be had prompted Liza, our steward, to offer to nip into town when we arrived in Amsterdam. Sure enough the next night at dinner, there was the avocado. Only for a mother does this sort of thing happen.

Oh, and did I mention mothers are always right? Like when we took boat trip along an Amsterdam canal. The lunch was as lavish as any they serve up on these trips, but none of it was quite good enough for her to actually eat.
And then there was the time we decided to tour Rouen on foot. They forecast rain. She wore sandals claiming comfort over dryness.

And at the cheese and beer tasting (yes, you heard) in Antwerp, she decided she really did want to join in and taste what was on offer. A ride home in a tuc-tuc with your elderly mum giggling away like one of the girls? OK, but what the hell — I loved to see her happy.

The fact that the ship is such a home-from-home also helped. Most of the time I spend with my mother is in her front room — eating her cakes and drinking her tea. No change there then, though someone else baked and brewed — and there were more than a few “front rooms” to try on board.

Marco Polo, unlike the larger, plusher, newer liners, has had an intriguing past. It started life in 1965 as a Russian ship called Alexander Pushkin and, though quaintly named after a writer, it was decked out in a grim Soviet style.

By the ’70s it was being used as a budget-priced cruise ship. All that austerity disappeared when she defected to a British company in 1991, when Gerry Herrod, founder of Ocean Cruise Lines, bought her. Two years and millions of dollars later, the ship emerged as the Marco Polo, sailing for Orient Lines. In 2010 Cruise and Maritime took her over, offering a variety of sailings from the UK, including around the Norwegian fjords and a 42-night cruise to the Amazon — and, of course, this short break cruise. The ship’s size means it can sail along rivers and dock in small harbours, such as at Antwerp, where we were able to disembark directly into the town.

The on-board experience was homely and unpretentious and though billed as three-star, it delivered far more than expected. There was no casino, no pressure to buy anything on board and it was adults only. There is evening entertainment a mix of cabaret, music and comedy and a versatile cruise director who can present, tell jokes (“this announcement is for the guy who lost his Rolex watch — the time now is 2.30pm”) and sing. There’s also an extremely funny magician.

But my mother missed all that, preferring to repair to the bedroom to enjoy quiet time after busy day trips, playing games, eating fine foods, and I might add, drinking the odd pina colada.

We shared a twin-bed cabin with a small shower-room and a satisfactory amount of cupboard space to cater for the ample contents of the luggage belonging to two Jewish women who carry too much for fear of have nothing to wear — especially on formal night.

You can imagine the scene — the question “how do I look in this?” ping-ponged between us as we tried on several outfits. Incidentally, as was the norm when the ship was built, none of the rooms have a balcony, but what this ship does have is a lovely wrap-around deck that harks back to bygone days.

Unlike mum, I not only enjoyed the shows but then went to the disco in the Marco Polo lounge for a tipple and a wiggle on the dance floor.

I admit I got back to the room way past midnight one night, but was shocked to see my mother waiting up for me. “I just called you,” she said. “I was worried that you were out so late.” As incredulous as it sounds I found myself apologising (I am, after all, a mother myself). But boy, was it worth it.

www.cruiseandmaritime.com

Polar Bear Safari expedition

Thu, 03 May 2012 18:32:54 +0100

Where: Spitsbergen, Arctic - home to the polar bears

Best For: Families with teens

When: August 2-9

How long: Eight days, seven nights

Why go: The Arctic will effectively be turned into a classroom. In continuous daylight families will learn from a polar expedition team how to identify animal tracks, capture iconic wildlife such as polar bears and walrus on film, learn new skills at specially formatted children friendly photography workshops, or discover how polar weather affects world-wide weather patterns

How much: From £3,240 per adult, £2,430 per child aged 12 to 17 years old in a Family-Style Cabin

(Family of four £11,340)

What's included:

Three meals a day, formal and chilled family-focused educational presentation by the expedition team, a photographic journal on DVD, documenting the trip as well as daily zodiac landings

What's not included: Return flights, visas and gratuities. Optional add-ons are available include Arctic kayaking.

How to book:
www.quarkexpeditions.com,
(001) 203 803 2666

Gone with the Wind

Richard Burton — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:42:41 +0100

I'd been on board all of 50 minutes - and there I was doing the conga: like an aunt at a wedding, hands on the hips in front and filing out through doors and rocking along corridors.

We were all at it; more than a hundred of us jigging our way out on to the open deck to grab a muster moment under the lifeboats. It was a drill of course, not some welcome aboard ritual.

Orange inflatables over our smart casuals, we made our way as we would have to do if our souls needed saving in the dark, presumably as the flares went up and the band played us off with the hokey cokey.

Even for a serial cruiser like me, this was a first. The first of many, which began with the free champagne waiting at the top of the gangplank as I boarded Silversea's Silver Wind.

Nothing unusual about that per se, but what I wasn't expecting was that all the drinks were complementary – or at least, like meals, wrapped into the price paid before we set sail. Very decadent and very sensible.

Then there was the open seating in the one-sitting restaurant; a dining room open all night to all-comers. So no checking your watches on deck and hurrying down before the gong.

Then, and this was the real eyeopener, there were the not-so-formal formal evenings, the only one I could recall where I could count the black ties on two hands.

I did just that in fact, halfway through my heminavigation of the Spanish coast. I was in the bar before the captain's welcome aboard, all penguined-up like James Bond but feeling as out of place as pingu on a beach. The rich American I met at a deck buffet later told me he chose the ship because "I'd rather pack a book than a tux".

I could see what he meant. For this was a ship that merely discourages jeans in the restaurant but actively frowns on one of the great bastions of cruising - tipping.

The pleasure-for-profit ethos doesn't sit well here. As I was to discover as we departed Barcelona for a seven-night, seven-port sail to Lisbon, this was a ship that wants you to relax and wasn't too fussed if it breaks a few rules, to let you do so.

So no-one chased me to "sign the cheque" for the Bellinis, followed me down the gangplank afterwards (don't laugh, it happened on a long-decommissioned vessel) or upped the fuss factor the closer we came to disembarkation.

So what more could a man want for the six-star price tag? Isabella Rosselini on his table maybe? She comes here a lot. And even she must be a little impressed when the butler calls to ask if you'd prefer Bulgari or Aqua de Parma in your bathroom. Or when you ask him for a pot of chamomile tea, it arrives in Egyptian silk bags. The place was full of touches like that. Like the little branded S cut into the foam on the cappuccino and the fresh-baked cookies they bring with it.

That and the fact that staff remember your name and what you tend to like and don't. Most of them are headhunted, trained by Leading Hotels of the World and tend to stick around for years so, like those in the best hotels, they help craft the culture and grow with it.

To be fair, this was about as professional as it gets; from the collar stripes to the guys in flannels, the balance between subservience (don't you just hate it on some ships where the maids curtsy) and sheer honest professionalism, you get exactly what you pay for.

I had pretty much everything I wanted in a suite; queen sized bed, walk-in wardrobe, flat screen TV, comfy sofas and a balcony with a nightlight to read under the stars.

The bathroom was not as lavish as some but marbled and Marriott-smart nonetheless. The entertainment was fairly small ship stuff; no lavish productions but a few nicely presented musical nights, the usual deck buffet and the odd piano recital.

But this was no Caesar's Palace floatel; rather, a 17,000-ton port-hopper, more boutique-style; all elegance and indulgence in nine neatly-stacked decks, berthing by day and sailing by night; its library books well borrowed and its sunbeds well sprawled upon.

As is traditional, a little four-page newsletter arrived every day telling us where we were, what was on and how to dress to do it.

But I quite liked the nautical info that was on TV channel 2 of the 19 day and night. Like those nifty sat-nav screens on the backs of aeroplane seats, you can see at any time where the ship is, the temperature and wind speed.

There was no cinema but a dozen or so films fed to the room on a loop and 668 DVDs (yes, I counted them) so no-one goes without. And frankly, with a large screen, the low cabin lights, the darkened sea beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows and your own butler, I preferred to see the few films I did, flopping out "at home".

So back to that formal/informal thing. On our one day at sea, somewhere between Malaga and Portugal, a wealthy businessman who fancied himself as a psycho-boffin offered to do an ad-hoc lecture on how amazing the brain is.

A dozen of us responded to the tannoy call and assembled in the theatre to find an amiable old duffer with a flip chart bumbling his way through something about how the hand manages to tell the head when it's touched something hot.

A few embarrassed coughs and sideways glances later, an act of God: the ship moved, the flip chart flipped and crashed on its face and our speaker star-jumped into the air as if he'd sat on a flare gun. As for the audience ... we headed for the lifeboats before you could say hokey cokey.

Explore your heritage - by boat

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 15:25:48 +0000

A new, one time only, Jewish Heritage river cruise is due to set sail next May. The boat will amble along the River Elbe visiting Berlin, Dresden and Prague.

These three cities are replete with Jewish history that dates back over a thousand years. Incidentally, the Jewish community in Berlin is the fastest growing in Europe, despite the Holocaust.

The on-board experience on the five star Peter Deilmann MV Frederick Chopin ship promises to be an intimate one as the ship only carries 79 guests in 41 staterooms.

The 11-day get-away kicks off with a three-night stay in Prague with a walking tour of the city from a Jewish perspective and taking in the Renaissance, Baroque and art nouveau architectural styles that define the landscape.

The ship sails to Dresden, the capital of the Kings for Saxony to see the city's historic sites and the Pfund's Dairy founded in 1879. Astonishingly, the dairy is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the "most beautiful dairy shop in the world".

The itinerary includes a whirlwind tour of Saxony and its spa town of Bad Schandau in the southern Free State of Saxony. There is also an opportunity to visit the UNESCO site of Wittenberg, the birthplace of Reformation and the place where Martin Luther preached in the 16 century. This is where he confronted the Pope and lived under ex-communication.

The cruise ends with a one-night stopover in Berlin where you can visit the golden-domed New Synagogue and the controversial yet moving Holocaust Memorial, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Soldiers still stand guard at the now comic-looking Checkpoint Charlie. This was the spot that served as the gate in the Berlin Wall that once separated East and West Berlin. Amusingly, you can still get your passport stamped as you pass through.

There are small swathes of the Wall still standing and a visit to East Side that hosts the East Side Gallery can be squeezed in before catching a flight back to London

How a cruise liner with sails blew me away

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:06:25 +0000

As we were waiting to board, a man in a spiffing white uniform bounded up to us. He turned out to be the Captain. “I’m sorry for the queue” he said. There were just eight of us checking in at the time. And no, he wasn’t taking the mickey.

“Welcome to the Wind Surf,” he said. “I hope you have a wonderful cruise.”

We felt as if we were being ushered on to a private yacht and that feeling remained throughout our week-long voyage.

As a veteran of more than 30 cruises I thought I’d seen it all: water slides, ice-rinks, rock climbing walls, cobblestone streets… but I had never been on a cruise ship that had sails.

And it looked so tiny, berthed next to a pair of leviathans in Rome’s port, Civitavecchia.

Which is not entirely surprising, because the trend in cruising is for ever larger ships. Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of The Seas, for example, weighs in at 220,000 tons with a capacity for 5,400 passengers. By contrast, the Wind Surf is under 15,000 tons and carries a maximum of 312.

But it doesn’t lack for space or amenities. It’s just that things are done on a smaller, more intimate scale.

There’s a library, a gym and a small shop. There are a couple of swimming-pools but they’re more for cooling off in than for swimming. And for someone like me, who likes dice and cards, there’s even a small-but-perfectly-formed casino. Phew!

The key thing is it works: how many blackjack tables/exercise bikes/hot tubs do you need? Just so long as they’re available when you really want them. There’s also enough deck space and sun loungers — though that didn’t stop people from putting down books and towels to reserve them.

I guess that’s just vestigial big-cruise ship behaviour. In all other aspects, people act differently — and better — on a Windstar ship. It’s too luxuriously intimate to do otherwise.

And there’s plenty — of absolutely everything — for everyone: there’s no need for sharp elbows, which is fortunate, as you wouldn’t want to antagonise someone you’re not going to be able to avoid for a week.

Our fellow passengers were predominantly North American, British and German (in that order) but all seemed to be pretty homogenously middle-class and middle-aged. I think I spotted just two people with tattoos and they had the look of ex-servicemen.

Quite a lot different from my last Mediterranean cruise on which those of us without tattoos were very much in the minority.

Our suite (as we must refer to our cabin on all luxe cruises) was a perfectly reasonable size — with a particularly decent bathroom furnished with lots of wood rendering it more nautical than the plastic ones you sometimes find on the bigger ships.

If those ships are self-styled “cities at sea”, then the Wind Surf — the biggest of Windstar’s three ships — is self-consciously a luxury yacht at large. This attitude carries over into the dining on board. The dress code and the seating are distinctly informal. But the service is not; it’s as efficient and attentive as any six-star ship (the Wind Surf is officially five-star but, in truth, transcends any categorisation).

You’re even allowed on to the bridge while the ship is at sea to see how it all works. Try doing that on a Carnival ship (or, rather, don’t...).

As for the food... well, take it from me, it ranks with the very best — and I have experienced the QE2’s Queen’s Grill as well as many of the signature restaurants at sea. They don’t do kosher but there’s plenty of fish and a highly imaginative vegetarian menu.

The one thing the ship doesn’t really do is “activities”. There’s no bingo, no lectures and few classes, apart from yoga and pilates.

But this doesn’t matter because almost every day is spent in a new port and this is where the ship really comes into its own. Bored with Marseilles, Lisbon and Le Havre (or “Le Havre for Paris” as it’s invariably billed — which is rather like “Southampton for London”, which I’ve also seen)? Then allow me to introduce you to the Wind Surf which took us to Elba and to smaller ports in Corsica, Sardinia and Menorca.

Such places are so much nicer than the huge ports where you have to negotiate miles of warehouses and cargo depots before you reach anything interesting. And when there’s just one small ship — instead of three gigantic cruise ships full of people — you’re seeing a place as it really is and not after it’s been overrun by tourists.

Portoferraio, Elba, was a case in point. We went through the unspoiled old town, flanked by ancient fortress walls, and scaled the steep steps to the top where we came across the villa where Napoleon spent some months in exile. It was a pretty spot, surprisingly modest, though he had shipped in a chandelier or two from Fontainebleau.

Next stop was Porto Vecchio, Corsica — another link to old Bony — a delightful, small but busy town with a gorgeous marina. Again, the bigger ships don’t stop here. Lovely shops, easy to walk around and no need for ghastly shuttles.

As the sun went down, the restaurants were set up for a choice of dining out on deck under the stars and the sails — unfurled as soon as we were clear of the harbour — or inside in the main restaurant. We ate steaks under the stars as we sailed down the Straits of Bonifacio with Corsica starboard and northern Sardinia portside.

In Alghero, we were surprised that we had to moor a 15-minute boat ride away from the harbour. This was, apparently, the closest the ship could get. However, while we were anchored out at sea, the ship was able to open its ‘marina’ where you could borrow kayaks or tiny sailing dinghies.

Not being so brave, I just swam in the sea, under the constant supervision of the ship’s lifeguards, up to the giant floating trampoline, a sort of spontaneous grown-ups’ aquatic playground.

By this stage of the cruise, we had got to know many of the other passengers and the staff had come to know us and our individual requirements.

So we would turn up at the lunch buffet to be invited by a French-Canadian couple to join them; the waiter serving us would remember that I like Diet Coke (or The Jewish Guinness as it’s also known) just as he knew to bring me peppermint tea with my breakfast.

Our only complaint was that the internet connection was painfully slow (even by cruise ship standards) and the coffee was pretty dreadful (ditto).

But those were the only drawbacks.

Many of our fellow-guests were repeat customers and all the first-timers we spoke to said that they would be coming back.We will too. It’ll be like catching up with old friends.

Norway: Midnight sun, but forget the midnight buffet

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:22:36 +0100

Any shipping line that brands a cruise “the world’s most beautiful voyage” is surely inviting contradiction. As a cruise virgin, I can neither verify nor refute the claim made by Hurtigruten for its round voyage up and down the Norwegian coast. But if there is a lovelier boat trip than this, I’d certainly like to hear about it.

From the moment we left Bergen on the MS Nordkapp, the spectacle that is Norway’s coastline unravelled before us. For 12 days, a continuous reel of stunning scenery played past our cabin window — tiny uninhabited islands suspended in a sea of improbable blue, sheer cliffs spouting lavish waterfalls, brightly-coloured houses dotted along a sparkling seashore.

Unlike most other cruises, it is not the destination that matters on these voyages — though there were delightful surprises at some of the 69 stops — but the journey. At no point as we plied our way to and from Kirkenes, inside the Arctic Circle and just 10 miles from the Russian border, were we out of sight of land, and much of the time it was on both sides of the ship and looked close enough to touch.

One of the 14-strong fleet belonging to Hurtigruten — a shipping line founded more than a century ago — leaves Bergen for the north almost every day of the year, carrying not only 100-650 cruise passengers but also cars, post, freight and casual travellers nipping up the coast. For these are working ships, delivering cargo to 37 ports.

While the level of comfort is high and the cuisine excellent (with plenty of fish), you will find no hairdresser or beauty salon here, no tuxedo dinners, cabaret or balconied suites. If it’s a floating hotel you are after, stay away.

The entertainment takes the form of an ever-changing landscape and frequent stops, all through the night in fact: though the concept of “night” is almost meaningless in the land of the midnight sun.

The first night on board, we were up and buzzing until late, astonished by the absence of darkness. After that we slept deeply, barely aware whether we were at sea or in port.

Stops ranged from 15 minutes — just long enough to catch a glimpse of fish drying on wooden racks or a trawler putting out to sea — to several hours. Passengers were told early on that they are responsible for returning to the ship in time, though a swipe card system ensures that the crew knows if anybody has not made the deadline.

We arrived in Trondheim, just as the city was waking up, strolled the elegant streets in the early morning sunshine and took coffee on the prettily renovated wharf. Svolvaer in the lovely Lofoten Islands offered red and ochre coloured houses on stilts and light of a magical clarity that made everything look too good to be real.

In Tromso, with its clapboard houses and New England air, we stepped off the ship to be confronted unexpectedly by a memorial to 20 Jewish people from the city deported and murdered by the Nazis.

Here, the weather was decidedly cooler but still mild considering the latitude: like the UK, Norway benefits from the Gulf Stream.

A package of around 30 excursions adds variety, at a cost. These range from the usual sightseeing coach tours around the larger towns and cities to bird-watching boat trips, a snowmobile safari (winter only), a Viking feast and a visit to the North Cape, the northernmost point on the European continent.

We did our own thing on the long stops — a decision we did not regret — and took a few of the more unusual excursions to gain a glimpse of the hinterland.

The sight of massive sea eagles soaring above the cliffs of Gjestvaerstappan island nature reserve, home to half a million puffins, was well worth an hour and a half of buffeting in a smallish boat: at least the all-in-one snowsuits they gave us kept the wind at bay.

A cry of what sounded like “Wales on our starboard side” over the loudspeaker at breakfast on the second morning left me momentarily geographically challenged, until I sighted two black fins of Orcas tailing the ship. Overall, there was less wildlife than I had hoped: over-fishing has sadly depleted the bird population.

But the reason holidaymakers take a cruise like this is not the flora, fauna or architecture. It is to sail through Geirangerfjord and Trollfjord — whose sides tower above you — to a breathtaking dead end where the ship miraculously turns around virtually on its own axis; it is to watch small fishing villages wake up and go to sleep and to see the midnight sun hang between dark rocks silhouetted against a roseate sky.

This is truly a landscape to fall in love with.

Getting there

Next year, Hurtigruten (www.hurtigruten.co.uk 0845 225 6640) is offering its “Round Voyage” from £610 per person for an inside cabin in winter, to £7,134 per person for a suite in high summer. Price includes full board but excludes flights. A seven-day “Voyage North” and a six-day “Voyage South” are also available.

Jewish Norway

The Jewish community in Norway has always been small, reaching its peak of just under 2,000 just before the Second World War. Around a third of those died in Auschwitz: the rest escaped to Sweden. Today, there is a small community and Jewish Museum in Trondheim, home to the world’s northernmost synagogue, and another shul in Oslo, where around 900 Jews live.

Sailing: Welcome to nappy valley

Daniel Finkelstein — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:31:54 +0100

I have to take it on the chin. If God decided to have another go with that flood thing, He wouldn’t pick me as Noah. I don’t think that it is so much because of my moral failings, which are many. It is more that he would correctly calculate that I would be rubbish at the helm of the Ark.

I’ve always admired Noah. All those hours at sea with the animals fighting like cats and dogs in the back.

He made it to dry land without going mad, even though the entire time he had an otter and a chimp on the seat behind, constantly asking “are we nearly there yet?”. He must have been some sailor. And I — I may as well tell you — am not.

Which may make you wonder how I found myself at Sunsail Club Javelin on the Bodrum Pensinsula in Turkey, settling in with my wife and three young boys. How, and why.

My visit to Club Javelin wasn’t my first visit to a Sunsail. It was my fifth. My fifth. That’s five separate times. And I’ve hardly been on the water. But that’s not the point, because Sunsail offers something very few other venues offer.

The first is something for my wife, Nicky, to do. Nicky loves sailing and windsurfing. Sunsail provides a limitless supply of equipment, and almost all free at the point of use (you have to pay for some lessons). Because there is something for Nicky to do, the number of times we have to hire a hot Hertz rental car and trek to an ethnic sock-weaving factory is reduced to a minimum. This is a plus.

It is also a plus that Sunsail provides, at a reasonable cost, childcare for very young children.

Now, I believe in capitalism. I find it hard to accept that a gap in the market can remain open for a long time without someone cleverly filling it. Which is why I am baffled by the scarce provision of holidays with childcare for very young children.

It isn’t too hard to find a company that provides kid’s clubs for children aged four and over. But by the time the children are four, you don’t really need it. You can go swimming with them, play football with them, chase them along the beach, whatever. Slightly older and they find their own friends to go off with.

The children you need a kid’s club for are the very young ones.

Here’s what happens when you are with a very young child in a hotel by the pool. Obviously, you start with all the glorious things you have a young baby for. You take them swimming, you let them get covered in sand from head to toe, you read to them about Spot At The Beach, or Upsy Daisy Takes A Holiday From The Night Garden.

And then?

You cuddle them on your lap for a while. They wriggle and you put them down. They begin crawling towards the pool. You let them. They continue crawling towards the pool. You realise they are going to fall into the pool. You run after them, pick them up, return to your seat and cuddle them on your lap for a while. They wriggle and you put them down. They begin crawling towards the pool. You let them. They continue crawling towards the pool. You run after them… and so on.

After about 15 iterations of this, you are about as relaxed as Japanese banking executive. You are ready for a holiday even though you are supposed to be on one.

There are very few holiday companies indeed that provide for these very young children. And Sunsail does.

Excellently.

That, then, is how and why I — together with my wife — found myself at Sunsail Club Javelin.

There has, until now, always been a problem with Sunsail clubs. Actually two problems.

First, for all their tremendous virtues, they have had a slightly student-union-rag-week feel to them. It is never entirely clear whether you on a holiday planned by them or for them.

On a previous Sunsail holiday, the staff held an Elvis night. Well, I don’t know about anyone else but I usually leave my Elvis costume at home before setting off for the airport. I had a strong feeling that the event wasn’t really for the guests.

And the second problem was that the accommodation was pleasant and acceptable but not always absolutely tip-top.

At Club Javelin, Sunsail have put this right.

They’ve had the place refurbished and it is now managed locally as a proper hotel. The Sunsail team just look after the sailing. One or two guests expressed mild disappointment that this gave the joint less atmosphere, but I thought the transformation was easily worthwhile.

There was the lovely big pool, the excellent buffet meals on the open terrace, the bar with notably friendly service, and drinking in a wonderful bar on the jetty — Sunsail has grown up and gone into the hotel business.

Sunsail is fantastic for babies. But there was one strange lapse. Who thought that it would be a top class idea to put families with buggies at the top of a hill?

We’re not talking about a small incline either. We’re talking about the sort of hill that Cheryl Cole climbs for charity. We got (how can I put this nicely) moderately fed up climbing this hill. It was not our finest memory of the week.

At the top of the hill, there were then 30 steps (30 uneven steps) to pull the buggy up in order to reach our room. I do not think that Sunsail should advertise the hill or the steps in their brochure.

What else?

The sailing was excellent. So I am told. The wind was good and strong — if anything too strong. The equipment was first rate. And from my point of view, the ratio of people actually sailing to strangers I was forced to talk to about the boring injuries they picked up while sailing was acceptable.

The Kid’s clubs? They were terrific. On the first day, my middle son went off to the Urchins club for six year olds with a show of reluctance. The next day he was standing outside the club door 20 minutes before opening time impatiently waiting for it to get started. And my older son dipped in and out of his club, sensibly joining them when they were colouring, and coming to see me when they went canoeing, or whatever.

Listen. We’ve been to India and Botswana and Egypt and so on. And this isn’t them. It’s a beach. A nice beach, with camels on and stuff but a beach is a beach is a beach. Yet if you have very young children, and you want to combine baby care, a relaxing, safe, place to go and something to do with all that time then Sunsail is it.

Travel facts

Sunsail Clubs (0844 463 6578; www.sunsail.co.uk/club) operate in Turkey, Antigua and Greece. However, Club Javelin in Bodrum will not be open for summer 2009. Club Vounaki in Greece offers a superb alternative. Prices start at £659 per person for one week, based on May 3 departure for two adults sharing a standard room. It includes all inclusive watersports, kid’s club for 2-17yrs, half-board meal plan, flights, transfers and accommodation.

Kid’s clubs are free for 2-17yrs. For children 4mths-2yrs cost £240 per child per week. There are free sailing clinics and RYA Start Sailing course. Other courses start at £40 per person.

Life is suite in a penthouse

Richard Burton — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:56:46 +0000

It wasn’t the first time I’d sipped champagne mid-ocean, shaken hands with a captain or made small-talk with a diplomat in a ship’s ballroom. But it was the first time I’d stood there and applauded a complete stranger — just for being rich. Honestly. That’s what I did, mid-Adriatic, one balmy night somewhere off the Italian coast.

The stranger was a Japanese businessman who had just completed — wait for it — more than 250 cruises on the same liner.

The captain, resplendent in white flannels, said a few words, handed a bunch of flowers to the rich guy’s not surprisingly delighted wife, and thanked them both for their custom.

Let’s face it: who wouldn’t want an address like: The Penthouse, Crystal Serenity, Somewhere in the Deep Blue Ocean? As we quaffed our bubbly in honour of their good fortune, I worked out they must have spent something like 3,000 days on board and circumnavigated the globe more than a dozen times.

Back down to earth, or should I say sea level, I had that very address for 10 days in October. The 68,000-ton superliner took me from Venice to Monte Carlo in a style to which even the most seasoned cruiser could easily become accustomed.

In 25 years of cruising, I’ve had suites, staterooms, even a deluxe suite but never an actual penthouse, complete with Jacuzzi, his ‘n hers dressing room with Frette dressing gowns hanging from the door. Oh, and a widescreen TV which can be watched from the bed, the sofa or — sad as it sounds given the views outside — the balcony.

Then there was the butler, of course. An impeccably mannered chap called Mahir, who brought me hors d’oeurves, kept the fridge stocked, saw to my laundry and even found someone to fix gadgets when they broke down.

All of which meant that moving out on the last day felt like having a home repossessed. If there’d been a radiator, I’d have chained myself to it.

Still, let’s dwell on the best bits. Eight hundred of us had boarded in Venice as the rains came and left St Mark’s Square under six inches of water.

It was still pouring as we departed a day later and again the day after that as we docked at Dubrovnik. So hard was it in fact that the coach that took us to the town centre didn’t bother stopping and, sensing no enthusiasm for anyone to get off, rode us straight back to the port. But it didn’t matter. Cruising holidays are rarely spoiled by the weather, especially on utopian ships like these. They just move on while you’re watching a show, playing in the casino or lounging in the bar.

And on we did go, at 21 knots, to a sun-drenched Sicily where a coach took us all the way up a winding mountain road through Taomina to Savoca, the tranquil hillside village where Al Pacino got all Mafioso and persuaded a hapless bar owner it would be, er, well worth his while to let him marry his daughter.

Bar Vitelli, the 18th-centry roadside café, was still there, almost unchanged, apart from a vine-covered terrace and one of two photographs of Pacino and Frances Ford Coppola.

A guide took us through the winding streets to the churches used to film the wedding and the coach driver played the Godfather theme.

Then there was Sorrento, where for a few euros, a 30-minute shuttle ride took a few dozen of us up the Tyrrhenian coast to Capri for one of the best day-trips imaginable. Having floated into the Marina Grande, a few more euros bought a funicular ride to the town centre and the Piazza Umberto where the views vied for attention with probably the biggest collection of designer stores outside Milan.

There are few better places to stretch your sea legs than this. In a few hours you can stroll half the island, meandering through narrow stonewalled streets grabbing views from the Monastery Gardens and making your way south to cliff-top squares where you can see the Faraglioni, the huge rocks that jut from the sea off the south-eastern tip.

Back on land and more panoramas. This time from Sorrento’s Foreigner’s Club, a mecca for tourists because of its cheapish fare and views from its wide garden terrace over the bay of Naples, in the middle of which, floating in the blue, rests your ship.

As with all ports, a shuttle service runs you in and out of town. A nice touch is the way Crystal always throw up mini marquees on the harbour and serve drinks while you wait for launches to collect you.

On board and with a few ports under your belt, you start to relax among the strangers you are now sharing your home with. You chat to someone over dinner, strike up a conversation on a lounger and quickly build up a circle of friends. But more interesting are the ones you only observe.

Such as the guy from the Bronx with the bootlace tie and much younger wife who kept telling everyone to “give him a caaal”; the woman in her sixties who’d do the pre-dinner deck stroll in high heels and a billowing silk scarf; and the couple from Nevada who surrounded me in the spa bath and announced to the whole deck I was “from London, England!”

But they were the novelty. Serenity has one of the highest space-per-guest ratios at sea, so it’s not easy to feel crowded.

The decks are wide, the public spaces large and airy and the there are enough dining areas to give you a break from your allocated table in the restaurant.

The best of these is Silk Road, a sushi place offering signature dishes from the renowned Japanese chef Nobu Matsuhisa. In fact, it only took one taste of the Nobu black cod to convince me this was probably the best sea-going restaurant in all my years afloat.

Rarely was it worth venturing ashore to dine, even on excursions to Florence or Pisa. Without local knowledge or time to seek out the finer restaurants, what awaited on board was invariably comparable and often better.

So I didn’t mind when the waiters eagerly sought reward, even handing a blank bill if you’d not had a drink with the pre-paid meal, just so you’d fill in the service charge.

The breakfast crew were just as eager, seeking you out every morning as you stood at the buffet; “finding” you a table among the many empty ones and insisting on relieving you of your tray and carrying it over. Staff are deferential to a fault: standing aside, flattening themselves against walls as you pass them in the corridor.

In the restaurant, things are more relaxed and you get a real chance to bond with your waiters. And its not unusual to see them ashore as they enjoy what must be the biggest perk of their jobs.

All liners offer a range of bars and general entertainment to suit the most diverse tastes and you tend to quickly find a home-from-home.

For me, they’re not the ones with slot machines or loud music. I settled nicely into the Connoiseur Club, a traditionally styled ante room to the equally stylish Avenue Saloon; the sort of place that would be worthy of fees and a waiting list if it were in Pall Mall.

Italy is an intriguing destination for anyone interested in Jewish history; so strong is its heritage. Joyce and Freud left their mark on the literary quarters of Trieste, the Uffizi and Vatican museums boast impressive illuminated Hebrew manuscripts and Rome has one of the finest Jewish museums anywhere.

In fact, several towns and cities such as Pitigliano and Otranto have such strong heritage, they’ve been known from time to time as Little Jerusalem.

We’d done six ports before we hit Monaco, slipping in at dawn to the millionaire’s playground that is Port Hercule — 24 hours before the real playboy yachts arrived for the Monaco Boat Show.

And arrive they did; roughly one an hour, every hour; some carrying helicopters, others half-naked women, all breezing past our bow and tying up in endless rows of gleaming white.

It was an overnight stay so the ship becomes a hotel. Stepping off the gangplank on to the harbour wall leaves you a 20-minute stroll from Monaco Palace and the fabulous network of streets around Avenue de la Porte Neuve.

From there it’s about 45 minutes on foot to the other side of town for the Casino and Café de Paris.

The ship provides a shuttle bus, but then you’d miss the streetlife, not to mention the stroll back down among the super-yachts.

It was 17 hours before the ribbon was to be cut and the jetties had been sealed off as exhibitors set out their stalls.

It was easy to slip past the cordon and nose around among the marquees and negotiate a few gangplanks until a uniformed official stuck out a hand and demanded my pass.

I didn’t have one, so I took out my penthouse swipe card and waved it under his nose. It clearly wasn’t what he was looking for.

“I’m on Serenity,” I said. He shrugged, bemused but not wanting to risk offending, lest I was important.

“Serenity?” I said, as if I was saying Rainier. “It’s the biggest yacht in the harbour…?”

A pause, then he replied: “Pardon monsieur,” and stepped aside. I strolled on in confidence.

Well, I wasn’t exactly wrong was I?

Travel facts

Richard Burton travelled with Crystal Cruises (www.crystalcruises.com; 020 7287 9040). The line has a number of summer cruises aboard Crystal Serenity which feature Jewish itineraries, including a 12-night Lisbon to Venice; 14 days, Venice to Barcelona; 7 or 10-day Venice to Rome; 12-day Barcelona to Venice; and 12-day Venice to Athens. Most include an overnight on board in Venice, with fares from £1,861

Champagne and port

Jan Shure — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:11:43 +0100

On Sunday I drank Champagne; on Monday I sank Margaritas; on Tuesday I sipped more Champagne; on Wednesday I drank a Kir Royale; on Thursday I consumed a Cosmopolitan. And on Shabbat, aside from Kiddush wine in the lounge set aside for a Shabbat evening service, I allowed my liver a rest.

If there is one thing that is emphatically not missing from an up-scale, all inclusive cruise, it is Champagne and cocktails - or, indeed, any other kind of tipple that tickles your taste buds.

I would hate you to think that the reason I chose to cruise with Seabourn, one of the world's handful of super-luxury lines, is the copious quantity of Champagne with which they ply you throughout the trip. It was not. But the line (part of the Carnival Corporation, headed by the American-Israeli Arison family) definitely fosters the belief among its guests that they are attending a laid-back, private party aboard a close friend's big (okay, huge) yacht, complete with the kind of round-the-clock cocktail-and-Champagne regime that such a bash normally entails.

Indeed, the line refers to its fleet as "the Yachts of Seabourn", to emphasise the point. In fact, Seabourn Legend, which we boarded in Nice and left seven days later in Barcelona, is a small but perfectly formed cruise ship claiming one of the highest ratios of space-to-guest in the marine industry.

I would be lying if I said Legend's accommodation was the most luxurious I have sampled at sea. Legend is one of Seabourn's older ships, which means the bathrooms do not have the double sinks and separate bath and shower that are standard on newer ships, such as Odyssey, due for launch next June.
But every comfort has been built in to the 277-square feet of even the most basic Grade A suites, including dressing room, safe, dining area, sofa, armchairs, flat-screen TV, DVD and CD player, American-sized double bed with Egyptian-cotton sheets and a fridge pre-stocked - of course - with your favourite alcohol and soft drinks.

In the public areas, comfort and space are the byword. And because of the small number of guests - Legend accommodates a maximum 206 passengers - there is always a spot to sunbathe or recline in the shade without feeling like the proverbial sardine. As you would expect, your repose is regularly refreshed with an iced flannel or an iced drink - alcoholic or otherwise.

Eating aboard Legend ranges from the elegantly formal restaurant to the relaxed Veranda Café, where breakfast is served in the air-conditioned interior or on deck where you can imbibe juices, fresh-brewed coffee and infusions, and pick from a buffet that features pretty well anything you might conceivably want for breakfast, from fresh fruit and cereals, through waffles, breads, croissant, eggs (with standard non-kosher accompaniments), smoked salmon, cheeses and cakes.

Despite the vast breakfast and three lunch venues; despite proper afternoon tea; despite two (and sometimes three) dinner venues where options include the chef's gourmet dishes, classics, "healthy-eating" options (often veggie or fish) and a big selection of non-offensive dishes for kosher-observant diners (starters alone on one night included seared spice-crusted tuna, vegetable bouillon, bell pepper soup, mesclun lettuce with mimosa dressing and watermelon and rocket salad); and despite 24-hour room service, Seabourn is not a line where the raison d'etre is to eat: there are no midnight buffets, nor groaning tables with ice sculptures which are such a feature of other cruise lines.

Seabourn also seems to be aware that, for its up-scale guests, dining in a formal restaurant is not a particular novelty, and the closer the line can get to barefoot chic, the more it will appeal to less traditional cruisers. Thus they make good use of upper decks, offering al fresco pre-dinner drinks as well as the option of dinner on the Sky Deck on some nights (we pre-ordered non-offensive meals as the options were steak or lobster), plus a barbecue and dancing on deck on one night.
A similar realisation about their guests' assumed taste in entertainment seems to inform the choice of on-board evening activities. There is a bijoux casino, plus a small team of highly professional entertainers who get the ship rocking - in the best sense - with pre- and post-dinner dancing and shows in the ship's theatre, but in general Seabourn eschews Folies Bergere-style extravaganzas with their cast of thousands.
When it comes to the real raison d'etre of cruising - hanging up your clothes and letting the world come to you - Seabourn's itineraries offer plenty of ports for even the most blasé cruise enthusiast. New ports for 2009/10 include St Raphael, Bandol and Antibes on the French Riviera; Opatija and Split in Croatia plus a slew of ports in the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, and late-night stays and overnights in 30 ports, notably Mykonos, St Tropez, St Barts and Portofino.

The itinerary for my trip mixed old favourites with a revelation and an island I had to Google to learn its location.

The last was Porquerolles, a tiny island in the Gulf of Hyères. It has one hotel, hibiscus-clad houses and B&Bs, a dozen restaurants and bars, three unspoiled beaches, no cars to speak of and a handful of boutiques. It offers the kind of understated, hippie chic that St Tropez offered 30 years ago, and demonstrated one of the definitive joys of cruising: providing a chance to sample a city or resort, to determine that it is worth a longer return visit.

Cannes, our second port, with its ice-cream kiosks side by side with Gucci on the Croisette, is an odd blend of Blackpool and the Champs-Elysées. If you can afford to hide out in the Martinez or the Majestic, avoiding the Eurochavs with their tots and tattoos, it can be bliss, and the shopping is great, with branches of every French brand in a single street, but a day there is ample.

The Menorcan capital, Mahon, is unexpectedly charming; a pretty cliffside town with a labyrinth of cobbled streets lined with cafés, galleries, craft shops and smart independent boutiques, it is easy to see why David Miliband chose it as his holiday bolthole, and another one to revisit.

One day in the Majorcan capital, Palma is perfect to see the Gothic Cathedral and the historic quarter behind it - both gorgeously renovated - and to shop. But it is Valencia, just along the coast from Barcelona, which was a total surprise. Sprawling, verdant, with fabulous modern architecture, sublimely restored 18th and 19th-century buildings and a wonderfully preserved old city, it deserves the level of visitors which its neighbour now enjoys: go now before it gets them.

Then it was an overnight sail to Barcelona where, after the annoying (but virtually industry-wide) requirement to leave your suite by 8am (and the ship by 9.30), we dumped our luggage at the magnificently renovated art deco Silken Gran Havana. We spent a day strolling Las Ramblas and Montjuic, before returning for sublime sea bream in the hotel restaurant. But not before cocktails beside the rooftop pool to the sound of live jazz. Well how else would you expect the trip to end?

Travel facts

Jan Shure cruised with Seabourn aboard Seabourn Legend (www.seabourn.com; 0845 070 0500). Legend's 2009 programme includes seven Côte d'Azur and Spanish Isles voyages in June, July, August, September and October. Current best fares, cruise only, from £2,524 per person staying in a Grade A suite. Price includes all tips and gratuities, fine dining, open bar, fully stocked mini bar and fuel supplements. Double rooms at the Silken Gran Hotel Havana, Barcelona booked through Utell (www.Utell.com), from £76 per night with breakfast