The ship berthed in Bergen this morning and we went on a 2 hour bus tour of the city. Later we walked around the port area then took the funicular up Mount Floyen. This pic was taken at the top and shows our ship in the foreground. Ten goats roam around the mountain but they are monitored by gps trackers. They seem to have the role of keeping down areas of vegetation.

When the ship sailed into Geirangerfjiord we were asleep, but we saw the fjiord in the afternoon light as we sailed out. We also paddled on it in a double kayak. It was only a short trip in a taxi bus to the "dock" where we were fitted with our life jackets and skirts (to keep water out of the kayak). We had to sit on the dock and slide across to the kayak while one of the Portugese guides held it steady. After our paddle this maneuver had to be done in reverse. One of the taller male passengers slipped and his top half fell into the water. The guide grabbed him but needed help to be able to pull him up as his legs were still in the kayak. He was unharmed but it could have been more serious than a partial dunking. There was another cruise ship anchored in the fjord so it was the first time we had paddled in the same waters as these large vessels. Again we had a warm sunny day with no wind - it would be miserable to go kayaking in the wind and rain, but having travelled this f

We docked at Molde and travelled by bus along a very scenic route. Unfortunately the only way to take photos en route was through the bus window. Our excursion was a 2 km walk up to a waterfall.  The ship sailed at 5.30 pm and we are due to arrive at Geirangerfjord at 8 am. We are scheduled to go on a morning kayaking trip in the fjord.

Yesterday afternoon we took an included bus tour of Tromso (Viking use the word "included" in preference to "free" with good effect). I snaffled the front seats reserved for people with disabilities (my disability is feeling gross motion sickness if I can't see forward). We would have moved if a person with a disability got on the bus. Tromso is the third largest "city" in Norway. It has a university and several hospitals some of which specialise in research into hyperthermia and other arctic issues. There are quite a few historical timber buildings in the town centre but I liked driving above the snow line and looking down on the fjiord. There is a rough car park where the buses stop and disgorge all of the camera toting tourists. We walked in the snow just for the heck of it and managed to take this pic using my new Nikon Coolpix A300 camera which fits into my pocket.  Today was at sea and it was a little rougher than it has been. I went to a talk by

Overnight we sailed to Tromso. My first excursion was kayaking. We were in a bus for half an hour including travelling in a tunnel that intersects underground with other tunnels at roundabouts. The leader of the kayaking crew was a NZ woman who alternates between the summers in Norway and NZ. The gear was tired so much so that my spray deck leaked causing me to have wet trousers. Fortunately it was not too cold except for my hands when I took off the gloves. The most interesting part of the trip was being paired with Dale Templar who is the producer of the BBC/Discovery series "Human Planet". She is on the ship as a guest speaker talking about some of the behind the scenes events that occurred during the filming of the series (which won several awards for the artic episode). She has kayaked before including in Greenland so we managed our leaky boat without mishap. We paddled over what is left of a German battleship that was scuttled by the RAF during WW2, then across to an is

We sailed into Honningsvag at lunchtime and there were already two cruise ships docked. We crowded into the Star Theatre before being sent out to the buses on our various excursions. Not well organised. The main tour is a bus ride for about one hour up to Nordkapp the most northern tip of Europe at latitude 71° 10' 21". It was bitterly cold with a strong wind blowing the drizzle into our faces. The cliff is 1000 feet high and the drive here on a narrow windy road across the tundra was not exactly relaxing. At least we got to wear all of our cold and wet weather gear. Anita spotted these tiny heather plants growing in the rock strewn tundra.

The sun broke sometimes through the cloud cover, and there was occasional drizzle which caused these rainbows.

We sailed under this bridge. As the ship approaches bridges it always looks like thete won't be enough room for the ship to pass under. The photo was taken looking back from the ship. The water was very calm.

This  photo was taken at 0015 hours on 25 June from the verandah of our cabin. We did not sit up all night to verify that the sun did not set, but accept the scientific evidence that the sun does not set in this part of the world at this time of year. The scenery we sailed through was fabulous. The odd shower of rain produced rainbows. There is plenty of snow at higher altitudes but the Gulf Stream keeps the coast relatively warm.

Today was a bit farcical. We had to go ashore in the tender boats and then be driven around the islands by bus. There are only 25,000 people living here, spread throughout several towns and villages over the five larger islands in the archipelago. When several hundred cruise ship passengers arrive the single lane roads are choked with buses. We left early and apparently missed the worst of the local traffic headed for the beach - the best beach in Norway is on these islands. To see one of these beaches we drove through a long single lane tunnel under a mountain and up a gravel road, where the bus had to turn around before reversing the rest of the way up the road. About eight buses ended up here so we could not leave until all of the other buses left. Add to that shemozzle a variety of cars and campervans parked along the side of the roadway. A few hardy souls were camping by the beach amongst the sheep. A friendly cat then appeared wandering amongst the tourists! While we were on our

We are approaching Lofoten Islands. There is little wind and the sun is shining so we should get good views on our excursion today. A Viking sister ship is in the harbour so we will have to disembark by tender ships.

This morning we visited the thermal suite and went in the hydro pool, snow room and steam room. The hydro pool has strong jets at the far end making it a challenge to walk across the pool without going to one of the sides. I run against the current for exercise. Anita spends longer in the steam room and snow room. Now we have discovered the plastic shoes to wear the snow isn't painful on the feet. My limit is about one minute. Later today we will cross the Arctic Circle (latitude 66° 33' 39" N). This is defined as the northern area of the earth where at least one day per year the sun does not set, and one day when the sun does not rise.  The seas continue to be amazingly calm. The captain told us the North Sea can be one of the wildest oceans in the world - I am so glad that we are not experiencing that!

This picture was taken as we sailed away from the Orkney Islands. We were supposed to stop for the day at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, but early this morning the ship's captain decided the winds in the Lerwick harbour were too strong for safe mooring and turned the ship around. Instead we are headed to our first stop in Norway. Apart from not being able to see any of the Shetland Islands, this also means two days at sea. Obviously safety comes first and the crew rapidly came up with a revised plan of activities. We watched the movie "Allied" in the theatre.  We also had drinks with some of the crew and the other passengers who are staying on the ship for the Baltic cruise. Most passengers disembark when we get to Bergen and others come on board. We can only hope there won't be so many Americans!

We both enjoyed our excursions around the Orkney main island. I visited Skara Brae which is the remains of a Neolithic village (about 3000 BC). It was discovered in 1850 when a fierce storm exposed parts of the stone buildings. My tour also went to the Ring of Brodgar which consists of standing stones set in a circle 104 metres in diameter - coincidentally it was the summer solstice. One of the remaining stones was split by lightning so one theory is that this is how some of the other stones were destroyed. Anita visited the town of Stromness and was very impressed by the tour guide who provided interesting stories about the history of the Orkneys. During both wars the bulk of the British naval fleet was moored in Scapa Flow, a protected body of water surrounded by six of the islands. At the end of WW1 there were 70 captured German ships in Scapa Flow. Before the armistice was signed a German admiral gave the order to scuttle all ships and many were sunk. Those ships remained in Scapa

We berthed later than expected at Kirkwall, Orkney Islands because of a problem with one of the engines. Again we have been lucky with the weather and calm seas. I took the shuttle bus into Kirkwall and explored the museum. This cathedral was built in the 12th century from red sandstone. It has been added to sveral times and during restoration work the bones of St Magnus were found in a box in one of the columns. Anita is doing a tour of Kirkwell and I will do a different tour away from the main centre. The ship is full of Americans and some of them are serious attention seekers!

This morning we sailed under the Forth Bridge which crosses the Forth River at Queensferry. This is a rail bridge and when it was completed in 1890 it was the world's first major steel bridge. There is also a suspension road bridge across the Forth and another new bridge still under construction.  Our ship docked at Rosyth which is an industrial port so passengers had to be transported to and from the area by bus. We took the shuttle bus to Dunfermline which has a recorded history going back to the Neolithic era (10,000 BC). Many of the buildings are ruins now but their sheer size and structure is impressive. Dunfermline was the capital of Scotland from the eleventh century until early in the fifteenth century, and royals have been born in the old palace.  We were dropped off at the covered shopping centre but preferred to wander through the High St and other side streets where unfortunately many of the shops and businesses appear to have closed down. 

This is a view of the infinity pool on deck 7 taken from the sundeck. The water was lukewarm and I had it to myself. The North Sea has been fabulously calm all day. We are currently east of Newcastle upon Tyne in north east England. We are due in Rosyth about 7.30am. Anita saw whales in the distance and I have seen several oil platforms. We have pulled out of the bus trip to Edinburgh tomorrow. It is a 45 minute drive to Edinburgh but can take a lot longer depending on the traffic. Instead we will take the shuttle bus to the historic town of Dunfermline.

Underway! It was quite some exercise getting the ship moving - workboats went around the ship untethering all of the ropes tied to mooring buoys. Two tugs pulled and pushed the ship slowly downstream.  It was a tight squeeze getting the ship through the Thames flood barrier. The picture shows the ship's railing and part of the barrier. The ship is 29 metres wide, 228 metres long, with a draft of only 6.3 metres. The barrier is moved into place to prevent floods. It is deployed to hold back incoming tides when there have been heavy rains upstream. We can follow our ship's location on vesselfinder.com so know that we are nearly out of the Thames. We will be at sea all day tomorrow.

We have explored the ship and think it will be fine. I will revisit that thought in 28 days time. We have swum in the heated pools and experienced the hot spa, steam room and snow room (it is a Nordic ship).  Our excursion to London on a bus was not so successful - there were 8 busloads of Viking passengers and we had organised to be on the earliest bus at 8am (which was lucky since it reached 30 degrees here). Traffic was almost non existent until we got to Buckingham Palace where there was a traffic jam of buses. At London Bridge there is a huge floral tribute to the victims of the last terrorist attack. The bus air conditioning was inadequate so we got off at the first stop and did not get back on. We found a nice cafe to cool down and have coffee then walked to Westminster Pier where we caught a River Bus back to Greenwich. The photo demonstrates both the historic and the shiny new features of London. Our ship has become a tourist attraction in itself because very few cruise ships

We walked 7kms round trip to have breakfast with Aussie friends living in London. The shortest route from our apartment would have involved passing through the Trooping the Colour parade and that was impossible. The food at the Nopi restaurant was good but the toilet decor was astounding - there are multiple mirrors making it difficult to identify the doors to the cubicles. The exit had to be marked on the floor with an "Out" arrow. Our pre-booked car arrived on time and the driver was very good. The Viking cruise personnel took care of our luggage and we transfered to the Viking Star moored in the River Thames.

Another sunny day in London. We joined the hordes of tourists around the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square etc. It was chaotic in places with large groups of pedestrians blocking the paths.  There are barricades along many roads presumably to be used for the Trooping the Colour parade which happens tomorrow. That is the official day Queen's Birthday parade and is a huge event but our invitation must have gone astray.

We walked around the Westminster City area and saw more than six police cars and an ambulance race across Vauxhill Bridge with lights and sirens. They were going in the opposite direction to the Grenfell Tower so presumably their interest was not related to that awful tragedy. The BBC news is reporting that dozens more people are still missing on top of the 17 already confirmed dead.  We visited Westminster Cathedral and a very enthusiastic guide told us the marble used to construct and decorate the building came from five continents. It certainly is an impressive structure.  An old timber sign on the outside wall states "If any child is seen disfiguring these walls by chalking or by writing upon them ... " and continues something about the police but not all words are readable. 

We travelled to the airport by train not by the longest limousine we have ever seen. Our overnight flight with Finnair was very comfortable and we were able to sleep as the beds lay flat. The food was not fabulous but OK. Our transfer at Helsinki went smoothly and we arrived early in London. We had booked a car to take us to our hotel anticipating a long delay getting through passport and customs. As it turned out we had passed through both within 15 minutes so had to wait for the car. Things did not go so well at the hotel. We had specifically picked an historical hotel that has been refurbished with a lift, air conditioning and includes breakfast. When we arrived we were told our apartment is a 7-10 minutes walk from the hotel. This was a surprise and not good news. The hotel staff arranged a taxi and lifted our luggage, but none of that would have been necessary if we were staying at the hotel. It is more like a 10-15 minute walk to the hotel from our boring modern flat with no air

We checked out of our hotel leaving our luggage with the concierge. As our flight is not till 7pm we walked to Polk Sreet and explored the Russian Hill area. While we had to walk uphill we managed to avoid the steeper inclines. Our coffee stop was at a restaurant that had only been open for 2 weeks. The decor was good, service friendly and coffee was fine. It wasn't surprising to learn customers were queued on Satuday morning. The pic is looking out the restaurant window.

Today was our last full day in San Francisco and we spent it shopping! Then of course we had to pack our purchases as we are leaving for London tomorrow. Our hotel is located on Sutter St and we have walked up and down several times, but from ground level you don't always appreciate the fabulous art deco buildings in this area. One building we have been able to admire is the Metropolitan Club which was originally established in 1915 as the Women's Athletics. It is currently an elite women's club with fitness facilities, accommodation, and private dining facilities but we haven't tried to get inside!

This has been the third sunny day in a row in a city that is often shrouded in fog. On Friday as we walked through Golden Gate Park a local dog walker observed we were lucky to get a sunny day on our holiday in San Francisco, so we have been very lucky. Last night we walked UP to North Beach which is not a beach at all but an area of San Francisco next to Chinatown, that is the real Chinatown not the showy part seen by most tourists. We walked up the steepest part of Powell Street then smelled acrid smoke from a fire. The fire brigade soon had several units rushing to attend, including a semi-trailer sized unit with a long ladder on top that simply forced other vehicles off the road, including a  bus. The fire was all under control after about 20 minutes. North Beach is an area of many Italian restaurants and the most famous is Tony's Pizza Restaurant. There was a line out the front but out of curiosity we asked how long it would be before a table was available - two and a half hou

Of course the bridge is not grey. But it is not purple either. It is still the same old orange but we just wanted to see if anyone is reading the blog!

We went to Haight-Ashby but realised we were a day early for the 50th celebration of the Summer of Love. From the proposed traffic arrangements etc we decided not to go back tomorrow because there will be huge crowds. We had a wander around but struggled to even find a decent cafe. There are lots of shops selling "vintage" clothing and other hippie memorabilia, but again a disturbing number of homeless people. Just one street back from Haight there are beautifully restored houses. We walked to a train stop and discovered far more interesting shops and restaurants in the renovated area known as the Cole Valley. For lunch we went to the Ferry Building and saw that the Golden Gate Bridge is no longer the famous "international orange" colour, but is now grey like the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It seems the orange was considered to be "dated" and was not prortraying a modern city. But now it is just another bridge when before it was unique. Our bus ride home should

At the de Young museum there are two sets of toilets with signs stating they are both All Gender - male, female, transgender, transexual, intersex etc. Most women headed to the farthest door which was probably the original women's toilet. Interestingly many men stalled at the signs trying to decide which door to enter. The concept was clearly new to most people and did not appear to have a lot of support.  There was no provision for security - violence does occur in public toilets, usually perpetrated by men who enter women's toilets when only one woman is there. Security cameras often monitor the corridors leading to public toilets such as in shopping centres, but there are no cameras in the toilets themselves. Hope this idea does not catch on.

We had a full day starting with a modern train to Ocean Beach on the west coast of the peninsular. The beach runs north south and a strong wind was blowing sand dunes towards roads and buildings. The sand is unattractive as it looks dirty and the beach is not suitable for swimming because of the rips. Consequently we didn't linger.  It was a short walk to Golden Gate Park where we saw buffalos in a large enclosure. There is a long running breeding program to replenish the depleted bison numbers in the wild. The park is about 4 miles long so we hopped on a bus to have an enjoyable lunch at the cafe at the de Young Museum. The current exhibit covers the so-called 1967  Summer of Love. Tomorrow there is a street fair to celebrate the 50th anniversary at Haight-Ashby and we are planning to go depending on the crowds. We then ventured to the eclectic Mission area which has a large latino community but is being "gentrified" with many of the old buildings being renovated.  

As it was raining we explored the shops before visiting friends and meeting their happy 7 month old baby. We travelled to their place on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) which was fast and efficient but disturbingly noisy. Apparently the noise is due to corrugations in the old tracks. Short of replacing the tracks the bumps in the steel can be ground down, but many of the tracks are very worn. An unfortunate side to San Francisco is the many homeless people hanging around downtown. There seem to be no facilities for them - not even any public toilets. Explicit signs at railway stations prohibit urinating and defecating with threat of fines, but no toilets are available. Tourists use restrooms in cafes and restaurants or large stores, but the homeless are excluded from these buildings. A lot of police, transport police and security guards are employed to keep the majority of the homeless population from entering public and private buildings.

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We needed caffeine to partially overcome the jetlag before walking down to Japantown. We should have gone later as most of the shops and restaurants were not open.  After researching the public transport system we managed to get a bus close to the REI outdoor shop we had found thanks to google. REI sells pants that we can only buy online in Australia so we spent a couple of hours trying on and deciding what to buy.  Day 3 - Wednesday 7 June Our outing for the day was to the Castro. June is Pride month in San Francisco and there was no shortage of rainbow flags, including pedestrian crossing (crosswalk) in rainbow colours.  Anita is counting out money to pay for our lunch at a diner at the corner of Castro and Mission. There are rainbow flags in every main shopping centre but Bloomingdale's had a flag hanging down 4 floors.  

We had to fly to Sydney for our flight to San Francisco. We are travelling on a Finnair round the world ticket as it was cheaper than the Qantas return fare to London. This is hard to understand when several legs of our trip are with Qantas.  The flight to San Francisco was uneventful - the food was good and there was very little turbulence but there was also very little sleep! When we arrived at San Francisco we had to queue for about an hour and 20 minutes to go through passport control. We kept getting conflicting information about using the automated service but were ultimately forced to stand in line. This is no way to welcome tired visitors! We left on Monday 5 June about 11am and arrived in San Francisco about 9am on the same date as we had crossed the international date line - that gets a bit confusing. We had booked a room at the Marines' Memorial Club & Hotel and were very lucky to be given access to our room as soon as we arrived and could have a shower and unpack. W

Saturday 3 June On the last day before we left home our neighbours told us the Gold Coast Council was going to introduce restricted parking for our area. We have the Bushtracker parked in the street outside the house and there wasn't time or energy to connect it up to the Jeep and move it. We just hope the machinery of local government will take longer than the two months we will be away to introduce the proposed 2 hour parking limit for our street, otherwise we might have a lot of parking tickets to sort out when we get home!  We put the suitcases near the front door and the dogs reacted by cuddling up withe each other in the one bed and put on their hard-done-by looks. Sunday 4 June We stayed at the Treasury Casino Hotel in Brisbane to reduce the risk of missing our early flight out of Brisbane on Monday morning. That gave Anita a chance to catch up with her former work buddies and for me to visit one of our Spring Hill friends. Not a lot has changed in our old neighbourhood. Fro