Four weeks from when I’m writing this we’ll be in Norway for the fourth time in a year. We had no doubts when we first visited back in 2013 that we’d be back at some point but I don’t think we ever envisaged so many repeat visits in such a short period. After that trip’s over it will then be just six weeks before we hopefully make the somewhat longer trip across the Atlantic to see if Alaska lives up to the hype. It’s then just five weeks until we’re off on a short hop to Europe again. And then there’s a seven week gap before the big cruise of the year.
Basically, what I’m saying here is, even if we don’t travel anywhere at all next year (and we’ve got nothing booked yet which is very unlike us) then I don’t think I’ll have caught up with writing up about our holidays abroad before 2025 anyway. And to further illustrate that, the cruise-related write-ups I’m about to mention below all come from four cruises ago, and that’s the smallest of the cruises we’ve done in that period. I need to write faster and more often.
“And less, Mark,” I hear you think.
Yes, probably.
Okay. Since the last of these updates, I’ve completed the accounts of our walking tour of Copenhagen. In the second part of that walk we took a look at Nyhavn, Christiansborg Palace, and Rosenborg Castle.
The third part of that walk was the part that wasn’t supposed to be a walk at all. It started off well at a bar in Copenhagen, but then some communication issues from Princess Cruises led to us enduring a long trek back to the ship on our own. We did see some nice art sculptures on the walk, though.
That’s the “travelling on foot” part of this update’s title covered, so let’s move onto travelling by steamship. Last year we popped down to Southampton to board a sea-going vessel that wasn’t a cruise ship. I know! What were we thinking!? But don’t worry, because even though we were on Steamship Shieldhall we did still see cruise ships.
Part one of the write-ups takes us from Southampton down the Solent and past several ships, including one of the new class of NCL vessels. Pretty. But expensive. Can’t see us cruising on these anytime soon.
In the second part of our first steamship experience we return to Southampton and engage in a horn battle with P&O’s Ventura (after Sky Princess ignored us).
A post not related to travel at all next in the form of some photos from a food festival in Southsea in 2016. It’s not all travel, travel, travel here. Life’s better when it’s filled with variety.
The concluding part of our 2022 weekend in Salisbury wraps up our short stay in Wiltshire with a few snaps of the small pub crawl we took and some final thoughts about the place and our hotel.
Finally, the most recent addition to the travel posts on this website takes us back to one of our Sky Princess cruises last year and the first part of an excursion we took while docked at the surprisingly fabulous Skagen in Denmark. This was a look at the Coastal Museum of Bangsbo with its Danish resistance exhibits and medieval boat.
Right, that’s all caught up with travel and photography articles.
As I mentioned at the top, we’ve nothing booked for next year yet. We’re trying to keep ourselves a little more freed up for late temptations, but that’s not to say that we haven’t been considering some possibilities already. One of the lines that’s looking more appealing is Ambassador because of their itineraries; there’s a round-Britain one that hits some Scottish and Irish ports we’ve not been to, and there are some that stop in Morocco at both Casablanca and Tangiers which, for my wife, would mean she could finally say she’s visited Africa.
Another cruise that keeps nibbling away at my brain is a near-repeat of our 2019 Chile to Los Angeles cruise (albeit on a different Princess ship and with one port change that would mean a visit to Ecuador). While we would prefer to visit new places over those we’ve seen before, that was the cruise on which I lost tons of video and I’d love a chance to rectify that.
And, of course, if the right Asian itinerary turned up then that’s an area of the world we’d jump at returning to. Still a load of countries we’ve not set foot in over there.
We’re going to be patient for now, though, and not book anything until we’ve at least seen what we think of Holland America in July (assuming we get to go; we’re keeping an eye on French air traffic controllers who could stuff everything up there for us) because they’re a line with some destinations that appeal if the experience on board suits us.
That’ll do for this update.