The Most Spectacular Way to Experience the Magic of Northern Europe
Whales, waterfalls and the wilds of Northern Europe enthral on a summertime cruise from Norway to Iceland.
“Blow at 11 o’clock!” “Blows on the starboard side!” “Blow right ahead!” I’m zipped into my puffer jacket on Deck 7 of the 930-passenger ship Viking Venus, oohing and ahhing as humpback and minke whales repeatedly surface in Eyjafjörður, northern Iceland. I’d missed the day’s whale-watching excursion but this surprise show seems hard to beat.
Sailing from Bergen, Norway, to the Icelandic capital, Reykjavík, on Viking’s 13-day Iceland’s Majestic Landscapes itinerary, these unexpected moments become the norm. We dock in impossibly pretty towns that feel impossibly far from anywhere. We watch Edward Scissorhands on a big screen by the ship’s heated pool and sail so far north that we cross the Arctic Circle. “One minute I’m looking at the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” a fellow traveller tells me with a grin. “Until two minutes later…”
“You get a different perspective in a kayak. It’s so enormous and you feel so tiny.” Our group of five pairs is trailing the guide, Kim, like a row of ducklings while her colleague, Mike, corrals from behind. The snow-sprinkled chain of mountains by Geirangerfjord looked epic when I was standing on Viking Venus’s sundeck but bobbing on the surface of the deep, dark water, my little boat seems pocket-sized. There are plenty of jokes about capsizing but everyone manages to keep dry and for about six kilometres we trace the shore’s gentle curve, sometimes dense with trees, other times rocky and sheer. As my boyfriend diligently paddles, I dip my fingers in the water – frigid despite the Norwegian summer sun’s best efforts – then snatch them back at the thought of the orcas that are known to occasionally swim this far into the fjord. Mike tells us that we’ll see the famous Seven Sisters waterfalls as the ship sails out in the afternoon and Kim suggests we try to spot the mythical locals: “In this area a lot of rocks fall and we say it’s the trolls throwing them. We Norwegians love folk stories.” Back on board, I keep troll watch through large picture windows as we eat smørbrød (open sandwiches) of Norwegian gravlax and pickled onion from the small lunch selection at Mamsen’s, a quiet alternative to the busy buffet at World Café.
On a grey-sea day from Norway to the Faroe Islands, the pace onboard matches the slow roll of the waves. Pool lounges fill up early, readers snuggle into comfy chairs with novels from the ship’s book exchange and the two specialty restaurants – classic Italian trattoria Manfredi’s and set-menu fine-diner The Chef’s Table – are fully booked for dinner. Without a tour to get to, I sleep in and mooch around our Deluxe Veranda Stateroom, moving from the king-sized bed to the sitting area then out on the balcony until the weather sends me back inside. I flick through classic movies on the TV while my boyfriend hits the spa, swapping between the steam room, sauna and snow grotto (filled with man-made snow) in true Nordic style. Later, I hear one excited guest raving about her helicopter excursion the day before: “Over the glaciers, around the fjords – you don’t expect the colours!”
At meal times and over cocktails I encounter guests from North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida and spot Aussies by their jar of Vegemite at breakfast. Rodney from Texas is travelling with his spouse and friends they met on a Viking river cruise. “My wife is the only person on the ship in a wheelchair,” he says, insisting that her broken foot hasn’t stopped them getting out and about. “Sometimes we can’t get on and off the bus easily but you can see a lot from the bus.”
“There’s only one village on the island and only seven people live there.” The guide lets our RIB (rigid inflatable boat) idle so we can photograph the red-roofed white church and handful of homes in Oyggjadagur, the sole town on Hestur, one of the Faroes’ 17 inhabited islands. Then we’re off again and bouncing over the steely swell, arctic puffins scattering clumsily like wind-up bath toys. We zoom around the island in its entirety, pausing beneath dizzyingly tall cliffs alive with thousands of noisy terns and gulls, nosing into the darkness of the world’s largest sea cave and coasting far below sheep teetering on the edge of bluffs. In the afternoon, we pack oatmeal and raisin biscuits from The Bar on Deck 1 and set off on a self-guided 12-kilometre return hike from Tórshavn, the Faroese capital on Streymoy Island, where the ship is docked, to Kirkjubøur. We traverse the treeless grey-green landscape, following stone cairns marking the route and being distracted by fairytale-pretty lakes and views over the sea to Hestur.
In a natural amphitheatre, we’re reading a sign that explains the spot’s significance when a rosy-cheeked local introduces himself. “This is a special place, the people’s place,” says Eyðun, gesturing to an arrangement of rocks that could be mistaken for another cairn. “One hundred years ago everything was Danish and the people came here and said, ‘We want to speak our language, we want to be Faroese.’” It feels right that a civic monument here is both in and of nature. As we resume our trek, our goodbyes are swallowed by the wind.
“It is mandated that all Icelandic horses take two months vacation every year.” Astride Sleeping Beauty, I reflect on my two-course breakfast of congee and eggs with hash browns and I hope (for her sake) that a holiday is coming up soon. In the countryside just outside Reykjavík, our final port of call, 16 of us have signed up to ride Icelandic horses, renowned for their small stature, additional gait and calm temperament. A video explaining how to stop, turn and “connect with” our horses is shown before we head out. “Welcome to the lava field,” says the young guide who filled us in on equine industrial relations and is as laid-back as our steeds. Skirting a vast, moss-covered moonscape that we’re told a family of arctic foxes calls home, it’s bright and sunny. As we mosey around the jagged lava, the guide explains how it flowed from a volcano the Vikings would pray to for good weather: “They must have been praying today.”
