My wife and I, in our late 50s, her parents and her godmother, all in their 80s, had a perfect cruise on P and O’s Ventura in July 2018 to Norway. We have cruised mainly with P and O but also Fred Olsen (excellent service) since our honeymoon on Canberra in 1986. Our first port after leaving Southampton was Stavanger. Being eager to get ashore and explore we went ashore early. Unfortunately no cafes were opening until 11am so all returned to the ship, which was close by, apart from my wife and I. We walked on into the town where there were lots of sales of 70% off but it was still expensive. All the shops and wooden boarded upper walls which were very pretty. The shops had some lovely things, and one of them had everything for 3 euros but still there some things of good quality there.
We then had a drink in a very sunny square while on our return by a different route we had some home made ice cream and bought some chocolates from a shop where they made chocolate. We bought some chocolate made from some flowers picked very early that morning. We also went to Olden where we took a road train ride which stopped nearly back at Olden for some shopping. We were rather alarmed on returning in good time for the train only to see Suzanne’s godmother about to disappear without us.
Fortunately, it stopped and we all got on but a little way back it broke down so we had to walk the rest of the way which would have worked off some of the wonderful food.
Next was Flam. Again another beautiful scenic spot after drifting through mountainous fjords and another road train journey. Many took the real rail journey but we were a bit slow getting there so missed out.
Finally, we went to Bergen and had lovely coffees and cakes before walking on to an old part where my wife bought some local prints. Then on to the fish market and to sit with an ice cream watching a pigeon strut up and down. I had studied the buses back which I was looking forward to trying out but my wife’s 87 year old godmother was all for walking so we did.
My main memory of this holiday was the warm weather and clear, clean and crisp, but not at all cold air, which was very pleasant indeed.
When we got back to Southampton I was off early as I was going to watch England v New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup Final at Lords with my brother who had come down from Scotland. That was a perfect end to a perfect holiday.
