Viking Northern Lights Cruise — Part I
London to stavanger
Until this point we have focused (!) our website’s galleries on a particular topic, photographically (e.g. birds, animals, etc.). For this gallery, we are taking the opportunity to offer images and a story illustrating our personal experience. This story will focus on a Viking Ocean cruise, called In Search of the Northern Lights, which we took in January, 2020. The images we made of the Lights on this trip were subtly beautiful and, thus, we believe, worthy to share on a blogpost.
One conundrum we faced was dealing psychologically with cruising right past some of the prettiest destinations on the planet, the Norwegian fjords, in the dark. Obviously, the Lights are best viewed during the long Arctic winter nights, which means forgoing long daylight views of beautiful fjords. We found the time and effort spent to get “way north” worth it, but some members of our travel group of four couples felt otherwise!
Our trip took us well above the Arctic Circle, which, in January, means no appearance of the sun at all. Interestingly, most of the Norwegians that we met in the Far North appeared baffled when we asked about any incidence of Seasonal Affective Disorder in their population and claimed little or no presence of the disorder. They did admit to having to supplement with copious quantities of Vitamin D, however.
So, we have decided to offer this website gallery. Please feel free to contact us either here or on our Facebook page to give us your reaction to this new type of posting to help us improve the website for the future.
The question one must ask before embarking on such an adventure: does this cruise really appeal to me? We found in our group of 8 a wide range of responses to this question. The two of us have been obsessed about seeing Northern Lights since childhood. Chris had never seen them as a child and Tom had one vague memory of a night sky with a faint glow to the north during a childhood family vacation to Northern Ontario. A couple of summers ago, while vacationing on Rainy Lake, Ontario, we both got a glimpse of the Lights and were able to capture some generally unsatisfactory photos, but our appetites for more were awakened. The other companion couples had no really well defined goals for the trip except relaxation with good friends and a chance to see some Northern Lights and explore the phenomenon.
We present this gallery as a display of some of our photos but also as a somewhat cautionary tale about photographers vacationing with non-photographer friends. This combination has sometimes turned into a bit of a burden for us, because we often feel we are holding our non-photographic friends up as we set up and take our photographs, but in this case, the result was an unqualified success. The trip allowed us three good opportunities to create images of the Northern Lights, each of which produced some memorable shots, and we enjoyed the company of dear friends. In addition, we were thoroughly pampered by the very dedicated Viking staff and crew. Our only real disappointment was the generally poor quality of the side trips/excursions from the ship. That said, the “best” photos of the Northern Lights that we got (those taken with the mountains in the foreground) were acquired on a side trip from Tromsø with a high quality guide, so there was marked variability in that regard.
With all that said, let's begin our journey in Search of the Northern Lights 2020 to Norway. Our story begins in London. The cruise line offers a 2-day pre-cruise extension in London, but it seemed overpriced and the itinerary somewhat underwhelming; so (as regular and somewhat seasoned London visitors), we elected to fly in a day ahead of the cruise, check into our hotel in Westminster (a great location), and began the journey with a visit to the Tate Gallery in Millbank.
Friends on sprial staircase, Tate Gallery, Millbank, London
This gave us the opportunity to once again experience the ethereal beauty of the works of our favorite British artist, JMW Turner. The magnificent skies in Turner’s paintings whetted our appetites for a trip to view the Northern Lights.
JMW Trurner’s magnificent A Disaster At Sea (1835), Tate Gallery, London
After our museum tour and a quick change, we had dinner at the Yotam Ottolenghi restaurant, Rovi, in Fitzrovia. Dinner there was considered the highlight of the trip by some. Chef Ottolenghi’s combo of unique ingredients, pan-Mediterranean cuisine, and friendly small plate service was a knockout. The following morning, we embarked on our own walking tour past Westminster Hall to Trafalgar Square, a must see location in London,
Trafalgar Square, fountain in foreground, with National Gallery on left and St Martin in the Fields on the right.
and on to the National Gallery, which showcased a fascinating special exhibition of Leonardo’s masterpiece, St Mary of the Rocks, and its recent restoration. The story of the restoration was outlined with an interactive exhibit highlighting the complex decision-making required in such an undertaking.
National Gallery interactive exhibit of the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterwork, St Mary of the Rocks.
That evening, after a one hour limo ride, we boarded the Viking Star and set sail from Tilbury, the eastern port of London. Our ocean excursion began with a two day cruise through the North Sea, a somewhat slow and ponderous introduction to our Search for the Northern Lights.
The first port of call, Stavanger, seemed to be picked more for its proximity along the southern coast of Norway than for its scenic nature. The modern town grew up alongside a small medieval port town, to emerge as the Norwegian hub of the North Sea oil crews. Unlike many of the Norwegian port towns that were destroyed by World War II fighting, this one had a lovely harbor front, beautifully preserved and readily accessible from the cruise dock. Rather than take the ship’s tour by bus, we elected to walk the quayside and were rewarded with several images of the early settlement. Because it was Sunday, there was little commercial activity and few townspeople to be seen. Our short walk generated views around the harbor side and of Gamle Stavanger (Old Town Stavanger) as shown below:
