Wednesday 30th October 2024
Monday 28 October 2024
This is me again on a wee jaunt to the northern climes. Big difference from my last trip which was to Thailand, and the main difference will be the weather, as I am heading to Norway on a journey that will take in, various Norwegian towns and one in Denmark.
So, my latest adventure started yesterday with a very short trip to the ship which was docked at King George Docks in Dundee, a mear 15-minute trip from my place of work, for an afternoon check in.
I have checked in at, and visited many cruise terminals all over the world, some in pretty poor and underdeveloped countries, but the Dundee facility has to be one of the worst I have used. Honestly, it is simply an embarrassment. This is no way to welcome people to Scotland and Dundee Council should get their act together, along with Forth Ports authority ( who own Dundee Docks) they should work on providing a 21 century cruise terminal.
Tuesday 29 October 2024
Anyway, today is the second day of the trip and the ship is heading to Norway through the North Sea, on a dull but calm day. Today is a day at sea with a stop tomorrow in Bergen. A lively port on the southwest coast of Norway.
I have been to Norway quite a few times and it is always a pleasure to see what a country with fewer natural assets than Scotland can do with the self-determination that they have with independence.
Norway ceded from Sweden in 1905 and forged an independent economy based on fishing and shipping from then on, to when oil was discovered in 1969 and by 1995 they had the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.
Norway’s wealth fund sits at just over a trillion Kroner and last year’s profit on the fund was $213 billion
As a comparison, oil was discovered in Scottish waters in 1966, resulting in Scotland being one of the largest oil and gas-producing countries on the planet. The difference was of course that Scotland was not independent and had the millstone of England around our neck, meaning that our potential wealth was syphoned off to spend on things like illegal wars, nuclear weapons costing hundreds of billions of pounds, the House of Lords etc, etc.
Wednesday 30 October 2024
Today we docked in Bergen, which is a thriving city and an obvious hub for the oil industry, with a very busy harbour, shared between fishing, oil and the numerous ferries which sail up and down the coast of Norway going right up into the Arctic Circle. One of the better-known ferry companies is Hurtigruten, who also do expedition cruises into the Antarctic.
I had a long walk into the city which took in some of the many very narrow lanes with overhanging timber houses. Unfortunately, it was fairly steady rain to start with, but I had a couple of stops for the obligatory cappuccino.
So after a pleasant, if wet day in Bergen I am back on the ship and again sitting with another Capuchino in one of the lounges, and contemplating the evening ahead, which will start with dinner in the Buckingham restaurant which is my allocated dining venue at late sitting. There is a lovely young Pilipino lady, Lian, who serves, and makes dinner very pleasant indeed. Food not too bad, indeed I have had a lot lower standards on some of the larger ships, and I cast my mind back to the last cruise I was on with MSC. It was that bad that I was making arrangements to leave after two days and only changed my mind after a meeting with three of the managers who offered quite an upgraded package altogether. So tomorrow we will be docking in Stavanger, followed by Kristiansand, then two days in Oslo and finally two days in Copenhagen in Denmark, before heading south to Newcastle and finally Dundee on the 8th November
Bob Costello 