A little taste of ship and Viking life

After two amazing nights fending for ourselves in Stockholm, we embark our ship and hand ourselves over to 15 days of having zero need to, essentially, fend or think for ourselves. Although I never would have thought I'd succumb to this type of travel, I can now see why you could easily become dangerously addicted to it!

Firstly, it's an absolute joy to have your luggage delivered to your cabin and to unpack completely, knowing you don't need to pack again for the next couple of weeks. And that's just the tip of the iceberg (probably not a word I should use at sea - but then again, I also don't think the classical duet who play each evening in one of the ship's bars should play the theme from 'The Titanic' but they do, so....) and I'm discovering new and wonderful advantages to this cruising life at every turn.

We are learning more about ship life everyday and accumulating more and more stories which I'll share in future blogs, but in the first couple of hours we get acquainted with the ship itself, the Viking Jupiter...

https://www.vikingcruises.com/oceans/ships/viking-jupiter.html

It's classed as a relatively small ship by cruise line standards and carries about 930 passengers. Our room is about the size of my first flat in Adelaide, actually probably bigger and certainly much more elegant.

There are at least 3 main bars but, if you sit still long enough anywhere, someone will ask you if you want a drink.

There are also 4 restaurants, a beautiful spa pool with a sauna and ice room, and an outdoor pool which people are actually swimming in, despite it being absolutely freezing, clearly they are either crazy or English.

There is also a fantastic gym which we have even used a couple of times - it's very odd, but strangely mesmerising to use a treadmill at just about water level in a fairly hefty swell. I was surprised I managed that but I kept heeding the advice to keep my eyes on the horizon and it seemed to work.

We are to spend the night and the following morning in Stockholm before sailing out in the afternoon to visit, or so we think, these ports:

• Mariehamn, Aland Islands
• Gdansk, Poland
• Bornholm (Ronne), Denmark
• Berlin (Warnemunde), Germany
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Skagen, Denmark
• Oslo, Norway (2 days)
• Stavanger, Norway
• Eidfjord, Norway
• Bergan, Norway (2 days)

During the cruise we are scheduled to have only 1 sea day as we sail from Mariehamn to Gdansk but, as we soon come to learn, the weather plays a huge part in life at sea and schedules can change very quickly.

In the meantime, before leaving home we signed up for a number of shore excursions, most are included in the fare but some come at an additional fee. The excursions on offer are varied and cater to all sorts of different activity levels and special interests. Most of ours are either quite active, such as nature hikes and bike rides, but we have also signed up for all the guided city tours by foot and a couple of special excursions mostly centred around the Vikings. I'm not sure why but I have always been quite interested in Vikings, I think somewhat uncharacteristically, because I loved the Asterix comics as a kid. Obviously, the comic strip totally misrepresented the true nature of the pillaging and plundering Vikings themselves but you're not to know that as a young child.

Basically, we are going to be a lot more knowledgeable about Vikings by the time we disembark this cruise and I will share some of our findings in future blogs but, prior to departing Stockholm, we head off on the first of our 'Life of Viking' tours. A few facts learnt at this point are:

• The average height of a male Viking was 5'8" and a rank and file Viking could expect to live between 40-50 years unless mortally wounded in battle, whereas a more senior Viking could potentially live more than 60 years
• Female Vikings had the same status and respect as male Vikings (with many female warriors making up the Viking ranks) but their life expectancy was likely to be much shorter (around 30 years) with many dying during pregnancy or childbirth
• Viking helmets did not include horns as most think
• Apart from raiding, pirating, trading slaves and generally causing a lot of misery they were also traders, explorers and colonizers
• Although they are probably best known for travelling west to the United Kingdom, they travelled much further to the east with evidence of them reaching Baghdad and Constantinople
• Viking explorer, Lief Erikson was the first European to set foot in the Americas, beating Columbus to the continent by over 400 years

So there are a few Viking facts to keep you going for now - probably more than you really wanted

Next we set sail, overnight, for Mariehamn in the Aland Islands. Probably ignorantly, I had not heard of Mariehamn but we are in for a real treat!

Til, next time.... Tally ho!