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“Big?” says one of my companions, more au fait than I am with large cruise ships. “This is just a baby, I promise you.” I don’t argue. But all things are relative, and to me – as we clamber back up the companionway towards the smiling crew – the sleek, black hull of the Viking Neptune appears mountainous.
This is my first ocean cruise, and I embarked with some trepidation. A 47,842-tonne ship carrying over 930 passengers isn't the mode of travel I’d usually choose; my previous cruises have all been smaller expedition trips. But a cool, Nordic break from the summer’s sweltering heatwave held appeal. It was time to confront my prejudices.
The seven-night “Shores and Fjords” cruise starts in Bergen and, except for today’s Flåm diversion, charts a roughly southbound course along Norway’s famously fiddly coastline. Each day brings a different port, as we steadily imbibe the nature and culture of a nation.
To my pleasant surprise, the ship’s elegant interiors feel surprisingly uncongested. My fellow passengers disperse magically along the corridors, and nowhere – from the airy atrium, where the pianist brings us Chopin and Grieg, to the window seats of the World Café – ever feels crowded. Surely, they can’t all be in the spa?
Our excursions are equally relaxed. I’d feared convoys of coaches, but activities come in small, discreet groups, with staggered time slots. Today, with the Neptune moored in the tiny port of Flåm, at the far end of Norway’s longest fjord, I’m returning after a morning of kayaking. Just 24 of us braved this adventure, paddling in pairs across mirrored waters past towering cliffs and waterfalls. Lunch was a barbecue beneath the silent spruce forests, with a curious seal popping up for a peek.
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Stavanger, the country’s third-largest city, is next. After breakfast, I’m down on the quayside squeezing into a watertight suit in preparation for a RIB excursion. This turns out to be faster, noisier and a lot less strenuous than kayaking. We roar out under the harbour bridge, weaving between forested islands, until the fjord narrows and we slow to a creeping pace beneath the 604-metre wall of Preikestolen (aka “Pulpit Rock”). Whisky bootleggers and tax dodgers once hid below the towering granite, our guide explains. What’s more, Tom Cruise abseiled down it in Mission: Impossible.
The afternoon is more sedate, as our walking tour meanders amongst the white wooden houses of the picturesque Old Town. We learn from our guide how Norway’s fortunes were transformed twice here: first by canned herrings (“Stavanger without canning would be like Detroit without cars”), then, in December 1969, by North Sea oil (“The best Christmas present Norway ever had”).
An oil museum has never topped my bucket list, I admit, but Stavanger’s is fascinating. Beneath big picture windows overlooking the harbour, we admire scale models of drilling platforms and learn about the sovereign fund that turned Norway from an impoverished rural backwater into one of the world’s wealthiest nations. We also hear how Norway is now embracing renewables, but that meanwhile fossil fuels should still be exploited responsibly. “Better we do it than some nasty country.”
Our next museum is in Kristiansand. The Kunstsilo, a gleaming dockside art gallery converted from disused grain silos, was voted “world’s most beautiful museum” by the prestigious Prix Versailles architecture award at Unesco headquarters in 2025. We traipse around in awe and later, heads spinning with Norwegian modernism, we continue into town, picking strawberries in a municipal park and learning that in the 1930s the price of one roof tile was a single lobster.
Pausing beside the old Christiansholm Fortress, its cannons still trained on the harbour entrance, our genial guide Terje Nordahl relates the traumatic events of 9 April 1940, when the German navy invaded. His father was among those removed to a concentration camp – a horror he never shared with his family. It’s a sobering reminder of the not-so-distant past.
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Oslo, our last Norwegian port of call, is all about Edvard Munch. The skies are gloomy when we disembark – which feels fitting, as last night’s on-board lecture made it very clear that Norway’s greatest artist was not a happy bunny. “My artworks are the blossom of pain,” he once said. Quite.
The Munch Museum looms on the quayside beside the Opera House, twin icons of modernist architecture that today welcome ships to Oslo. Inside, we admire a jaw-dropping collection, from the celebrated Frieze of Life series to the huge Aula pieces commissioned for the University Assembly Hall. And, of course, The Scream, that shocking panic attack in paint. “Degenerate art,” said the Nazis. “The world’s most famous painting,” our guide counters. “Does the Mona Lisa have her own emoji?”
Later we enjoy a privileged behind-the-scenes tour of the National Museum. “Welcome to the best office in Oslo,” says senior conservator Ida Bronken, as we gawp at canvases propped up in various states of restoration. Her colleagues beaver away like a CSI forensics team. “They have to map out every missing paint flick.”
By evening, we’re leaving Norway, sailing south down the long Oslofjord towards Skagen on the northernmost tip of Denmark. Tomorrow, we’ll explore a very different landscape, meandering by bicycle through sand dunes and holiday hamlets, where artists have patented their own colour (Skagen yellow), and locals hold an annual competition for marinated herring recipes. Then we’ll continue to Amsterdam, docking overnight before a morning flight home.
Until then, there’s the ship to enjoy. By now, I have a better perspective on the size thing. It’s true, the Neptune has been consistently dwarfed by monster vessels we’ve met in port. And on board, it’s quickly become a home – with favourite routes and hideaways. What had at first seemed cavernous now feels cosy and familiar.
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Favourite moments? Hard to choose between afternoon tea with scrabble and ‘success cake’ (suksessterte) in the atrium, the Asian Bistro tasting menu at the Chef’s Table, and midnight dad-dancing to the house band in the Torshavn jazz bar. Though little has beaten simply sitting on my verandah, watching the fjords slip by.
Of course, I’ve missed plenty: the pool, the quiz, the mini golf… Some might say the cruise isn’t long enough. But, as we’ve established, all things are relative. For me, it’s been just perfect.
Mike Unwin was a guest of Viking.
How to do it
Viking’s Shores and Fjords eight-day/seven-night cruise starts in Bergen and finishes in Amsterdam, with stops in Flåm, Stavanger, Kristiansand, Oslo and Skagen. The cruise includes return flights from select UK airports, a veranda stateroom, in-destination transfers, all on-board meals including wine, beer and soft drinks with lunch and dinner (plus no corkage fee), an excursion in each port of call, wifi, gratuities, access to the Nordic Spa, evening entertainment and enrichment talks.
From £3,590 per person for a 5-12 April 2028 sailing, subject to availability. Call 0800 319 66 60 or visit www.viking.com