A Heritage Walk in Ålesund

Today I went on my first P&O organised shore excursion, a heritage walk through the art nouveau town of Ålesund. On the 23rd January 1904, a fire burnt the town to the ground leaving 10,000 people homeless. Luckily though, only 1 person was injured yet the whole the town had to be rebuilt and so it was, in fabulous art nouveau style. 

Before you ask, I did not climb ‘city hill’ even if there is a restaurant on top. Instead I took a brief respite and kanelsnurr (the fluffiest and most delicious cinnamon bun that you’ve ever had) at Racoon Coffee and More. The cafe can be found on Kong's Gate 6. 

We returned to the ship for a late lunch and a quick dip in one of the ship’s 5 swimming pools before a night of comedy on board the Britannia. 

Welcome To Stavanger

We arrived in the port of Stavanger early this morning and after a quick trip to the Horizon buffet for breakfast, departed the ship to explore what the fishing town turned oil “tycoon” had to offer. 

It turned out that another cruise ship had also just arrived in town so Stavanger was really rather busy actually. 

Before leaving home I had drawn an itinerary for the day but that all fell apart and I didn’t end up doing half of what I had planned like visiting the Swords In Rock. 

The colourful street of Oevre Holmegate in the Skagen area of town has a very hippie vibe and it’s here that you can find many quirky and cute cafes including Hanukah where I stopped for coffee and Wifi.

If you want to access the internet whilst on the ship you have to do so via satellite which is very expensive so I had prepared myself for a very tech-free week.  

Stavanger made its fortune in the 1800s when an influx of herring came upstream….or is it down? The canning museum where a lot of the action went down is still one of the main attractions and then in the 1870s when the fish reserves were drying up and oil rig was discovered offshore and Stavanger lived to see another day…or few centuries. 

On my journey through the town, I stopped at the medieval cathedral of St. Swithin’s which, according to my guidebook, employed many British mercenaries when it was built in 1270 because of the shortage of skilled, local craftsmen at the time. 

Another thing that Stavanger is famous for is the Antony Gormley ‘Broken Column’ statue or rather 23 statues. You may recognise the name as the artist behind ‘The Angel Of The North.’ Sadly, out of 23, I only found one of them. 

I was itching to get back to the ship so after a quick jaunt through the picturesque old town of Gamle Stavanger that’s exactly what I did and sampled Eric Lanlard’s Lemon and Zuzu tart in the Market Cafe. 

A Masterclass with P&O Food Hero, Eric Lanlard

Things were about to get fluffy in the kitchen on the first full day of my P & O Food Heroes cruise to the Norwegian Fjords as this morning I was heading to the Cookery Club for a masterclass with Eric Lanlard! 

First, though, it was time for a quick trip around the ship. Taking a tour of the decks is one of the must-do items on the list of ‘things to do on the first day of a Cruise’ so that you can familiarise yourself with where everything is but I simply ran out of time yesterday. 

Leaving the tour until the morning is actually preferable as you have the ship pretty much to yourself, very useful if you want t take lots of pictures. 

As Norway is an hour ahead of British Summer Time, the ship’s clocks went forward at 2am in the morning. Ok, I thought, I’ll change the clock on my phone so that I don’t miss the masterclass. Ha ha ha.

Needless to say, it didn’t work, I woke up at 8am, thinking it was 7am and very nearly missed the start of the class….just kidding I was still there 15 minutes early. 

The cookery club, on deck 17 is right at the top of the ship and is ironically right next door to the gym. It has room for 24 people around 12 stations; that means 2 people to a bench.  

In the masterclass we were making lemon meringue cupcakes -oooh

apple shuffle -ooooh

and finally, white chocolate and passion fruit cake pops. 

We gathered around the front bench as Eric Lanlard demoed how to make the cupcake sponge and lemon curd. (We didn’t actually make the curd ourselves which I was a bit disappointed about but I guess the class would have gone one for a lot longer than three hours if we had.) 

On our workstations, all of the ingredients were weighed out ready for us to use and Eric Lanlard recommended that you always have your ingredients prepared like this before you start baking for precision and in the interest of being organised.  

There are two main ways of making cake pops, the method I use is spherical cake tins into which I then insert lollipop sticks once the cake is cooked and cooled. 

Alternatively, you can crumb a ready-made sponge cake into buttercream which you then roll into balls before freezing. 

Meanwhile, melt white chocolate over a Bain Marie (or microwave) and dip in the end of a lollipop stick into the chocolate until coated before inserting into the middle before returning the cake pop to the fridge/freezer. 

Once set, dip the cake pop into the chocolate and liberally coat before decorating with sprinkles or whatever else you want. Unfortunately, the kitchen may have been a bit too warm for our cake pops and which made dipping them problematic. I then went on to spill water on them and the chocolate didn’t quite set. 

Finally, the last dish that we did in the masterclass was an apple souffle. Readers of this blog will know that I learnt how to make a souffle du fromage at Le Gargantua last year so I was keen to try a sweet souffle, the problem was that calvados and I do not get along. Although the souffle mix looked alright before going into the oven, it didn’t cook properly so I’m just going to have to try the recipe again at home….sans the calvados. 

There's meringue in the bowl, just checking that those peakes are stiff enough.

After eating all those cake I joined my mother and father for a salsa class before heading over to the Live Lounge for ‘an audience with Eric Lanlard, where the world famous patissier shared stories about his incredible career. From working with Albert and Michel Roux to baking a cake for the Queen Mother. 

What To Do in the First Few Hours On A P&O Cruise

I did my research, wrote down the names and addresses of all the best cafes and places to visit and even revised my knowledge of the history of Norway. The day finally arrived, we were going on a cruise!

Britannia, P&O’s flagship is a large ship but I was not ready for just how big as we drew up to to the cruise terminal. Insert huge gasp! 

I have read quite a few blogs about what to expect on the first day of your cruise (I can see you rolling your eyes at me) but many leave out any information about the embarkation process, so I thought that I would. This only applies to P&O Cruises though as the embarkation can vary between companies....or at least I think so but this is my first ever cruise so I wouldn't really know.....

Your embarkation time depends on which deck your cabin is. Lower decks board the ship first while the higher decks, like deck C where we were staying, go on board later in the afternoon. 

When we pulled into the dock gate, the Cruise Parking Service directed us where to go and wait and wait and wait. 

Eventually, the queue of cars thinned so we were able to drive round to the front of the terminal where a porter loaded our bags onto the ship and the valet parking service drove the car away. We were then free to stroll into the terminal building.

On entering the terminal we were all given a coloured, lettered card which dictated when we could check in, have our credit or debit cards scanned and receive our cruise card. 

The cruise card is basically your identification on the ship and is scanned every time you get off and on at the port stops so that the crew always know who is on board and who isn’t. (The ship won’t wait for latecomers though so make sure you are on board in plenty of time before the ship leaves the dock.) 

Your cruise card is also the key to your room and can be used to pay for extras like drinks and spa sessions which are not included in your package, so try not to lose it or forget it in your room like I did quite a few times.

After check-in, it was time to head through security. Cruise security is pretty much exactly like the security process at an airport but the main difference is that you are not restricted to carrying only 100ml of liquids in your hand luggage. 

Due to a fire alarm having been set off on the ship earlier in the day, the whole embarkation process had been delayed which pushed back the time of the muster drill. 

Jolly good, just enough time to find the cabin and dump our hand luggage. Hey look at that, our main luggage had arrived and was waiting outside the room. 

The muster alarm is a full security drill that is mandatory for the whole ship and demonstrates exactly what you should do if there is a Titanic moment and we hit an iceberg or something else goes wrong. It also meant that we all had a chance to locate and try on our life jackets.

Once this was over, our holiday could begin! 

With so much choice with what to do, the question was, where to start? 

Many blogs and even the cruising series with Jane McDonald have told me that I absolutely must not miss the ‘sail away’ but guess what kids….I did. 

If you are confused by P&O’s freedom or select dining options then let me tell you, so was I... who are we kidding... I still am. 

There are 10 restaurants and places to eat on the Britannia and 5 of those are included in the cruise price. 

We selected freedom dining which meant that we were free to eat at any time. Yet as we found out this didn’t mean that you could pop in and any restaurant and try them all.

The dining card in your cabin shows which restaurant is yours for the week and we were allocated the Peninsular. 

this is actually the glasshouse just to be confusing

A five-course dinner later and feeling decidedly stuffed, we headed over to the Headliner’s Theatre for a dazzling she of Broadway songs in ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me.’ 

Fun fact: 90% of the costumes used in the performance were designed by the team behind Strictly Come Dancing.