My cruise year in pictures

Time for a round-up of my year in pictures. This time with a difference. A few – like the one above of Disney Cruise Line’s resort island of Castaway Cay – are traditional picture postcard stuff (or as near as I can get with my limited photographic skills). Others are quirky, weird, or just plain bonkers. Enjoy.
This vintage Porsche, parked directly outside the Gucci shop in St Tropez, seemed to sum up the over-the-top luxury of the French Riviera, appropriately enough during a short cruise on SeaDream II. Such a shame that when the driver returned with his two elegant lady companions he had to make at least a dozen attempts to slam his door shut before the catch finally engaged.
Transport was rather more basic in Tunisia – although not the coach that took me from Sousse to the Roman amphitheatre at El Djem when I visited on Swan Hellenic’s Minerva. This cart was tethered to a roadside lamp post. I’m pretty sure that’s a mule between the traces – it was too tall to be a donkey, but it didn’t have a horse’s head.
These dogs were also a form of transport. Part of a collection (what’s the collective noun?) of hundreds of huskies at the Tromsø Villmarkssenter in Norway, they get the summer off because there’s no snow to go sledding. A memorable visit in May to celebrate Norway’s National Day with Hurtigruten featured a dinner of reindeer stew served in one of the wilderness centre’s authentic Sami tents.
Dogs were not welcome at the synagogue at Capernaum where Jesus is said to have preached as a young man. Nor were cigaretts (sic), guns, or short clothing. Well you have to have limits. Seen during an excursion on our third day in Israel during October’s cruise on Crystal Serenity.
The Serenity cruise finished in Venice, as several others during the year had done. Arriving in June on Carnival Breeze, we were greeted by SeaDream II, MSC Armonia, and Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas. Making a total of about 7,500 passengers let loose to explore La Serenissima.
It seemed almost as crowded in Olympus, home of the original Olympic Games, which I visited in May during an excursion from a cruise (from Venice) aboard Royal Caribbean’s recently-refurbished Splendour of the Seas. The crowds were kept at bay exactly a week later, when the Temple of Hera was the setting for the lighting of the Olympic Torch.
That’s not smoke on the water above, it’s early morning mist in the container port of Hong Kong, as Diamond Princess arrived during my Far Eastern voyage from Beijing.
One constant of a life on cruise ships is the food. There’s always plenty of it, available round the clock. There’s no escape ashore – take a butchers at this market stall in Hué, former imperial capital of Vietnam, visited from Silver Shadow in November . . .
. . . and this magnificent spread – just a light lunch – at the authentically Russian Sadko Restaurant in St Petersburg. Second-best moment of the visit on Saga Sapphire; by popular acclaim the highlight was a crowd-free after-hours visit to The Hermitage Museum, topped off with an orchestral concert in the Grand Italian Skylight Hall. The combination of Cavalliera Rusticana and Canaletto was intoxicating.
Another picture from an exhibition here – at a roadside in Thailand. I lost count of the amazing sights during the Voyages to Antiquity trip from Singapore to Burma on Aegean Odyssey. This one, on the island of Phuket, just about beat the lot. I would love to know just what she is advertising.
Finally, a picture from January and a Caribbean cruise on Allure of the Seas. I’m pleased to report that the Temple of the Winds at Tulum, Mexico – and the rest of the world – survived fears that a Mayan prophecy would bring it all to an end in December. Like the temple, I’m still standing, and ready for whatever 2013 has in store.
Larger versions of the pictures can be viewed in my Flickr gallery.