‘Put it in first gear and press the Turbo button!’ I yell. Moments later, my struggling wife rockets past me on an e-bike up a narrow, stony path.
We’re cycling on a ‘shore experience’ in Hellesylt, Norway, surrounded by waterfalls and mountains – including the one Tom Cruise jumped off on a motorbike in Mission: Impossible 7.
Afterwards, we’ll return to the ship, enjoy some fine dining and catch a theatre show. We might even pop to the library or stare at the Banksy bank note in the art gallery.
This is our first holiday in 20 years without our three children – a seven-night voyage around the fjords on P&O’s cruise ship Iona.
We did a similar trip with the girls nine years ago but, now in their late teens, they have their own travel plans.
It’s a bittersweet feeling for us: on the one hand, no more shared family memories; on the other, freedom to explore new places without needing a consensus of five. Plus it’s cheaper. More a-fjord-able.
Departing from Southampton, the ports of call are Stavanger, Olden, Hellesylt and Haugesund before returning to the UK.
Iona weighs 184,000 tonnes – heavier than 13,000 double-decker buses – and can accommodate 5,200 guests.
Part of the fun of cruising is meeting new people: among those we chatted to were a sheep farmer, a BBC Symphony Orchestra trombonist, a professional gardener who suffers from hay fever and a former Buckingham Palace chauffeur.
On previous ships, we’ve stayed in inside cabins but this time we have one with a balcony – a private space to get lost in thought and feel the sea breeze while sailing past the majestic landscape and occasional offshore wind farm.
There are four swimming pools – the main one covered by a panoramic glass dome – a gym, spa, cinema complex, shops, bars and casino.
You can also take your pick from a daily programme of activities such as speed Sudoku, table tennis, singing workshops, line dancing, yoga and pub quizzes.
Possibly the most popular activity on any cruise is eating. Iona has 16 dining venues – some of which are massive. The perfect marriage of cavernous and ravenous.
The Horizon is one of several buffets offering breakfast, lunch and dinner. The sheer volume and variety of cuisine is astonishing.
Don’t walk across the food zone while holding hot drinks, though. I got collared by the Coffee Police for carrying two cups of java while dodging people piling mountains of food on their plates.
For dinner, the Glass House is a classy joint. Like all the speciality restaurants, you have to pay a small premium but I did have a fantastic vegetarian meal: charred cauliflower steak, Mediterranean vegetable gratin and teriyaki tempeh with edamame beans, for £8.50.
I noticed the salt and pepper shakers had a French car logo. Turns out the Peugeot brothers were in the milling business in the 1800s before diversifying into the auto trade. (Just the sort of trivia I’d love to have shared with my daughters had they been with us.)
Other speciality restaurants include The Epicurean, which is as close as you can get to The Ritz at sea. For hardcore carnivores, try the Keel & Cow gastro-pub. Their prized steaks are on show in a display fridge. It also does a cracking breakfast.
There is Sindhu for Indian foodies and the Caribbean-style Beach House, where my wife sizzled her steak on a hot lava stone at the table.
Some of these require booking which can be done via the My Holiday digital planner app, where you can also check your onboard account, view the daily newsletter, book shore experiences and join ‘virtual queues’ for silver service dining.
Wifi for using the app is free but if you want to access the wider web, it’s not cheap.
P&O uses Starlink – Elon Musk’s satellite internet service – and, with wifi packages starting at £14 a day, it goes some way to explaining why he’s a billionaire.
Entertainment is everywhere. We saw several shows in the Headliners Theatre, including a tribute to Take That and a great performance by juggler Tommy J. (Again, a wistful experience, sans les enfants.)
Tommy appeared on Britain’s Got Talent in 2022 and wasn’t the only TV celeb on board. Singer Matt Cardle (X Factor winner, 2010) had a residency at the Limelight Club.
We particularly enjoyed two Learn Something New talks given by guest speaker Jane Davey, who regaled her audience with fascinating facts about Norway.
Take Cowpat Bingo, for example. This fundraising event, popular in rural parts, sees two well-fed cows put in a fenced-in area divided into 64 numbered squares. The winner is determined by the first bovine to leave a deposit in one of them.
At our first port of call, Stavanger, the ship docked close to the Old Town, which is peppered with white clapboard houses from the 18th century.
In the nearby Viking House, we wore a VR headset in a longboat and learned how King Harald Fairhair unified Norway. (Spoiler alert: by killing lots of chieftains.)
At Olden the next day, we took a coach to Briksdal Glacier ‘base camp’ – a cluster of eateries plus a medical station. Starting at a height of 1,200m, Briksdal is a branch of the largest glacier in mainland Europe – and well worth the two-mile hike.
E-biking through Hellesylt later in the week was an eye-opener. The last bike I’d been on was my Raleigh Grifter in the 1980s. After a quick lesson on how to use the mode settings, our motley group of 16 was off.
My wife had reassured me we wouldn’t need to pedal much ‘because it’s electric’. Wrong. And it would be ‘nice and gentle’, she said. Wrong again.
The first section of our four-hour ride was easy enough. Peaceful cycling in the countryside along lovely big tarmacked roads.
But after a brief stop to admire the scenery, the terrain got tougher: uphill and mountainous, with the odd sheer drop – albeit into a crystal-clear lake. We soon overcame our fear of plummeting into the watery depths and loved it.
Our final destination was Haugesund and another opportunity to learn more about Viking history.
Instead, we made a beeline for the Marilyn Monroe statue down by the quay. Her ‘connection’ to the area? Local baker Martin Mortensen.
He is listed on her birth certificate but is widely believed not to be her actual biological father.
Talking of family, Iona did a great job of keeping us distracted and entertained.
Nostalgic, we most certainly were – but you can’t turn back the clock. Except when you need to adjust your watch. Greenwich Mean Time is one hour behind Norway.
