This is the fourth time we have taken a cruise on Viking. Three of those times have been on ocean cruises where one was on a river cruise. If you look at the map, we started with a river cruise in Eastern Europe doing the Blue Danube run from Budapest to Nuremberg. Then we did the Baltic Cruise starting in Iceland and going from Stockholm to St. Petersburg and back to Denmark, hitting Finland, Estonia, Poland and Germany on the way before heading up to the Fjords of Norway. That cruise was a great reminder of why so many great cruise lines originate in the Baltics since it is a perfect way to see so many interesting countries. It was on that cruise that I locked in my love of Viking as a cruise line and learned most of what I know about the Vikings and their way of life since almost every stop had some learning experience regarding these long-ago world travelers who almost single-handedly invented the Age of Exploration and Discovery. We then flew down to New Zealand for a Viking cruise down the eastern coast of both the north and south islands of the land of the Kiwi bird. I’m not sure I can remember how to distinguish one New Zealand port from another (all of their botanical gardens blend into one in my memory), but I do remember Tasmania quite fondly and well as the event of sailing into Melbourne and Sydney harbors. This cruise around Cape Horn (which technically happens tomorrow as we work our way out of the Drake Passage towards Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands), is a perfect cruise destination since, unless you are an avid hiker and want to trek around Patagonia, this has to be the best way to see the magnificent scenery and stop in the very few spots like Punta Arenas (yesterday) or Ushuaia (today) that exist in this land so far, far away from anything familiar to most of us. This is the sort of place I always imagine the Vikings of old rooting around and pillaging. In fact, the experience of seeing these mostly uninhabited islands (the indigenous people do a good job of keeping their whereabouts hidden) from the sea, must be a lot of what the Vikings saw and experienced when they stumbled on whatever new lands they were encountering way back when.
I think Viking lore always held some fascination to me, but traveling so much on Viking ships has only served to enhance that wonder for me. I am a man who has always appreciated antiquities and marveled at the romance of holding pieces of history in my hand in the form of this or that remnant that was unearthed or discovered, whether in the ground or at some local market for oddities. If you walked around my house on my hilltop, you would find a full array of these antiquities, gathered from a lifetime of digging and bargaining in places ranging from the burial mounds of pre-Columbian Costa Rica to the shores of the Tiber River in Rome, where the amphorae shards from Testaccio Hill were collected before the antiquities police came into existence. Over the years I have found various ways to mount those priceless pieces of history and display them to their full advantage to stimulate my sense as I glance at them here or there. Every piece has a story for me since these were all either the result of a specific hunt or dig or because the act of stumbling on them in some dusty corner table in a store in a Bedouin tent or a mosquito-infested river-side market in Benin or the Orinoco. I can wax eloquent about my collection, so, as they say, don’t get me started.
Here on the Viking Jupiter, I am reminded at every turn about what sparks my imagination about antiquities. One of the two main staircases of the ship is adorned with larger than life copies of the Bayeux Tapestry from Medieval Normandy. I have been to Bayeux several times and cannot help myself but always take away an embroidered reproduction of parts of the 270 foot cloth that depicts 58 scenes from the time of the Norman Conquest of England. We have two of those scenes on the reproductions hanging in our home. So, it feels very comforting to me that Viking has seen fit to capture the same feeling for their cruise ship. Right now I am siting in the first deck atrium lounge and I am surrounded by modern Scandinavian furniture which Viking has managed to retrofit so that it is more comfortable than the rather Spartan version that probably adorn real Scandinavian homes, but still looks decidedly Scandinavian at the same time. One of the things about Viking that I particularly enjoy is that they play into people like me that like too think of themselves as cultured (whether that’s true or not). There are book shelves everywhere and all the bookshelves are littered with West Elm-like adornments that linger between the books to catch the eye and add interest. The majority of these things are antiquities and oddities of the sort that I have spent a lifetime collecting. I don’t know whether its an affectation to like this sort of worldly antiquities feel, but I know I feel good when I am amongst it.
Since we are on a cruise into a relatively harsh environment like Patagonia, the passengers all have packed their best adventure exploration gear and so they walk around the ship, waiting to get off in Ushuaia, the southern-most city on the face of the earth, wearing anything that LL Bean, Orvis or Duluth Trading (my brand of choice) has to offer. In fact, given the age of the passenger list and their wealthy accoutrement, this place looks a lot like a New Yorker cover waiting to be drawn. I am reminded of the New Yorker cartoon with the chubby little city-dweller being shown a complicated Swiss Army knife by a salesman at someplace like Hammacher Schlemmer being told that this would come in handy were the man ever lost in the north woods for any amount of time. In other words, I am surrounded by people like me who want to be Vikings, but who are probably more likely actuaries. Nonetheless, it is fun to be Walter Mitty (one of the movie selections on the onboard TV movie array) even if its a little embarrassing to admit it.
This afternoon, we will go out into Ushuaia and take a cog train around the mountains that circle this majestic and rugged place. We will snap our pictures and buy our trinkets like the good Viking tourists that we are. This is our modern version of raping and pillaging and it is both much more civilized than what the Vikings really did and certainly less difficult on the knees. Such is the way of the modern Vikings.