2. Ijmuiden

Sometime during that first night, between acclimatising to the drone of the engines and the movement of the ship, I eventually fell asleep. I therefore had no idea what time we reached the Netherlands coast and docked at the port of Ijmuiden, the latter of which I’d never heard of before. When I went up for breakfast, however, there it was confronting us in what I must say was a rather charmless manner, being, as it is, mainly concerned with commercial ships and operations. Just across from us there was a huge Russian ship being unloaded by gigantic cranes. The passenger terminal was deserted and its big glass and steel walkway stretched out towards us like the arm of some huge mechanical monster. I decided to skip the view for a while and concentrate on breakfast.

We were here to pick up some Dutch people who would be joining our trip to Norway, as would some German people the following day. While we were waiting for them to arrive, which would apparently be after lunch, those already aboard would have the opportunity to visit either Amsterdam of Delft by coach on the first of our shore excursions. As I’d only previously spent a couple of hours in Amsterdam during a football tour, which hadn’t really been a very cultural experience, I decided to opt for the tour of the capital mainly because it culminated in a visit to the Van Gogh museum which I’d always wanted to see.

After breakfast, we were treated to our first real experience of the tour director, Karen. Her job was to oversee all aspects of passenger entertainment during the trip, manage anyone involved in doing the entertaining and to treat the passengers as though they were newly enrolled members of a primary school. Actually, the information that she dispensed was often important and relevant, it was just the way she delivered it. She gave off the air that she was more important than anyone else on the ship and unless we all did what she told us we’d be sent straight to bed with no supper. She told us which coach to board, what we’d be doing and, most importantly, not to miss the coach back or terrible things would befall us. I could think of worse things than being stranded in Amsterdam, but she made it sound like purgatory.

Undeterred, a group of us went to board the city tour coach and we set off bright and early, just in time for the rush hour. This gave us plenty of time to enjoy crossing the polder land – land reclaimed from the sea mainly to house industry by the looks of it. It also gave our guide time to tell us lots about the Netherlands; the main thing I appreciated learning was that Holland is not, as I’d always thought, an alternative name for the Netherlands. Holland is a region of the Netherlands and happens to be the bit that contains Amsterdam – hence the misconception, I suppose.

We then did the touristy stuff by coach and canal which considerably added to my knowledge of the city which had previously only amounted to the interiors of a restaurant and a couple of bars. I was a little taken aback by the prominence given to the canal houseboats by the guide – a lot of them looked like floating garden sheds to me and not in the best condition. Perhaps I just didn’t have my romantic head on that morning. I was pleased to get to the Van Gogh museum, though we only had about 45 minutes to look round it. By the time I’d found the floor where the paintings were displayed I almost had to jog between the canvasses in an effort to see them all.

We were finally driven past various other city highlights, including Anne Frank’s house and the Royal Palace, before joining the lunchtime rush hour for our return journey to the boat. This was all very nice, but no city should really be seen in this manner. It gave me a taste of the architecture, the canals, the sights and so on, but overall it was an empty experience without being able to mingle with the people and take in the atmosphere of the place.

I was mulling over the morning after a late lunch back on board when I heard what sounded like a choir bursting into song. It was definitely not the ship’s PA, as this was still treating us to some Greek dancing music, which now mingled strangely with the choir. I rose from my chair in the lounge and walked through to the bar, curious to know where the sound was coming from. As I walked into the bar, someone came in through the outside door and the choir grew louder. So, they were outside. I walked out onto the deck and to my surprise saw about 25 people all attired in old fashioned, pirate-like costumes, assembled on the dockside and singing their hearts out.

From the writing on the little van parked nearby I could see that they were members of the Ijmuiden Sea Shanty Choir whose fame had certainly not spread to my own personal shores before now. I wondered whether John Peel knew about them. According to the van they even had their own website.

They were accompanied by three accordionists and a lady who played everything from a penny whistle to an enormous ship’s bell mounted on a piece of wood. They sang sea shanties of course, lots of them, some in Dutch, some in English and all very robustly. Gradually lots of the other passengers assembled out on the deck along the side of the ship and quite an audience was formed.

They were there to see us off and with perfect timing, as the ship started to float away from the dockside, they sang a song which boasted the memorable chorus, ‘bye bye, bye bye, bye bye bye bye bye bye’ and all waved madly at us. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, it was such a sugary moment but somehow still rather touching being sung off to sea. Reality was slowly restored as the sight of the huge dockside cranes and industrial buildings became the predominant sensation over the fading sound of the little choir now dwarfed by the Russian ship behind them.

1. Dover

2. Ijmuiden

3. Cuxhaven

4. Bergen

5. Fjords up and down

6. Trondheim

7. Olden - the Briksdal glacier

8. Flam and Voss

9. Stavanger

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