The Wintergarden lounge
It's early evening in Barcelona. The light is honey-gold, the €2 cups of wine are surprisingly smooth and the paper cone of salty chorizo and crispy breadsticks is going down like it was prepared by a Michelin-starred chef.
I’m just finishing Viking’s eight-day Iconic Western Mediterranean cruise (vikingcruises.com.au), which departs from Civitavecchia, an hour north-west of Italy’s capital, Rome, stops in Monaco and France and ends in Spain. I’m travelling with one of my oldest friends, both of us belatedly celebrating our 40th birthdays. We’ve toured the cyprus-lined hills of Tuscany and walked along colourful promenades on the French Riviera. Now, here we are on top of a mountain at Tibidabo Amusement Park, riding a Ferris wheel as we buzz over views of the city and Mediterranean Sea. My friend raises the cup we snuck on. “Salud!” It’s a delicious toast to nearly two years of missed milestones.
When we first toyed with the idea of spending days at sea with strangers on a ship, it didn’t seem like the balm we needed. Busy tours. Buffet meals. Chasing down PCR tests in every new country. But the experience that awaited us was an entirely effortless one.
We arrive at Civitavecchia Port to a large, quiet hall lined with small, numbered tents. “Go on to 10,” says the white-gloved attendant with a smile big enough that I can detect it even behind his mask. It’s time for our first COVID screening – a process that takes around 15 minutes from sample to results, with tea, coffee and comfortable seats to pass the time. Before leaving home, we were required to upload proof of vaccination to the VeriFLY app and we show it again at check-in, along with the negative results we got at home and negative results we’ve just received on site.
Another attendant hands us lanyards with small, circular contact-tracing devices to wear when we’re on the ship (a system used to trace the contacts of any passenger cases) and reminds us to connect to the free on-board wi-fi and download the official Viking Voyager app to view our itinerary and make or change any reservations for dinner and shore excursions.
In under half an hour, with all formalities complete, we’re in our airy stateroom, opening our welcome bottle of champagne and raising a glass on our private veranda.
The ship, Viking Sky, is pure Scandinavian chic with a refined yet cosy vibe: comfy white recliners with woolly throws lined up along floor-to-ceiling windows and simulated fireplaces by open seating areas – even next to the hot pool in The Nordic Spa, where there’s also a Snow Grotto (yes, a small room filled with snow), sauna, cold bucket shower and cold water plunge pool, all in line with Nordic bathing rituals.
And then there’s The Wintergarden – a glass-ceilinged lounge overlooking the main pool and decorated with a canopy of wooden