| Norway Farewell Transatlantic 2001 | Day 5 |
Between long walks on the decks, long pauses at railings to absorb the infinite variety of the sea, I worked on capturing the details that make Norway so memorable. The North Cape Lounge featured this intriguing cluster of decorative light fixtures over the dance floor. While not original to France, they nonetheless convey a 1960s sensibility that would not have been out of place during her days under the French flag.
click here for a taste of this "infinite variety" (warning: large images/slow load)
Here, a different rail treatment.
And below. I have always been charmed by staircases on ocean liners. Their relative steepness, if there is any motion to the sea, makes haste unadvisable. One little-catalogued aspect of the grande descente was the fact that if the ship is rolling (or pitching, perhaps more difficult) one could take a tumble.
And one never knows where one will find a piece of France. Here, I believe, is a former Tourist Class area.
A closer view of the mural at the landing. It's a simple abstract design, with a very low (shallow) relief texture.
Roaming the ship, 1969 deck plan in hand looking for bits of France, I came across an unexpected evocation of many a CGT publicity shot. Here on Norway is the unexpected splendour of a staff meeting in the Windward Dining Room.
The one aspect of Norway's decor that didn't appeal to me was a certain 1980s sensibility: a trend of using hard, cold materials in places where a traditional approach would use wood or another organic material.
Here,
a clever concept for ceiling treament evokes deck planking on
a traditional wooden sailing ship (this corridor is in the new
block of cabins added on in 1984). But the effect is marred by
the use of chrome planks which give one a sense that one is walking
under a large xylophone.
top
The artificial windows, warmly glowing, are a good way to illuminate a room that has no accessible openings in the ship's hull. Neither dining room on Norway has the glaziers' glory of most newer cruise ships, whose dining rooms are built higher up, above the ship's hull, and more readily fenestrated.
Leeward Dining Room is not second-rate by any means. A number of people I spoke with said they preferred it, as it was a quieter, more intimate than Windward.
One titillating aspect to Dazzles is the presence of large portholes which look into the swimming pool. Here, rather than a gleaming nymph we have a rather pathetic beach towel, lost in some gust of wind above.
Working our way around Boat (Fjord) Deck we approaching the lookout over the bow.
Another stroller out enjoying the ship.
Joggers have a nice stretch of teak beneath their feet near the ship's gymnasium, behind the windows to the right.
The cruise ship as seagoing health-club was yet another Norway innovation in the early 1980s.
I never tired of standing at the rail, watching that magnificent hull work its way through the water.
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