Viking country

The older generation aren’t typically a source of envy for the young, but here, in arguably Norway’s most spectacular fjord, I spy a couple in their late 20s stood next to a campervan positively boiling with longing to be standing alongside my fellow, predominantly grey-haired passengers. We look down on them from above, cocktails in hand, as if we are Roman aristocracy lording it over the mob below. Indeed, we’re standing on a Colosseum-scale, multi-storey viewing platform – a cruise ship, the preferred form of locomotion for the more distinguished traveller – and it is clear, staring into the couple’s envious eyes, that when it comes to the Norwegian fjords, it’s the only way to travel to witness these epic Earth-scale fissures hewn from stone with time and ice.

But they may just be cottoning on, because making my way to a good vantage point on Holland America Line’s in preparation for our voyage up the famous stretch of World Heritage site that is Geirangerfjord, I pass a young family and an intrepid couple willing to set foot where few