Category Archives: Review

The Danube Waltz Redemption

Prague: The Warm-Up Act That Steals the Show

We arrived four days early. The same logic as before: jet lag is brutal, and planes are sometimes unreliable. My pre-failure here was in not securing business class seats – but we managed. This time we stayed in Prague rather than London, which turned out to be the right call. Prague is spectacular, and unlike London it doesn’t charge you £400 for the privilege of being rained on.

The Old Town Square alone is worth the airfare. The medieval Astronomical Clock – the Orloj – performs a brief mechanical procession of apostles every hour. The audience of tourists pointing phones at it would confuse the 15th-century clockmaker, but I think he’d be pleased the thing still runs.

We walked the Charles Bridge in the day, and again at night. It’s lined with 30 Baroque statues of saints, each one dramatic enough to star in its own cathedral. The bridge is pedestrian-only, and the imposing Prague Castle lit up on the hill, reflected in the Vltava below – is exactly as good as every photo you’ve ever seen of it. Possibly better.

At left: Old Town Square at night. The Astronomical Clock tower (left) and the Church of Our Lady before Týn (right). The clock has been running since 1410 – before Columbus sailed, before the printing press, before anyone thought to call it “Central Europe.”

*Long exposure of the Charles Bridge from downstream using the telephoto (5x zoom). The reflections give you two photos for the price of one.*

*Kafka’s Head” – stainless steel sculpture by David Černý*

“Kafka’s Head” is a 45-layer rotating stainless steel sculpture by David Černý near the Palladium shopping center. The layers spin independently and periodically align into a recognizable face. Franz Kafka was born a few blocks away, which seems appropriate for a man who spent his career writing about fragmented, bewildering identities. What do I mean? Well Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915) follows traveling salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes up transformed into a giant cockroach. Yeah, that Kafka.

Street view from the *Art Noveau Palace Hotel, Prague*

Breakfast in the dining area of the Art Nouveau Palace Hotel, Prague, looking down a typical street through an arched window. Prague is full of interiors like this: elegant, unhurried, and considerably cheaper than the equivalent in Vienna or Paris. And it was just blocks away that we found Svíčková. But you’ll have to wait for that.

*Prague’s terracotta roofline from the grounds of the Prague Castle complex.*

The city looks much as it has for centuries, which is either extraordinary preservation or a shortage of developers with ambition. You can see that ambition is not lost on the newer parts of Prague – check out those MANY cranes in the distance!

A practical note: Prague is extremely walkable if you are willing to do a lot of walking. The food is excellent and cheap by Western European standards, and the transit system is clean and reliable – or so we observed. We arrived late on the first day, and the three days remaining felt short. If you can swing four, do it. Word of caution: beware any ATM machine that say “EuroNet”. They are well documented tourist traps with hideous exchange rates. And by the way, that is the least best thing about Prague. The Czech Republic (and Hungary) use their own currency. In the republic currency is called the koruna, or crown (code: CZK) not the Euro. In fact, Hungary (with its forint’s) was the only place where we had to switch phone plans to stay connected. The good news is that credit cards are accepted just about everywhere.

Prague Walking Track — March 2026

Prague Airport and Walking Track – March 2026

GPS track recorded during pre-cruise exploration

Passau: A Lovely City With a Dark Footnote

From Prague we traveled by coach to Passau, Germany – our ship departure point. Passau is a small, photogenic city at the confluence of three rivers (the Danube, the Inn, and the Ilz), which gives it a layered, peninsular quality. It also floods constantly, which the locals have documented on their buildings with remarkable precision.

Our Passau guide, Esther, was originally from Singapore, married a German, and earned her citizenship – giving her an outsider-insider perspective on the city that was worth any organized tour. She walked us through the city pointing out trams and buses, oddly named streets and flood marks. She explained German bureaucracy with the rueful humor of a survivor, and then told us about a four-year-old boy who once fell through the thin ice on the Inn River and was pulled out by a local priest who later became the St. Stephen’s cathedral organist.

“That boy,” she said, pausing for effect, “was Adolf Hitler.”

<- Our guide, Esther, pointing out the high-water marks embedded in the wall. Each plaque records a different flood year. The marks go considerably above head height. The uppermost plaque, recording the highest flood reads: After the birth of Christ, in the year 1501, on Our Lady’s Day, the floodwaters rose to the cross. Passau has been doing this for a very long time. The street name: Roßtränke means “Horse Trough”

*St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Passau. Home to the largest pipe organ north of the Alps (17,974 pipes). We did not hear it play.*

Passau also had opinions about geopolitics. Several shop windows in the Old Town displayed signs reading “Putin’s Supporters: No Entry.” Central Europe’s proximity to Ukraine makes the war feel considerably less abstract there than it might from, say, Seattle.

It’s worth noting, too, that many of the towns and countries we visited along the Danube have taken in enormous numbers of Ukrainian refugees. We spoke with Ukrainians everywhere – some tending shops, some cleaning them, some in heavy industry, many aboard ship. The most Ukrainians taken in per capita were in Estonia, Czechia (aka the Czech Republic), Slovakia – and Ireland. Bravo to those countries for their hospitality. Poland received more but they are much larger country – and, of course – a neighbor to the Ukraine.

It was palpable to us, as American’s abroad, in that the war with Iran was started on February 28th, was still ongoing during our sojourn abroad – and is still ongoing today in June as I write this.

Aboard the Viking Vilhjalm: The Flat-Water Difference

The Viking Vilhjalm is a river longship measuring 443 feet long, 38 feet wide, and hauling 190 passengers. The Viking Vela carried 998. The most immediate practical difference: nothing rocks or rolls. The river is glassy, the ship is flat, and at no point did anyone measure the tilt with a bubble level app. This was, I cannot overstate, a significant improvement.

The Vilhjalm from the Chain bridge over the Danube. The dining room glows through the panoramic windows – a reminder that one of the pleasures of river cruising is dining while watching the city drift past.

The Viking Vilhjalm docked in Budapest as the blue hour settles in. The Buda skyline – Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church – lit up behind it. This is what “docked in the heart of the city” looks like.

River cruises also pass under bridges and through locks with impressive frequency and minimal clearance. The wheelhouse folds flat hydraulically, which you can watch from the sun deck (if allowed, that is, some under-crossings are less spacious than others). The captain threads the ship under railway bridges at night without drama. On our previous cruise, “drama” was essentially the entire experience. The contrast was noted and appreciated.

*Night passage. The wheelhouse is partially retracted to clear the bridge. The margin looks alarming; apparently it is not.*

The smaller passenger count means the crew learns names, preferences, and jokes. Which brings us to the Hannah Waddington situation.

Rebecca from Ted Lasso, Apparently on a Career Break

One of the dining crew was the spitting image of Hannah Waddington – the 6-foot-tall British actress who plays club owner Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso. tricia, who cannot let a good resemblance go unnoted, asked her if anyone had ever said she looks like the star.

She paused. “That’s the first time this year!”

Then: “…and this is the first cruise of the year.”

The delivery was impeccable. She had a wickedly good sense of humor and warm presence to match, and by the second day we – along with a growing number of other passengers – were specifically seeking out her section. If you sail on the Vilhjalm and a tall, very funny woman who looks uncannily like Hannah Waddington is working the dining room: request her table. Don’t call her Hannah, though, her name is Anett, and she’s from Latvia. You’re welcome.

Linz and Pöstlingberg: A Frankfurter Worth the Climb

Linz is Austria’s third-largest city and the one most likely to surprise you. It sits at the foot of a vine-covered hill called Pöstlingberg – which roughly translated means “the postal area mountain”. You can reach its heights by a historic tram that begins downtown and claims to be one of the steepest adhesion railways in the world. At the top of the Pöstlingbergbahn you will find a Grottenbahn – which is a whimsical “grotto railway” for children. It wasn’t running, we missed that train. The tram left from this very square.

Linz’s Hauptplatz (main square) with the famous “LINZ” letter sculpture framing the Plague Column. Yes, “Plague Column”. That’s a bit of history North Americans did not have to endure, and many cities have monuments erected commemorating the end of the Black Death. Linz has worked hard to rebrand itself as a cultural city – it is the birthplace of Anton Bruckner a bizarre man and brilliant composer, and home to the Ars Electronica festival. Also, regrettably, the hometown of Hitler. A city dealing with a complicated legacy.

At the top of Pöstlingberg, the Schloss Bräu restaurant has a deck with a panoramic view of Linz spread far below in the Danube valley. We had the Frankfurters. Two of them each, served in a delicious crunchy pretzel-like bun with shredded fresh horseradish. It sounds humble. It was not humble. It was the second-best thing I ate on the entire trip, and I ate some genuinely excellent things on this trip.

Pöstlingberg, looking back down over the rooftops to Linz in the valley and the Danube beyond. The Schloss Bräu restaurant is to the right of this picture, but has a view much like that large terrace you see at the right. The Frankfurters are not visible but trust me

Göttweig Abbey: Apricot Dumplings and Baroque Excess

Between Linz and Krems is Göttweig Abbey (Stift Göttweig) which is a Benedictine monastery perched on a hill above the Wachau Valley that has been operating since 1083. The docking is in Krems – so you’ve already had chance to catch a glimpse of Göttweig high up on a hill before a bus takes you there. The current Baroque buildings date to the 18th century and are, in the way of 18th-century ecclesiastical architecture, considerably larger than necessary.

Stift Göttweig. The foundation stone was laid in 1083; the current complex was rebuilt in Baroque style after a fire in 1718. The abbey produces its own wine, olive oil, and apricot products from the surrounding orchards.

The Wachau Valley is Austria’s most celebrated wine and apricot-growing region, and Göttweig’s café served apricot dumplings (Marillenknödel) – soft potato dough wrapped around a whole apricot with its pit removed and replaced by a sugar cube, rolled in buttered breadcrumbs. You have not had apricot dumplings until you have had apricot dumplings at a Benedictine monastery overlooking a UNESCO World Heritage valley. I’m setting the bar deliberately high.

The Wachau Valley: Castles Included, No Extra Charge

The stretch of Danube between Linz and Krems is the Wachau. And it is a UNESCO World Heritage landscape of vineyards, medieval villages, and castle ruins perched on cliffs. It is the kind of scenery that makes the cruise fare feel justified regardless of everything else.

*Schönbühel Castle, which has watched the Danube since the 12th century. The current structure dates to 1821. It still looks appropriately medieval from the water.*

The town of Dürnstein is where Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned in 1192. His loyal minstrel Blondel supposedly wandered Europe singing outside castle walls until Richard sang back – one of history’s more musical jailbreaks. The ruins are still on the cliff above town, and the blue Baroque church tower below makes the village look like a painting someone left out in good weather.

*Dürnstein. The blue church tower belongs to the Augustinian monastery. Richard the Lionheart’s castle ruins are on the cliff above. He did not leave a review.*

Sailing through the Wachau on a clear March morning. The Austrian flag indicates we’ve crossed from Germany. The valley looks exactly like a UNESCO site should.

Vienna: More Than a Day Could Justify

Vienna got one full day, which was not enough. It is enormous, beautiful, and packed with imperial grandeur at a density that becomes mildly numbing – the opera house, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the parliament, the Burgtheater, Stephansdom, all within walking distance, all built to impress, all succeeding.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum on Maria-Theresien-Platz, facing its twin the Natural History Museum across the square. Both were built in the 1890s and both contain more than you can see in an afternoon.

*Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral) in the heart of Vienna. The spire is 448 feet tall.*

The outdoor café in the foreground seems unbothered by the huge spire and features something worth stopping for: Kaiserschmarrn – which is literally translated “Emperor’s Mess” – it’s a delicious pancake thingy. If there is no table space, you can find a take out window with a quick moving line.

It seems every city we stopped in had it’s own composer of record. I couldn’t keep them straight. When I blurted out “Richard Strauss” trying to answer our Vienna tour guide query: the guide’s stern eye and swift correction “Johann Strauss” made me realize I made an embarrassing faux pas. Johann is from Vienna, Richard is from Berlin. It felt for a moment like I had put ketchup on a hot dog in Chicago.

Come back for three days minimum. Consider bringing a museum membership.

Bratislava: The Underrated One

Bratislava in Slovakia gets less attention than Prague, Vienna, and Budapest, which is undeserved. The old town is compact, walkable, and genuinely lovely. The Primate’s Palace, where Napoleon and Austrian Emperor Francis II signed the Peace of Pressburg in 1805, is among the finest Neoclassical buildings in Central Europe, and the compact scale of the city means you’re never far from something worth seeing.

*The Primate’s Palace, Bratislava. Napoleon signed a treaty here. It now houses the mayor’s office, which seems like a reasonable use of a landmark.*

Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising, also known as the **UFO Bridge**, located in **Bratislava, Slovakia**

Speaking of landmarks, the most unusual bridge we passed beneath was the “UFO Bridge” in Bratislava, Slovakia. It is odd in that it is a cable-stayed bridge that has a single pylon with a “saucer shaped restaurant” at the top. We had the time to give it a try, but decided to remain on our side of the Danube and enjoy the view instead.

The bridge was built in late 1960s and early ’70s at the height of Communist excess, in honor of the 1944 resistance movement against the Nazi forces. It’s probably the ONLY communist era structure with pizazz. Throughout the Slavic countries, astute guides will point out how to easily distinguish Soviet era buildings from any others: the Soviet Era buildings are the ugly ones, i.e. gray, square, and unembellished.

What NOT To Do if You Are A Linguist

Now might be a good time to point out what not to do when in any former Slavic country. Language is my thing. I am weird that way. I’m fairly fluent in German so Passau (Germany) to Vienna (Austria) was easy. But Czech’s of course speak Czech, while Slovakians, Slovenians, and Croats all speak their own dialects – but each mostly understands the other. The mistake NOT to make is noting aloud how each “Good Morning” greeting sounds like Russian which is pronounced “DOBRaye OOTra”. I made that mistake several times (I’m a slow learner) as I tried to pronounce local “Good Day” and “Thank You” variations. All those countries were once under the thumb of the Soviet Union, of which they do not like to be reminded. Everyone I spoke to – including the Hungarians – agreed that Hungarian is the most impossible language ever. This is especially amusing to me now, because one of my photos appeared in the Hungarian edition of “The Economist” and that partially explains the bizarre way they spelled my name in the credits. A Hungarian article about when I won the Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest came with a similar, unrecognizable, transmogrification of my name.

While I’m on the subject, here are a few notes for us Westerners. What German speakers call Donau (Duh-NOW) we call the Danube. What westerners call “Prague” the Czechs – who live there – call Praha, Wien (pronounced VEEN), is the actual name of Vienna. If it seems almost everything Czech (Č) ends with a “ch” or an “itch” … well, that’s because almost everything does. To their credit, they bother to show how to accent things. English is a quagmire.

Budapest: The Grand Finale

Budapest may be the most photogenic city in Europe. I say this having just come from Prague, Vienna, and Bratislava, all of which are lovely. Budapest operates at a different scale of dramatic. The Danube cuts the city in two – Buda on the west with its castle and Baroque churches on the hill, Pest on the east with the Parliament and the grand avenues – and both sides light up at night in a way that makes the river between them glow.

*The Hungarian Parliament building from the Buda side by day. 879 feet long, 96 domes, 691 rooms, built between 1885 and 1904. Still the largest building in Hungary.*

*The Parliament lit gold at night. The daytime photograph is impressive; the night photograph is something else.*

*One of the four lions guarding the Chain Bridge, with Buda Castle lit above. The lions were installed in 1852 and have been criticized ever since for lacking tongues. They remain silent on the matter.*

*60 pairs of iron shoes, installed in 2005 to commemorate the Jews shot here.*

Budapest also contains one of the most affecting memorials I have seen anywhere. That’s saying a lot. My wife and I both stood along the long black marble Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, DC and we wept as we watched a legless wheelchair-bound vet rub his hand slowly and somberly over the name of a fallen colleague.

Along the Pest bank of the Danube, 60 pairs of iron shoes mark the spot where Hungarian Jews were shot by the Arrow Cross militia and fell into the river during the winter of 1944–45. The shoes represent different people: men’s shoes, women’s shoes, a child’s. There is no plaque required to understand what you’re looking at.

In fact, I didn’t notice when I took the photo, but someone has placed Ukrainian flag ribbons on a pair of women’s shoes – a quiet statement about history’s tendency to repeat.

*Breakfast aboard the Vilhjalm, docked in Budapest. Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion through the window. The coffee was also good* – per my wife. I mostly drank peppermint tea.

One of the pleasures of river cruising is waking up docked in the heart of a city. Breakfast with Matthias Church visible through the dining room window is a specific luxury that anchors-and-tender ocean cruising can seldom match.

The Food: An Itinerary Within the Itinerary

*Svíčková na smetaně: braised beef in creamy root vegetable sauce, with cranberries, lemon zest, cream, and bread dumplings on the side. The Czech dark beer appears to have been involved as well.*

A Danube cruise feeds you well on both sides of the gangway. The single best dish of the trip was Svíčková na smetaně – a classic Czech preparation of braised beef sirloin in a rich, creamy root vegetable sauce, served with bread dumplings (knedlíky), cranberry sauce, and lemon zest. We learned about it from our driver from the Prague airport, who had grown up in Czechoslovakia during the communist era and steered us toward it with the conviction of someone passing on essential knowledge. He was right. If you are in Prague and you skip the Svíčková (SVEETCH KO VAH) in favor of something you already know, you will regret it. The same driver said something that really stuck with me:

“The Czechs and the Slovaks split the country, and only the politicians remember why.” The Velvet Divorce as it is called happened in 1992. Each country is less populous than the city of Los Angeles.

The second-best dish – which was mentioned earlier and surprised me – was a humble Frankfurter at Schloss Bräu in Pöstlingberg, above Linz: served in a crunchy pretzel bun with shredded fresh horseradish. Simple ingredients, flawless execution, and a view of the Danube valley as a bonus.

Göttweig Abbey’s apricot dumplings have already been covered in the relevant section but deserve a second mention here because they were awesome – not to mention the fact that the ship’s chef prepared a cooking demonstration about how to make them. The chef had very strong opinions about why the way he and the Viennese made schnitzel was superior. “It seems foolish to me to get a delicious crispy finished dish and then place it in or cover it with a sauce that makes it soggy.” He was very right!

Some of the local flare was less impressive, of course. One of the worst mistakes we made, food wise, was attempting to get Vietnamese food in Prague (What WERE we thinking!?) In our defense, Slavic food is much like German food. Heavy on the sauces and shades of brown, butter and meat – so the Vietnamese fiasco was an attempt to get healthier, lighter fare. It was reminiscent of traveling in Spain where it seemed nothing green was going to ever appear on a plate and we pleaded with the hotel for a plate of broccoli. In Slovenia, green appeared on the plate, but parsley just doesn’t count as a vegetable, does it?

*Slovenian sausage with sauerkraut and sides in Ljubljana, complete with a Slovenian flag toothpick. Local restaurants in Ljubljana take the flag – and the sausage very seriously.* We were less of a fan.

*Breakfast aboard the Vilhjalm. The kitchen arranged the Eggs Benedict, sausages, and bacon into a smiley face (Of course it was Anett’s doing*)*. The food was consistently excellent, but this particular presentation was memorable.*

The Viking ship’s own kitchen was consistently good. Genuinely good. Not “good for a boat.” The Eggs Benedict arranged into a smiley face one morning was a small detail that suggested the kitchen was paying attention and having fun. But everything was consistently good to excellent.

Zagreb and Ljubljana: The Bonus Round

The post-cruise days took us first to Zagreb for two days, and then to Ljubljana for two more. Both of which exceeded expectations.

Zagreb has the confident ease of a city that knows its own value without needing to advertise it. The Croatian National Theatre – canary yellow, impeccably maintained since Emperor Franz Joseph inaugurated it in 1895 – anchors the lower city. The upper town is medieval, quiet, and connected by a funicular that is so short it feels more like an elevator with ambitions.

The Croatian National Theatre, Zagreb. Emperor Franz Joseph I inaugurated it in 1895. The flowers in the foreground are a reminder that spring arrives in the Balkans before it arrives in, say, Seattle.

*Zagreb has a lot to point you toward. The bicycle appears to be making its own decisions.*

Much of Zagreb was still enrobed in exterior scaffolding due to the 2020 6.4 magnitude earthquake (there were actually TWO that year). With a population less than 6 million people, and lots of very old buildings, I can see where having a small tax base makes all the fixes a protracted endeavor. One of the remarkable things about all the guides is how well versed in history they were. They were talking about dates in 1081, and 1400s. Being an American we have only a fraction of that history to remember.

While we were in Zagreb, there was very high security at the Esplanade Zagreb Hotel where we stayed. Apparently there was an international financial conference being held there. The police stopped the cars and tram on the street and we watched from the front steps of the hotel as an entourage of vehicles displaying Ukrainian flags rolled up. We tried to be inconspicuous, thinking that we might catch a glimpse of Volodymyr Zelenskyy – the leader of the besieged Ukraine, but, alas, it was not him.

Ljubljana, Slovenia is smaller, warmer, and aggressively charming. The Dragon Bridge and its four bronze guardian dragons, the old town’s distinctive Art Nouveau facades, the castle on the hill above – Ljubljana operates at a human scale that lets you actually be somewhere rather than trying to keep up with it.

*Ljubljana’s old town. The decorated façade at left belongs to the Cooperative Bank building, designed by Maks Fabiani with distinctive folk-Art Nouveau ornamentation.*

Ljubljana punches above its weight architecturally. And yet it’s compact and EXTREMELY walkable – especially from our hotel the Grand Hotel Union Eurostars, Ljubljana. If you have been struggling with that city name (which I did for a LONG TIME) there is an easy way to get it right: just pretend the “J”s are “Y”s. Lyublyana (or Li-u-bli-an-a, if you’d rather). It was my second favorite city. (Prague and Budapest tied for first).

*One of the four copper dragons of Dragon Bridge. The city’s coat of arms features a dragon; the bridge takes the heraldry literally. They are said to bring good luck to true-born Ljubljanans.*

*Ljubljana Castle courtyard, Slovenian flag above the clock tower. The castle dates to the 12th century; the city has been climbing the hill to visit it ever since.*

Lake Bled: Save the Best for Last

A day trip from Ljubljana to Lake Bled, was perhaps, the best day of the trip. Bled is one of those places that looks like a screensaver and turns out to be better in person, which feels like a minor miracle.

A glacial lake. A medieval castle on a cliff above the eastern shore. A Baroque church on a tiny natural island in the center of the lake, the only natural island in Slovenia, is reached by traditional flat-bottomed boats called pletnas. Julian Alps rising snow-capped in every direction. Even in late March, in mildly overcast weather, it was remarkable.

*The Church of the Assumption on Bled Island, photographed from Bled Castle above. There has been a place of worship on this island since the 8th century. The current church dates to the 17th.* The 10x zoom on the phone came in handy here.

One of the nice things about our Croatia and Slovenia extension is that because it was the beginning of the season there were just four of us. We fit comfortably into a van and were ferried around everywhere with one constant guide and driver. A lovely couple from Tennessee were good company throughout.

*Near Bled: an Alpine house with the Julian Alps rising behind it. Slovenia is a serious mountain country and doesn’t get enough credit for it.*

Viking vs. Viking: The Comparison

For anyone wondering whether a river cruise redeems the ocean cruise experience, here is the short version:

The river cruise wins on intimacy, stability, and access. 190 passengers on flat water, docked in city centers every night. You wake up in Budapest, not anchored somewhere offshore. The crew knows your name by day two. Nothing flies off the tables.

The ocean cruise wins on scale and spectacle when the weather cooperates – and the Norwegian fjords (when we finally reached them in Eidfjord) were every bit as spectacular as promised. When the weather doesn’t cooperate, it wins on spectacle of a different kind. See: the original article.

The Danube Waltz itinerary packs an exceptional density of civilization into eight days of sailing: the Wachau Valley, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest – all dockside, all walkable from the gangway. Add Prague, Zagreb, and Ljubljana as bookends and you have a genuinely hard-to-beat two-week itinerary through the heart of Central Europe.

Would we cruise Viking again? We already answered that question by booking this one. We’d do it again. Perhaps not in the North Sea. In January.

Photographer’s Post Trip Observation

We chose to travel with one suitcase each and one carry-on each. Instead of bringing my normal photo backpack laden with camera gear, I chose to try JUST using the phone. I definitely missed some great night sky and landscape photo opportunities. I definitely wished I had brought a simple tripod. The one huge mistake I made though: I forgot to turn on GPS location tagging for my photos until near the end of the trip. But the phone did afford me with good photos, communication, and I was able to use GPS (from the tracking app I used). That tracking turned out to be a life saver in remembering which of thousands of photos came from where.

All in all it was not a terrible trade off – especially since the 5x and 10x lenses on the Samsung came in handy on several occasions. It would have been much harder to do without bringing multiple seriously large lenses. I think next trip, however, I’m going to lug the big tripod and the “real” camera.

If you’ve cruised the Danube Waltz or visited any of these cities, drop a note in the comments. And if you want context on why anything short of a hurricane felt like a triumph on this trip, the original Viking Vela story is here.

About the images: All photos taken with a Samsung S24 Ultra unless otherwise noted. GPS tracks were recorded throughout the trip.

Titanic Adventures in the North Sea

9 Replies

^{Released: January 22, 2025}
^{Edited: April 3, 2026 (add links)}

Viking Vela at Ålesund dock (from webcam)

To celebrate our December, 2024 retirement my wife and I booked an Aurora Borealis Cruise with Viking. We had previously cruised with Viking for a Rhine River cruise which I never documented, but briefly describe here for context. The river cruise occurred in November, 2021 from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was originally scheduled to depart in May, 2020 but… COVID! We stuck it out until it was actually possible to go.

About the images: I reserve all rights to use of these images for any commercial purpose. You may use them as backgrounds or wallpaper for your personal use, but any other use requires a license. The majority of these images were taken with a Samsung S24 Ultra phone.

So, the great retirement getaway was meant to combine two of our goals: Seeing the Aurora Borealis again (we were fortunate to see them in December, 2023 in Fairbanks, Alaska), and visiting the Fjords of Norway. I had suspicion that the cruise might be dicey as the North Sea and Norwegian coast are rather famous for big seas and fierce winds in winter. Well, there were big seas and fierce winds! The first day of cruising was a stop in Ijmuiden (Amsterdam) and the weather was fabulously sunny. We enjoyed a canal boat tour.

The “Dancing Houses” of Amsterdam. They all lean in different directions due to being built on wooden poles that are hundreds of years old.

Sailing out of Amsterdam toward our next destination of Narvik, Norway, we knew there would be almost 2 full days of sailing as Narvik is quite far north.

Leaving Amsterdam looking over the pool deck and retractable roof.

But despite the captains warning that seas may be a bit rough and encouragement that our course would spare us much of the ruckus, there was a big squall starting and we were not able to outrun it. By about 10 PM, the ship was rolling about 5 degrees side to side as measured by my bubble level app. Before the big rolling I measured the listing as 6.8 degrees starboard and to port (during the biggest heaves, I measured 9.5 degrees sway to each side!)

The Norwegian Sea wave forecast for 2 PM Norwegian Time (source) looked menacing. The crosshair is approximately where I expected we’d be at that time, but what you can’t see is that the storm was coming up in the direction we were sailing. Here you see wave heights forecast to as high as 10.5 meters (34 feet).
At about 11 PM the rolling measured 6 degrees side to side on my bubble level. I wedged my boots into the closet door to stop it from slamming, and stowed all the breakables. I know several folks had their sliding doors break the closet they were in.

If This Boat’s a Rockin’

By 1:00 CET, the ship was rolling up to 7 degrees side to side. I awoke at 1:30 CET due to the tossing and with my wife’s blessing went down to the first deck to watch the Washington Commanders vs the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the executive lounge (where the internet was better). While there, and about 10 minutes before the end of the game the BIG rolling began at about 3:45.

The captain estimated the winds at 100 mph gusts, and seas of up to 37 feet. His first efforts were to turn the ship to keep the wind from causing the rolling. However at some point, that seemed to make matters worse. The first big rolling jolt toppled marble-top tables, flung open cabinets and contents went spilling. Two ladies came down to guest services on the first deck where I was because their water carafes and glasses had shattered in their stateroom. Another guy down there (Matt) said he thought he should go check on his girlfriend… I should have done the same. While the football game was still going on I captured some movies and still shots, and when the game ended (with a bounced-in walk-off field goal!) I returned to our stateroom (6092 at the port side stern) via the 7th deck where the pool is located. The pool area had massive mayhem as you can see in the photos below. I took the stairs because the elevators were making ominous banging noises in the rolling sea.

Bodily Injuries

My wife attempted to keep items from flying off the desk in our stateroom but was instead launched from the bedside to the window. That wasn’t enough injury, so as she got up after being hurled, a tray with daily news and menus sailed off a table and struck her in the forehead above her left eye. It broke the tray and left her with a goose egg that went black and blue under her hair and over the next 6 days turned into a black eye.

By the time I got back to our room, I was measuring 9.5 degrees tilt from starboard to port (19 degrees total). I was able to flag a steward to bring an ice pack for my wife – and our cabin attendant kept us supplied with ice ever after.

We met several passengers with black eyes, and others recounted broken ribs a broken finger, a broken toe, and a broken nose. So, yeah, it was rough for many of the 998 passengers and 465 crew. Many of the crew told us they had never been in such difficult seas. Many of the injuries were from being thrown out of bed into the nightstands – but that tended to occur for those on upper decks (6, 7 and 8). Another person recounted getting hit in the shin by the shower door as they were on the throne. One of the black eye situations was a woman who was thrust from the bathroom to the sliding glass doors. She had a concussion and lingering pain, and double black eyes. The days following the rough and tumble seas reminded me of the scene in Jaws where they compared scars with one another.

We can’t speak highly enough of the great care, professionalism and kindness shown by the crew. Our cabin steward, as I noted took excellent care of us.

The captain, Rune Loekling, made announcements frequently through the night reassuring everyone that the ship was built to take the conditions. He asked everyone to stay in their staterooms for safety and that persisted through breakfast and lunch (the crew brought fruits and boiled eggs to the room for a late breakfast, and a cooked meal with salmon and beef for a late lunch. We diverted to Ålesund, Norway, arriving in port at about 21:00, though once in the protected fjord the weather no longer rocked and rolled the ship so furiously and folks were able to leave their staterooms to get dinner at about 18:30. It was a total of about 19 hours of “motion”. My main concern is that much could have been done to minimize the damage by encouraging passengers and crew to stow breakables (many people had water carafes and glasses on slippery surfaces and those resulted in broken glass). Viking could even provide a checklist of things to do when heavy seas are expected or encountered.

The captain kept mentioning that the “pounding” was a normal occurrence of the bow hitting the waves. I was curious how much different it was for those near the bow so I ventured to the port side of the pool deck (7th deck) at almost 10:00 where I could record the seas. Watch and you’ll see a huge splash as the bow hits a wave. Also, I’m not sure what it was that was hanging down, I noticed it wasn’t there later, so perhaps something else that had been damaged in the storm. I also took the opportunity to get more ice for my wife’s head.

Ship Damage

Damage was rather extensive. Not many people saw it because they were doing a lot of cleanup while passengers were encouraged to remain in their staterooms.

Damage in the pool area. Broken glass, overturned tables, and contents spilled from cabinets and bookshelves.

Aftermath of the First Big Rolls aboard the Viking Vela

While the pool area damage was the most striking, I noticed lots of bits of damage, including 4 washer/dryer units that toppled in the laundrette and damaged wall panels,

Notice the dented wall panels from the washer/dyers falling over.

The Aquavit lounge outdoor in the stern was pummeled with sailing marble-top tables and was smashed off its mounting, and much of it’s (quartz?) exterior was battered and smashed along with perhaps a half dozen shattered table tops. Indeed one of the outdoor glass barriers at the side of the stern port side was shattered, though still intact.

Finally the grand glass and steel staircase leading up from the Explorers lounge on the 7th deck in the bow had a large curved panel that was shattered and removed. The staircase was roped off for the rest of the cruise though I didn’t observe any other obvious damage to the stairway.

There were several places where either buckling or impacts from heavy falling items damaged the floor tiles. They replaced floor tiles near the starboard World Cafe entrance, at the starboard exit of the Explorers lounge. On the second floor there is a two-stage exit from the atrium to the outside of the ship. During the melee the forward most port side door was wide open (probably held so by the wind), and the inner sliding glass door was leaning inward with spray and was also half open with wind and rain howling in. I pushed the inner door into its channel to reduce the wind and spray – I wasn’t about to go near the outer door! However in the morning the right half of that sliding door had only a fifth of the bottom remaining the rest had apparently been sheared or broken off. I suspect the pounding from going into the waves is what did in that door as well as that large curved glass at the base of the Explorer Lounge stairway.

Altered Itinerary

It was clear our itinerary was going to be impacted. We believed it meant that Narvik would be removed from the schedule and instead we’d sail to Tromsø – the next planned port. But instead we remained in Ålesund for almost 5 days to allow for repairs an inspections and to avoid the still turbulent seas. Some speculated that the reason for remaining in port was to repair the Azipod drive/steering system, but that is unconfirmed.

We finally sailed out from Ålesund on the 7th day of the 13-day trip. However all the northern locations, and an interim planned excursion to Flåm were removed and instead we sailed south.

I was excited when they announced the trip to Flåm up a long fjord, but that too, was cancelled. Fortunately we did make it to Eidfjord which also had calm water and much better weather.

Alesund harbor at night. — Ålesund, Norway harbor at night

Eidfjord was Spectacular

Not only was the weather cooperative, but the setting was every bit as expansive and beautiful as I had imagined. It did make me sad that we didn’t get to see Narvik, Tromsø, or Alta because that fjord magic was perhaps the key thing we were interested in.

The bow of the Viking Vela in the Hardanger fjord adjacent to Eidfjord.

The Aurora Did Show Up!

In the evening as we left Eidfjord at about 21:00 Norway time, the aurora was spotted to our stern and there was a great rush of folks to the aft and starboard side of the ship.

Eidfjord aurora above the Viking ship Vela. — A consolation aurora visible from the stern, starboard side of the ship on the way to Stavanger from Eidfjord.

Gallery of Cruisers

NO20250119_6003 x
https://starcircleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/NO20250119_6003-scaled-3lyw2xach1jb6l8plhemtc.jpg
Viking Vela passengers. Jan. 19, 2025 beneath the Aurora Borealis near EidFjord, Norway
NO20250119_6002 x
https://starcircleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/NO20250119_6002-scaled-3lyvzspeivyl34fkhbr4sg.jpg
Viking Vela passengers. Jan. 19, 2025 beneath the Aurora Borealis near EidFjord, Norway
NO20250119_6005 x
https://starcircleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/NO20250119_6005-scaled-3lyw0omc97cezg10bcpog0.jpg
Viking Vela passengers. Jan. 19, 2025 beneath the Aurora Borealis near EidFjord, Norway
NO20250119_6007 x
https://starcircleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/NO20250119_6007-scaled-3lyw0zoeay8zjppq7kzdog.jpg
Viking Vela passengers. Jan. 19, 2025 beneath the Aurora Borealis near EidFjord, Norway
NO20250119_6010 x
https://starcircleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/NO20250119_6010-scaled-3lyw45n3ibos7pqgk9o3cw.jpg
Viking Vela passengers. Jan. 19, 2025 beneath the Aurora Borealis near EidFjord, Norway
NO20250119_6009 x
https://starcircleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/NO20250119_6009-scaled-3lyw1fdthivixs0pcv3cao.jpg
Viking Vela passengers. Jan. 19, 2025 beneath the Aurora Borealis near EidFjord, Norway
20250119_212432 x
https://starcircleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/bfi_thumb/20250119_212432-3lysc5ptzt0blfqd9yt0xs.jpg
Viking Vela crew. Jan. 19, 2025 beneath the Aurora Borealis near Eidfjord, Norway

Previous Image

Next Image

info heading

info content

These cruisers saw me taking photos and asked to be photographed under the agreement that their photos are displayed here publicly. Those people who are pictured are free to copy and use the photos in anyway they wish. I have added my copyright/watermark to them to prevent random pilfering, however unwatermarked photos are also available by clicking the watermarked ones (once I get it working!). Right click the image and select download to save it (or whatever is the equivalent on your browser of choice).

NOTE: If you would like for your photo(s) to be removed, please use the contact form on the site, send me an email asking for your photo(s) to be removed. Be sure to specify WHICH photo is of you, e.g. “NO20250119_6005” (or just _6005 for short). Allow up to 30 days for me to remove your photo as I travel and don’t always have access to the site.

About these photos: all these photos were taken with the following equipment and settings:
Sony A7RIII, 15-35mm f/2.8 Cannon lens, @17 mm, f/2.8, 3200 ISO, 8 seconds, Daylight white balance. None of the photos have been edited, they are straight out of the camera.

Course Departure

Due to the loss of Narvik, Tromsø and Alta, the ports of Eidfjord, mentioned above and Stavanger were added to the itinerary.

In Stavanger an excursion by boat to Pulpit Rock in the Lysefjord was one of my favorite side-trips.

The original cruise had this itinerary:

1. London -> Amsterdam
2. Amsterdam
3, 4 at sea
5. Narvik
6, 7. Tromso (2 nights)
8, 9. Alta (2 nights)
10, 11. at sea
12, 13. Bergen

The actual itinerary was this

1. London -> Amsterdam
2. Amsterdam
3 at sea
4. confined to stateroom -> Alesund
5, 6, 7, 8. Alesund
9. Flam (canceled Alesund)
10. Eidfjord
11. Stavanger
12, 13. Bergen

External references to this event.

Is Anybody on Board the Viking Vela Now (REDDIT)
Viking Vela Diverted for Repairs (Cruise Hive)
Viking Vela Stranded in Norway (Candid Cruise)

If you were on this ship for this or a subsequent cruise, feel free to comment, provide me with photos or videos and I can add them to this page.

I think it’s also fair to say that Viking initially offered every passenger a 60% fare voucher toward any cruise booked within 1 year. This occurred once we faced our 3rd day stuck in Ålesund. However before departing the ship on the last day in Bergen, the voucher was increased to 100% – meaning, effectively that the cruise was 50% off IF you book another cruise. The voucher excludes any shore excursions actually taken, and any self arranged hotel or airfare. Since we arranged our air travel and pre and post stays ourselves, that also would not be included. I suspect those wouldn’t have been included in the voucher even had they been booked as part of the cruise package.

Also, worth mentioning that Viking upgraded everyone to the “Silver Spirits” beverage package for free for the last half of the cruise. That comes to $50 per day for 2 people or about $350 value. That freebie unlocked some better wines, but not being much of a drinker we didn’t gain much value from the offer.

Before the Cruise – London

Having your plans dashed because of a plane delay is never fun, so we booked 3 pre-cruise days in London, and an extra post-cruise day in Bergen. Also getting accommodated to a whole new timezone can be daunting. We stayed in the Shard (aka the Shangri-La) which is one of the tallest hotels in London. It was truly awesome and I believe a much better value than booking a pre-cruise stopover via Viking.
Nearby were the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, and the Eye of London – though the latter was closed for maintenance. One day was cold and rainy, the other days were merely cold. A former co-worker and friend came to visit with us and took us on a tour of the surrounding area. That was better than any tour we might have booked.

The Tower Bridge in the background with friends Kevin and Jennifer and my lovely wife, tricia… and me at the right.

London: The shard is at the left, the London Bridge in the center.

View from the 39th floor of the Shangri-La hotel. The Eye is at the upper left, the London Bridge at the right hand side.

Looking back onto London as we departed for Tillbury Port for the cruise.

About the images: I reserve all rights to use of these images for any commercial purpose. You may use them as backgrounds or wallpaper for your personal use, but any other use requires a license. The majority of these images were taken with a Samsung S24 Ultra phone.

Atlantis Discovered (aka. Santorini, Greece)

Our Travel Style

I want to let you know what kind of travelers we are so you can decide if the information we are providing here aligns with your own style of travel.

We enjoy: Off Season, uncrowded, non-hot (i.e. cooler climate), with natural beauty, history, language, and culture. We like mountains and beaches, but are not sun soakers. We have interest in local foods, wines and spirits, but little interest in bars, night-life, parties or crowds. We prefer an authentic local experience and eschew tourist extravaganzas. We prefer a modest budget, but are willing to spend where there is value. We like to explore the surroundings, learn about culture, architecture, language, food and history – preferably not as part of an organized tour. We like to move at our own pace – usually slow and methodical. We are the kind of people who actually visit and read most or all of the exhibits at a museum. We take pictures of food and drink for the memories… usually not to post on Facebook. And I, Steven, in particular always make an effort to be up before sunrise, and out through and after sunset into the night to capture sunrises, sunsets and night photos.

As you might gather we are not much interested in the opposites: crowds, heat, cruising, tours. But, of course, sometimes you can only learn things in tours. For example in November 2021, we took a Viking river cruise down the Rhine from Basel Switzerland to Amsterdam. Some of our very best memories are the things we saw and learned from the tours. But one of the reasons we remember that trip fondly is that it was just as Covid restrictions were ending and our boat with a 180 passenger capacity had a total of 48 passengers with a crew of 49 – so it met our “uncrowded” preference far more than we could have anticipated.

About this Article… It’s a Travel Guide

In contrast to many of our prior articles, this is intended as a travel advisory of sorts: things to know before you go. In the next article we endeavor to offer some photography tips – both night and daytime, as well as cell-phone photography tips including on-phone editing of images. Santorini is a bit of a challenging place for Night Photography… why the challenge will be explained in the next article as well.

Santorini – one of about 220 Cycladic islands – is well known as a destination for summer travel, and it’s probably the most photographed island EVER with its white cave houses that are often literally carved into the steeply sloped volcanic rock, windmills, and a plethora of blue domed churches all nestled up and down the caldera of a dormant volcano. The island was once called Strongyli (the round island). But then it blew it’s top forming the large caldera filled with the Mediterranean blue waters – and subsequent eruptions formed two fire islands (Nea Kameni and Palea Kameni). But in the process of blowing its top – it did so in a way that makes the Mt. Vesuvius destruction of Pompeii seem like child’s play. Indeed the eruption of Strongyli and the tidal wave produced is believed to have been the event that provoked the end of the Minoan Civilization.

TIP: Santorini due to its plethora of steep, irregular steps and inclines is not a good place for the mobility impaired, or those with low energy, bad ankles or bad knees.

Travel To Santorini and Interisland Travel

A cruise ship slips out of the Caldera in the Evening. (Good bye to the crowd!)

We often tell people about our wonderful experiences in Santorini. Some of our friends who have visited Santorini only in the context of cruise ships, or during the hectic summer months have questioned what we liked about our visits. See More Tips about Santorini, below for why we think cruise ship based excursions are not as enjoyable unless you actually spend days on the island. Note that the high season is mid June through early September. Offseason in Santorini is October through early April, with most shops closing at the end of October and reopening in mid to late March.

If your only experience of Santorini has been as a result of an excursion from a cruise ship, you really have missed a lot of the charm of the island.

We have not visited any of the surrounding islands that are visible from Santorini (Sikinos, Folegandros, Ios, Anafi) – but you can reach many of them via a passenger or car ferry. Ferries run irregularly in the off season. For example, to get from Santorini to Sikinos – about 15 miles to the northwest, there are two ferry lines. Zante leaves from Santorini at 7:30 AM on Thursday, November 17 and takes two hours arriving at 9:30. You could then return the same day leaving at 13:35 and arriving at 15:30. Santorini Cruises has ferries on days Zante does not, but there are no ferries on Wednesday, or Saturdays in the month of November that go from Santorini to Sikinos. go-ferry.com is one of the best resources we have seen to find schedules. If you want to go farther, e.g. to the southernmost large island of Crete, expect a similar lack of options and much longer transit times. E.g. from 6.5 hours to 11 hours travel time depending on the ferry and the route it takes. Also, we were warned that if you use a ferry with a rental car, there is additional insurance required. I priced out a 2-passenger ferry from Heraklion to Santorini and back two days later WITH a bed/birth and it was 290 Euro (€). For just reserved seats it was 145€. Open seating (on the deck) was 139€. The locals tend to prefer the ferries.

Finally, you should also know that getting from Athens airport to Santorini by ferry is also possible. It’s a 90 minute bus ride and about 6 Euros to get to the port in Piraeus (and about 65€ by taxi). Travel to and from the Greek mainland to Santorini takes about 8 hours by ferry – vs 45 minutes flying time. In the off season there is often only one ferry per day and the cheapest round-trip for a ferry is about 135€ per passenger. For this reason, we have generally always preferred to fly directly to and from JTR (the Santorini Airport code).

We have concluded that travel by air is the most efficient and reliable means to reach Santorini – in part because there are fewer restrictions and much less travel time.

Typical Ferry Schedule and costs Athens (Piraeus) to Santorini and back. Not including bus or taxi from Eleftherios Venizelos Airport (Athens) to the port of Piraeus.

Flights, Business Class and Layovers

Because we live on the US West Coast, even the BEST flying connections to get to Santorini require two or three flights and at least 18 hours of travel each way. So this is one area where we are willing to spend to upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy – but not to Business or First Class. Why? Practical considerations. Comfort is of value, but it does not make sense to us to pay 3 times the fare for the flights (as is normal for Business Class) when we can spend that extra money on better lodging, meals, gifts and excursions.

Moderately long layovers are a travelers FRIEND.

For example our flights to Santorini took about 22 hours with no layovers longer than about 3 hours, whereas on the way back, we flew from Santorini to Munich where an 18 hour layover allowed us to stay at the Munich Hilton for 250€ for one night – with breakfast. The value add for that Hilton is that no taxi or shuttle is required. We got a comfortable night of sleep in before the 13 hour flight from Munich to Denver. Also note that by taking that layover, we ended up with a $300 cheaper airfare so the stay in the Hilton paid for itself! We did not pay for premium economy upgrades for the shorter flights (3 hours or less) but the Denver to SFO leg may have well been worth an upgrade as it was a United Airlines flight (all other legs were Lufthansa) and we were crammed in a full flight with only center seats. I’ve only ever had one GOOD experience with United, all other experiences were zero star affairs… so needless to say I avoid United (and American and Delta, for that matter).

One last comment about layovers vs direct flights and cost: I’ve come to prefer moderately long layovers between flights to short ones. Why? Well several reasons: a longer layover allows you to get off the plane, have a real-person sit down meal, toilet break, walk, etc. And more importantly a too-short layover may result in high stress and missed connections as happened to us when our 77 minute scheduled layover in Denver was cut to less than 60 minutes by a late arrival and then we had to go through customs, fetch our luggage, recheck our luggage and go back through security to get to our next flight in ANOTHER terminal. In fact, by the time we actually got OFF the plane our next flight was already boarding – so we missed it. A 3 hour layover would have been FAR more comfortable and I’m frankly perturbed that such an aggressively short layover was even offered. Had there been a Munich to SFO direct flight available I’d have preferred it! But also note that off season, almost all flights to and from Santorini go through the Athens airport.

Getting around on Santorini

There are buses and a few taxis – but no Lyft or Uber. We frankly never invested any effort in learning the bus schedules because even the locals point out that the buses run infrequently. Our preferred method of travel is a rental car plus walking. Surprisingly TWO WEEKs of car rental WITH full insurance was a scant $330 US dollars in October, 2022 (through rentalcars.com)! But be forewarned, you’ll want a SMALL car (to be able to navigate some narrow roads, tiny parking places, and traffic), and there are very few automatic transmission cars available… so be sure you’ve practiced using a manual transmission. One day rentals from many places will be 45 or more euros per DAY in the off season.

Rental cars – especially via the airport are cheap and most efficient for thoroughly exploring Santorini.

The biggest problem you’ll face navigating the island is parking, and some peculiar winding one-way and dead-end roads. And remember that many of the destinations along the caldera rim (hotels, houses, and restaurants) are ONLY accessible by foot paths including plenty of stairs – something that may become painfully obvious if you rely on the normal means of navigation (Google maps). The good news is that the island is small enough you can circumnavigate the WHOLE island in less than half a day… nothing is more than an hour drive from anywhere else. The key places on the island to get to and from are the airport on the southeastern side of the island near the town of Kamari, the Athinios Port near the middle of the Caldera on the west side of the island – that is where most ferries arrive and depart, and the Old Port of Fira where many of the cruise ships and pleasure cruises arrive and depart. One tip about the maps, use google to load maps of Santorini before you leave to go there. But you’ll probably discover that having a data plan and the ability to make calls while on the island is quite helpful. Verizon, for example, offers a “bring your plan” for $10 per day that provides reasonable amount of calls and data.

Lodging In Santorini

We have stayed in a variety of places around the island, mostly along the Caldera rim. Prices on the island range from quite cheap ($50 USD a night away from the caldera) to outrageously expensive ($3000 USD/night) in the OFF SEASON. For views that are about as gorgeous as you can imagine, the caldera rim (and any of the towns along it: Fira, Firostefani, Imerovigli, and Oia) are hard to beat – provided you actually have a view and a modicum of privacy. Expect that wherever you stay along the caldera you’ll have two impediments: parking (if you rent a car) and lots of stairs.

The first place we stayed 18 years ago: Sun Rocks, Firostefani was expensive when we first stayed there, and has gotten progressively more expensive. We stayed in two different rooms there, including their most expensive “Experience Room” which is located at the bottom of the property with gorgeous views and quite a lot of privacy. We still have very fond memories watching a violent storm roll in while room service brought us Dakos (rusk bread with tomatoes, olive oil, feta cheese and capers) – see Foods, below. Firostefani is NOT in Fira, so it’s a bit quieter, but it’s still a quite walkable distance into Fira. There are many other properties in Firostefani, too.

Later that first trip we stayed in the 5-star Katikies Resort in Oia. It was nice, but rather prohibitively expensive. We had to move to there because Sun Rocks closed at the end of October (and did so again this year) – along with much of the rest of Firostefani.

**Absolute Bliss**, Imerovigli, Santorini. *Oia* is near the center of the image in the distance.

On our next visit we stayed in Imerovigli at Absolute Bliss. We still hold that experience up as about as close to ideal as one can get – and it was reasonably priced. It has marvelous views, the service and breakfasts were fantastic, and the manager of the resort showed us great kindness. Indeed I slipped and fell on my elbow along the high road. When we asked about where to find bandages she offered to drive us to the hospital – and kept up with us for the remainder of our stay. Fortunately the damage to my elbow wasn’t that bad – and the cuts and scrapes were mostly caused by me trying to prevent my camera gear from getting damaged.

Our most recent trip we stayed in two locations on opposite sides of the island. The first in Kamari was called Santorini Crystal Blue Boutique Hotel. It was hard to find, indeed, I recommend that to get there you do what we eventually did and just call them! They have a private parking lot about 300 meters away from the property. They, like most properties close in the off season. The Melitis restaurant on site was absolutely fantastic. Thereafter we stayed in the Marble Sun Villa Caldera House in the center of Oia. Being centrally located was nice. Being directly on a travelled path in all of Oia was a bit less nice. From extensive searching the Marble Sun is one of the VERY few caldera properties that afforded two private master bedrooms. That’s why we chose it since we were sharing the space with some dear friends of ours. There are multiple ways to book the property we stayed in, including through the Caldera Houses site, on hotels.com, via VRBO, booking.com and more. I recommend taking a look at all avenues since the rates and availability sometimes vary considerably. And there are MANY properties available. What you are unlikely to find is an inexpensive property with a nice view, parking, limited walking and central access to a town.

More Tips About Navigating Santorini

Crowds can be a PAIN and cruise ships bring crowds. But you can consult port calendars and avoid caldera locations on heavy cruise ship days.

As I noted, we’ve been to the island 3 times over 18 years. And what we observed on our last trip was a bit disheartening. On our first trips the island was almost universally uncrowded in October and early November. Our most recent trip was much more congested than we expected. We are not sure of the why, except that Covid seems to have created a pent-up demand. One day there were SIX cruise ships – each adding about 2000 or more passengers. Effectively the population of the island doubles (or triples!) on such days so the throngs of excess persons made the narrow walkways and smallish shops unpleasant in much the same way as attempting to depart from stadium full of people. Indeed, we scheduled an early boat tour of the volcanic islands to be sure we wouldn’t have to fight the crowds for space but did not realize that when we got back from that half day cruise we would be competing with thousands of cruisists for a seat on the cable car to get back up to Fira. It took an hour and half waiting in line. The 330 steps or a donkey ride up are also possible alternatives.

Here comes (or goes) another crowd. Each cruise ship or ferry carries from 800 to 5000 passengers. This is a Viking Cruise Ship so is on the smaller end of the scale.

A little Greek can go a long way to unlocking a pleasant experience. Kalimera! (Good Morning) Kalispera (Good Evening), Ef haristo’ (Thank You), and Parakalo’ (Please)

I am a big proponent of learning some simple phrases in the native language of any country you may visit. You may be surprised how much more welcoming people are when you make an effort to greet, ask and thank them in their native tongue. Think about it for a moment: if someone came up to you on the average street in the US and asked you in Swahili where to find the nearest Taco stand… would you understand? Wouldn’t you think the person a bit rude or at least naïve? Well the same goes in any other country. As a rule we have found the Greeks on Santorini to be friendly, and helpful ALWAYS, but it sure doesn’t hurt that I am careful to greet them, and especially thank them in Greek. Sure my Greek may not be all that great – it’s a tough language – but by starting in Greek I’ve had some truly heart warming and compelling discussions with the locals – many of who are NOT local at all, but come from various other countries and work their butts off on behalf of tourists. There are many sources to learn Greek, so we won’t copy them here.

A couple of tips I picked up after listening to the Greeks… the town of Megalochori is pronounced with the “g” sounding like an h or a “y”. Ditto for the popular dish “Gyros” (Year-os, not Geer-os or Guy-ros). The town of Monolithos is not “Mono-lithos” but Mon-oh’-lithos with the emphasis on the second syllable. That’s the way you would do it in English – emphasizing the third from the last syllable, but it took me a few listens to get it right. If you pay attention to the Greek letters, you can start to pronounce words on sight… you just have to remember that what looks like a P (Ρ or ρ) is a Rho – an r, what looks like an V (ν) is a lowercase N. What looks like a y (γ) is a gamma – a lower case G (Γ). What at first glance passes for a N (Π) is actually a capital Pi (P). Thus what might at first glance read as Napkin (ΠΑΡΚΙΝ) is really Parking! On the mainland you’ll see lots of ΠΑΡΚΙΝ signs – on Santorini nary a one, but you may see the more universal white P on a blue background meaning parking, or more likely, lots of NO Parking symbols.

Two street signs that are worth noting are the “Do Not Enter/One Way sign” and the “No Parking” (on this side of the street) sign. The no parking sign is routinely ignored, by the way!

Do Not Enter (One way) Sign – May be red on Blue instead of Red on White

Recommended Places to Visit, Things to Do (and Why!)

A map (from Google Maps) of Santorini also called Thira. We will later refer to the numbered items. The caldera rim includes all those areas around the interior of the island bordering the Mediterranean.

These are in no particular order. Note that many are closed in the off season… check before you go. The numbers below correspond to the locations marked on the map, above.

Sunrise in Oia – and a photographer parked at a famous location.
Looking southeast from the Oia ruined Castle
Colorful Cliffs of Oia and Thirassia and part of the ruined castle
Red Beach, Akrotiri, Santorini
View from the Volcanic Island Nea Kameni
Mega Cruise Ship = Long lines at the old port
Ammoudi Harbor, Oia from above.
Ammoudi Harbor at night.
Ammoudi Harbor, Oia
Catch of the day, Ammoudi
Looking up from the water level near Ammoudi Bay, Oia
Cruise ships at Athinios (port) with the hill city of Pyrgos
One of the two largest churches in Oia at Sunrise
Sunrise, Oia
Sweeping view of a stormy Oia Sunrise.
Church Bells and Orion
Cloud hovering over Mount Prophet Elias
Monastery at Prophet Elias, Santorini
Ancient Thira with a view toward the tallest peak in Santorini
Looking Northeast from Ancient Thira
Sunrise on the Black Sand Beach of Kamari
Surreal Sunrise over Oia
Unfortunately tourists seem to get carried away and walk on rooftops.
Hole in the sky. Rare cloudy weather in Santorini

Kamari. While it is just south of the airport, you have to drive inland for a bit before you can make a left turn onto the road to Kamari. Like most of the rest of the island Kamari is open seasonably, but unlike some towns on the caldera, Kamari has a year-round population and a main square (and a sizeable supermarket). The black sand beach (ok, rocks and sand) is easy to reach, beware however, the sea bed itself is not sandy but is hard rock with ankle busting “potholes” throughout. It’s also on the sunrise side of the island and as our host at Santorini Crystal Blue Boutique hotel pointed out: the sun does not charge a tax for you to see it rise! In all it has a quite different vibe from the caldera side of the island: more laid back. I imagine in summer, however it’s just as or even more crowded. One tip: the main drag along the waterfront is a walking path only, except in the off season. You may choose, instead to visit Perissa/Perivolas which is farther removed but a longer stretch of black rock/sand beach. It’s also worth mentioning that on the way to Kamari is the Cave Winery Museum (also known as the Koutsogiannopoulos Winery). On the same road you also find the Argyros Estates and several other wineries as well as the Crazy Donkey Brewery. Adjacent to Kamari is Ancient Thira, described below.
Ammoudi Bay at the water level in Oia. 287 steps down from the top it’s not a small journey to descend or ascend, but the contrasting rocks, architecture and the absolutely stunningly colored Mediterranean vistas are worth a visit. You may even hire a donkey to get you back to the top if overwhelmed by the ascent. The waterfront restaurants are well known for their seafood dishes.
Ancient Thira. Perhaps my favorite spot on the island. An 8 euro per person entry fee is charged after you’ve driven up a steep set of 21 switch backs. It affords some spectacular views by virtue of its altitude, but I feel a very deep sense of history strolling around among the ancient Roman ruins – and can’t help but imagine what life was like to live in that town in that era.
The Domain Sigalas winery is near Oia, north of Finnikia. The views are not spectacular, but the hospitality is awesome, and the wines are better than any other winery we visited. Try the Apiliotis and the Vinsanto – both dessert wines made from sun dried red and white grapes respectively. Check to be sure they are open as they have limited hours (and menu) in the off season. Santos winery has spectacular views… but beware its one of the wineries that is heavily hit by tour buses and that gives it a very touristy/industrial feel. Venesantos winery – which we didn’t visit – has a higher recommendation rate on TripAdvisor than Santos.
Prophet Elias Monastery on the highest point of the island is worth a visit. The monastery may be closed off season, and there are some steep stretches of narrow roads to navigate – but the view is excellent. The nearby town of Pyrgos sits up on a large hill and is strongly reminiscent of hill top towns you might find in Europe. One restaurant near there that comes highly recommended (but which we were unable to visit) is Metaxi Mas. At some point in your island driving you’ll find yourself on at least the shoulder of the hill where Pyrgos is, so it’s worth a stop.
The Santorini Lighthouse located at the extreme southwestern edge of the island is another worthwhile visit. You can’t visit the interior of the lighthouse, but you will get views of the caldera from a different perspective. Off season most every surrounding restaurant will be closed except perhaps closer to the town of Akrotiri which has a small year-round population. Combine your trip to the Lighthouse with a visit to the Red Sand Beach and the ancient Akrotiri archeological site. Follow the signs to the Red Sand Beach. Off season parking near the church should be easy. Take good shoes if you decide to take the trail down to the beach itself, though the best shots can be taken before the trail gets more difficult to navigate. For best pictures of the Red Sand beach, try to get there in the morning hours.
Fira and the Old Port. Fira is the capital city of Santorini, sits along the Caldera and offers either 330 steps down to the old port, or for 6 euros each way you can take the cable car. There isn’t that much compelling down at the port, and beware – it’s where most cruise ships passengers are tossed out by the tender boats (the cruise ships do not dock). But there are several possible cruises available from the old port, including the next suggestion.
A boat tour of the volcano. There are half day and nearly full day options. The half day option takes you to Nea Kameni where an improved (but still fairly strenuous) hiking trail will provide great views of the caldera, smoking fumaroles, and if you have a good guide some interesting history of Santorini – including how it got its names, and the frequency of eruption. After Nea Kameni, the boat stops at Palea Kameni where “hot springs” warm the water with sulfurous aromas. Hint: “Hot” is probably not quite accurate; tepid is a better description. New on a last trip was an additional 5 euros or so per person to disembark on the Nea Kameni island and take a tour. Still worth that, however! On the longer cruise you can continue on to Thirassia – the fisherman’s island and either brave a steep walk up, or hang around the few shops and restaurants down at the water level.

I didn’t mention it as yet, so I will now… there is a walking trail between Fira and Oia that will provide lots of great views. Allow from one and a half to 3 hours each way should you choose to make the trek. And one last thing… there are a lot of one way roads and one of those one-way roads will lead you INTO Oia from Imerovigli, but you can’t take that road out of Oia. This is called the “high road” and its worth following all the signs headed toward Imerovigli from Fira, but instead of turning (left) toward Imerovigli, keep headed North. There are some great vistas from the high road, including some pull outs, snack sheds and even a few luxury properties. There is also a trail up one of the volcano cones which forms another high point on the island.

There are also several museums scattered around the island, including a new one called The Lost Atlantis Experience in Megalochori near the Grigoris Bakery (see below). It seemed like a tourist trap so we didn’t visit it. And it’s also worth peering into the churches if/when they are open. The Greek Orthodox touches and Byzantine architecture of some of those 400+ churches on the island is fascinating.

Unique Foods, Gifts and Restaurants in Santorini

There are few things we recommend you try.

Tomato Balls (τοματο κεφτεδες). aka Tomato Keftedes. They are fried treats made with local Santorini cherry tomatoes. Every place we tried them they were good… and each place made them a little bit different. Some more like flat pancakes, some resembling the “balls”. All of them were delicious.

Galaktoboureko (Γαλακτομπούρεκο) – while not unique to Santorini, this Greek Custard Pie is quite different from the familiar baklava. Galakto means “butter”. You can think if it as a custard burrito usually soaked in sweet water or honey. We had tasty versions of this dish from several sources, including the Furnissimo Bakery near the airport in Messaria (Μεσαριά) on the corner of the road leading to Kamari, the Family Bakery close to Fira in the town of Megalochori (Μεγαλοχωρι), and the Grigoris Bakery on the southern outskirts of Megalochori. If they are out of Galaktoboureko, Bougatsa is similar enough to give it a try. If you’re in the Kamari area, the Erotokritos Cretan Bakery comes highly recommended, but we didn’t try anything from there. Oh, and for an island with only 15,000 permanent residents, there are a surprising number of bakeries… we have only listed the ones we personally visited.

Vinsanto – literally “holy wine” is a dessert (sweet) wine made from native assyrtiko grapes that are harvested and allowed to dry in the sun for up to two weeks before they are juiced. Almost all the dozen wineries on Santorini make this wine, some are noticeably better than others. The resultant wine is quite sweet and may be strongly redolent with “raisin” flavors. A similar but far less common dessert wine is Apiliotis which is made the same way, but using Mandilaria (red) grapes. And while we’re talking about wine, there are several species of grapes that are indigenous to the island, almost all of them are used to make white wines – including the aforementioned assyrtiko grape.

Dakos – this is a simple salad originating from Crete made with tomatoes, olive oil, hard rusk bread, feta and sometimes other ingredients like oregano capers and caper leaves. It is surprisingly good if you allow the tomato and olive oil to soften the bread. It’s a great alternative to Horiatiki the traditional greek salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, feta and olives. Not every restaurant will carry Dakos.

Alexandros Jewelry has stores in Athens, Fira and Oia. His creations are truly unique and inspiring. Just ask my wife who has several incredible pieces from this premium jeweler. And truly, Alexandros Rogavopoulos and his wife, Gina, have been very kind to us on each of our visits. The jeweler closes both Santorini stores in the off season and he runs the production / creation of jewelry in his Athens workshop.

There are two local brewers in Santorini. The beers are worth a try. The local beers are Yellow Donkey, Red Donkey, White Donkey, Slow Donkey and Crazy Donkey – which is the name of one of the Breweries. If nothing else the mugs and glasses are amusing. Another local brand is Blue Monkey from Ftelos Brewery on the Caldera side of the island which looks like an interesting brew pub but we haven’t visited it.

Our top 5 restaurants in Santorini

Naos – Expensive, creative fine dining in the heart of Oia. They close from late October to November and reopen for Christmas.
Skiza – a pizzeria and more with a great view in Oia. They are one of the few places that is open year round. The prices were reasonable and the meals really delicious.
Skiza’s sister restaurant Skala in Oia serves a variety of Greek favorites is also open all year.
Cacio e Pepe: Italian restaurant in Fira.
Metaxi Mas. In Exo Gonia (Έξω Γωνιά) – we really wanted to eat here because it came highly recommended by several on-island people, but alas we didn’t get a chance.

Of course there are many more restaurants we have tried, and we were only disappointed in two of them – but only mildly so. Remember that many restaurants like the Melitis in Kamari are closed in the offseason. Indeed at least half of all the restaurants we visited from October 23rd through November 5, 2022 were partially closed (with limited choices), closing, or about to close. Oh, and there is a Thai restaurant (called Paradox) very near the bus terminal in Oia. It was surprisingly good.

Where to get Great Photos in Santorini

I chuckle as I write this. While doing my typical pre-sunrise and sunset walks, camera in hand, I got asked that question a lot by people wearing cruise ship stickers. There are a LOT of sites that hawk “best place to take a photo” and two of those spots are well traveled – and happened to be literally feet away from our Oia lodging. But DO NOT be waylaid by such concerns. The island has so many beautiful vistas and fascinating shots my best advice is … shoot the heck out of the place. There are doorways, bougainvillea, cats, dogs, people, churches, steps, walkways, pools, domes, and of course the beautiful coloration in the water of the caldera and the volcanic cliffs themselves. And on top of all that, there are sunsets, sunrises and night vistas. It’s really hard NOT to get a good shot if you follow some simple guidelines about composition and exposure (coming in the next article). Anything that includes color, architecture and scale will make your viewers jealous, guaranteed.

In the next articles, we’ll address cell phone photography, cell phone based image adjustment, and night photography in Santorini.

Photoshop Alternatives: On1 RAW 2019 (+Affinity and Gimp)

5 Replies

Adobe long ago reduced their price for the Photoshop/Lightroom bundle to $10/month but for years now no longer has a way to purchase and outright own Photoshop. The latest version of Photoshop (Photoshop CC, aka Photoshop CC 2019)… it’s a rent-for-life or get-out-of-Dodge model. The optics of the rental model are anathema for many people. We at StarCircleAcademy took a look at various alternatives to Photoshop in case you aren’t willing to engage the “rent for life” strategy. However we will also tell you that Photoshop is the 600 pound Gorilla. You really can not argue with its features (bloated as they are) or price ($120/year), or abundance of resources on how to use, abuse, and creatively curse at Photoshop as a tool.

The contenders are: Gimp (free, multi-platform), On1 Perfect Photo Suite (now called RAW 2019), and Affinity. We will start with On1.

ON1 Photo RAW 2019.2

The pricing as of May, 2019 is $80 for the complete software (discounted from $100 – as is often the case). Upgrade cost is listed as $80. That price brings it under the cost of upgrading to or purchasing Photoshop CS6 (although it’s not clear you can do that anymore), and because On1 is a perpetual license, the three-year cost of ownership is $260 (one purchase, two annual upgrades) versus the best possible three year cost for Adobe Photographers subscription bundle of $360. And much better than purchasing Photoshop CS6. But there is one wrinkle. How many copies you are allowed to use is a murky area that is not spelled out clearly on their site. Their site says “When you purchase ON1 Photo RAW 2019.2 you receive a perpetual license“. At times ON1 has allowed 5 seats, the fact that its not spelled out on their site implies the number of seats is subject to change. I am also not clear how they enforce the number of installs allowed. If you have more than one computer or frequently upgrade computers, you may exhaust the number of installs. For the purpose of this discussion, our review was of 2019.1.

On1 is available for windows or Mac operating systems.

Installation

We didn’t get off to a good start. The trial version was a 1GB download. Installation proceeded slowly, and it required shutdown of Photoshop CC. Fair enough since On1 includes plugins for various Photoshop components. For this test we installed on an aging 4 core 8Gb RAM Lenovo laptop machine with Windows 10, 64-bit. When we started the install, we were warned to close Photoshop.

After dismissing Photoshop it ran a while (3 min 45 seconds) to install. Years ago when we installed an older version (7.5 Perfect Suite) we got a warning about incompatible display cards near the end of the long install, but that was on older hardware. Photoshop never warned us like that.

Usage

We quickly fired up On1, and after dismissing the modal (i.e. in-your-face) getting started box, we “Browsed” to a folder containing our recent work. The folder was previously browsed with Adobe Bridge and loaded VERY fast, the entire directory came up with the images and the ratings that were previously applied. This is MUCH, MUCH faster and more efficient than Lightroom, and even faster than Adobe Bridge (which doesn’t require importing either).

Unfortunately we made the mistake of “enlarging” to full screen and then could NOT find how to make the window smaller again. We tried “Escape”, looking in the various toolbars… No joy. So we killed the program with Alt-F4 and restarted. On1 came up in the same place we had left off, but MAXIMIZED again with no controls to minimize. After hunting in “View -> Maximize” (which made no sense!) we were able to restore the window to add the minimize/maximize window options on the title bar and then drag to downsize the window. Searching in the online help for “undo maximize” or even “maximize” didn’t find anything, by the way.

Our primary display has text size set to 200% so that we can easily capture readable screenshots as well as assuage our tired old eyes. However on our display at some point On1 Tools became garbled.

Next we tried loading a previously created .psd document. This was quite frustrating. The document was created in maximum compatibility mode and has layer groups and layers, but it renders in On1 as a single layer. What is worse, is that I couldn’t FIND the Layers window. I navigated to Windows -> Layers (Ctl+2) and NOTHING happened. This was frustrating also, but it appears the reason that nothing happened is that the Layers palette is part of the “Develop” panel. If you are looking at e.g. “Lens Correction”, then unfortunately “Layers” is not visible because you have to scroll up. The same problem occurs if you are in the browse setting and click the “Layers” option at the right. The edit comes up, but it doesn’t show the Layers!

To see if we could make On1 show our layers, we thought our normal workflow of using Colorspace: ProPhoto RGB, at 16 bits may explain why the layered photo was coming up as a single layer in On1. We went back into Photoshop CC 2019, removed layer groups (in case that was confusing On1), converted to SRGB profile, 8-bit mode, merged several layers then resaved the document. The saving file almost immediately appeared in the On1 browse menu, but the image shown was flashing between gray dots and an image. It was a big image (800Mb), and it took Photoshop quite a while to write it to our Dropbox drive. Apparently that also confused On1 a bit. And we notice that On1 does have an option to work in 16 bit ProPhoto RGB by default. That’s excellent.

Previously with the On1 Suite 7, we ran into this problem

Our choices seem pretty limited. Indeed, when clicking OK what we got was a big all-white canvas.

While On1 does provide layering, it doesn’t seem to work with layers in Photoshop psb or psd documents. That is a serious shortcoming if you, like we, have a ton of .psd documents you want to work with.

Usability Quirks

There are quirks with the interface that bother us. For example, the various palettes do not appear to be movable – and that caused our problem finding the layer palette, described earlier. It also appears that On1 spent more effort “mimicking” the Lightroom layouts and contents, but the “Presets” window wastes a lot of space. Presets never struck us as a worthwhile way to improve photos, by the way. Unfortunately the tiny border you need to discover to close Presets (or re-open them) is a bad design choice. We have no clue why they don’t have a “show presets” control (or why you can hide layers).

Some operations are pretty easy to figure out, but it is not at all obvious to us how you mix masking with effects and layers. On1 has a “Perfect mask” setting that is clever and beats the pants off of anything Photoshop currently offers in ease of use and net result. When masking near the boundary of sky and tree the perfect mask setting figures out that you want to operate on either the sky or the tree, not both. And On1 also has a Mask Bug which is an odd looking thing (and very odd name) that is quite functional. It is a highly adjustable gradient mask with drag controls to control density, directionality, feathering and the area to be adjusted. What is not immediately obvious, however, is how you can use a bug mask with a separate adjustment – for example to remove the affect of the bug in one area or increase it in another. Ultimately the Perfect Brush is nice, but we do miss the magic wand selection that Photoshop offers.

Layers are also non-intuitive – for example there is a “Local” option after selecting a layer. This appears to mean “operate on the mask”, but the word “Local” doesn’t make sense to us.

Our work often consists of opening multiple documents as layers. What On1 didn’t do is provide a simple interface for this. That is, you CAN use Browse to open documents as layers, but if you’re already in edit mode for a document and try to use the filmstrip mode to Browse for additional layers you don’t have the open/add as layer option. We hoped to be able to select multiple images and then add them as layers to our existing document. Instead, what we have to do is open one document, then use the + to find and open the additional images as layers from the layer palette. That’s tedious. We also made the mistake of accidentally hitting merge layers (just left of the option for blending control) and watched as On1 merged layers with no confirmation and no undo! Yuck.

Not only does On1 seem to be sluggish loading multiple documents as layers, but you can not change blending options for multiple layers at once. You have to operate on each layer one-at-a-time (select layer, click options, change blend mode). That is tedious.

Another unexpected quirk: we double clicked the .onphoto file that was created by layering two documents. Instead of opening directly into edit mode, it just opened browse mode. And even more curiously, there is no “save as” and no document rename in the edit mode. It looks like On1 also created a .on1 document, but did not register this with windows, so windows didn’t know how to open it. After associating the .on1 file with On1, it STILL wouldn’t open in develop mode. The problem with the lack of rename is that it’s now not possible to use one base document as a foreground with different additional layers. On1 will only save the layers in association with the “base” document (_W9A3041 in the example shown).

Star Trails and Automation

It appears that On1 does not have any kind of automation that would allow easy creation of star trails in the way that the Advanced Stacker Plus can interact with Photoshop. And as we already noted, the Layer manipulations available in On1 require lots of manual intervention just like it used to be in Photoshop (CS5 and earlier). After Photoshop CS6 the interface allowed multiple layer selection and global blending mode changes.

By way of reminder, Advanced Stacker Plus processes incoming documents a layer at a time. This method of processing keeps the memory footprint low and greatly speeds up operation of Photoshop when loading more than 20-30 images as layers.

In Conclusion

We found some things to like about On1 – it’s perpetual license, some good masking tools, but we found it falls short of the editing experience we wish to have and therefore do not recommend it.

In the next articles we will address Affinity Photo (short answer: it seems to be quite powerful), and GIMP.