12 Night Cruise sailing from Bergen to Longyearbyen aboard Silver Explorer.

Silversea's purpose-built Silver Explorer expedition ship (formerly the Prince Albert II) has been designed specifically for navigating waters in some of the world's most remote destinations, including both of earth's polar regions. A strengthened hull with a Lloyd's Register ice-class notation (1A) for passenger vessels enables Silver Explorer to safely push through ice floes with ease. A fleet of Zodiac boats allows Silversea Expedition guests to visit even the most off-the-beaten path locations and an expert Expedition Team provides insight and understanding to each unforgettable Silver Explorer cruise adventure.

Onboard, savour a convivial cosmopolitan ambience and many special amenities usually found only on larger ships, including a spacious Library with an Internet Cafe, boutique shopping, a full-service spa, beauty salon, fitness centre, sauna and two top-deck whirlpools. Prince Albert II even features live evening entertainment and The Humidor, where connoisseurs can enjoy the finest cigars and cognacs - diversions offered by no other expedition ship.

Highlights of this cruise:

Bergen
A place of enchantment, Bergen's epithets include "Trebyen" (Wooden City), for its many wooden houses, "Fjordbyen" (Gateway to the Fjords), for obvious reasons, and "Regnbyen" (Rainy City), for its 200 days of rain a year. Most visitors quickly learn the necessity of rain jackets and umbrellas, and Bergen has even handily provided the world's first umbrella vending machine. Norway's second-largest city was founded in 1070 by Olav Kyrre as a commercial center. The surviving Hanseatic wooden buildings on Bryggen (the quay) are topped with triangular gingerbread roofs and painted in red, blue, yellow, and green. Monuments in themselves (they are on the UNESCO World Heritage List), the buildings tempt travelers and locals to the shops, restaurants, and museums inside. Evenings, when Bryggen is illuminated, these modest buildings, together with the stocky Rosenkrantz Tower, the Flryen, and the yachts lining the pier, are reflected in the water and combine to create one of the loveliest cityscapes in northern Europe.

Geiranger
The intricate outline of the fjords makes Norway's coastline of 21,347 km (13,264 mi) longer than the distance between the North Pole and the South Pole. The fjords were created by glacier erosion during the ice ages. In spectacular inlets like Geirangerfjord, walls of water shoot up the mountainsides, jagged snow-capped peaks blot out the sky, and water tumbles down the mountains in an endless variety of colors. Lush, green farmlands edge up the rounded mountainsides, and the chiseled, cragged, steep peaks of the Jotunheimen mountains-Norway's tallest mountain range-seem almost tall enough to touch the blue skies. The first cruise ship sailed in Geiranger in 1869; needless to say, they have kept coming.

Trondheim
One of Scandinavia's oldest cities, Trondheim is Norway's third largest, with a population of 150,000. Founded in AD 997 by Viking king Olav Tryggvason, it was first named Nidaros (still the name of the cathedral), a composite word referring to the city's location at the mouth of the Nid River. The city was also the first capital of Norway, from 997 to 1380. Trondheim became a pilgrimage center because the popularity of King Olaf II Haraldsson (later St. Olaf), who was buried here after being killed in a battle in 1030. Today Trondheim is a university town as well as a center for maritime and medical research, but the wide streets of the historic city center are still lined with brightly painted wood houses and striking warehouses.

Tromso
Tromsr surprised visitors in the 1800s: they thought it very sophisticated and cultured for being so close to the North Pole. It looks the way a polar town should-with ice-capped mountain ridges and jagged architecture that is an echo of the peaks. The midnight sun shines from May 21 to July 21, and it is said that the northern lights decorate the night skies over Tromsr more than over any other city in Norway. Tromsr is about the same size as Luxembourg, but home to only 58,000 people. The city's total area-2,558 square km (987 square mi)-is actually the most expansive in Norway. The downtown area is on a small, hilly island connected to the mainland by a slender bridge. The 13,000 students at the world's northernmost university are one reason the nightlife here is uncommonly lively for a northern city.