Me, myself and Europe: Travelling alone doesn't have to mean being lonely

As I hand over my carefully chosen shore visit form on an 11 day cruise from Copenhagen to Lisbon, the concierge remarks, "I see a trend - you like history!"

Having boarded the Norwegian Sky only a few hours earlier, I have also noticed a trend - the large number of solo travellers I have already met. Later I will learn that Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) has wisely been working to attract this growing sector, and a rich, destination-heavy itinerary such as I am about to enjoy only adds to the appeal for those going it alone.

But first, to the experience. With only two sea days, this cruise delivers on the magic of waking each morning to find the ship has slipped quietly into a new port, and often a new country.

After departing the lively city of Copenhagen, the Norwegian Sky makes its way on calm seas to the Netherlands, Belgium and England, stopping at two ports in France and two ports in Spain before arriving in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon.

From the wide choice of shore excursions it is possible to curate an itinerary to match your energy while indulging your interests. There are big city days in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and London, or village visits, shorter food and wine countryside tours, shopping, walking and history tours.

I'm all about the cobblestones and church bells, and on this trip I explore some of Europe's most picturesque historic towns while sampling local food, wine and tradition. The shuttle from the port to the shore destination is a bonus, allowing views of local landscapes you wouldn't get to see in an Uber from an airport.

In Belgium, I visit the gorgeous old town of Bruges, cruising along the picture-book canals past beautifully preserved Gothic buildings. In the town square is the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a Romanesque church built two centuries ago that is said to contain the "relic", a cloth bearing a drop of Christ's blood. The smell of toasting waffles and warming chocolate drifts through the streets here. I lunch on shrimp croquettes washed down with a local beer at a brewery thought to have been operating since 1546.

From the French port of Le Havre I join a tour to the old city of Rouen, which cheerfully boasts being the site where St Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. However, there is more to this stunning medieval town - our guide points to a high window in a house across the square from the Rouen Cathedral, a church so ornately decorative and detailed it looks like it is made of lace. The Impressionist master Monet rented that room for a year in the 1890s, and from that window, painted the cathedral about 30 times in his obsessive quest to record its beauty in all different lights.

Next we head to the port of Bordeaux through the Medoc wine region, where crucifixes guard the vines laden with dark bunches of grapes. There are apple trees heavy with fruit and fat geese patrol the orchards. In the city, what else to enjoy but a traditional croque monsieur and a glass of local rose shared with new friends from the ship.

From the Spanish port of Bilbao I choose a day trip through the Basque region to the stunning, beachside resort city of San Sebastian. Just 25 kilometres from France, the city was a hideout for many prominent people during World War II. These days it's still a hideout for the rich and famous and is known as the "pearl of the ocean" for its oyster-shaped bay. It's also home of the must-try pintxos, a local version of tapas, small imaginatively filled sandwiches of every description pierced with a cocktail stick.

The next day the ship docks in La Coruna, the gateway to Galicia. As we journey towards the city of Santiago de Compostela, we begin to see Camino pilgrims walking along the roads with their staffs. There are seven main "ways" to reach the St James cathedral in Santiago - in 2025 more than half a million pilgrims completed the Camino. Standing in the square outside the cathedral is to witness great human emotion in real time as pilgrims, alone or in groups of two or three or 20, emerge past a lone bagpiper, elated and exhausted. By the time they make their way through the last laneways of the old city and into the square, many of them have tears rolling down their faces and are falling into the arms of fellow pilgrims.

This beautiful, somewhat chaotic and very hilly city of Lisbon is a great stepping off port for the cruise. I check in to the historic Editory Riverside Hotel adjoining the main train station just opposite the port. This beautifully restored and surprisingly affordable hotel has a restaurant that is a haven to retreat to from the frantically hot and busy city streets, serving incredible Portuguese wine and seafood.

A Lisbon highlight for me is attending a traditional restaurant where diners are treated to a performance of fado music, rather mournful songs thought to originate in communities of migrants who once scraped a living from the port of Lisbon. Meaning "fate'", fado was the music of the streets.

Like me, the fellow solo travellers I meet are not on board to lie on a deckchair all day. You're in each port for a good time, not a long time, so choosing your shore excursion for the day is something worth putting time into.

Largely due to the daily solos get-togethers, it's easy to bump into other solo travellers and to grab lunch or a coffee in a restaurant on board or on shore. Many of the shore visits also include communal lunches or wine tastings.

After losing her husband, Canadian Kiera Bartlett, 54, was determined to keep indulging her love of travel, whether with others or solo. She says cruising offers a safe environment for solo female travellers, an unpack-once room rather than constantly transferring between cities and hotels.

"It's just safer for me on a cruise," she says. "There's obviously people around all the time. I feel like it's fine to be out dining and stuff like that, even to sit at a bar and have a drink, I've kind of gotten used to that." She also finds it easy to talk to other people on a cruise: "Everybody is in a happy mood."

At the daily meets, a bubbly facilitator organises games and giveaways and generally makes everyone feel included.

"The staff here are actually encouraging people to meet up," Kiera says. "The facilitator will say, does anybody wanna go for dinner, or who's going to the show?"

Jennifer Leduc, from Quebec, is a veteran cruiser who has been on 17 trips and is planning more, though this trip is only the second one she's taken on her own. "When I sat down on the ship the first day and I was eating lunch by myself, I was like, oh my God, what have I done?" she laughs. "But then I went to the meet-up that night and then we went to dinner and then almost every night I've had dinner with people from the solo group.

"This cruise was very port intensive and I was off exploring a different city every day, so it's been good."

Jennifer says it's all about being free to balance time with others and time alone. "I'm good at travelling on my own, but after a while it's nice to talk to somebody else, and just share what you did during the day.

"I definitely will continue to travel solo in the future, and this has been another great experience. So it just makes me want to do it more."

The writer was a guest of NCL