Hurtigruten Cruise – Simply Fabulous

 

Back in May we had met another CA couple in the lovely little bay of Lakka on the island of Paxoi. (https://shamballacyc.blogspot.com/2018/05/pottering-around-ionian.html)  It proved to be one of those serendipitous meetings that seem to happen frequently with this cruising life.  Over dinner they told us about the Hurtigruten Cruise they took during the winter to the far North of Norway, above the Arctic Circle, to see the northern lights.  We were quite intrigued by their stories so we did some research on this Hurtigruten caper.  As we were planning to go to Scandinavia during our summer land travels, we thought this sounded like a perfect addition to our plans and booked the 12 day trip from Bergen to Kirkenes, return.  What a great decision it proved to be!

On our way - leaving Bergen at 8pm

 

Hurtigruten (meaning ‘fast route’) was started 125 years ago in 1893, the same year Nansen started his voyage to the North Pole in the Fram.  The company provided mail, cargo and passenger service along the rugged west coast of Norway.  The service changed mail delivery times from 3 weeks in the summer and 5 months in the winter to just 7 days.  With the construction of local airports in the 1980’s the role of Hurtigruten changed to have more of an emphasis on tourism, although it still delivers cargo to 34 ports north and south bound along the West Coast of Norway.

Our route

We are not particularly interested in big luxury cruises (nor can our budget afford them) so we chose the ‘classic’ cruise on the old ‘grand lady’, MS Lofoten.  This ship was built in 1964 and the facilities are basic – small cabins and just a few lounges.  But Mother Nature and the fabulous chefs and staff on board made the cruise a pure luxury. 

MS Lofoten and her bigger sister

The hardest part about writing this blog entry is trying to choose the best photos from the nearly 900 that I took over the 12 days.  Every day brought new amazing vistas of gorges, waterfalls, steep cliffs, craggy islands and quaint colourful villages.  We saw dolphins, puffins and sea eagles.  We stopped at small villages and large towns and cities and spent 6 days above the Arctic Circle.  We met lovely fellow passengers from all over the world, many of whom had travelled to other amazing Arctic destinations.  It was, in sort, simply fabulous.

On our first full day onboard we sailed into the Geirangerfjord.  The scenery was stunning.  We passed magnificent waterfalls tumbling over near vertical mountainsides.

The entrance to the Fjord

 

 

 

The next day we had a few hours in the city of Trondheim where we walked around the town checking out the sights.  The town was abuzz in preparation for what we could gather was a combination of festivals, the Bryggeri food festival and a musical festival for St Olaf.

The colourful converted warehouse apartments along the canal

19th Century drawbridge

Stiftsgarden

Nidaros Cathedral

Wreath on St Olaf

Music stage all set up for the festivities

Some of the musicians getting ready

That night we were treated to an 11 pm ‘midnight sun’ sunset.  Perfect.

 

Heat Waves, Viking Ships, Polar Explorers and Sculpture

Viking Ship

All of northern Europe was in the middle of a heat wave while we were there in July.  Buildings here are built for the cold weather and do not cope with hot weat at all.  The heat stays in the buildings and few building have air conditioning.  Temperatures in the mid to high 20's, which are fairly mild by Australian standards, feel very hot here.  Copenhagen had 50 days with little or no rain and the grass in the parks was crisp and brown – more like Australia in the summer. 

We left Oslo planning to have a relaxing long train trip through the Scandinavian country side with a single transfer in Gutenberg.  This was not to be.  Our train was 30 minutes late getting out of Copenhagen and when we got to Malo, Sweden just across the long bridge outside Copenhagen, we were told the train terminated there.  We were to get another train in 30 minutes to Helsingborg then change for a bus to Angelholm then catch another train to Gutenberg.  The heat had buckled the train tracts in the section after Helsingborg.  

So three hours after we left we were in Helsingborg, the town we looked at from Elsinore castle (Helsingør) in Denmark the day before, a destination we could have reached with a half hour bus trip and a 20 minute ferry ride.  As expected it was chaos in Helsingborg.  Fortunately a nice Swedish lady was also going to Gutenberg and took us under her wing, translating for us and getting us on a local bus to Angelholm rather than the overcrowded and delayed buses the train company were providing in this unplanned emergency.  (The amazing thing about everyone here and in Denmark is that as soon as they realise you don't speak Danish or Swedish they immediately switch to flawless unaccented English.  I am so envious of the language skills here!)  

Needless to say when we got to Gutenberg 2 ½ hours late we had missed our connection.  Fortunately the conductor on the train arranged for a gratis night stay in the very nice hotel at the train station.  We had a restful night and continued to Oslo the next day.

So our three days in Oslo turned into two and were filled with boats and sculpture.  Our first stop was the Viking Ship Museum.  The museum houses two large Viking ships from around 900 AD which were recovered from a burial site as well as lots of artefacts from the Viking age.

Oseberg Ship

Studded wood ornamentation

We then walked to the nearby Fram Museum.  This museum honours Norwegian polar explorers and includes Fridtjof Nansen’s ship Fram and Roald Amundsen’s ship Gjøa.  The Fram was built to Nansen’s specification for his expedition to the North Pole in the 1890’s.  The Gjøa was the first ship to sail through the Northwest Passage. It was only 21m long and had a crew of 6 very brave men. 

The tales of these polar explorations are inspiring.  I am so impressed that I have started reading Nansen's book Farthest North about his expedition to the North Pole. These guys were really tough!  They provisioned the ship to be totally self-sufficient for 5 years in the world's harshest environment.  There was no radio communication back then.  When they went over the horizon into the Arctic Sea: that was it.  They were on their own.  It makes crossing the Atlantic over a few weeks using gentle trade winds look pretty tame - yet I doubt we will be brave enough to do even that.

Polar Explorers

The Gjøa

Arctic sled

The Fram

The very sturdy construction of the Fram

The Fram sail plan.  It also had a petrol engine

Quarters for the crew

On our last day in Oslo we went to Vigeland Sculpture Park just northwest of the city centre.  This is an amazing and beautiful park devoted to Gustav Vigeland's lifework with more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and wrought iron.

The Sculptor

 

 

 

 

 

 

For you, Eva

 

 

After the sculpture park we walked around Oslo.  I vainly tried to find places that I recognised from my visit 14 years ago but the city has changed too much (and my memory is too poor).  Finally we watched the sun set over Oslo from the top of the new opera house.  So we said goodbye to Oslo and boarded our overnight train to Bergen.

Oslo Harbour

Sunset over Oslo

Copenhagen and Hamlet

Nyhavn

We finally arrived in Scandinavia proper after a 6 hour train journey from Kiel through some pretty countryside and a train/ferry ride from Fehmarn in Germany to Rødby in Denmark.  The whole area of the North Sea is dotted with wind generators and the ferry is a hybrid.  Europe is so far ahead of Australia in embracing renewable energy.

Windmills as far as the eye can see

Our first order of business the next morning was to find a dentist for Bob.  He had broken a tooth in Kiel.  After a bit of searching we were able to get an appointment for the next morning and could then start our sightseeing.  

Everyone rides bikes in Copenhagen.  All streets have dedicated bike lanes.  There are bike racks outside all buildings and public transport trains have half a carriage of bike racks.  As a consequence there is very little car traffic in the city.

Rush hour in Copenhagen

Copenhagen was also much less crowded and touristy compared to Amsterdam.  Even at the main tourist attraction of the statue of Little Mermaid and the Nyhavn canal area, the crowds were quite manageable. 

The Little Mermaid

Nyhavn

 We took a canal boat trip which was a very nice overview of the city and then walked around the city to take a closer look at the sights.

Near the Kastellet

Gefion – Norse Goddess of the sea

Frederiks Kirke

Dome inside Frederik's Kirche

Spire of 17th C Church of Our Saviour

The modern Opera House.  In August there is a diving competition off the roof

Spires everywhere

The next day after Bob went to the dentist, we made our way to Christiania.  Freetown Christiania is an area of former military barracks and city ramparts dating to the early 17^th Century.  In the 1970’s the military abandoned the barracks and they were taken over by squatters who wanted to build a new community.  Their mission statement from 1971 stated:

“The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the wellbeing of the entire community. Our society is to be economically self-sustaining and, as such, our aspiration is to be steadfast in our conviction that psychological and physical destitution can be averted.”

The area has had an uneasy truce with the authorities but is essentially an autonomous urban collective commune.  It is now a major tourist attraction for Copenhagen.  Despite anarchist beginnings the market area seemed like quite a capitalist enterprise.  I expected lots of ferals and the food areas to have some alternative cuisine but the markets seemed to be the same as in any tourist area.  The main controversy of Christiania is Pusher Street (no photos allowed) where there are little stalls about the size of a podium selling Moroccan hash and marijuana. There were also lots of signs of 'say no to hard drugs'.  As we walked further we came across more alternative housing along the canal, though most of the buildings looked unoccupied.  I am not sure what the future holds for Freetown Christiania as it was hard on our brief visit to get beyond the tourist attraction and see what the community was really like.

 

 

Entrance to the market area

  

 

 

Our last day in Copenhagen we took a bus to Helsingør.  This lovely old town is the home of the Kronborg/Elsinore castle, the setting for Hamlet.  Many of the buildings in the town date back to the 1500’s and the pedestrian streets are charming to walk along.  The town seems to be a mecca for Swedish day trippers who come across the narrow strait by ferry to buy cheap booze and do a bit of shopping.

Streets of Helsingør

Corridor of 16th Century St Mary's Church

Magnificient 19th Century Organ

We made our way to the castle.  What a great place!  The castle was built by King Eric VII in 1420 but it was King Frederik II who transformed it into a magnificent Renaissance castle in the late 16^th Century.  Kronborg today has a large courtyard where 4 or 5 doorways lead to different parts of the castle with exhibits of tapestries, paintings, the King and Queen chambers, a tower with magnificent views and Bob’s favourite, the casements or dungeons which were very dark and spooky.  Throughout the day troupes of actors in full period costumes appear and enact scenes from Hamlet, culminating in the famous duel between Hamlet and Laertes.  It was all very well done and great fun.

Kronborg Castle

Courtyard and towers

  

Kids and their parents being led off for sword play

Royal Chamber

Holger the Dane sleeps in Kronborg castle until he is needed to save his homeland.

Beautiful doorway

View from the tower

Sword play in the courtyard

Laertes warning Ophelia about Hamlet

The fatal sword fight with the King and Queen looking on

Happy Families again saying goodbye to the punters

 After the castle closed we went back into town for a Smørrebrød, the traditional Danish light meal of open faced sandwiches – delicious and so beautifully presented they were works of art.  It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Smørrebrød