norway
- part iV
Return
to Part III
No early rise this morning.
After an earlier call at
Finnsnes, the fifth of the day but the first one for which I was
awake, we pass near where the Tirpitz was sunk by British aircraft
in November 1944 before we arrive at Tromso for our longest stay
of four hours.
Certainly we will have time
to investigate these unusual structures that we passed on our
way into harbour.
The tumbled blocks building
turns out to be the Polaria Museum and the glass structure (securely
locked and inaccessible internally) contains an icebreaking wooden
ship whose mast penetrates the glass roof.
....
....
The Polaria building is
guarded by this bronze polar bear while Roald Amundsen, explorer
of the polar regions, glares from his plinth downtown, studiously
ignoring the stuffed polar bear outside the souvenir shop ...
... this souvenir shop,
housed in a wooden framed and clad building ...
....
....
... of similar construct
to the Domkirke behind the mother and child statue. A more forbidding
aspect attends the roadside statue outside the Arts Institute
considerably enlivened by the flower offering.
Another of Norway's high
concrete bridges links the island city to its suburb of Tromsdal
on the mainland opposite and under which we sail northwards after
our pleasant afternoon.
Passing another of our sister-ships
in the evening light.
In the morning light, at
our first daylight call - Havoysund, a memorial stone which I
read as dedicated to those on the Hurtigruten steamer which perished
in a storm in 1931. Not always calm hereabouts then! Not really
a surprise I suppose as we are very close to the North Cape -
called 'the most northerly point of Europe'.
Before then we pass through
the Mageroysundet, a narrow strait between the mainland and Mageroy
Island that carries a lot of shipping traffic, but which is narrow
enough to allow migrating reindeer to swim to and from the island
in spring and autumn.
Those tiny dots really are
reindeer!
Then we are at Honningsvag
where the Nordnorge will stay for over three hours to allow the
shore excursion to the tourist attractions at Nordkapp. Tomorrow
we sail around the actual most northerly point and it is also
on the mainland not here on Mageroy Island.
Looking back across the
harbour to Nordnorge with old wooden-built fishing boats in the
foreground; which now seem to be leisure boats as they are far
too clean and tidy-looking for working boats.
On one of the old wooden
quays a young Arctic Tern fledgling demands to be fed by its parent
with small fry from the harbour waters.
....
The Fishermen's Memorial
displays a much bigger fish than the tern could handle and in
the Craft Shop by the harbour a Sami woman in national dress demonstrates
handicraft skills.
After our last night on
board we headed across the welcoming mouths of fjords to the terminus
of the Hurtigruten service at Kirkenes only a few kilometres from
the Russian border.
No chance to linger onboard.
No opportunity to peer at the Russians. Onto a coach and away
to our flight to Oslo ...
... for a brief overnight
stay among metropolitan pleasures such as traffic and trams!
Then an early flight back
home ...
... leaving two empty spaces
on the sundeck of the Nordnorge.
Return
to Top
VISTAS
Home
.