I store my photos by year, then by month, then by week. In Week 2 of June 2006 I had my flower photos, but in addition I had my Hurtigruten photos. This was another one of our attempts to cram as much 'Norway' into our last month there as we possibly could.
Hurtigruten is a cruise we took that started at the very top of Norway down the fjords to Trondhiem. It goes to Bergen then starts backup up again, but since we had been to Bergen so many times, we ditched in Trondheim. Hurtigruten is a strange cruise. In Norway they combine their cruises with mail and goods deliveries, thus you are stopping at small (or not so small) towns where the ship picks up goods and mail and drops off the same. The name 'Hurtigruten' means: hurtig ('hertie') fast and ruten ('rooten') route - thus the fast route the ship takes to deliver goods.
It is a beautiful ship, not some FedEx truck type thing and you get to meander through the fjords and see the beautiful scenery along the way.
Our trip? Not so great. The weather was poor the entire time - overcast and raining most of the time which made taking all those breathtaking photos impossible. Factor in that we had Jessie along and that it was a six or seven day cruise trapped on a rainy ship (I think - it could have been ten to twenty days - but I think that was just my perception) and you get Gary exclaiming that he will never take another cruise in his entire life!
None the less, I enjoyed it. My very rare Pollyanna hat was on and I enjoy cruising so it was not a complete disaster.
We flew to Kirkenes, the Northernmost city in Norway and about 20 Km from Russia. The Russian influence was very prevalent - all the signs were in Norwegian and Russian.
Hurtigruten is a cruise we took that started at the very top of Norway down the fjords to Trondhiem. It goes to Bergen then starts backup up again, but since we had been to Bergen so many times, we ditched in Trondheim. Hurtigruten is a strange cruise. In Norway they combine their cruises with mail and goods deliveries, thus you are stopping at small (or not so small) towns where the ship picks up goods and mail and drops off the same. The name 'Hurtigruten' means: hurtig ('hertie') fast and ruten ('rooten') route - thus the fast route the ship takes to deliver goods.
It is a beautiful ship, not some FedEx truck type thing and you get to meander through the fjords and see the beautiful scenery along the way.
Our trip? Not so great. The weather was poor the entire time - overcast and raining most of the time which made taking all those breathtaking photos impossible. Factor in that we had Jessie along and that it was a six or seven day cruise trapped on a rainy ship (I think - it could have been ten to twenty days - but I think that was just my perception) and you get Gary exclaiming that he will never take another cruise in his entire life!
None the less, I enjoyed it. My very rare Pollyanna hat was on and I enjoy cruising so it was not a complete disaster.
We flew to Kirkenes, the Northernmost city in Norway and about 20 Km from Russia. The Russian influence was very prevalent - all the signs were in Norwegian and Russian.
I personally enjoyed adding Russian nesting dolls to my collection while I was there. And since the town was very small and we had flown in the night before to make sure we got on the ship in time, we had time to kill - thus shopping was an outing. But, not much to do. As Gary said: "I spent a week one day in Kirkenes"
One of the things I really thought was beautiful in the town was this statue:
It is titled: 'Krigsmodremonumentet' which broken down is krigs (war) modre (mother) monumentet (monument) and was dedicated to all the mothers who kept their children safe as their country was invaded during WWII.------
On the ship and off we went. I took a ton of photos even thought the weather was mostly crappy and never organized them by town so some of the photos are identified by location and some are not. Some are actually just somewhere ... not in a town and I don't know all the fylkes (counties) to even identify them by that. What I have done is put the photos in chronological order.
Hammerfest
A break in the clouds - a rare sighting
Their was much to do on the ship and it was not crowded, so pretty much had things to ourselves, such as the hot tubs. Hot tubs and diet pepsi, what more could you ask for on an overcast, frigid day?
Ryan found other ways to entertain himself - making angels in the ball pit! (It was 3:00 in the morning and we didn't kick any kiddies out to do this by the way)
Tromso
Hurtigruten ships passing on a rainy day
Passing the Arctic Circle. The little 'C' on the left is a statue marking it. It would have looked way cooler had the world globe that is attached to it had not fallen off!
Final destination - Trondheim. The cathedral was beautiful. We had time before our flight back to Oslo so got to see a few things in the city.
3 comments:
Arctic circle? Arctic friggin' circle?! I don't think I could do it.
That statue is gorgeous. I was near tears as I looked at it and read the meaning. How tender and strong. In Bartlesville, OK, there is a strange museum called Woolaroc that has several statues of women of the west protecting their children. I can look at them forever.
This post made me homesick for Norway . . . and I'm still here. Lovely pictures!
My Father's side of the family, hails??? I don't know, do Norwegians hail? Anyway they come from Norway. He's been there once and I have always thought about venturing there someday. Great pictures, clouds or not those water passages look beautiful.
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