Norway by Sea - Ports of Call

Each Hurtigruten ship has a tour guide who is responsible for organizing the excursions and making announcements about the interesting things to see along the way. Because the time spent at each port is determined by the population of the town - and the corresponding amount of cargo being loaded - the tour guide was very creative in finding SOMETHING interesting about each town to lure passengers off the ship! Ørnes was our first port of call after boarding the Polarlys in Trondheim. With a population of 1500, the ship was only in port for 15 minutes, and so the only people allowed to get off were departing passengers. After a small amount of cargo was unloaded and loaded, we were on our way! About half of the ports of call on the Hurtigruten are short stops like this one. In the photo above, you can see Meghan enjoying her morning coffee with the town of Ørnes in the background.Brønnøysund (shown in the photo above) and several other similarly-sized port towns reminded us in scale and feel of the small towns perched on the North Shore of Minnesota. The population of these towns were a few thousand people and so the ship was in port for one hour. The attraction for Brønnøysund was just a shopping center on the harbor, but after several days on the ship, we were more than eager to get off and stretch our legs. Most other passengers got off as well, and we all faithfully walked to the end of the main street and back in a large herd!

Bodø was one of the larger ports of call with a population of about 46,000. We had three and half hours to wander around this town, but unfortunately, there weren't many interesting tourist attractions within walking distance. Bodø was one of the few Norwegian towns destroyed by the Germans during WWII, so it lacked the old charm many small towns have in Norway. But we did visit a beautiful modern church, open to the public only when the Hurtigruten was in port! You can see its steeple in the photo above.

Tromsø, with a population of 67,000, was the largest and northernmost port of call during our voyage. The Hurtigruten travels all the way to Kirkenes on the far northern cape, but we got off in Tromsø to catch the next southbound Hurtigruten ship back to Trondheim. During our 9 hour stay, we visited a museum about the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundson (the first person to reach the south pole) and walked up and down the main street, shown in the photo above.

We also ate our first meal in a restaurant in Norway at the Thai House Restaurant. Okay, so it wasn't local cuisine, but it was delicious! We ordered 2 main dishes, 2 glasses of tea, and 2 glasses of the local beer - Mack Pilsner - all for the low, low price of $90 (530 kroner). Later that evening, we boarded the Vesterålen bound for Trondheim!

Norway by Sea - Inside the Polarlys

This is a view of our cabin on the Polarlys. Our room was on the outside of the ship on Deck 6, five floors above the water. Our view out the window was blocked by an orange life boat, but we spent very little time in our cabin anyway.

This is our cabin's bathroom - just enough room for a shower, toilet, and sink!

This is the Library Lounge on Deck 7 where we spent a lot of time reading, playing cribbage, and watching the coast.

This is a view of the bar on Deck 7. We didn't buy anything from the bar because it was too expensive, but this photo shows the fancy style of the ship's interior well.

This is the Panorama Lounge at the front of the ship on Deck 7, the top deck, with three walls of floor to ceiling windows. During the day, nearly every seat was taken by passengers who staked their claim early in the morning. But at night, the lounge cleared out and we came up here to play cards.

Norway by Sea - Hurtigruten Excursions

Our first Hurtigruten excursion was to the Lofoten Viking Museum for a traditional Viking feast! In a small town on the southern coast of the Lofoten Islands, we boarded a tour bus and wove around hills and pastureland in the evening sun. A young man named Christian, dressed in traditional Viking clothing, was our tour guide for the evening. We were headed to a full-size replica of one of the largest Viking longhouses ever built, where we would eat traditional Viking fare and listen to traditional Viking music.On the bus, Christian told us a little of the history of the Vikings in the Lofoten Islands. At some point, the conversation turned to lutefisk (of course!) and we learned that lutefisk is a traditional way to prepare fish, not preserve it - a common misnomer. Lutefisk is preserved through drying, as are all "stock fish". But lutefisk is then soaked in lye to soften and prepare the fish for eating. Christian said he really, truly likes lutefisk, and his father serves it with homemade, mashed potatoes smothered in cream and butter!

We arrived at the longhouse just as the sun was setting. Inside, Christian told us about its construction and use. It was built on the site of the real historical longhouse, used from the 800's until 957 A.D. It was 275 feet long by 30 feet wide and housed 50-80 people (including servants) and around 50 livestock! The longhouse was divided into three sections: living quarters for the Viking Chieftain and his family, a central banquet hall, and living quarters for servants and livestock. In the photo below, Christian is telling us about the Chieftain in the living quarters section of the longhouse (Christian is wearing a green cape).

For dinner, Christian led us into the banquet hall where the Chieftain, the Lady of the House, and her sister, Sigrid, greeted us. Meghan volunteered to stand up and taste the first plate of food (to make sure it wasn't poisoned or rotten!) and then everyone else was served their meals. For dinner, we had roasted lamb, boiled carrots and potatoes, cooked barley, flat bread, sour cream, cranberry sauce, and honey mead. The Chieftain gave many toasts during dinner and we all raised our glasses and cheered "Skol!" While we were eating, the Chieftian and the Lady of the House tried to find a husband for Sigrid. I elbowed Rolf - being the only male in the room under 50 years of age - and the Chieftain and Lady came over to find out more about him. But since Rolf was already married, Sigrid gave us a bead bracelet to give to Rolf's younger, unmarried brother instead. After dinner, the Lady and Sigrid sang two Viking songs, then we joined hands around the fire and danced - 2 steps left, 1 step right - to end the evening. Below is a picture inside the banquet hall.

Our second excursion was a midnight concert at the Arctic Cathedral in Tromsø (the white triangular building across the bay in the photo below). Performing that evening was Vokal Nord, an a capella choir. They sang traditional Swedish and Norwegian folk songs, a hymn by Edvard Grieg, and modern pieces based on Sami folk tunes. At the end of the concert, the choir filed out of the cathedral in two columns singing the Norwegian Wedding March. We walked in between the columns of singing voices on our way back to the bus. A memorable night indeed! (Check out Vokal Nord online at: www.vokalnord.com/english/)

Norway by Sea - 1200 Miles Aboard the Hurtigruten

In early September, Rolf was told by a graduate student in his department that the Hurtigruten Coastal Express traveling between Bergen and Kirkenes offers 50% off for their cruises in the fall. So that night on a whim, we booked a roundtrip cruise from Trondheim to Tromsø! On September 16, we walked 15 minutes from our apartment to the Trondheim pier and boarded the M/S Polarlys! The Polarlys was built in 1996, weighs over 11,000 tons and is 400 feet long. The interior of the Polarlys was as nice as a fancy hotel but lacked the swimming pools, theaters and dance clubs found on more extravagant tropical cruise ships. But those amenities are not needed for a cruise along the coast of Norway - watching the scenery is entertainment enough! In the photo above, Meghan is on the Trondheim pier, ready to board!

The Hurtigruten began 120 years ago as a ferry and cargo service between the small, coastal towns of Norway. Today, the Norwegian government requires the Hurtigruten to make 34 daily ports of call between Bergen and Kirkenes, 365 days a year. At each port, passengers, cars, and crate after crate of cargo are loaded and unloaded. In the photo above, the passenger gangway is on the left and the door to the ship's hold is on the right.

We sat on the rear deck of the ship to watch Trondheim disappear from view as we turned northward out of the Trondheim Fjord and into the North Sea. The hill on the right is Bymarka, the forest near Trondheim where we have hiked.

We spent most of our first day aboard the Polarlys outside on deck. The mountains along this section of the coast had steep, rugged sides and rounded peaks - a very imposing horizon. We passed many small islands and lighthouses. The lighthouses weren't as large as some U.S. lighthouses we've seen, but their old age and sheer numbers were impressive in their own way.

Here Rolf is standing on the promenade deck, peering over the side. A small excursion boat is picking up passengers for a tour of the Svartisan glacier, the second largest glacier in Norway. Excursions are side tours that allow passengers to get off the ship for a few hours and experience more of Norway. They can be as simple as a bus tour of a port town or as exciting as a dog sledding adventure above the Arctic Circle. The Hurtigruten uses these excursions to lure tourists on their cruises and, as you'll see in our next blog, we took the bait, twice!

Cheap Entertainment

Here are a few things you can do in Trondheim that don't break the bank: On weeknights there is a student run cafe where you can buy 5 kroner waffles, cake, and coffee. They also have a variety of board games to play. In the photo above, Rolf is enjoying a delicious waffle Norwegian style: with cream and jam. It's a 45 minute walk to Cafe M from our apartment, but that just means we get to put extra cream on our waffles!

One night during Cafe M, the Mexican and South American students in Trondheim hosted a party to celebrate their Independence Days. In addition to waffles, they sold tacos (a burrito with fried hamburger and onion) and empanadas (baked tacos). Later, they played Latin music and people started dancing. But not us, we had a game of Carcassone to win! In the photo above are Rolf, Alyssa and Tyler.

We also enjoy cooking dinner together with the other Fulbrights at our apartment. It's a good excuse to get together and everyone brings something for the meal. In the photo above, are Eirik (Kristine's friend from Norway), Andy, Alyssa, Kristine, Rolf, and Anthony (Andy's roommate from Scotland).

On this particular night, we made sopapillas: baked tortillas with cinnamon and ice cream. Yum!

Happy Birthday Rolf!

In honor of Rolf's Halloween birthday, we hosted a birthday/costume party for the American Fulbrights in Trondheim. Another Fulbright, Kristine, also has a Halloween birthday, but she was turning 23, and Rolf 32. So, Kristine and Rolf teamed up this year for their costumes and came to the party as... a palindrome! People from other countries were really excited to attend a real "American" Halloween party, and so our party turned out to be quite the international event. In attendance was a Russian, a Scot, 2 Norwegians, a French girl, a Belgian, and a Spainard! In the photo below are some of the American Fulbrights. Alyssa, on the left, is a "shot in the dark". I borrowed a costume idea this year and dressed up as a "cereal killer". And Caitlin, on the right, is a bumblebee!

We think it's pretty cool that 3 of the American Fulbrights in Norway - Alyssa Anderson, Caitlin Marine, and Rolf - all graduated from St. Olaf College. And, interestingly enough, none of them were in school at St. Olaf at the same time. Truly 3 generations of Oles! On the 100th anniversary of St. Olaf College, a stone was erected in honor of the founder, Bernt Julius Muus, at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim!

On Rolf's birthday, we ate out at a restaurant in Trondheim for the first time. We went to a small, family-owned Indian restaurant near our apartment. The restaurant was great: good food, a friendy waiter who spoke perfect English, and no dishes!