End of trip

Well all good things must come to an end. For us that meant getting off the ship in Trondheim and taking the train to Oslo. We did that in the grey of the morning of September 25th. We arrived early (no shock) and soon found out that our eight hour train trip was going to be broken up into a six hour train trip with a two hour bus ride. The reason was they were working on the tracks. Once we survived the chaos of the transfer to the bus, it went ok. We arrived in Oslo and walked to our hotel, the Thon Panorama. This was so different from the Thon Astoria we had stayed in earlier in the trip. Our room was huge and we even had a balcony. We debated on where to eat and ended back at Mamma's pizza, quick, good and cheap (at least for Norway, only $50 for two pizzas). Our next day came early as we had a 8:20 am flight. This meant we needed to be on the Flytoget (the train from downtown Oslo to the airport) early, like 5:00 am early. We made it fine and were waiting in our gate in plenty of time. The rest of the trip was with out a hitch but it was a long day. Our connecting flight was in Amsterdam were security was ridiculously tight. Barbara got pulled for special pat down and I had to take my camera apart as well have each iPad/Mac x-rayed separately. We finally landed in Dulles around 18 hours after we started. We thoroughly enjoyed our Global Entry pass as we breezed through customs and grabbed our luggage. From touch down to driving away was one hour and most of that was waiting on luggage and the bus to our car. Then another five hours drive home, arriving at 9:00 pm. At that point we had been traveling for 23 hours so we hit the bed hard.

Summary:

As I pointed out earlier, this was our first Hurtengruten trip and certainly our first trip on a coastal ferry. I can say 90% of it we very much enjoyed. The weather was great, the scenery fantastic, our table mates great company. We were befriended by a German couple that has invited us to their chateau in Croatia, that sounds pretty nice to me. Hurtengruten does a good job, very efficient. The number one thing I would change on a repeat trip would be getting on early versus late dinning. We are used to eating earlier and going to bed earlier and on a ship with no entertainment, we found the time from 6:00 to 8:30 could really seem to drag on. I don't recall selecting late but on future trips I would make sure I got early. The food was good through out the whole trip. I will say by the end I started to find it monotonous. The foods are geared to European tastes with little to no variety, particularly breakfast and lunch. I would have like to seen more done with eggs in the morning and salads for lunch. In general the foods were heavier then we usually eat (we found this the same in eastern Europe trips), often with sauces. Having said that, we were never hungry, had plenty to eat and did get to enjoy an all I could eat king crab buffet, yum!

The room and rest of the accommodations were fine. The crew was attentive but certainly different then an ocean cruise. We do have another cruise with Hurtengruten for Christmas of 2017 in Antarctica and look forward to sailing on the Fram for that adventure. In addition, I am very interested in their Iceland and Spitsbergen cruises so we will very much sail with them again. I would also consider doing a half leg (either going north or going south) in the winter to get to see Northern lights. I would highly recommend someone doing the coastal cruise at least once, the sights are to good to miss.

September 24th - Bronnoysund

This is our last full day on the Trollfjord.  Tomorrow we will get off early in Trondheim and take the train to Oslo.

Today the prelunch stops were quick, 15-30 minutes to we did not get off the ship at those.  The weather was not as good as yesterday but still no rain.  Here are pictures from our stop in Bronnoysund:

After that we passed the famous Torghatten Mountain.  It is famous because it has a hole in it.  See, it really does:

Lots of stops - September 23rd

The best word for today was WOW.  It was so pretty, even the crew were on deck taking pictures.  It was sunny, hardly a cloud, 50-55 degrees, no wind and we had some really great sites.

First a few photos from our late stop yesterday:

On today, I am just going to do a bunch of pictures, what a beautiful day!

I love these small fishing boats

And lights!

Even the clouds are throwing reflections

Crew on deck enjoying the weather

These are our tablemates for dinner.  Andrew in the center and Jane to his right.  They were coming back from an excursion here.  They have been great fun!

This is an attempt to show how Hurtengruten is second to none on  offloading passengers and materials.  At  the time of this picture, we are still docking, note the open space between the ship and the dock yet both the gangway and supply gangway are already half out.  This is not the way it works on regular cruise ships.

Mountains and more mountains

A new way to chair hog, its hard to see but so many people were on deck that chairs were tight.  Yet this wondrous couple felt they deserved not two but four chairs so they could prop their feet up....nice. 

Little villages at the bottom of big mountains 

Love these lights 

A rope free picture (no ropes in the name anyway)

This was a puny little fjord we went down, I swear you could almost reach out and touch the rocks from either side.

Re: Hammerfest - September 22nd

So today we have our second mountain hike, this time in Hammerfest.  We had a little trepidation as the last mountain hike about did us in.  This one turned out to be not nearly as hard (yet they were rated the same by Hurtengruten).  I think part of it was the guide who set a slower pace and stopped occasionally.  We also had a smaller group, about ten.  In fact we had a 79 year old man who went 1/2 way with us before turning back, I was impressed he kept pace and made it as far as he did.

Hammerfest claims to be the northern most town in the world at 70.39 degrees north.

Not sure there are any polar bears around

Our group starting out, we basically circled and climbed the mountain in the background .

View of town as we work our way up

Large liquified natural gas plant, Norway has LOTS of energy resources

Hammerfest

Our guide, he was very good

Small village on the back side of the mountain.

Native hut built by Laplanders or Sami

Our ferry from above

Another day, another fjord....

Kirkenes & Vardo - September 21st

First a few more items from yesterday.  In the afternoon, we sailed past "the famous Finnkirka" which is a sacred Sami sacrificial site.  It also has been a landmark for local fishermen.  Here are some pictures:

After that we arrived at the village of Kjollefjord but only for a brief 15 minute stop:

Then we had the best sunset of the entire cruise:

OK, on to today.  It was busy early as we docked in Kirkenes at 9:00.  This is the closest town to the Russian border and we went on an excursion that took us to the checkpoint as well as other sights in the town.  The people in this area have very favorable opinions of Russians that date back to WWII.

Barbara escaping 

Russian border

Russian border

An Alaskan  Malamute 

Caves used in WWII as the entire city of Kirkenes was destroyed by bombs 

We had one more stop before evening when we stopped in the village of Vardo.  We were here for one hour which gave us enough time to see the Vardohus Fortress built in 1737 and then a quite different visit to Steilneset, a memorial honoring witches that were burned here in the 1600's.

A fishing boat headed out.  This is the peak of king crab season.

Fort

Each plaque represents someone who was burned

Flame outside

Strange outside of memorial

Since it is the Land of the Midnight sun in summer and two months of total darkness in the winter, this seems appropriate.

Honnongsvag - September 20th

Here we are,  over 71 degrees north, thats over 300 miles north of the arctic circle.  It has gotten colder, the high today is 50 and the vegetation on the country side has changed as well.  Gone are the trees.  The land is still green but there are virtually no trees.

Today's stop is in Honnongsvag from 11:15 to 2:45.  The town is not very big and the only attraction is that you can access the northern cape from here which is the furthest north you can go in Norway.  We opted to stay in town, bought some souvenirs and walked from one end of town to the other.  

A boat headed out to sea

Note no trees

Small lighthouse

Honningsvag

71 degrees north

St Bernard

Obligatory troll

This is how they get around in the winter

This is what happens when you eat salmon all the time

Fishing fleet