August 16-17, 2014: Although we were too late for the midnight sun, we couldn’t complain about the amount of sun we did see. Nor could we complain about the scenery. We reached the Lofoten islands the late afternoon of the 16th, and that night we were summoned to the top deck for hot fish soup, while we sailed through the Raftsundet straight and up and down the very narrow Trollfjord. (Maybe another time I could arrange to actually visit the Lofotens, instead of just sailing past them…)
There were a number of excursions on offer the day we passed the Lofotens, but we were the only passengers – yes, just us! – who opted for the Aviation Museum in Bodo. I don’t know about the others, but we really enjoyed ourselves. Learned some things, too. I suppose I should not have been surprised that one of the very first things people found to do with the ability to get off the ground was to use it in warfare, but I was. I read with some disbelief that the French used a tethered balloon for observation as early as 1794, and the Austrians tried to bomb Venice from balloons in 1849 (not successfully). Balloons were used again during the American Civil War and the Franco-German war of 1870-71, and of course, by WWI, balloons had been replaced by the much more efficient and effective airplane.
The museum was big, but not really big enough for all the planes on display, and we nearly ran out of time. I was especially pleased to be able to get up close to a WWII Spitfire, even if it was in Norwegian livery. I was less pleased to find a British atomic bomb in a dark corner.
Our excursion to Tromso the next day was less successful, I thought. I had chosen to take the ship’s excursion, instead of exploring independently, because I wanted to see the Arctic cathedral without worrying about getting back to the ship before she sailed. The cathedral was, indeed, worth seeing, although it really didn’t take very long, and we weren’t given very long. The architect had designed the church with plain glass, and the stained glass which I admired had been added to block the light that was blinding the congregation over his strenuous objections. We spent some time driving round town, and most of our time at an attraction called Polaria, which I thought largely a waste of time. The video of the northerly Svalbard islands was mostly useful in convincing me to take them off my list of places to see, the aquarium was small, and I certainly do not need to be convinced that global warming is a real and dangerous phenomenon.
We had stopped at plenty of other places, dropping off and picking up passengers, cars and cargo. At each port we were met by fork lift trucks, looking quite small from our vantage point on the higher decks, which buzzed busily around, in and out of the cargo holds. Our arrivals did not seem to generate the interest that Hurtigruten talked about in its brochures, but at one stop we could admire three vintage cars, shining in the sunshine.
your photos are lovely!
Thanks! But the scenery was really great.