The Voyage

Program – Programm - Programme

Dag - Day - Tag 1

Friday 26/02/2010

When we finally arrived to Bergen at 5pm with all our luggage, having been scanned multiple times in case we do have some goods on us which we need to pay duty on afterall, my father-in-law decided that he's been hassled about enough and instead of waiting for the bus with all the other tourists and telling them our story from the airport, he called a taxi.

350 kronas later, we arrived to the Hurtigruten harbour and checked in. Our luggage has been taken from us yet again (and probably scanned yet again) but we were allowed to the cabin.

I was pleased as all my sea-sickness manuals recommended boarding the ship 2 hours before the departure to "get used to it". I dutifully swallowed a tablet (Stugeron 15) and started to "get used to it".

The ship was grand. I have always been sick on boats and if I have a choice between a Channel Ferry and a Channel Tunnel, I'll go for the tunnel. But for some unknown reason I liked this ship from the moment I looked at its photo on the Hurtigruten website. Friendly ship. MS Nordkapp. Compared to the other Hurtigruten ships, MS Nordkapp is mid-range, some 123m in length and gross tonage of 11.3t. Built in 1996.

We had a small cabin on the 2nd deck with round windows. Just like it should be :-)

Out "tour lead" introduced himself as Marco. He was not Italian (he claimed) but German - although judging by his temperament I think he secretly was Italian. He provided the daily programme and all the comments in Norwegian, German and English, and I reckon he'd speak French also had there been any French people on board. No Czech though. How disappointing :-)


The captain was introduced as Mr. Lars Kalås - we met him only briefly (and were told by Marco that a photo of an officer is priced 10Kr per a stripe - the captain had four :-))   

In the evening, J. was selected as a volunteer at the after-dinner safety briefing.

Program – Programm - Programme

Dag - Day - Tag 2

Saturday 27/02/2010

Last night, Marco recommended we don't throw anything to the toilet "that doesn't belong there" and suggested we hang up a wet towel to increase the humidity in the cabin (which we did and although I didn't notice any difference, J. apparently did so we kept wetting our towels for the entire trip). 

04.30 - 04.45 FLORØ
06.45 - 07.30 MALØY

I didn't sleep very well and was chewing on ginger when we passed Florø to calm my stomach. And it worked wonders! As a result, I could actually enjoy my frokost at 9am - decided to stick to fruit mainly but even still!

View from the window the first morning in the picture above.

07.30 - 10.00 FROKOST - BREAKFAST - FRÜHSTÜCK
(my father-in-law got caught in translation here and asked me where Frokost is as he couldn't find it on the map)

ca 08.00  we approach the waters of Stadthavet - the first stretch of open sea.
10.15 - 10.45 TORVIK

Torvick is Hurtigruten's name for a Hærøy municipality's 8 500 inhabitants. In spring, there can be found over 30 types of birds. When we arrived, it was -5C and no birds to be seen.  A Dutch ship carrying 60 000 gold and silver coins sank here in 1725. Sadly, the coins were salvaged by divers in 1972.


Torvik in the photo on the right. (I went on the deck and took few detailed photos of the ship, but none of them came out any special.)


MS Nordkapp has 7 floors. Sauna and a tiny tiny gym on Deck 2, jacuzzi on Deck 6, and a windy outer deck on Deck 7 .  Deck 7 also offers seating in a rather large glass window lounge where my father-in-law often retired. As I said, grand ship.



12.00 - 15.00 ÅLESUND
We dock right in the heart of town. We recommend a stroll ashore.
Excursions: Citywalk, Ålesund Aquarium

Ålesund was devastated by a dramatic fire and 850 houses were laid in ashes. The new town of Ålesund rose from the ashes. An architectural gem with all its houses in the Art Nouveau style (Art Nouveau in the picture on the right). The great fire of Ålesund has become the most famous fire in Norway of all times.

Ålesund floats on the sea and lives off the sea. The town's fishing fleet operates from Greenland to Barents sea and provides the basis for an extensive fishing industry and fish export.

The Ålesund aquarium is a glass cube in the Atlantic ocean and according to our guidebook it's not the top attraction. 

16.30 Excursions presentation (Amundsen Hall deck 4)

Hurtigruten is a coastal ferry which also operates as a travel agency and offers interesting excursions in pretty much every port. J and I skipped the presentation but my parents in law came back absolutely excited, my father-in-law immediately booked a night scooter trip in Lapland for £200 (which he truly enjoyed and as the only one of us actually saw the Northern Lights from the land; sadly he didn't have a camera on him).

On the top of all port visits and Hurtigruten excursions, we also had an hour long lecture on photography every day (this was slightly overrated, the photographer had 52 people in the group from absolute beginners to near professionals). On the top of that, we were looking after by a Norwegian lady called Inger. A tour guide from Bergen who worked for the London branch of Hurtigruten. She took people out on "informal" walks in pretty much every place where we stopped.

When we left the ship in Ålesund, we ran into a wedding and a brass band. Inger claims that brass bands are still so popular that there is a brass band stand in every Norwegian city. There was one in Ålesund.

The sculpture on the right is Per Martin Ludvig Bolstad. Famous Norwegian violinist born on 28 June 1875 in Ålesund.

17.45 - 18.30 MOLDE

The city of jazz music and roses. By following the main street to the right you will pass the church and the town hall.

For some reason we didn't venture out this time. So I don't know what Molde looks like ...

ca 19.30 We meet MS Pofarfys on the port side

The Hurtigruten crew  kept telling us when we are due to meet another of their ships; they have 12 on the route going up and down the coast. First we didn't quite understand it but the more in the north we were the more "sweet" it seemed to have been to see a set of friendly lights on the sea or in the harbour.

20.15  MIDDAG - DINNER - ABENDESSEN - DINER

We were seated next to a group of 4 Germans (which is a sense was good as my mother-in-law didn't feel obliged to hold a conversation with them as she probably would had they been English so she could relax). The food was very good - every evening of the trip - which was quite remarkable. There were 350 guests on the ship and I guess the kitchen was a "ship size". We had a bottle of wine with our food every day (paid extra for it, Norwegian alcohol prices) - and the selection was very reasonable also, every day.

After dinner, we were called outside by Marco to see the Ormen Lange gas field in the distance.

Ormen Lange is the largest natural gas field in development on the Norwegian continental shelf. The reservoir is approximately 40 km long and 8 km wide, and lies about 3,000 metres below sea level. Recoverable gas reserves are estimated to be ~300 billion cubic meters (bcm). Production began in September 2007. Total cost is estimated to reach 66 billion Norwegian kroner (around US$12 billion) by the time of completion.

.. more on wikipedia.

22.00 - 23.00 KRISTIANSUND

The city is famous for it' s "clipfish" industry.

I must have been dreaming about the dry fish when we were passing Kristiansund. I was asleep, anyway.

Today, we had a special offer in the souvenir shop and we could have bought a personal log book with a 15% discount.