NORWAY 2024 -- GORDON, CAROL EDWARDS, SUSAN WILEY, AND PAT BOND
This is our last day in Tromsø, before boarding our cruise ship for a two day cruise on fjords of the Norwegian Sea.
We went to the TROLL MUSEUM. This museum was quite fun, with high tech offerings like selfies with trolls. It is also quite interesting because of the major roll of trolls in Norwegian folk lore and culture. There were some non-troll related videos on music of Edvard Grieg, and on Norwegian fiddling.
THE NORTHERN NORWAY ART MUSEUM -- emphasizes regional artists, and female artists
Our two day cruise from Tromso to Kirkenes was on a ship called the MS Polarlys. “Polarlys” translates to “polar light”, so it really the MS Aurora Borealis! This is an interesting multipurpose ship. It has typical cruise ship amenities: restaurants and bars, including an excellent breakfast buffet, an exercise gym, and a walking track (no thanks in this weather). There were about 400 tourists. All the announcements were in Norwegian, English, and German. Signage on the ship also included French and Spanish.
The ship also serves as a car and truck ferry connecting multiple towns on the Bering Sea coast. Altogether we made 11 stops, most of them for just a few minutes, to discharge and take on cargo and vehicles.
This stop was for touring -- Honningsvåg.
We were scheduled to have an excursion by bus to a historic house, located at the north-most point in mainland Scandinavia, that belonged to a Norwegian sea captain who served in the Scottish Navy during WWII after Norway was conquered by Germany. Due to snow drifts blocking the road, that excursion was cancelled. I did have a stroll around town with a little shopping.
A museum - I did not have time to go inside.
A public sculpture.
According to our speaker on the ship, this is the northern-most traffic circle in the world.
There is an Art and Craft gallery "WEST OF THE MOON", with beautiful and witty items for sale. I bought a couple of souvenirs here.
