CECILIA CLARK P HOTOGRAPHY

Molde has been a city since 1742 but because of its history of unfortunate town fires followed by German bombings in 1940, most buildings are post-war, mid-century architecture. The city of Molde gradually rises up from the waterfront allowing spectacular views of the 222 partially snow-capped mountain peaks from every elevation. Ferries are so frequent that they pass each other on the way in or out of Molde's ferry harbor. The first Molde Church was a wooden church errected

As the ship headed toward Lødingen for the noon arrival, the skies were very gray and it was soon snowing. Once docked, conveniently, the snow lessened and stopped. Lødingen is on the southeastern corner of the island of Hinnoya. Its climate is classified as "continental subarctic climate." It was cold. We were in port just 3 hours--just enough time to walk almost to the town center and back. We had hoped to walk to the lighthouse (last photo above), but didn't get there. We

Today, we visited a beautiful hotel that I will never/would never check into. We went to the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel. The hotel representative told us that normally it takes about six weeks to build the igloo hotel but this year, winter temperatures were warm. Once temperatures came down there were only about two weeks remaining to build the hotel before the ice igloo season began. Every year the designers have a different theme. This year it was Greek Gods. The construction

Honningsvåg is Norway's northernmost city in the county of Finnmark. Finnmark is Norway's northernmost and easternmost county bordering Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea (Atlantic Ocean) to the northwest, and the Barents Sea (Arctic Ocean) to the north and northeast (Wikipedia). The ship arrived in port at 8:00 am. Due to an excursion to the North Cape to see the monument

Today we are in port all day (8:00 am to 6:00 pm) which allows for longer excursions and time away from the ship. We went dogsledding in the nearby town of Ramfjordbotn. The sled dog company has two types of dogs: Siberian Huskies shown above, and Alaskan Huskies. Siberians are a registered breed. They are stocky, strong, and have thick coats. The dog team that took Dan and me for a ride is on the right side of the first photo. As they ran they looked to be having a great tim

Svolvær Port at 9:01 am Beautiful pre-dawn light at about 8:00 am as the ship approached Svolvær. The ship eased toward port and our 9:00 am. arrival. The Svolvær name is a "blend of svalr meaning ‘chilly’ and vær meaning ‘fishing village’." According to Hurtigruten information, During World War II, Germany seized several fisheries in Svolvær to steal stocks of fish oil to produce highly explosive nitroglycerin for bombs and shells. During Operation Claymore, a successful Nor

The ship arrived in port at 10:00 am. It is getting colder as we go north. Brønnøysund sits exactly halfway along the Norwegian coast. It is 840 km to the North Cape (where we are headed and will turn back) and 840 km to the South Cape (Lindesnes). Today, it is snowing and in some areas, the ground has layers of frozen ice and snow. To avoid injury, we opted to buy shoe spikes from the ship's gift shop. It was a good choice. We walked along the marina up the hill to the 1870

Ålesund is a pretty port town on the west coast of Norway burned to the ground in 1904. About 10,000 people lost their homes. In planning their rebuilding, the townspeople decided to go with the Art Nouveau architectural style of that current period. The modern structures outside of the old town are not strictly Art Nouveau in style. There was just one death from the fire which occured when a 70-year old woman went back in to retrieve her sewing machine which was her only s

View of Haugesund from the bridge The ship arrived in Haugesund at 7:00 am and departed at 10:00 am. The port is on a small island connected to the town by a bridge. It wasn't quite light and nothing was open as we took a walk through the town. Only our fellow passengers were on the pedestrian street. Haugesund is rumored to be the "Home of the Viking Kings." We didn't see any Kings or Vikings. The town was lovely but asleep. In the afternoon the ship cruised into Hardangerf

Kristiansand, our first port, is the southernmost city in Norway. Several islands connected by bridges form the city/municipality which is located in the Randesund Archipelago of 988 islands, islets, and reefs. After our breakfast we took a guided walking tour of some of the older portions of the city. The city was founded in 1641 and was named Christiansand by King Christian IV the Dano-Norwegian King. The second part of the name "sand" comes from an old Norse word. In the l

Edvard Munch's "The Scream" We are in Norway for a Hurtigruten coastal cruise to the North Cape which will begin tomorrow. All our flights were painless and on time despite Finnair canceling our flight from Dallas to Helsinki the day before we were to fly. Before we had time to panic, we received a subsequent email from Finnair putting us on an American Airlines flight which took us first to London and then to Oslo. It was a much better flight with less time on the ground. Th

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