Hurtigruten. It sounds like a burp when said by Norwegians. It's a sort of punctuated aspiration. Hoottgrootttenn!
Hurtigruten is the Norwegian word for "ferry" and indeed it is the name of the ship that has for the past 120 years carried post and necessary goods up Norway's northwest coast. Hurtigruten cruises right north into the Arctic Circle to some of the most remote parts of this chilly country.
It was September 29 when we flew from Oslo to Bergen, the port where we'd come face to face with our valiant ship. From above, we spotted snowy mountains, glaciers then deep blue rivers and jagged fjords as we approached the sea.
Although the sun was not exactly shining, the weather was "mild" according to locals and best of all, there was no rain.
The cruise runs northwards along the west coast. We're talking very cold oceans here. The Norwegian Sea pounds against Norway, but into that sea flows the Atlantic, Greenland and Barents seas.
It's the warmer Gulf Stream currents that keep the Norwegian ports from freezing most winters.
The Hurtigruten markets itself as "the world's most beautiful voyage", so it was with much anticipation that we arrived in the pretty seaside town of Bergen. We were only in Bergen for an afternoon, but noticed many welcoming restaurants and bars serving herring and beer. Happily, there were plenty of book stores, always a good sign.
We walked vigorously. In these colder climes, one does everything with vigour. We'd wanted to visit Trondhaugen, composer Edvard Grieg's home, but were limited time-wise. Then there was the maritime museum, the aquarium, the Bryggen museum and the Fishery museum which we missed. Next time.
Our Hurtigruten is large and sturdy but the Queen Mary it's not.
It is a pragmatic, comfortable ship with adequate cabins, wall-to-wall glass lounges, plenty of deck space, but a dining room that would be the envy of many a five-star cruise ship.
When we arrived in our cabins and discovered a view totally obstructed by bright orange lifeboats, we asked if we could move. The charming purser agreed and from the window in the new cabin, I could see Bergen in all its beauty, with its church high on the hill, its colourful harbour and wooden and brick buildings. Then into the darkness we sailed.
Our fellow passengers were mixture of locals, Americans, Germans, Danes, Swedes and Brits. The long-distance six-day cruise travellers (like us), tended to be older, while the locals were often backpackers or visiting families.
I'd been warned to wear loose clothes as the seafood aboard the Hurtigruten ships was scrumbumptious. Too right! Breakfast and lunch were usually a buffet selection, as was the occasional dinner. And the spread of seafood was eye-boggling. Fish we'd never seen or heard of beside the usual fresh Norwegian salmon. The kind that costs an arm and a leg back home.
There were crabs and lobsters so huge they looked like prehistoric monsters but best of all, were the herrings, presented in every possible way from pickled to creamed.
On deck, it was chilly, being well into autumn. The deck was totally unglamorous. A working deck. No white-gloved stewards here!
Even during severe winters, the Hurtigruten ships sail on valiantly. It has to be one of the bravest cruise lines in the world!
There are two things to take into account. Firstly, this is not a schmaltz ship with entertainment - though charming live music was provided by two musicians in the lounge at night- and secondly, these ships take you to some of the most stunning fjords, rivers and island you can imagine. And, if you're lucky, you'll see reindeer, bears and the odd walrus or two.
Many of the Hurtigruten stops happen in the middle of the night when passengers are fast asleep, unless they're watching the spectacular Northern Lights in winter.
The first port where we'd alight was Alesund, known for its busy fishing harbour.
Well into fjord country, Alesund is spread over three small islands with the Sunnmore Alps hovering in the background. The Alesund Museum gives visitors a blow-by-blow account of the development of the fishing industry but equally enticing are the many restaurants lining the harbour.
We sipped cold beers watching the ruddy fisherman walking by. They're tall, the Norwegians. On the Polarlys, for instance, I had a permanent crick in my neck from talking to the crew.
Interestingly, the architecture in Alesund is Art Nouveau. When the original town was burnt down in 1904, it was rebuilt in the Art Nouveau style of the time. It's quite incongruous seeing this architectural anomaly in the middle of nowhere. Here's another interesting thing. The drinks on board the ship were expensive, especially when converting rands to kroner, but we discovered we could buy beer and cool drinks on land for a quarter of the price, then carry them on board and drink them without feeling we were paying R10 per sip.
Slowly we cruised past the entrance to the Geranger Fjord that cuts into Norway from Alesund to Geranger for more than 100km.
Our next stop would be Molde, a tiny village on the Romsdalfjord. Here the coastline is dramatic, in fact, the entire coastline was dramatic, even in its stark remoteness.
Next time round, I would choose to sail in winter when things are snowbound and one can try the winter sports such as snow-mobiling or dog sledding, and, naturally, skiing.
The folk of Molde grow roses and are very proud of their flower bursts. "Sniff the air," said an enthusiastic American. I did and smelt fish.
At 6am the following day, we arrived at Trondheim and after stuffing ourselves at breakfast with all manner of fish, including caviar - oh, there was bacon and eggs and fried mushrooms and tomatoes for the unadventurous - we set off on a guided excursion. The town itself is charming with its medieval timbered architecture, said the guide, but it was the legendary Gothic-style Nidaros Cathedral that we'd come to visit.
"People come from all over the world to worship here," said the guide.
Trondheim was founded by the great Viking king Olaf 1 Tryggvason in the 10th century. Looking at the peaceful surrounds, it occurred to me that not much had happened since those times. That said, Norway's economy took off with a bang when oil was discovered, and today it has the second highest GDP per capita in the world.
I thought it a quaint town, but it was only as we cruised further north that I realised the meaning of the world "quaint".
In the Nidaros Domkirche (Trondheim Cathedral), the most important ecclesiastical building in Norway, are buried most of Norway's medieval kings, including Olaf 1. The west façade, a giant carving of kings and saints, is something to behold. The sun shone through the stained glass windows when we arrived and God was surely smiling.
Here too is a small inner museum in which the crown jewels of Norway are displayed.
Then we rocked and rolled our way around the Ringve Museum, Norway's museum of eclectic musical instruments from all over the world. A lanky musician guided us through the instruments and sat down to play on several occasions.
We particularly enjoyed the sight of primary school children wandering around having a ball.
By the time we returned to the ship it was time for lunch and like sharks, we devoured the deliciously fishy offerings. By now, we were well into the rhythm of the cruise. We touched down at ports, locals climbed on and off, cars drove on or off from the inner hold, and we sat in the lounge watching fjords, rocky coastline and snow-capped mountains.
Just outside Trondheim, we'd cruised past Munkholmen, a tiny sad island where the Danish answer to Nelson Mandela, a politician called Griffenfeld, was incarcerated for 18 years. Count Peder Griffenfeld (1635-1699) was one of Denmark's finest sons. A man of rare integrity, he'd served his king and country well and was betrayed by evil men. About to be beheaded, he was pardoned on the scaffold, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in Munkholmen.
From the Polarlys, we saw small Norwegian farmsteads - pretty wooden houses - dotted along the coast. The distances between them seemed vast and the word "loneliness" kept crossing my mind.
On day four, we passed the Svartisen Glacier, and arrived at Bodo in Nordland. A town of 45 000 people, it is surrounded by lakes and fjords.
The view from the Salt Fjord towards Bodo was endless and as the Polarlys sailed slowly along, the shore seemed neverending. The guidebooks say the birdlife is prolific, but perhaps they'd already flown elsewhere for the approaching winter. I kept thinking I saw technicolour puffins but instead they were gulls catching the sunlight as they swooped.
We crossed the Arctic Circle on the fourth day and the ship's captain said we should watch out at midnight for the aurora borealis (northern lights). Sipping coffee, I saw the aurora borealis flash across the sky. I was ecstatic but a colleague remarked dryly that I was watching the flashing lights of a plane! From the the middle of May to the end of July, visitors to the Arctic Circle see the Midnight Sun. In winter, it is replaced by the aurora borealis, the flaming spectacle that lights up the dark sky.
The best time to see this is in December, but from November to March it is visible and sometimes, they say, it can be seen in October
Tromso, the gateway to the Arctic, is surrounded by high mountains. In winter, this is dog-sledding country, and in summer, when sunlight lasts for 24 hours, the town rocks, according to the guidebooks.
Whimsically known as the Paris of the North, it's a city of about 63 500 inhabitants. Tromso's icon is the stunning Arctic Cathedral. A remarkable A-frame glass-sided church it is ultra-modern. Light filters through the stained glass windows and to the organ in the shape of a sails of a ship (a Norwegian lucky charm). I thought it simply beautiful.
In the centre of town, is the wooden Tromso Domkirke.
This is Norway's northernmost Protestant cathedral and the contrast between the two churches is startling.
Northern Norway skirts Sweden, Finland and even a little piece of Russia. You cannot imagine how bleak it is until you have been here. The sight of the small, brave port villages makes one want to cheer. How reliant these people must be to live here. How hardy, how self-sufficient, for it really is the end of the world.
Known as Finnmark, this is the home of Sami, formerly the Lapps. Over 40 000 Sami live in Finnmark and they've been around for a very long time. In 98AD, Tacitus, the Roman historian, made reference to the Sami. Norway's oldest indigenous people, they spoke Sami until 1850, when the language was banned. There was other discriminatory legislation against them and it was only in 1988 that the Sami's right to preserve their identity and way of life was constitutionally enshrined in Norway. And, in 1990, the Sami Language Act was passed giving the Sami language the same status as Norwegian. Traditionally, the nomadic Sami are reindeer herders.
We were keen to meet the Sami so we took a tour to the Northern Cape which included a visit to a Sami village.
We stopped briefly at Hammerfest, the world's most northerly town, but it was 5.15am and as dark as midnight when I peered from the window.
On our last day, we docked at Honnigsvag, fished our way through breakfast then took to a set of wheels with 20 other intrepid explorers to journey to Mageroya island just below the Northern Cape.
It is to Mageroya that the Sami's reindeer come for summer grazing. And it's not only in the Serengeti that there is a mass migration of animals for during winter and summer, large herds of reindeer - up to 5 000 at a time - migrate to find food. Hopefully we'd glimpse them.
The landscape was pristine and grey, the sea and lakes black-green against the dim sun. And then we arrived at a tent beside which stood an elderly man in traditional Sami dress. Out of the small bus we climbed to meet a Sami. A few reindeer nibbled the grass and we looked in vain for large herds. Actually, we looked in vain for an authentic Sami village.
While the Americans and Germans cooed and clucked, we felt somewhat embarrassed at this one-man Sami stand.
He smiled for the clicking cameras and I'm sure the reindeer beside him smiled too. It was not quite what we had in mind.
That said, the scenery was breathtaking in its starkness. This was the famous Russian tundra, and indeed, Russia was just around the corner, so to speak.
The excursion turned into a true adventure when we reached Nordkapp, or the Northern Cape, for this is nature at its most awesome. The wind howled, the sea crashed against the northern point and the rains came down. True, there was small museum commemorating the visit of the king of Thailand and a restaurant. There was also a film showing the splendours of the Arctic such as large herds of reindeer, puffins, walrus, moose and polar bears, snow foxes and snow seals.
Most of our small party disappeared into the giftshop, but we lunatic South Africans opted to brave the storm and made our way to the point 307m above sea level. It was magnificent even though we felt we might be plucked away by the wind and swept to the North Pole. That too, would have been an adventure.
A tunnel beneath the restaurant takes you out onto a viewing platform on the cliff that is truly wild. The spray froze our cheeks and my nose turned to ice. In the bus returning to our sturdy Polarlys, we felt exhilarated. It took a long, hot shower to wash the salt from my skin.
That night was a farewell feast for next day we left the Polarlys in Kirkenes to begin our journey home.There was a crab as large as my head, a lobster tail longer than my arm, and the fish glistened with freshness. I could have eaten for ever.
A cruise up Norway's West Cost is a once-in-a-time trip. For South Africans it's affordable and, as long as you appreciate you are going on an adventure, not a 5-star, luxurious cruise, then this is for you.
- Carol Lazar visited Norway as a guest of Hurtigruten and Development Promotions.
If you go
- Visa: SA passport holders need a Schengen visa.
- Getting there: The writer flew from Joburg to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, then connected to Oslo and from there to Bergen where she joined the ship. There are no direct flights to Norway so one has to go through a European destination.
- Hurtigruten: Development Promotions are the general sales agents (GSA) for Hurtigruten in South Africa. They have a variety of packages throughout the year for cruises on all the Hurtigruten cruise ships. Call them on 011-339-4865 or email [email protected]
- When to go: You can take a spring, summer autumn or winter cruise and there are advantages for each time of the year. Summer cruises are most popular and this is when international travellers tend to cruise. The recommended cruise is six nights but there is an 11-day round trip available from Begen to Kirkenes to Bergen. Because this is a ferry, you can take a two-day trip, then take a train or bus back to Oslo, or travel overland by bus or car. You can make your own itinerary.
- Essential: Warm clothes (layers) are necessary. Inside, the ship is warm, but outside, it can be freezing. This can apply in summer too. Take no smart clothes.
- Must do: When you get to the North Cape, visit the lavatory then you can boast that you have used Europe's northernmost toilet.
- Exploring the fjords,