Cruising on Hurtigruten: Bergen to the Arctic Circle

This is Thursday, day four aboard the Richard With. We set sail from Bergen on Monday evening, and early this morning we crossed the Arctic Circle. So far I’ve been off the boat twice so far, once for a bus ride from Geiranger to Molde, and once for a walking tour of Trondheim.

Bergen

I spent two days in Bergen in 2016 during my Beltherway (Belgium, Netherlands, and Norway) trip. I arrived there on Sunday afternoon and had time that evening and Monday to wander around and be reminded why Bergen is one of my favorite European cities.

Cruising

We didn’t set sail from Bergen until 8:30 pm on Monday, but we were able to board any time after 4:00.

The crew is adamant that Hurtigruten is not a cruiseline, which is why I put “cruise“in quotes. They refer to their vessels as “coastal steamers.” In fact, this was the postal route for many years, and it is still used to deliver cargo and local passengers up and down the Norwegian coast.

Nevertheless, they do provide cruise-like experiences with shore excursions, many of which start at one port and end at another. A lot of the ports we pull into are for just ten or fifteen minutes.

I’m learning why I’m not a cruise person. People on the boat pretty much just sit around and read. I’m restless. I wish there were more to do. You can only watch scenery go by for so long. You can only take so many photos of the scenery. I’ve made a few personal connections, but most people are traveling in groups (couples, families, and friend groups) and they stay with their own kind. During the excursions it’s a little easier to chat with people, many of whom are very friendly, but when we get back on board, they are doing their own thing. And many don’t speak English. There are large groups of French and German travelers. I’ve said hi to people who barely nod in reply; I don’t know whether that’s because of the language barrier or because they’re just not social enough to be friendly.

Most of the meals are buffet with open seating. Last night’s dinner was the first with assigned seats and scheduled dinnertime. I was at a table with a guy from San Diego who was very bad at conversation, and three gregarious women from Adelaide, Australia.

Perhaps this would be a better mode of travel if I were with my own friend or family group. But honestly, I don’t get the allure of sitting on a boat all day long. I walk around the decks and lounges and I see people sitting staring at their phones or reading books. Can’t you just do that at home?

Okay, so the scenery is spectacular, at least some of the time.

Excursions

Geiranger and Trollstigen

I’ve been off the boat twice so far. The first time was a bus ride from Geiranger to Molde. This could have been spectacular, but it wasn’t:

• We were supposed to have three buses, one with an English-speaking guide, one French, and one German. But there was an accident on the road leading to Geiranger. The road was closed for a while, and one of the buses didn’t make it. Guess which one. So they crammed all the English-speakers onto the other two buses, and the guides did their best to describe things in two languages.
• The drive up from Geiranger was almost straight vertical up the side of the mountain, on a road with a lot of switchbacks. It would have been nice to stop at the viewpoint at the top to enjoy the view. But we didn’t. We had to press on to catch a ferry. 

• Once we got to the ferry, we met up with the third bus and our English-speaking guide. We did pass some nice scenery, and we stopped at a waterfall. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was, well, nice.

• We were supposed to drive down Trollstigen, a very scenic highway, but it was closed due to landslides. (They informed us of this beforehand.) But they took us to a viewpoint at the top of the road where we could enjoy a view of the highway.

• But, oh, wait. We didn’t get this view. We got fog.

Trondheim

The second excursion was a walking tour of Trondheim yesterday. I was also in Trondheim during my 2016 trip, but I saw it all on my own, so I thought it would be interesting to take a walk with a guide. But the guide added very little to the experience. And our group was combined English- and German-speaking, so we had to listen to him describe everything twice, in both languages. For a two-hour walking tour, we didn’t cover a lot of ground.

It was nice to see Trondheim again. It’s not magical like Bergen, but it is pleasant. By far, the best part was visiting Nidaros Cathedral. I was looking at my photos from 2016, and I have none from inside the Cathedral, and I have no recollection of going in. But in my blog post from then, I mention going to a Stravinsky concert in the Cathedral. I do have a vague recollection of that concert, but when I went into the Cathedral yesterday, it did not look at all familiar.

Scenery

Of course I’ve taken a lot of photos from the boat as we’ve passed islands, mountains, villages, and farms. Unfortunately, the boat’s wifi doesn’t allow me to access my online photo gallery, so I can’t post a lot of them, but here are a few, and I’ll post more when I get home.

Arctic Circle

We are now in the land of the midnight sun. We crossed the Arctic Circle at 07:51:28 this morning. There was a contest to guess exactly what time we would cross. I guessed 07:43:22. (They told us it would be between 7:30 and 8:30.) Two people guessed exactly to the second.

There is no line in the ocean when you cross. But there is a marker on an island.

We had a ceremony to celebrate the crossing and to ask Njǫrd, the god of the sea and the wind, for a smooth and safe sailing in the Arctic. And we had to be baptized with ice.