First Steps on Greenland's Shore - Qaqortoq

 After a fairly comfortable crossing of the North Atlantic toward Greenland, the captain advised that we might get some more motion as the winds changed direction once we turned past the southern tip on our way into Qaqortoq. He wasn't wrong. It did get bumpy, and the skies remained cloudy.

Some intrepid souls, unfortunately not including us, had actually managed to see the Northern Lights. We hold out hope that in the next couple of nights we will be able to get out there around 11 p.m. and see them for ourselves.

Qaqortoq is actually at the end of a fjord that protects it from the worst of the heavy waves, but the wind still caused a lot of choppy conditions. It did help that it was also raining lightly, although it seemed worse than it was because it was coming at us sideways.

We had booked an excursion to see the icebergs by Targa boat, and dutifully took our places in the Stardust Club to wait for our tour call to the tender boat. Around the time we were supposed to be heading out, we were informed that the boat tours, and there were quite a few departures of two different tours, had all been cancelled due to the wind. Bad news, but better than the alternative of not being able to land here at all, which was what we were actually expecting.

Since we were already wearing our multiple layers and waterproof jackets ready for the tour, we headed down to the tender platform with our friend Patty. We all wanted to be able to say we had set foot on Greenland before the weather got bad and the tender service was suspended all together. We had our own private boat - us, the tender staff and some benches they were taking over to the pier for people to use while waiting.

Qaqortoq is the second largest town in all of Greenland with a population of about 3,800 people. Nuuk, the capital, has 22,000 inhabitants and the whole of the island only has 58,000 people living there. As everyone now knows, Greenland is a part of Denmark, and although it has its own local parliament and elections, all national level administration and policies, like education and defense, fall under the Danish government.

 According to a police officer Larry was talking to, it had been lovely weather a couple of days previously....which didn't do us much good. Someone also said that winter would begin in October and our destination lecturer when he started today's lecture about the Canadian Maritimes said that today's forecast in Qaqortoq was for snow!!

proof that we were here!

Larry having a conversation with the
local police officer, who was from Denmark

As it was still raining and very windy, we didn't walk all that far. It is also very hilly in town and Patty's bad knees wouldn't let her go too long. So I left them to chat while I checked out a couple of the closer spots to get some photos.

The bright colours on the houses used to have some meaning - for medical facilities, schools, churches and police, at a time when there were no street names and numbers - but they aren't needed any more, so the colours are just to brighten up the place during the dreary days of fall and winter.

I found a spot to take a photo of the ship. You can
see how dreary the day is from all the lights

This statue is apparently of the godess of
the sea in Greenland lore

Larry and Patty standing in the shelter of a house
to keep out of the wind.

Yes, I was there, too!

We were getting cold and tired of being buffeted around by the wind, so we headed back about 45 minutes after arriving. After dropping our outerwear and changing shoes and socks, we met up again in the Bistro for hot chocolate and coffee.

I had some time to sketch, and also did some knitting at our ad hoc knitting group - a few of us who knit together on world cruises and segments when there is an instructor. This will be a shawl when it is finished.

We also had lunch at Beefbar - more on that in the food post. The captain delayed our departure as it was going to be rocking again last night, so we could get dinner service and the show over before the worst of it started.

Today we are en route to L'Anse aux Meadows. We will be reaching 'Iceberg Alley' in the late afternoon and expect to see some icebergs before we reach our stop. Fingers crossed the winds die down for us in the morning!

North Atlantic Crossing, 2.0

 We were so busy leading up to this cruise that I didn't have time to do a blog post to set it up! The cats knew that something was up and spent lots of time sleeping on, or in, the suitcases while we packed.

One of our scheduled cruises for this year is a north Atlantic crossing from Reykjavik, Iceland to New York City, also on board Crystal Serenity. We flew into Reykjavik a day early, on September 16, and managed to do a couple of things we hadn't been able to on our previous visits in the past 2 years.

Once we arrived at 9:00 a.m. and were driven the 45 minutes from Keflavik to Reykjavik, we dropped our bags at our hotel and decided to take advantage of the surprisingly nice day before the possible afternoon rain showers appeared. We were staying at the Hotel Reykjavik Saga, which was also very central to everything we wanted to see.

We headed toward the Hallgrimskirkje, the main Lutheran Cathedral of the city. It is a huge concrete structure that dominates the landscape, even from 15 km outside of the city as it was built on the highest point of Reykjavik.

I had seen a YouTube video posted by someone who had a day to spend here, and he visited the cathedral and the bell tower. You have to purchase a ticket to ride up the tiny (max 6 persons) elevator to get there, but the view is spectacular.

From the elevator which stops at the level of the clock faces, you can walk up a stairway to get to the bell level, and even stand under them as they chime every 15 minutes. We were up there just before noon and thought it might be just a little too hard on the eardrums to be that close to the 12 loud bongs, so we returned to the lower level and listened from there. I have some video which I will try to post.

I had also noticed on the drive in that there seemed to be some scaffolding on one end of the building, so, just to make sure our scaffolding photo collection was complete, we had to stop for a photo.

Our other stop before heading back to the hotel for a little rest time was for lunch. On the flight they had served us a sandwich snack after takeoff and then a breakfast an hour and a half before landing. The flight was only around 5 hours long, and we were starting to get a little peckish. We went back to Bistro 101 where we had, once again, Icelandic Fish and Chips. Delicious as usual!

We also took a stroll along the bank of the Tjörnin, a lake in the centre of the city near the parliament building and some of the original churches of town. The little island is populated by a huge number of ducks, gulls and white geese that are always up for a treat from tourists.

After some time to recharge, as we hadn't been able to get any real sleep on the plane, we went down to the hotel's lounge where I discovered a local Icelandic liqueur called Eldblóm. It is made from chrysanthemum flowers and local wild botanicals of the west coast. It tastes like a cross between the botanical tartness of Aperol and the smooth sweetness of Elderflower liqueur. I had an Icelandic Spritz, which just replaces the Aperol with Eldblóm.

Dinner was at the Fröken Reykjavik restaurant in our hotel. It is a beautiful restaurant and the food was all excellent. Larry had Flank Steak Frites and I had the Arctic Char. It was an amazing meal, topped off with a local specialty dessert called Ásdarpungar. It is like a deep fried cake donut with a cream cheese dough, covered with caramel drizzle and served with lemon thyme ice cream. Yummy!

On Wednesday morning we walked around the block to our favourite breakfast restaurant, the Laundromat Café, and had a good but not huge breakfast, as we would be heading over to board Crystal Serenity at around 11:30 and were looking forward to having lunch on board.

They even sat us at the same table we've had on 
our last two visits!

Avocado toast, with cream cheese, avocado, spinach
and quinoa along with the egg on sourdough bread.

We made a little detour on our way back to the hotel to see a very interesting looking ship in the inner harbour, and also came across this sculpture of two people looking out, sort of in the direction of the sea, but not quite. Maybe they were meant to be searching the bay where Reykjavik's harbour sits.

This is actually an expedition cruise ship of sorts. It
must be quite new given the weird bow shape there
on the right.

They're looking out over the harbour rather
than the sea.

We had passed this little bakery every time we walked toward the Hallgrimskirkje and had never gone in. I was determined not to do the same, and bought a huge cinnamon bun that we ate at the hotel. Not too sweet and not too sticky. It is definitely on my 'regular and recommended' list for the future.

A 10-minute taxi ride took us to the port where Serenity waited. Apparently she was the last cruise ship of the season, so now they could get on with constructing a proper cruise terminal building. Iceland is becoming more popular for cruise ships, and up to now there had only been a large tent to serve as the terminal. It will be interesting to see how far they get by August of 2026, which is our current next scheduled visit to Reykjavik.

We have two sea days before reaching Qaqortoq, Greenland on Saturday.

July Cruise Travel Sketches

 And in record time, but then there were only 4 port stops, here is the collection of sketches from my travel sketchbook.

From our walk around town, Nyhavn and the Little Mermaid

Grenen, the sand spit where the Skagerrak and Kattegat
meet

The lovely town square in Kristiansand

More food from the Nobu Omakase dinner

Our food tour in Gothenburg

A couple of scenes from the Oslofjord islands

We hope you enjoyed following along on this cruise. In September we'll be heading back to Reykjavik, Iceland to board Serenity for a crossing to New York that will hopefully also include our first visit to Greenland! See you then.

A Boat Cruise in the Oslofjord

 As mentioned already, we had been in Oslo in 2023 and had already seen the Vigeland Sculpture Park, toured the Akershus Museum and walked to the top of the Opera House, among other things. We had also been very busy and wanted some time to just hang out and maybe even get into the pool for a swim. We managed to do that, and were nicely rested up for the last day of the cruise. The ship would be leaving Oslo for Copenhagen at 2:00 in the afternoon, and we had a boat cruise around otherwise unknown parts of the Oslo waterfront area booked in the morning.

We had a huge group, about 90 of us altogether, and fortunately we didn't have to walk far from the ship to reach our tour boat. There is a large boat, looking rather like a party boat, berthed near the ships. We'd seen it in 2023 as well, and many of us thought that was our destination. As I discovered from a YouTube video featuring tours in the Norwegian fjords, it is in fact a tour boat, but not one that can be chartered privately. So we ended up going on another boat, a smaller, wooden sailing ship. There were enough seats on the outer decks and it was a lovely day, but there were rumblings of mutiny from those who were convinced we should have been on the other boat....that were finally put to rest when our guide announced that the bar, serving complimentary beer and wine (max 2 drinks per person), was open.

We had a very short walk to our tour boat from
Serenity!

We sailed around some of the islands for about 3 hours, with our guide providing interesting information on all of them, their histories, importance to defense or trade, and the fact that on some of them, summer homes costing over a million dollars had no electricity or indoor plumbing!

Some enclaves of summer houses, like this one, have
been owned by the same families for so long that it
takes a generation or two for new owners to finally be
accepted by their neighbours!

There is also quite a selection of lighthouses on these islands, some of which have other uses as well, like one which is a locally very well-known restaurant. Our guide said she had been there in the winter; it was a little more difficult to get in and out of the boat that brings guests from the harbour, but very cozy nonetheless.

Some of the other lighthouses we passed:

The islands are not just home to summer houses. There was a children's hospital facility that was used in the mid-1900s for recovery from various illnesses. There are only a few buildings left, and it is no longer in use. But currently under construction on one of the islands is a large rehab hospital that will serve all of Oslo and the surrounding area.

Along with the beer and wine, a buffet meal was offered. In typical Nordic fashion, it was peel and eat shrimp with butter, mayonnaise, dill, lemon wedges and a couple of choices of bread. It looked like many from the group didn't quite know what to do, so a couple of us went down to gather up a plateful. It was fresh and delicious!

On one island we passed by summer homes up in the hills that each had their own little 'bath house' - changing room, boat house, whatever they needed - down at the waterfront. They were all different and looked quite cute sitting all in a row. The islands are very rocky, and I imagine the water is deep right off the shore, but our guide said that the fjord doesn't freeze in the winter so there is no issue with ice damage. Actually, she mentioned that the water temperature on our cruise day was 20℃!

A family sailed by on their wooden boat. I wouldn't
be surprised if it was home-made!

After our tour around the fjord we headed back toward the city centre, passing Akershus, the old defense fortress, on the way. Serenity was docked on the opposite side, and as we passed by, I realized that we had been docked where we were sailing on our very first visit to Oslo in 1996 on Splendor of the Seas. I have photos of Akershus from the ship docked here in my very old photo albums.

The low building at the pier is the port building

And finally, the required 'ticky-tacky tourist shot of the ship'. 

That was a nice way to spend a couple of hours. Now it was back to the ship for the art show - yes, we even managed a couple of art classes this week! - and to pack up for our return home on the 22nd.

I'm still working on sketches for the trip, so the final post will cover the art show and my sketchbook tour for this week.