I have been to.... Norway

We've been to Norway a couple of times already but just the south (Oslo, Bergen etc) , this time we took the plunge with a Hurtigruten cruise up to Svalbard and back. Hurtigruten mainly run the ferry service up and down the coast, so the cruise facilities are a bit basic but fine. They make lots of port stops to pick up and drop off cargo, so you get to visit loads of places which are otherwise pretty inaccessible. 

As ever, I'll focus on stuff primarily of historical interest. 

After setting off from Bergen in pouring rain (as usual) we pitched up at Andalsnes, scene of the disastrous British/French landings in April 1940. The town is down at the head of fjiord at the bottom of the mountain. 

The local war memorial has an awful lot of names for such a small place. 

The town was largely destroyed in the war, but there is a model of Andalsnes as it was in 1940 in the local library. Unfortunately it was closed so I could only take a photo through the window. 

There are also a lot of trolls around! This one was guarding the car park outside some flats... 

We crossed the Arctic Circle  north of Andalsnes, this marker shows the boundary as we sailed past. 

To safely navigate the arctic, we had to placate the sea god Njord (in the yellow hat) by making a sacrifice. This involving tipping a ladle full of ice down our necks. Brrr! But we did get a certificate.... 

We stopped briefly in Bodo and I spotted this rather sleek frigate. 

We stopped at quite a few places in the Lofoten Islands. This is Reine. The islands were the scene of a number of commando raids in the war, attacking oil storage facilities including fish oil. 

One of many statues of Roald Amundson, this one is in Tromso. 

In the middle of that island in the distance  is the Tirpitz memorial, just outside Tromso. The wreck is on the bottom. I didn't get a chance to go to the Tirpitz museum as it is well out of town and we only had a couple of hours as the ship made a passenger stop then a cargo stop.

Also spotted in Tromso was a six wheeler Unimog command bus. This one was clearly being used as a camper van as it had solar panels on the roof! 

And straight out of "Where Eagles Dare" is this fabulous old cable car carriage. I can just imagine Richard Burton swinging off the roof. Oddly it was mounted on a trailer, I think it is used as a mobile coffee shop in summer. 

This was as far north as we went on mainland Norway, Henningsvag, the northernmost city in mainland Europe, although Hammerfest disputes this. The town was almost entirely destroyed by the Germans as they retreated from the Russians advancing  from Archangel in 1944 with only the church surviving. It was rebuilt after the war.  It is a fairly short drive from here to the North Cape itself. 

The local museum included a clipping from the Daily Mail about the Battle of North Cape. 

North Cape itself, a pretty impressive spot with 1000 foot cliffs dropping straight into the sea. It is also incredibly windy! 

There was a very good display in the North Cape visitors centre about the Murmansk convoys and Battle of North Cape. A nice model of Scharnhorst. The wreck is about 90 miles offshore. 

A statue of Bamse the St Bernard in Henningsvag. He was the mascot of the free Norwegian forces in WW2 and served on a destroyer. Supposedly he used to get the bus on his own from Edinburgh to round up the crew from the pub! He died in 1944 and is buried in Montrose. 

As we were in the arctic, we were treated to various displays of the Aurora when the clouds cleared. 

Bear Island, as featured in the Alistair Maclean novel and site of the last German surrender in September 1944. The unfortunate Kriegsmarine weather crew were abandoned couldn't find anyone to surrender to until some seal hunters turned up.

130 miles southwest of here is the wreck of the Komsomol which went down in 1989 with a full load of nuclear weapons and has busily leaked radiation into the Barents ever since. Nice! 

Longyearben on Svalbard, originally  a mining town, now arctic research (there is a University) and tourism. Nothing much military going on here due to various treaties, but the town was shelled by Scharnhorst in WW2. The shelling started a coal fire which burned for 20 years. 

It really did feel like the top of the world up there, although it was still 800 miles from the North Pole. It is north of the top of Canada and pretty much level with the top of Greenland. 

Statue of Amundson in Nye Ålesund on Svalbard. He died in 1928 in a plane crash looking for survivors of an Italian airship expedition to the pole which set off from here. 

The local museum has quite a bit about the various air expeditions to the pole. This is a model of Amundsons airship. 

Although the airship shed is long gone, the mooring pole is still out on the permafrost. 

Due to the threat of polar bears, you can't leave the settlements with a rifle and flare gun, or an armed guard. Although I could have rented a rifle (Mausers are about 30 GBP a day) it seemed a lot safer to go with a guide! 

An abandoned light steam train of German manufacture from the turn of the twentieth century. This originally served the coal mines.

While it's very beautiful, I'm not sure I'd like to live here. 

We were blessed with good weather on Svalbard, but Njord had his revenge on the return trip with a 24 hour gale and a 20 foot swell. A proper Barents Sea experience, it usually takes a fair bit to make me seasick, but I was this time.

I was very glad indeed to get back to dry land after the big blow.  This is the war museum in Svolvaer back on Lofoten, but I'll do that as a separate post. 

This reminded me of being a kid though, when there were old mines all over the British seaside, converted to charity collection boxes. 

One of our last stops was inAlesund in pouring rain. This is a memorial to the real life "Heroes of Telemark" who attacked German deuterium production in 1943 and 44.

After two days of torrential rain it was back to Bergen in blazing sunshine! 

That was a great trip, really enjoyable with amazing scenery and tons of stuff to see and places to go. I'd recommend it to anyone. It is especially good if you like baked goods and beer....