Toddling around Trondheim

Well, I'm back on dry land again, after several days on board the M/S Richard With, one of many Hurtigruten ships. I wondered what Dick did to rate having a ship named after him. Saw his name on a street and a town square, as well. Now I know. Want to? You have no choice, unless you skip the next few lines. Richard With, it turns out, is the founder, back in the 19Th century, of the Hurtigruten line. I guess that qualifies him to have a ship named after him.

A bit more on the Hurtigruten decision. Only two hotels in Honningsvag, and both were booked. The only way out of Honningsvag, other than the ship, was a bus to Alta, arriving late. It's not a lot larger than Honningsvag, and I had no way of knowing if I could get a room there. I'd heard good things about the Hurtigruten, and decided it was a reasonable option, so booked myself through to Trondheim. No regrets, or very few.

I could have had a cabin, but decided to play the backpacker, so I bedded down at night in the lounge, after everyone else went to bed. Late, but late is relative when the sun never goes down. Not too bad, either. Almost like a 7Th deck stateroom, and with windows on both sides. There is a sauna with a shower on board, so I was able to stay clean. The ship is almost a cruise liner. The primary difference is that folks get on and off all along the route.

Meals confused me. I wasn't particularly hungry the first nite, so I just had a sandwich in the cafeteria. For breakfast the next day, there was a fellow at the entrance to the dining area, and I had to pay for my meal. The posted lunch and dinner menus all had prices attached. Dinner didn't look great the next nite, so I ate in the cafeteria again. The next morning, everyone was just walking into the dining area, so I did as well. And every day thereafter.

I made a dinner reservation, enjoyed dinner with two glasses of wine, and had a nice conversation with a German gentleman. He thought I was English. Said I didn't sound like an American, accent was English. Is this trip getting to me? At the end of the meal, I expected to pay for the wine and meal. All I had to pay for was the wine. I checked at the reception desk when I left, to make sure I didn't have the meals attached to the boarding pass they gave me, but no additional charges. Maybe I should have asked for a refund on the breakfast???

A few thoughts before I move along with the travelogue. When I was at Nordkapp, the latitude (longitude? I can never remember) was 71degrees 10' 21". Which one of you scientific minded recipients can tell me how far that is from the north pole? Or at least how many miles per degree? And while researching that, can you find out which is correct for the Arctic Circle, 66d 33' 07" or 66d 32' 35"? And now I'm south of the AC, so the sun actually went down last night, and stayed down for around 2.5 hours. Longer than I thought, but I guess the ship made more miles than I thought.

The price of beer here in Norway is the most expensive I've ever seen. 54 to 56 NOK, which translates to around 9.00 US (no dollar sign on KB) for a .41 lire glass. And not that good.

Which one of you told me drivers in one of the Scandinavian countries drove on the wrong side of the road? You're wrong. They all drive like sensible people do, if I can be included in sensible.

I couldn't get over the maneuverability of that big ship. She was nearly 300 metres long, and able to spin around on her axis. Moved sideways to get to some piers. We went through one long dredged channel that was less than 100 metres wide, and 7 metres deep. She was better than 20 metres wide, and drew 5 metres, if my memory is anywhere near correct. A lot of ship to keep going in the right direction.

It's July 4Th, and past my lunch time. I'm going to finish this later. Time to go out and look for some lunch. I doubt I'll find a 4Th of July parade, picnic, or concert, but I'll look around.

No parades,picnics or fireworks evident.

The scenery on the way from up north to Trondheim was really something. I won't use superlatives, 'cause everyone does. Suffice to say I really enjoyed it, and can't remember having seen anything quite like it. The glaciers are still at work in some parts of the world and something to behold. Come here to see the great work they did long ago. Nice work, glaciers.

It was really interesting to watch the terrain changes as we headed south (once the clouds lifted). Not quite, but you could almost see the tree line rising as we moved along. If I stopped looking for a while, than renewed my interest, it was very noticeable. Around Honningsvag, Nordkapp, Kirkenes, there was no tree line. All that grew was some very hardy grass and lichen.

Much of the trip northbound through Sweden and Finland I saw mixes of pine and birch. Seems I haven't seen any pine along the Norwegian coast, only what looks like birch. I'll be on land for the rest of the trip (probably, you never know), so maybe I'll get back to the pine when I get more inland or south.

The pine were rather strange, in my mind. The trees had what looked like regular thick, rough grayish bark 1/4 to 1/3 of the way up. Above that, it appeared that the bark was all but gone, and there was nothing but a thin layer of fairly smooth orange bark. Once in a while I'd see a tree with what I think of as bark all the way up, but not often. They may have been a different species, also.

With the change in plans, I missed staying several days each at Tromso, Bodo and Svolvaer. But the ship did stop in all three for long enough to get out and wander, saunter, walk, stroll around. From what my guidebook says, I didn't miss much in either Tromso or Bodo. And I did get to see, for short periods of time, at least 4 other small villages. Actually, I skipped Bodo. We arrived at around 1:00 AM and left at 3:30 or so. Liked my couch too much to get off it at that time of morning. I did stroll around Hammerfest, the northernmost city in the world. There are other communities further north, I know, I've been there, but they aren't classified as cities. I'm not certain what it takes to be a city, but apparently Hammerfest does. I would like to spend some time on the island chain, Lofoten, I think, that Svolvaer was on. Lots of small towns and villages, lots of places to explore.

I think that's about it for now. Lots of exploring to do here in Trondheim. And planning. I'm now 4 days ahead of my somewhat flexible itinerary. I need to decide whether to spend more time in some spots, or add a few that I'd left out.