Wednesday, June 20, 2012 – Honningsvag, Norway – Cloudy – 45F

Longyearbyen, Norway to Honningsvag, Norway: 534 Nautical Miles

Located near the North Cape (Nordkapp) on the island of Mageroy, Honningsvag is the world’s most northernmost village on mainland Europe.  It became a city officially in 1996 and currently has a population of about 3500. 

It is a popular tourist destination with about 1000 cruise ships visiting in the summer months.  There are four cruise ships here today:  Fred Olsen Braemar, HAL Prinsendam, Costa Deliziosa, and us.

Honningsvag and Cruise Ships

Today, we are tendering in – the Braemar was initially docked but repositioned to anchor to make way for the Costa ship.  There must a be a system for who docks and who doesn’t.  The tender ride was relatively short and pretty smooth (we heard it wasn’t that smooth earlier in the morning).

On our way to the Tender Port

The pier area is a pretty busy place with all kinds of shops (some run by indigenous peoples).  The area is also populated with a key Norse Mythological figure, the troll.  The one below must have been taking steroids since he is a bit bigger than the trolls I’ve heard about.

Honningsvag Troll

Ellen caught up with a troll more her size and subdued him by shoving his helmet down over his eyes.  A blind troll is pretty ineffective.  Watch out though, this one is armed.

   

Ellen and Troll

As the shop name below indicates, we are still 5 degrees north of the Arctic Circle (still in no sunset territory).  The vehicles sold or rented by this place look like the best way to get around.

ATV Store in Honningsvag

The pier area afforded a great shot of the Constellation at anchor out in the harbor.

 

Constellation in the Harbor

Free WiFi was not to be found in any of the stores.  During our walk around the town, we spotted a bunch of crew (not just ours) sitting on the sidewalk next to a closed store.  They were getting a weak WiFi signal from somewhere.  It took some patience but we were able to connect (unpredictably) to this source.  We did wind up being able to check our e-mail and send along some stuff. 

We continued our walk to a spot on the other side of the horse shoe shaped marina.  We found a little park (I can’t figure out what the statue is) and a very nice view of the marina – you can see the cruise ships docked in the distance.

The Honningsvag Marina

We inquired at one of the hotels near the marina about WiFi and found out they had none.  It was getting a bit drizzly so we walked back to the pier.  We checked out the shops a bit more but, by now, the passengers from all four ships had arrived and the stores and pier area were very crowded.  We tried to connect to that same WiFi system again with limited luck and then headed back to the ship.

The rest of the day was spent reading or relaxing.

After dinner, we attended Perry Grant’s Theater Show.  It was a fun show with Perry singing, playing the piano, and even dancing.  He’s quite the showman.

Pedometer: 3563 miles; 1.73 miles/179 calories