We fulfilled a bucket list dream that started back in 1994 when we were freshly engaged and exploring Europe in an old Mitsubishi L300 carpenters van. We were en route to take the Hurtigruten down Norway’s fjords when our van broke down and had to get towed back to London. We’ve always had a yearning to finish off that planned voyage and what better time than to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary as Hurtigruten were celebrating a similar anniversary – their 130th year of operation. So we embarked on the North to South coastal voyage form Kirkenes to Bergen in March 2024. You can read about our journey in this post or watch our 6 minute YouTube video: https://youtu.be/3S4rE-2Ga5c?si=NPXcpJ-yJ-ppjcyJ
Hurtigruten first impressions
Our ship, the Polarlys, was bigger and newer than we thought it would be (Year built. 1996 -refurbished in 2016 and a top-up last year) Beds. 503 – Capacity 619 (we had about 350 on board) Length. 123 m, Speed. 18 knots – (if you want more history on the Hurtigruten scroll to the last section of this post). And our 3rd floor cabin was nicer than we expected too with a wide window, a big comfortable double bed with a large photo of a soaring eagle behind it on the wall, a little table and soft chair, bathroom, and wardrobes.
We boarded at Kirkenes – in the far North of Norway on the Russian border in minus 20 (that’s me in the first photo wheeling our bags to the ship), quickly unpacked and went to explore the ships floors – all seven of them. First floor was cargo, second staff rooms and some smaller guest rooms, third floor – reception for in port and access to gangway on and off the ship plus our cabin (that’s me reading on our little settee) , fourth floor reception and info desk, shop, lecture theatres, the main restaurant Torget Norwegian kitchen (for meals included with tarif) , the upmarket restaurant – Kysten for ‘arctic fine dining’ (for an ‘upgrade’ price) and the Brygga Bisro for (purchased) snacks, pizza, burgers etc. and endless (free) refills of cups of tea all day long. The food from the Torget kitchen was outstanding and focused on local products. Breakfast was a buffet but we stuck to fruit, knekkebrød (local crispy ‘ryvitas’) and brun cheese, and a croissant or scrambled egg. Lunch was buffet again with hot meals, salads, soups and dessert but dinner was the real highlight with a choice of main (a fish, meat and vegetarian dish) and dessert. Small portions but deliciously plated and flavours amazing! Below is the knekkebrød and brun for breakfast, then cod and reindeer dishes for dinner.
The fourth floor also had a long corridor of seats where you could stare out the window while sipping your endless cups of tea (see pic. 6 below). Fifth floor was all cabins and access to the outside deck which loops around the ship, the sixth floor just had cabins and two hut tubs out the back, and the seventh floor was where all the action was at with a large outdoor deck partly enclosed on starboard side, (smoking on the port side), a small gym (two running and 1 rowing machines, 1 bike, weights and mats for floor work)…
…plus the bakery cafe with large tables and lots of seats (2nd pic below), the Explorer bar and lounge and the viewing seats which were reclining soft chairs that looked up and through the floor to ceiling windows (see 1st pic below).
Certain guests nabbed these reclining swivel seats by 7am each day and remained in them snoozing (snoring) or reading. Unfortunately many of these people were coughing and sneezing so we avoided this area – except once when many were out on excursion, and we enjoyed our own lounge around for an hour or two at the very front of the boat in peace. We mostly sat in the bakery tables on level 7 or near the bistro on level 4 where we could nab a little space for ourselves to write and read.
Towns, fjords and sites we visited on the Hurtigruten
The main regions of Norway include Nord-Norge (north), Trøndelag (central Norway including Trondheim), Vestland (western Norway including Bergen), Estland (eastern Norway including Oslo), and Sørland (southern Norway including Kristiansund). As we only travelled along the coast and to coastal towns, I’m going to divide Norway in to my own version of the North and South. I’m going to nominate everything above the arctic circle as the North and everything below as the South – for the purpose of sharing my observations of our trip along the coast, this will only include the coastal towns
The North – above the Arctic Circle
Life: The region above the Arctic Circle has some of the world’s most stunning natural phenomena such as the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis – which we managed to see one night on board) and the Midnight Sun. The indigenous Sami people have lived in this area for thousands of years, maintaining their distinctive language, culture, and nomadic way of life. It is cold up here. Really cold – and for half the year the land is frozen in time. You need to wear spikes on your shoes or get around using a kicksled (see pic below) as a thick layer of ice sits beneath the snow that is really slippery! There are many monuments to explorers who braved the elements up here to develop fishing, shipping and navigation industries (see middle pic below with strange cloud/light formation I only noticed after I took this photo!).
The design of buildings in many of the northern towns is very post world war 2 brutalist architecture – with square concrete buildings with small windows that look more like prisons than hotels or schools or shopping centres. The homes are a bit lighter and brighter with mostly whitewashed weatherboard and red, brown or black roof tiles. (See third picture of Hammerfest above).
The Northern Norwegian Food
So much of the land is frozen over up here that they rely on salted or cured meats and fish in winter and farming is limited to what grows in the sea or can be excavated from the sea (minerals). Up North, around Kirkenes the snow crab is so important they have a huge statue in town and on the Hurtigruten it was a feature menu you had to book ahead for in the private bistro. Fish is so important in Norway that it features on the money instead of Kings or Queens! As a result, the cuisine emphasis is on seafood such as cod or salmon or salted reindeer meat.
The NorthernTowns above the arctic circle on the Hurtigruten coastal cruise
Kirkenes: We boarded the Hurtigruten in Kirkenes (pronounced Sheerkinis – go figure!) a very remote northern Norway town 400 km above the arctic circle and 8km from the Russian border (see middle photo below pointing to Russia from the dock).
There is a population of 3,500 and it hovers between being a village and a town in size. It originally grew as an iron ore mining town, but this closed in late 1990s leaving them to focus on fishing – salmon, cod and king crabs. This area is called the borderland as it is the confluence between Norway, Finland and Russia. There’s a fascinating history of how the different people and cultures have ebbed and flowed. It was first settled in 1886 when a church was built on the cape – church = Kirk and Cape = enes: Hence the name Kirkenes. Nazi Germany took control of Kirkenes in the second world war and bombed it so heavily there were only 13 homes left standing – it has the curious reputation as being one of the most bombed places in Europe during World War II with at least 320 Soviet raids (see war statue in 3rd pic). The Russian army liberated Kirkenes after the German army literally froze to death trying to march into Russia from here. I can believe that as we went for a walk around town (everything shut on a Sunday so a rather lonely walk although we did pass a few people out walking with their ‘kicksled’ (see pic above) which they use to steady themselves and move along by kicking off with your foot, just like a scooter). The key attractions here are the Ice Hotel where you can sleep in an igloo for $550 euro a night, the King Crab fishing safari or dog-sleds out to see the Northern lights (if you’re lucky!).
Hammerfest: This far northern town was an interesting place still locked deep in winter ice and snow when we visited.
We visited the Meridian column – which is a rather modest marker of the hugest scientific tasks – that of measuring the planet itself! This column (which we are standing around in picture above) marks the start of a 2820 km arc that ends in the Black Sea. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (1793–1864), a German geophysicist used this marker to help him map the exact shape and size of the planet in 1816. Near this sight, we saw lots of fancy quad bikes (see above) which we learnt was how kids got to school. You ned to be 18 to drive a car but only 16 to drive a motorbike or tractor and as these quad bikes were considered a hybrid of both, they were the transport of choice.
Stockmarknes: We had an hour in Stokmarknes in late afternoon and walked around the wharf area, past the Hurtigruten museum which is all inside an old Hurtigruten ship (pic. 1 below), which itself sits inside a building (they enclosed it as it was weathering too fast outdoors) and admired the cute timber wharf bars and cottages.
Sortland and Svolvaer – We had an hour in the afternoon in Sortland – so we walked up to the little church to stretch our legs and around the cottages near the wharf. We docked In Svolvær from 6.30 -8pm and had time to take a little walk around the wharf and visit the ice bar and sculpture museum. We sipped on strawberry wine served out of a glass made out of ice and admired the ice sculptures.
The Northern landscape
The landscape was seriously beautiful but oh so frozen and stark. As skiers, we kept spotting places we’d love to do turns down but realised you’d need pretty good edges! There were some incredible fjords – our favourite was the Trollfjorden – a 2km deep fjord with a narrow entrance and steep-sided mountains. We also loved watching the wake of the ship as it cut through the ice-green seas.
Towns in the ‘South’ on our Hurtigruten coastal cruise:
Once we crossed below the arctic circle things started to soften. The air was little warmer, there were patches of grass and green and we could walk around without spikes on our shoes. We saw some magnificent mountain ranges like the seven sisters just outside Sandnessjøen (pictured below) and the towns we passed were no longer covered in snow!
Brønnøysund – we had two hours in this town which sits at the exact halfway point of the long country between north and south. We walked on the timber pathway along the wharf and up to a lovely grey stone church and around the side streets and did a little shopping in a cute book store. When we pulled out of Brønnøysund we passed the famous Tolguet mountain where there is a huge hole 60m high in the middle – we all got to take a photo from the ship (see third photo below).
Trondheim was our longest stopover and we had almost 3 hours to explore. Thank goodness as there was a lot to see in this lovely old town.
Trondheim was Norways first capital and has been occupied for over a thousand years when it was founded by the early Vikings. One interesting thing about being on a ‘freight and postal ship’ is that you pull into port at all sorts of hours. For Trondheim it was 7-9.30am. We got off at 7am and wandered along the ferry wharf (picture 1), up and over the (huge) railway yards, along the canals (picture 2) and in to the market square and old town. There were many beautiful churches, cobblestoned streets, big squares and more cathedrals (Picture 3 -Niadaros Cathedral being the most famous). The shops were only just starting to open up, school children were heading towards their school on foot or scooters and travellers were rolling out of their hotels towards the train station.
Great Atlantic Road excursion – On our last day on the Hurtigruten, we took our first and only excursion along the famous skinny water-hopping Great Atlantic Road and to a marble mine for a caves tour. We started in the town of Kristiansund and drove through the streets of this pretty town learning about its history: Kristiansund used to be called Fosen and the Danish (who occupied and renamed the town) thought Fosen meant waterfall – so they put a waterfall on the coat of arms! When they found out there were no waterfalls in the town (unlike almost every other Norwegian town which does have a waterfall) they man-made one and this sits just below the city hall as an embarrassing reminder of not doing your homework! This cute town is splayed across four islands, and each has its own characteristics. Two are nicknamed Tahiti and Morocco based on the salmon trade they do with these destinations – and how this trade also helped to finance the nice houses built on each. There are many large houses, where room allows but most are squished in with lots of apartment buildings (the town of Kristiansund with 20,000 people is the most densely populated city in Norway).
Our excursion took us from Kristiansund all the way to Molder – a side note benefit was that our road journey meant that we luckily skipped one of the roughest 3 hour passages on the boat trip with predicted up to 12 m seas (as we journeyed smoothly south along the famous great Atlantic road – which was just as up and down with its huge island hopping bridges). Wow wow wow. What an amazing stretch of road infrastructure. We first passed through the Atlantic tunnel 6 km long under the water then travelled 8 km over 8 bridges connecting 7 islands. We stopped halfway for a 30 min walk around the the elevated walking path at Eldhusøya (pic 2) just as the sun was going down – it really was magnificent.
We then drove up a rough mountain road into the Bergtatt Marble mine, donned hard hats and life vests and boarded an electric boat to float around the many caves and tunnels of the marble mine. The Naas family started the mine in 1938 to address the poverty in the area caused by WWII and it wasn’t until the marble was used to create a glossy coating on paper in 1980 that they turned a profit. Today they have over 40 km of mining in a total of 11 floors and in all the videos they showed us they are very safety and environmentally conscious. The water in the 300m lake in the caves we floated around is very pure and high in magnesium and we drank cups of it and it really was delicious. We met the Hurtigruten in Molder at 9.15 and enjoyed a late, last dinner on the boat.
A summary of our day to day life on the Hurtigruten
Activities: We have never been on a cruise before, so we had no idea what to expect. And as this was not your standard tourist hop on hop off cruise but more of a mixed freight-tourism cruise we had even less idea of how it would unfold. At the initial briefing they told us when and where we would be stopping (and when we could get off – if we stopped for more than 30 mins), as well as the excursions they offered (most too expensive for us and many at crazy hours like a midnight church service, and a 2am skidoo ride). They also told us they would make announcements between 8am and 10pm for all events, activities and if/when the northern lights could be seen on deck. This ‘northern lights alert’ was perhaps the most valuable aspect of being on the Hurtigruten. If you’re keen to see the Northern lights than being at sea, away from city-land lights and with unobstructed views of the sky is your best bet. Add having an expert keeping an eye out for tell-tale signs of the Northern lights up in the sky – as you have to know what you’re looking for! If you’re really want to see the Northern lights this is the way to do it – as when we were in Iceland, you had to take a tour that started at 2am to a remote location away from land lights to see the Northern lights – and often ended up doing nothing but drinking hot chocolate for 2 hours hoping something might happen!
Northern lights: On our second night on board the Hurtigruten, just as we were heading to bed around 10.30pm, they made an announcement to get up on deck 7 as there were some Northern lights visible. We donned our ski parkas and hats and ran as you never know how long they last. We watched the Northern lights come and go for over half an hour, with the aura more visible through the iPhone camera lens than the naked eye but it really was spectacular. We were just near the line of the arctic circle, just above Trömso and the flashes of green across the sky were quite surreal.
Our daily routine: We quickly settled into a pattern of eating, reading, writing and listening to podcasts making a point to sit in all the different sections of the boat (and preferably away from all the sick people coughing!). We’d start our day in the gym for an hour (only ones there), head into breakfast, attend a lecture or a talk, find a new viewpoint to sit and watch the fjords go by, have some lunch, take a hot tub or walk around the boat, get off and explore a town where the option was offered and after 6pm, get an ice bucket from the bar and enjoy a drink in our room (only place you’re allowed to have your own alcohol – no one checked what we brought on board and the staff were happy for us to have a drink in our cabin) then we’d head up for our 8.30pm dinner seating. Tip: All food/meals and coffee/tea is included in your fare but no alcohol. They offer you a ‘wine package’ when you board which is a minimum purchase of 4 bottles of wine (the shortest voyage is 5 nights) and you could choose the house, standard or premium selection. We chose house and it was around $AUD90 a bottle!
The seas: We had a pretty smooth voyage. Some cold arctic winds but fairly smooth seas. Apparently on the way up they’d had some rough patches but we only had 2 rough, big seas – one on our last night and the other on our last day. Luckily, I took a seasick tablet around 11pm on the last night which lasted me through to when we docked in Bergen around 3pm the next day and saw me through the rough parts. You can buy seasick tablets at all the ports and I’d recommend taking some along as my husband didn’t take one and he didn’t fare so well.
Interesting Hurtigruten Statistics
Hurtigruten began in 1893 (130 years ago) after the government invited shipping companies to submit tenders for operating an express route between Trondheim and Tromsø, to improve the speed that people and goods could move around the 780. Mile Norwegian coast. Richard With from Stokmarknes in northern Norway won the tender with his steamship the DS Vesteraalen and managed to go from Tondheim to Kirkenes in only 7 days, and named this important connection “hurtigruten,” – “the fast route”. This route expanded to go from Bergen to Kirkines and today, there are seven Hurtigruten Norway coastal ships which still carry freight and guests along the coast of Norway. The full round trip lasts 12 days (we did 6 days from Kirkenes up North down to Bergen in the South) and the trip is a mix of transportation, local ferry and cruise passengers. The Hurtigruten company has expanded (particularly post Covid when they were grounded and needed to find more markets) and they now operate a fleet of custom-built expedition cruise ships, exploring over 250 destinations in 30 countries worldwide – including down south in our region of Australia around the Antarctica routes.
Each one of the coastal express ships do 85,000 nautical miles each year and they are a big local employer. They run an apprentice program employing mostly Norwegian staff – many from the remote north – so they are a very important employer – and often the only option out of areas where fishing is the only employment. Staff work 22 days on 22 off and are all tri-lingual with German speakers being 60-70% of guests, then English speakers then a spattering of French. The staff were super friendly and very hard working and at a minimum tri-lingual (Norwegian, English and German). Below you can see them welcoming us across the Arctic Circle line with cod-liver oil and champagne, the Polarlys in port taking on its primary role of shipping cargo and a presentation about local culture in the video lounge – this time telling us about the snowball throwing championship that were on in the town we just visited.
Local people wave as ships pass as the Hurtigruten is an institution – servicing 230 cargo suppliers and ferrying around 135,000 local passengers all year round. For many it is the only form of transport during the winter months when the roads are closed. We had pets in cages, babies in prams, young and old getting on and off during our voyage.
Fun fact: Hurtigruten grew in popularity and fame, particularly in Norway, when they decided to live stream the Bergen to Kirkenes journey in 2011. They attracted an audience of 1 M Norwegians (of a total population of 5M in Norway) – this was at a time when slow TV was taking off – and led to broadcasts of people Knitting on TV, a rib roast cooking in an oven and even peoples fires burning.
