Day 9 - Hammerfest, Norway

After the brief stop in Russia, we are glad now to be back in Norway.  Murmansk was depressing. The ship arrived here in Hammerfest a little before 1pm.  We got a good night's sleep with the 2 hours we got back last night.  I did a load of laundry before dinner last night and a 2nd load first thing this morning, so we are set for the rest of the cruise. It's so nice to have laundry facilities available on each deck for guests to use instead of having to send clothes out to be washed.  It makes packing for a 2 week trip so much easier.

Ray was feeling achy today after days of walking, climbing, and trying to sleep when the sun never sets, so he opted to take the day off.   We closed the curtain but some light gets through.  I have been wearing a sleep mask over my eyes, so it hasn't bothered me as much.  I just found a 2nd one buried at the bottom of my backpack, so I've offered that to Ray for tonight.

Ray's panoramic shot of Hammerfest, from our balcony

Hammerfest is now a nice town, with the main industries being fishing and oil.  Just like most of the places we are visiting, this area was completely burned by the Nazis at the end of WWII.  The tour I took today was to the Reconstruction Museum.  This museum tells the story of what happened to the Norwegian coast during and after WWII.  This is stuff I never learned in history class!  All the residents were evacuated south on overcrowded ships and then all the buildings were burned as the Nazis retreated.  They left absolutely nothing standing.  The people were told they should bring extra clothes and 4 weeks food with them, but many didn't have time to prepare and the ships were so crowded that there wasn't room to bring much.  They lost everything. After the war the government sent pre-fab houses north and allowed men with building skills to return first, in order to rebuild the towns.  Now that the oil industry is thriving here, young people are coming here to work and the town is thriving again.

After the museum tour we drove around town and up to a lookout point.  Our guide pointed out this lovely church recently built along the harbor and I took this photo of it from the top of the hill.  She said the architectural style, with the tower reaching up to the heavens, is coming back in Norway and many churches are being designed like that.

Some of the other tours offered were to visit a Sami camp.  As it turned out, this was right next to the lookout point we stopped at.  Our guide gave us plenty of time to walk around, so I was able to take photos of these huts as well. We couldn't go inside because it was not part of our tour and the other tour groups were there.  When we were at Honningsvag a few days ago we had stopped at the camp of a reindeer herding Sami family.  Today I found out that only about 10% of these people still keep reindeer. The rest are mainly trappers and fishermen.

We are scheduled to leave port about 6pm tonight. Tomorrow we have a day at sea, so we both get to rest for the day before we arrive at our next port.  Although Honningsvag claims to be the northernmost city in the world, our next stop is further north.  It just isn't classified as a city!