From Beautiful Honningsvåg to the Famous North Cape

We arrived in Honningsvåg in early morning so by the time I was up and ready to go, the ramp was down so we could begin to explore this town. From what I had heard, I didn’t expect Honningsvåg to be very large, but it was actually larger than I anticipated.

When we walked out, the first thing we saw were drying racks for the cod. That was unexpected. I wasn’t sure if it was actually fish on the racks, but a closer inspection revealed it was indeed fish. The fish heads were definitely grotesque looking.

From there we walked over to the main city harbor. What struck me was how the houses were all around the harbor looking down on it. The harbor was full of boats which shows how important that aspect of life is in this region. The harbor is actually quite colorful with all the boats in the water. That along with the reflections made for a very scenic but busy view.

We turned down the main road and began to follow it. We passed a number of stores, and that’s when I began to realize the town was actually a pretty good size. Eventually we came to the town church which was a simple white building with a steeple. While it was a Sunday morning, there were no signs of activity at the church. Perhaps the church is on a circuit. Someone mentioned that regarding another church. Apparently the minister only came once a month. Beside the church is a good sized cemetery although it looked like there wasn’t much room left for other graves. From the cemetery one has a nice view of the water.

We continued walking down the road looking at the various homes in the town. Along the hillside it seemed quite a few of them had very nice views of the water. We reached the edge of the town and then turned around and walked back staying closer to the water. Again the views that people had were very nice.

We walked down a road where we looked up to see what looked like a small lighthouse. It was on the edge of a cliff. A little farther on we came to a jetty that jutted out into the water creating a harbor where our ship was docked. From the jetty we watched another cruise ship pull into port. It was a bit larger than our ship, but it was not like the gigantic one we had seen back in Bergen.

We walked back through town and around the edge of the inner harbor. It was so scenic with its colorful boats. We did stop at a Christmas shop and bought some cute trolls for Christmas decor, a reminder of our Nordic adventure.

After lunch we began our major trip for the day. We were taking a bus to the North Cape. The North Cape is the northernmost point one can reach by car. In the next few days we will sail to a large island some distance north from the Norwegian coast. On that island we will reach the northernmost point of our trip. However, people consider the North Cape the northernmost point in the world of a major land mass even though it is also an island. The North Cape was on the other side of the island from Honningsvåg, but it didn’t seem to take that long to get there.

We did stop at one point to look down on a fjord. The fjords here in Norway have not been as impressive as I had thought they would be. I had expected cliffs rising high above a town sitting on the edge of the water. We haven’t seen anything like that at this point.

We arrived at the North Cape which has a large visitor center. Visitors need a ticket to go through the visitor center. The tour provided us with our tickets so I’m not sure how much they cost. The tour guide told us to walk through the center and out the other side. There we found the large globe monument which marks this as the spot. This line is also the dividing line between the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean, the smallest of the world’s oceans. The monument reminded me somewhat of the one that marked the line of the Arctic Circle we had passed a few days previously.

There were a lot of people around the monument taking photos. The weather had become a little erratic as it was spitting some rain, but it wasn’t too bad. The wind was pretty cold, however,

From this monument we went up to another location on the grounds which featured art by children. A nonprofit group brought some children from all over the world here to create an art piece. Their work is seen in these large disks. The association each year gives out money to people or organizations which support the well being of children. It is a unique concept.

We wandered around the area for a little bit just to see what this barren landscape had to offer. We noted a number of different plants which was quite amazing in this desolate area. However, it began to rain much harder so we retreated into the visitor center.

One of the things our guide told us we should do is watch a video in the visitor center that shared what the different seasons here look like. It was down in the lower level so we used this time to watch it. It was quite interesting to see scenes from the different seasons, especially the winter which was not depicted with deep snow like I thought it might be.

Down in this lower level were some other exhibits including a few dioramas depicting some of the important historical events that have taken place here at the North Cape. St Johannes Chapel is also a place to visit. It is a very small but interesting room. We also briefly stopped by another room dedicated to the story of a Mongolian prince who visited here.

After checking out some of these places, we headed back to the bus. It was still raining as we got on the bus, but it soon stopped as we made our way back to Honningsvåg. We did see a few reindeer in the hills on the way back, but they were too far away and the bus didn’t slow down so no good photos. Arriving back at the ship it was time for a much needed nap for me.

Our ship left Honningsvåg shortly after we got back and began our journey to the Svalbard Islands. To do so we needed to cross the open sea. We could tell that was happening because the ship was rocking much more than it usually does, and we could see no land on either side of the ship.

Tomorrow we are spending the entire day at sea so we will not have any on-land activities to keep us busy. We will see how the day goes. Our trip is almost over. In just a few days we will be flying down to Oslo for the next part of our grand summer adventure.

Credit: The photos of the fish drying rack, the church and cemetery, the view of the water over the houses, and the destination marker in the North Cape were taken by Silvette Lee. Andrea Lee took the selfie of all of us at North Cape.