Thank you to Richard Varr for this guest post.
[Richard Varr is a freelance travel writer and a member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). He’s a frequent contributor to Porthole Cruise and Travel Magazine, Good Sam RV club magazines, and many other print and online publications.]
All photos by Richard Varr
Craggy cliffs tower over the narrowing waterway as Havila Voyages’ Havila Castor slowly sails – seemingly drifting – through the still waters. We have just entered Trollfjord on the strait of Raftsundet, deep within a crisscross of waterways and fjords cutting through rugged peaks, just one cluster of mountainous islands that define Norway’s dramatic western coastline.
Green patches shroud sharp ridges like moss clings to rock. Snowbanks cap more distant peaks. A waterfall tumbles into the fjord, its forceful streams looking only razor thin when juxtaposed against the mighty girth of the mountains just a stone’s throw from us. I’m taking it all in, maybe a 30-minute sail that I wish would last all afternoon.
“I always feel a bit small because this area is so majestic and dramatic,” says Eirunn Hatlem, Havila Castor’s expedition leader who by my own account is lucky to repeatedly experience sailing through the two-mile-long Trollfjord as just another day on the job. “It’s kind of like respect for nature,” she says. “People are trying to be here and be filled with that majestic feeling.” And that’s exactly the case – silence and awe. The LNG fueled Havila Castor is now running on quiet battery power, adding to the experience.
It’s Day 3 of my Havila cruise from mainland Norway’s northern edges to Bergen. I boarded Havila Castor in Kirkenes, a small city along the Finnish and Russian borders and way north of the Arctic Circle, where the sun never sets from mid May to late July. I’m cruising in mid July, where the white nights add unique moments to our itinerary: a midnight concert in port of call Tromsø, a four-hour, late-night drive through the Lofoten Islands chain, and a 7 a.m. tour of the quiet streets of Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city. That, with an early morning visit to Trondheim’s Nidaros Cathedral, one of Scandinavia’s foremost medieval buildings dating back to the 14th century.
Throughout the cruise, 24 hours of daylight slowly yields to twilight gradually increasing when sailing south, thus experiencing Norway’s mountainous island chains and fjords at almost any hour.
Not a typical cruise
Cruises along the Norwegian fjords are quite different from the major cruise lines sailing the world. Both Havila and competitor Hurtigruten follow the same route, established in 1893, and serving not only as sightseeing adventures but as modes of transportation. Driving on roads along Norway’s rugged terrain and around the straits and fjords are not always time efficient and convenient, especially in snowy winter months.
“We have an obligation to the public of transporting people and cargo along the coast,” explains Hatlem, as Havila and Hurtigruten stop at 34 cities and towns from Kirkenes to Bergin. The stops at all hours of the day and night vary from as little as 10 minutes to a few hours, with the longer calls offering opportunities to further explore the ports or join an excursion to nearby attractions, towns and natural wonders. Popular roundtrip 12-days cruises start in Bergen, or you can sail one way in six or fewer days.
Havila sails four similar ships built from 2021-2023 and all fueled by environmentally cleaner liquid natural gas and at times battery power. Each is 124 meters or 407 feet in length with a capacity for 640 passengers, with inside lounges and restaurants and plenty of on-deck space to gaze upon the northern lights in winter and natural splendor year-round – wispy cloud bands hugging snowcapped mountains, sunlit glows off the deep blue seas, or seemingly nightlong golden and amber skies when the eternal sun dips low but doesn’t set. Unlike other major cruise lines, there are no casinos or nightly entertainment shows, but instead lectures and food tastings.
“What separates us from an ordinary cruise ship is what’s happening outside the ship, not onboard – the nature and country itself,” says Hatlem. “You need to taste Norway and feel it because the identity of this nation is found outside and not inside.”
Ports of call: witch trial history to arctic exploration
We leave Kirkenes at 12:30 pm on a particularly calm Barents Sea, so surprisingly still that I could probably skim rocks across the water. A few hours later, we arrive at our first stop in Norway’s easternmost town of Vardø. We’re there hardly an hour, but it’s just enough time for a brisk walk to a 14th century fortress with its grass-roofed buildings once used for interrogations in one of Scandinavia’s most notorious 17th century witch trials.
On Day 2, I notice the surrounding barren mountainous terrain is changing with more green patches dotting the cliffsides. Stopping in Hammerfest, I join an excursion for a mountaintop view of one of the world’s northernmost cities (70.7 degrees latitude) and surrounding fjords. “The symbol of Hammerfest is the polar bear due to the expeditions to the North Pole that started from here,” explains local excursion guide Janne Pusch. Our visit on this day just happens to coincide with the city’s 235th birthday celebration in the town center. “A long time ago, there were no borders up in the north, so tax collectors came from Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway,” she adds.
Back on the ship, we sail past the dramatic mountain peaks of Stjernøya island, indented by several fjords cutting through it. On the map, Stjernøya looks like a hand with a thumb and fingers, a good example of fjords formed by glacial activity. “Fjords are like cul-de-sacs,” explains Carl Skoglund, Havila Castor’s assistant expedition leader. “Glaciers are moving ice that drag with them a lot of stone and grit that works like sandpaper. What you look for is a depression between the mountains and if it’s big enough, it goes all the way down to the sea.”
By the time we reach Tromsø at 11:45 p.m., we had already sailed from the Barents Sea to the Norwegian Sea. We disembark for the midnight concert in the Tromsø Cathedral, a popular summer event, where piano and trumpet soloists accompany a vocalist singing traditional Norwegian music. A statue of Arctic and Antarctic explorer Roald Amundsen stands in an adjacent square amidst a cacophony of squawking seagulls under the late-night sun’s golden tones. Back on the ship, I peek through my cabin window to see the sun teetering on the horizon at 2 a.m. But it won’t be setting at this location for another week or so.
Don’t let 24-hour daylight keep you up at night!
I soon realize the best way to keep a semblance of normal hours in eternal daylight is to have dark curtains (which Havila cabins have), wear a watch and wake with an alarm if necessary. Yet a midnight or overnight walk on a sunlit deck with chilling arctic breezes is an enduring and invigorating memory.
Sticking to a meal schedule is easy as well. Breakfast begins at 7 a.m. while lunch and dinner hours are normal times in Havrand, Havila Castor’s main restaurant. Breakfast includes a buffet as well as an ala carte menu, while lunch and dinner selections can change every few days depending on what region the ship is visiting. Lunch and dinner items include the likes of sautéed reindeer in porcini sauce, poached halibut, sashimi from Norwegian rainbow trout, and fish stews with scallops and mussels.
Regional dessert-favorite cloudberries in sour cream features the raspberry-like, ripened yellow fruit that thrive in cold northern climates, particularly in Scandinavia. The often-scarce berries grow in acidic soil in mountainous moors and bogs.
Ghostly ambiance and bohemian vibes
On Day 3, I awake to our continued streak of sunny arctic weather. It’s the day we sail along Trollfjord, mentioned earlier, and also an evening tour of the Lofoten Islands. Before that, Havila Castor passes along the Vesterålen archipelago and stops at the fishing village of Sortland known as the “blue city by the sound” because of its blue-hued waterfront buildings.
I disembark during our one hour stop in Stokmarknes where Hurtigruten launched its first ship in 1893, with a quick visit to the Hurtigruten Museum adjacent to the port. The museum’s spacious shell with glass facades houses the 1912 steamship MS Finnmarken that sailed until 1956. Key to the ship are the Victorian-style lounges restored to when it first sailed – maybe a bit like the Titanic – now with background recordings of passenger banter and laughter creating a bit of a ghostly ambiance.
In the early evening, I join a bus excursion in Svolvær, the Lofoten Islands’ largest town with its landmark Svolværgeita mountain defined by the rock formation resembling two goat-like horns. The distance between the two peaks is only one and a half meters, says our excursion leader, so some daring hikers jump from one to the other.
We cross bridges linking a few of the seven main islands and stop in the fishing village of Henningsvær, now with a bohemian feel because of its bars, art community and galleries. “Henningsvær became a hipster area where a lot of young people came and started businesses. Only 500 live in the town and the locals are really close,” says Victoria Bach, manager of Galleri Lofoten. We meet the ship in the next Lofoten port of call, Stamsund, and depart at 10:30 p.m. Overnight, we sail below the Arctic Circle into the North Atlantic.
‘Spoiled with the sunshine’
On Day 4, a morning announcement urges passengers to view the Seven Sisters, a mountain range popular with hikers with seven peaks reaching more than 3,000 feet. But what a disappointment when I step on deck: dreary weather with the mountains shrouded in fog. “This is the true Norwegian weather,” chirps Hatlem. “You’ve really been spoiled for the last few days with the sunshine,” she says. “In the clouds we have some wonderful mountains and you should come back in and see them in the sunshine.”
Blue skies, however, begin to poke through by the time we reach Torghatten, a granite dome with a hole in it – easy to miss as you can only see it at a certain angle. I miss it from the ship but see a tiny speck of light through the mountain when reviewing my photos. Havila offers a somewhat vigorous hiking excursion to Torghatten, where up close the opening is actually from 65 to 245 feet high and 525 feet through the mountain.
At this point, we’re far enough south where nightfall has returned. The highlight on Day 5 is my early morning tour of Trondheim, with a walk along the pastel-toned warehouses of the Bryggen wharf district on the banks of the Nidelva River. We cross the red-framed Old Town pedestrian bridge to our morning tour of the Gothic Nidaros Cathedral with more than 50 stone statues of saints embedded in its massive front façade. The cathedral is the final resting place of 11th century Viking King Olav Haraldsson, Norway’s patron saint.
Finding your ‘inner Viking’
Taking a 12-day Havila Voyages roundtrip cruise from Bergen offers opportunities to sail through two other dramatic fjords along the northbound route to Kirkenes – Hjørundfjord and Geirangerfjord, the latter a UNESCO World Heritage site. More than 40 excursions range from cycling, hiking and bird watching to horseback riding, ice-bathing with sauna and learning about the indigenous Sámi culture.
Day 6 brings an end to the cruise, but my adventure continues as I spend four days in Bergen. I explore the historic Bryggen warehouses now filled with shops and restaurants, some of The Scream painter Edvard Munch’s artworks in the KODE Museums, and a ride up the Fløibanen funicular to the top of Mount Fløyen for vast and stunning views of the city and waterfront.
“An important part of the identity of the Norwegians is to be outside,” I recall Hatlem telling me a few days earlier. “You need to find your inner Viking and do as the Norwegians, to be outside in all kinds of weather and to feel it!” # # #
Cover photo: Havila Castor, credit Richard Varr
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