Category: History
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Helsinki, Finland, day 1, 281224
Travelling down to Heathrow on the day after Boxing Day was not the best journey I have ever encountered. The whole of the country was pretty much shrouded in thick fog. On top of that it seemed that every man and his dog was travelling home after the festivities. There was so much congestion with…
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Svalbard Express,day 16, Bergen, 210924
We woke at about 6:30am with the ship heading towards the Hurtigruten terminal in Bergen. It was thick fog which contradicted the weather forecast, it was supposed to be sunny all day. The ship docked at 7am as scheduled, but we weren’t in any rush. We needed to have breakfast first and say goodbye to…
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Svalbard Express, day 15, Ålesund and Sæbø, 200924
Ålesund – Storhaugen viewpoint We knew that we would be arriving in Ålesund at 8am, so my alarm was set for 6:30am. This was to allow us time to get ready and also have breakfast before we disembarked. We only had a two hour stop here so needed to make sure we had enough time…
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Svalbard Express, day 14, Brønnøysund, 190924
So, I slept right through last night, through the force 8s and 9s that the Captain of MS Trollfjord advised us about yesterday. I think what “helped” was the fact that it was a head wind most of the way, which meant that the ship wasn’t rocking from side to side when we travelled from…
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Svalbard Express, day 13, Harstad, 180924
Sol og Vindhuset We had a good night’s sleep, probably the best we had had since travelling from Longyearbyen to Ny-Ålesund. We felt refreshed and had a good breakfast before leaving the ship just after 9am. We knew we needed to keep up with good exercise and fresh air, so we planned to visit an…
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Svalbard Express, day 12, Tromsøya/Finnsnes, 170924
When we awoke this morning, it was with a bit of relief that the boat had stopped rocking and we were safe in the sheltered waters near to Tromsø, on the island of Tromsøya. We ate breakfast without feeling green around the gills anymore, and then went up on deck to watch the shipping being…
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Svalbard Express, day 11, All at sea pt 2, 160924
A very foggy Bjørnøya/Bear Island We knew that this part of the journey was going to be arduous. We had breakfast, exchanged pleasantries with the French couple we had talked to the evening before and then went back to our cabin. We had left Ny-Ålesund at 11am the day before, so were on the ship…
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Svalbard Express, Day 10, Ny-Ålesund, 150924
Ice on the shore of Kongsfjorden at Ny-Ålesund Our ship had left Longyearbyen at 7pm on the evening of 14th. After we had dined in the restaurant, Claes told us that the ship’s captain had warned that we would be having a rocky journey up the coast from Longyearbyen to Ny-Ålesund. We went to bed…
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Svalbard Express, Day 9, Longyearbyen 140924
Glacial ice sheets , Isjfjorden Our alarm was set for 6:45 on the morning of 14th September. Our Hurtigruten app had notified us the day before that there would be some picturesque sights to see down the Isjfjorden from 7:30am until 10:30am. We got ready and went out on deck just after the start time,…
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Svalbard Express, Day 7, Honningsvåg (Magerøya), 120924
The globe at the North Cape/Nordkapp – 71 degrees, 10′ 21″ north I didn’t have the best night’s sleep last night. The boat was rocking a bit as it headed further north, so it was hard to settle. I had remembered to set an alarm to make sure that we got up in time, as…
