Kystruten

This year, we finally made the trip that we had been talking about for many years: take the “mail boat”, commonly known as Hurtigruten, along the Norwegian coast, all the way from Bergen in the south to Kirkenes near the Russian border, way beyond the arctic circle.

We traveled on Havila Capella, which is one of four identical ships operated by this new competitor to the Hurtigruten company which have operated this service for many decades.

The highlights included going through the famous Geirangerfjord (a bit rainy though), exploring Trondheim with its impressive cathedral, getting close to sea eagles with their 2.5m wingspan, visiting the North Cape on the island of Magerøya … and of course just seeing the many different landscapes as the ship sailed past them.

Photos are here.

The sunniest part of Denmark …

… is the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm, where we just spent a week. Easy to get to, via the ferry from the German port of Sassnitz, not too crowded in late August and early September, lots of thins to see and do.

We stayed at a vacation apartment near Gudhjem on the east side of the island, and explored other parts of the island from there. The whole island is only about 40km long …

What did we enjoy most? A daytrip to the even smaller island of Christiansø, a 1h ferry ride away, and you can walk around that entire island in 1-2h.

We also discovered the workshop of one of the very few people who still know how to make indigo prints, and build the printing templates from brass nails and pearwood. He has no website, but there is a Youtube video (in Danish) that illustrates the technique.

Some photos are here.