This morning, by the time I got up, we were already docked in Narvik, Norway. It was a little choppy last night, but just enough to rock us to sleep.
Of course, it was still dark at 9:00 AM when I finally got out of bed to get ready for some breakfast. By the time I got dressed, the sun was more bright, and it was a clear and calm morning. We are also docked so that we are on the “good side” this time, we don’t have to look at the pier area, we have a nice view of the fjord and buildings on the far side across the fjord from us.
I was letting Stephanie sleep in again today, she is still fighting her cold, so the extra rest helps.
After dressing, I headed up to Deck 7 to the buffet. It was only about 9:20 AM, but they were already directing everyone to the other side of the buffet in preparation for shutting down this side at 9:30 AM. It was really crowded on the side that remained open, possibly because it also had a better view. I found a seat in the rear back corner and sat my plate of scrambled eggs and sausage links down on the table. I headed to the pastry area for a couple of pastries and then stopped to make a fresh cup of brewed Cafe Americano” using the automated coffee machine.
I did not rush to eat, but at around 9:30 AM, the manager for this section came by to tell everyone that this side of the buffet was now closing at 9:45 AM, which seemed odd, I know they did not close until 10:00 AM yesterday. I do not know what factors dictate the opening hours of the buffet.
After I ate, I prepared a plate for Stephanie. I was getting better at this, it was the third day of me bringing her breakfast in the room. I got her some fresh pineapple, fresh strawberries and fresh blueberries in a bowl, and I also got a flavored yogurt, which has been hard to come by on this cruise, mostly plain yogurt is put out.
I took the food back to the cabin and put the fruit and yogurt in our mini-fridge.
I worked on the blog and was actually able to catch up to the current time, if only for a brief period.
Stephanie slept in until about noon, getting as much rest as possible to fight off her cold. She has been taking Dayquil and Nyquil, and that may be contributing to her sleepiness.
We headed to the World Cafe buffet for some lunch, hoping we would be gone long enough for our cabin to be cleaned. There was not really anything spectacular at lunch, but we stayed at our table to give our cabin stewards enough time to clean the cabin. We had thought our tour today was at 1:30 PM, but when I looked at our schedule on the Viking App, the tour was at 1:15 PM, and we were supposed to meet “on the pier” at 1:10 PM.
Now we were running a little late and had no choice but to go to the cabin to get ready. Of course, the cabin stewards were still working on the cabin, but only needed to make the bed. We apologized that we needed to get into the room now because of the tour time, and the steward said she would come back and finish after we left.
It was not that cold outside, so we did not need to put on a lot of layers, plus, from the description of the tour, we would mainly be riding in a bus with a couple of stops to get out for photos. We left the cabin at about 1:05 PM, but did not know exactly where we were supposed to meet the tour on the pier. The ship is docked on a pier that sticks out from the shore a good distance, so we were not sure if “the pier” was right after we got off the ship, or on the main shore area after we walked off of the protruding section, which was a few minutes walk.
Once we got off the ship’s gangway, we could see that no one was waiting right there, so now we knew we had to walk the length of the protruding pier section. It was not a bad walk, but we had not left enough time to do it at a leisurely pace.
Once we got close to the main area, we could see the tour buses lined up behind a building. We saw Michael and Suzie out there waiting to see if there was room for them to get onto our tour. We gave our tickets to the guide and boarded the bus. Neither of us had put on our outer red jackets, and we did not need them for the walk to the bus and were just carrying them, so we stowed them in the overhead area on the bus once we got to our seats. Most of the people had already boarded, so our seats were pretty far back on the bus. I looked at the clock on the bus and it was just 1:10 PM, so we were certainly not late.
Michael and Suzi were able to join our tour as were several other people waiting for an earlier tour time. They sat right behind us on the bus. Their original tour time was around 4:15 PM, and it would have been completely dark by that time.
The tour left on time and we spent the first while riding on some streets looking at many of the older houses. In the first area, it was mostly office building structures built in the 1950’s, so they looked old and drabby, even the guide commented on their architecture being old. Most of that area had been destroyed by bombing in WWII. The city of Narvik had been occupied by the Germans for four years during the war.
The guide explained that it was not a terrible occupation like some of the eastern European countries had because the Norwegian people were considered similar to the German Arian race and were not trying to be eliminated for political or religious inferiority.
He also explained that there were quite a few Soviet prisoners of war here during WWII, and most of them were used for slave labor, and many of them died. This region of Norway is rich in iron ore, and it is still exported from here today, and that was one of the reasons Germany came here, to obtain the iron ore for their military vehicles.
We then headed to an area where there was a small harbor for ferry boats. There was a nice view across another fjord with the mountain in the background.
The next stop was the train station to view an old steam locomotive. Everyone got off the bus to see the engine. Then everyone walked inside the station to view a model of the city. We did not hear exactly what the model was for, it was too crowded in the small inside area for us to get close to the guide.
I was also looking to see if I could find a ticket office to see if it was possible to purchase tickets for the Arctic Train there, but I was not able to locate the ticket office, and everyone was heading back to the bus.
Stephanie asked our guide about the train tickets, but I am not sure he exactly understood her question. In the meantime, another gentleman said something to me about the train tickets, he was also trying to purchase some, also having initially bought them independently on the original dates for our visit here before the itinerary was changed. He said that he and another person had tried calling and a few other ways to see how they could get tickets, and what he was told was that Viking had purchased all of the tickets for tomorrow, the day we were trying to go. They were using the tickets for one of the excursions here for the extended stay.
That hardly seemed fair, we had been able to purchase tickets on our own along with the Viking excursion on the original date, but now they apparently needed all of the tickets since they were probably struggling to find excursions here for the almost two days we are now staying in port. Originally, we were only here for several hours, so not much was offered through Viking, there was no time for longer excursions on the original schedule.
It is somewhat understandable, it is a business, but to take all of the ticket availability this time, for two different train departure times was not fair. On the original schedule, we could only take the early train, we were not here long enough to take the later time, but on our current schedule, either option would work, we don’t leave until 6:00 PM tomorrow.
Back to the tour….
Next, we headed up a mountain road to a ski area, and we were able to get off the bus there and enjoy the views across the fjord. The sun was starting to go down, and it was still partly cloudy, so it was a nice view. The ski slope was large, and one gondola lift was running, but we did not see anyone skiing for some reason. We have noticed that a lot of the ski slopes we have seen near the ports were lit up for night skiing, and maybe this one was the same. The days are not very long here in the wintertime, so it makes sense to offer night skiing.
The bus then headed back toward the cruise ship, but continued past and crossed a bridge to another area of Narvik. We then headed into a neighborhood, stopping at a church. We all headed inside and there was a group of women in the church who were going to sing some traditional songs about the area, specific to the iron ore business that was so popular here many years ago. They were dressed in costumes for the early 1900’s. It was nice, they sang three different songs, all in Swedish, which was the language that many people spoke who had come here to be employed in the iron ore business.
Narvik had been a boom town when the iron ore company was larger in its earlier days, people were paid well and everyone was wealthy. When the iron ore business faltered, the city was really poor, and only about 15 years ago, were people able to start to make a good living here again.
That was the end of the tour, it was nice, and it was a good tour to take during the daylight, it would not have been as scenic in the darkness.
After we got off the bus at the pier, we headed toward a small building built on the part of the power protruding out to the deeper water. They had set up some small local vendors inside the building, as well as serving us a cup a hot cider as we entered.
We wandered through the building but did not spend much time there. The four of us got back onto the ship and each couple headed back to our respective cabins.
After dropping off our gear, Stephanie and I went up to the Explorer’s lounge just to relax and enjoy the views of the city. Of course, by this time it was completely dark.
The four of us had a reservation at Manfredi’s Restaurant at 7:00 PM, so Stephanie and I went back to the cabin to get ready. We planned on leaving the room a bit early for our dinner reservation time to enjoy a glass of wine at the Library Bar before dinner. While we were getting ready, we received a call from guest services about a bridge tour tomorrow. Stephanie had asked if they were doing any special tours on this cruise, but they had not made any decisions at that time, so they took our names in case anything was scheduled. I guess they were going to do some special tours on the ship since there is not a lot do do in Narvik and we are here for almost two days. We selected 11:00 AM for our Bridge tour time tomorrow morning.
After getting ready, we headed down to Deck 1 to go to The Library Bar for a glass of wine before dinner. It was quite cool on Deck 1, and we did not sit at the bar, opting to sit on the other side of the ship at a table. It was even cool over there, the doors for getting on and off the ship are in this area of Deck 1. I headed back up to the cabin to get us some jackets to wear while we waited, it was just too cool to sit there without more clothing.
Suzie and Michale met us a bit later and we all headed to Manfredi’s. They took us to a nice table for four and were seated.
Michale and Suzie had either not ever eaten in Manfredi’s or had only done it once before, but could not remember it, so we explained a little bit about the menu and what other things you could order as side dishes just to try.
The meal was enjoyable, we were there eating and talking for some time. Each coupe ordered a side dish of the Rissoto, each getting a different choice. Ours was with mushrooms and it was very good, we had not tried it before. Suzie and Michael’s was a seafood risotto and they also enjoyed theirs as much as we enjoyed ours. It certainly may be a possibility for the main meal if we come here again on this cruise, but for now, we don’t have any future reservations.
After dinner, we parted ways and Stephanie and I headed up to the Explorer’s Bar for a nightcap. We started up a conversation with a couple we had seen there before, they were from Southern California and owned their own winery. They were heading to Iceland after this cruise and we talked with them about our experiences there.
We did not stay long and headed back to the cabin for the night.
We headed to bed, but at around 2:00 AM, there was an announcement that the Aurora was visible on both sides of the ship. We dressed in some of our warmer clothes but were only going out onto our balcony to see it, so we did not need to bundle up as much. It was too late to be heading up to the top decks. The Aurora was really faint, almost not even visible to the naked eye, just in photos. It was also a little cloudy, so that did not help, and neither did all of the lights from Narvik. However, we did “officially” see the Aurora again, and were content to go back to sleep, not waiting to see if it got better.
This may be our last night to see the Aurora since we are heading southward tomorrow evening.
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