While enjoying the third of four sea-days on the journey home, it seems a good time to reflect on this cruise. We have enjoyed all the destinations on this cruise from the beautiful sunny day in Falmouth through to the rather damper experiences in Greenland they were all very good.
Probably the highlight of the trip were the two stops in Greenland, places we had not previously visited , and they were very different. Both Qaqortoq and Nanortalik were small towns with little of the usual touristy infrastructure of most cruise destinations, but this probably added to their charm. From the fjords to the rugged mountain tops the scenery was breathtaking and when you added the extra dimension of icebergs it was truly fantastic.
The first sighting of an iceberg was announced by the captain on the bridge and it caused a major rush to the starboard side to grab the photo opportunity. After a few days passing ice floes of various sizes everyone became very blasé as if they were an every day occurrence.
The big question is “Why is Greenland called Greenland?”, with almost 80% of its surface covered with ice, you may have thought Iceland would have been a more appropriate name! But that was already taken. Legend has it that the island was settled by Viking Erik the Red, and as he wanted to encourage more people to come from his native Denmark gave Greenland its name. It is also true that Greenland was probably greener then than now due to a major shift in temperature in the 14th Century. Incidentally the Greenland people do not call their country Greenland (or the local equivalent) but in the Inuit language it is Kalaallit Nunaat which literally means “land of the people”.
Although Danish is the language that is used by the political elite in Greenland, 80% of the population speak an Eskimo-Aleut language known as Greenlandic. Children at school are taught both the native language together with Danish and English. We saw an example of the local language as we were walking around Nanortalik……
….and attempted to translate it. I looked on the internet and there didn’t appear to be any direct translation apps from Greenlandic to English but I did find one that went from Greenlandic to Danish to English. The notice in the picture is about a city statue about giving your dogs and cats injections against some disease, but I couldn’t discover what the disease was. Any help greatly received!!!
I would hazard a guess that playing scrabble in Greenland is a nightmare with an over abundance of “Q’s”, “A’s” and “S’s”.
The stops in Iceland when compared to Greenland were more tourist focussed, with people on the quayside offering whale spotting boat trips and taxi rides to see the sights of the interior. We were particularly pleased with our visit to Isafjordur after the poor experience last time.
Altogether the itinerary has been great and overall the weather hasn’t been too bad considering where in the World we are (although as I am writing this the sea is a little rough). Altogether we have had Seven ports of call (excluding Southampton) each of which in their own way have offered something different. A very enjoyable set of destinations.
As well as the port of calls we have had eight sea days on which to enjoy the ship so tomorrow I will talk about our experiences at sea.