Hurtigruten to Kirkenes

Trip Start May 07, 2005
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Trip End Ongoing


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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

We took the Hurtigruten (coastal steamer) from Honningsvog to Kirkenes. It was our second Hurtigruten ride but still fabulous. Kirkenes is 12km from Russia and heavily patroled. We were only there for 2 hours before flying to Oslo.

Our original intention was to take a bus from Kirkenes to Rovaniemi, Finland. However we had learned that the direct bus only runs during the summer. Our only real option was to take a bus to a town a few hundred km west, but that bus only ran every other day. Then we would have to take the 3am bus into Finland where we could catch a bus to Rovaniemi. We decided a plane would be better but we were sad to miss Rovaniemi. I have been told that all letters addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole get forwarded to Rovaniemi.

If I were to do it over I would have planned to go to north Norway in the summer. Transportation and lodgings are difficult to find in the off season and the midnight sun is only present in the summer. Winter would also be interesting but very cold and some roads would be completely shut down. The advantage of autumn was that the weather was fairly nice and the tourist places weren't packed.
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