June 27, Mei-O on our balcony photographing the sunset.
June 27, Mei-O on our balcony photographing the sunset. |
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 We weren't due to dock in Honningsvåg until 11:00, so, awakening early, I took a few pictures as we were getting close. Overnight, sailing from Trondheim to Honningsvåg, we crossed the Arctic Circle (cross off another bucket list item!), and to commemorate the occasion, we got these. |
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 Since we weren't going to dock until around 11:00, we went to eat breakfast a little later than usual. For once, here's a picture of Mei-O's breakfast, much healthier than mine. In fact, I had a second plate of even less healthy stuff. Hey, I was on vacation. |
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 As we got closer, a pilot boat pulled up alongside us and dropped off a local pilot to help get us safely to the pier. |
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 I took a few pictures as we approached Honningsvåg and began our docking procedure. By a little after 11:00, we were off the ship, looking to soon join our shore excursion to North Cape. But first, we had to find the meeting point. |
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 Teresa had the information we needed to find the tour's departure point where we could meet our bus, so we began walking through the town to get there, passing this guynote a St. Bernard WWII war hero, honored in his hometown of Honningsvåg with this statue on the pier. |
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 By 11:30, we found the meeting point for our "North Cape Experience". Now we just had to wait for our bus. |
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 Our tour guide from our North Cape tour told us to go see this church, the Honningsvåg Church, as it had an important place in the town's history. As the occupying German forces were retreating from Honningsvåg in 1944, they employed a scorched earth policy, burning the entire city to the ground. Yet somehow, this was the only building that survived. Most of the area’s inhabitants were evacuated to southern Norway; the first people to return moved into the church which came to be used as a place to sleep, a storage area and a kitchen. People slept everywhere: on the pews, around the altar, under the pulpit, in the gallery and up in the tower. A temporary kitchen and bakery were set up where food was prepared and bread baked for over 100 people every day. Gradually, barracks were constructed for people to live in and by Christmas 1945 the church was finally able to be used for what it was actually intended. We had a rough time finding it, and when we did, it was unfortunately closed and locked and we couldn't get in. We did get a good look at its cemetery though. Next Top |
