20230920 AAAA Trip - Sitka, Alaska - 2,870 square miles, 15 miles of paved roads

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 5/105 - America's largest city by area, Sitka, Alaska

There will be no docking for us today.  We are anchored just off Sitka, Alaska.  Two other cruise ships are in port with us today, The Holland America Eurodam, and the Royal Caribbean Quantum of the Seas.  They are docked, we are anchored.  Sounds like a raw deal, right?  

When you look at the map, not so much.  We are just a short tender boat ride from downtown Sitka.  They are a much longer bus ride away.  Winning!  With a potential 2,000 passengers on the Eurodam and nearly 5,000 on Quantum, even at 75% capacity like our ship, that put about 6,000 people into a town of 8,400!

As we arrived, the skies looked favorable but the forecast was not.

Our excursion today was the included Sitka tour and performance show.  We tendered into town.

The Viking Orion, looking stately

We boarded our tour bus.  Our driver and tour guide, Julie, gave us some history and statistics about Sitka and Alaska in general.  One humorous note involved Alaska's size.  Everyone knows that Alaska is the largest US state.  But, if you split Alaska evenly into two states, Texas would become the third largest state.  Everyone on the bus laughed at that except for a couple of guests from Texas. :-)

Sitka is the largest city in America by land area at 2,870 square miles.  All that land and only 8,400 residents.  Even more interesting is that they only have about 15 miles of paved roadway, two stoplights, and a single roundabout.  The US purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, or $0.02 per acre - quite the deal.

Our first stop was a local church where a storyteller and dancers recounted Sitka's history, from indigenous people to the Russian occupation through the sale to the US.

Once back on the bus, we made the short ride back to town.  We made one stop at an old military airfield to take in a fairly iconic view of Sitka.

All that was left was the five-minute ride back to the tender dock. By then, right on forecast, the liquid sunshine had started falling.  Even with the rain, we opted to take a stroll up Castle Hill - the site of the ceremonial transfer of Alaska from Russia to the US, and the site of the first raising of the American flag in Alaska in 1867.

The views are nice from Castle Hill.

John O'Connell Bridge over Sitka Channel

The red lighthouse is a $1,000/night Airbnb

We continued our walk into town to sightsee and browse the shops.

The iconic church in the center of town burned down some years ago.  People lined up to try to save the church’s icons.  About 97% were saved.  The church was rebuilt exactly like the old one except for the clock face.  The original building had a black clock.  This new one has a white clock.  It is said that the clock’s face is the only way to tell whether a photograph is of the old or new church.

When we had enough strolling, shopping, and raindrop-dodging, we headed back to the tender for the short ride back to Orion.

After a nice lunch in the World Cafe, we ran into Monalisa, another of the wonderful crew from our world cruise.  I've said it before – Viking throws the word, “family”, around a lot and it isn’t just marketing hyperbole.  You really do feel like family when you cruise with Viking.  Between guests that we’ve cruised with before and crew that we’ve cruised with before, you feel like you’re part of something, and that enhances the experience.

We came back to the room and Arlona opted for a nap while I wrote and processed photos.  While she napped, I dropped off some information to the Travel Consultant and then talked with guest services.

As I have mentioned before, we live in The Villages, Florida – the largest retirement community in the world with about 146,000 residents.  We run into Villagers on cruises all the time.  There were ten of us on the world cruise and none of us knew each other before the trip.  In fact, we have only been on one cruise since living in The Villages where there were no other Villagers.  I asked them to check to see if there were any other guests from The Villages so we could possibly plan a get-together.  Amazingly, we are the only Villagers on the ship at the moment.  That will change as Villages friends are joining for the Tokyo to Bangkok leg and other Villages friends are joining for the Bali to Sydney leg.  For now, at least, it is up to us to rep The Villages.

We enjoyed a pre-dinner cocktail at the Explorers’ Bar before a nice dinner in the World Café.  We regularly sit at a six-person table.  We do this because people regularly ask if they can join us.  It is a great way to meet people.  Tonight, a brother and sister from Australia joined us and we had a wonderful conversation with them.

We were both fairly tired tonight so we opted to head to the room and make it an early evening.  We have a couple of sea days coming with scenic sailings so the next two days should be low-key before our remaining Alaska stops.