20260326 Viking Vela Northern Lights and British Isles - Day 11/32

Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 11/32 – Narvik, Norway - Cronuts, Ore, and Fart Kontroll

Last night, after dinner, we asked the Explorer's Desk to see if there were other cruisers from The Villages on this sailing. Unsurprisingly, there was one other Villager aboard. We wound up meeting her last night and discovered that we have mutual friends. (Gloria and Allen - if you're reading this - it's you!) We hope to have a longer chat over the next few days. Villagers love to travel.

Just before 2:00 am, the phone rang. The Northern Lights were out. Hmm...tempting, but...bed's siren song was louder, and we passed on the opportunity. And that was even though I had to get out of bed to answer the phone, because the phone is on the desk, right next to the balcony door.

The pastry chef went crazy last night and had his team working overtime for this.

It was Norwegian cronut morning in the World Café. For the uninitiated, a cronut is a cross between a croissant and a donut. It has the donut shape, but the dough is light and flaky, like a croissant.  They had cronuts in every imaginable flavor and flavor combination. It was hard to choose, but we both enjoyed a cronut with breakfast.

Today's tour was the included tour, Narvik’s Industrial Past & Present. It was a little bit of a mosnomer as that really wasn't the focus. We learned a bit about the iron ore industry here. Narvik, and its ice-free deep-water port, are connected to Kiruna in Northern Sweden by the Iron Ore Rail Line (Malmbanan). Kiruna is home to the world's largest underground iron ore mine. 10-12 trains arrive weekly in Narvik, and the ore is loaded on ships for transport.

Some of the ore shipping equipment

The picturesque hillside near town

LKAB is a huge iron ore mining company in the area

A look across at the ski area

The Vela

Our tour departed the port area for a scenic drive around Narvik, with three stops - a steam train, a ski area, and a church. Along the way, our absolutely hilarious guide, Sonja, and driver, Rolf, explained the mining past, the long rail history here, both for iron ore and passengers, the ski culture, and religious and war history.

A traditional wooden cabin with a modern apartment building in the background

Life out of Chaos, unveiled in 1956 to commemorate the events of World War II in Narvik

We passed several rail lines

Many historic houses in Narvik are proteted and the exterior cannot be modified

The owner can do whatever they want inside, so most have been modernized with updated furnishings and heated flooring

Our first stop was at the Bifrost steam locomotive

It was built in 1882 by Nydqvist & Holm in Sweden

It was the first steam locomotive used in construction traffic for the Ofoten Line, starting in 1900

It weighs approximately 190 tons and could reach speeds of 75 km/h

It is named after the mythical burning rainbow bridge from Norse mythology

 The King Oscar II Monument, located in Narvik, Norway, commemorates the opening of the Ofotbanen railway line in 1903 - it was relocated here to the Narvik train station in 1979

Passenger rail coming into the Narvik train station

We continued our journey to the ski resort.

Narvikfjellet Ski Resort

The snow was falling, obscuring the view of the fjord

A statue of Anna Rebekka Hofstad, nicknamed "Svarta Bjørn" (Black Bear), a legendary cook for the workers building the Ofotbanen railway

 Sjømannskirken (Seamen's Church)

Our final stop was the Ankenes Church, an Evangelical Lutheran church.

The octagonal church was built in 1842

Its eight sides represent the eight beatitudes

The simple interior seats roughly 380 worshipers

Our guide, Sonja, explained the eight-sided design and other details about the church

The four-sided light, with a side for each of the four apostles

The altar

The painting represents Christ's resurrection, but it is unusual

This is the Norwegian interpretation of Christ with pale skin and blond hair

A stone table containing a historical inscription in Old Norwegian regarding church tithes and good deeds

A lysglobe (candle globe) found in Norwegian churches

The organ was installed in 1980

We were treated to a brief concert by several members of the ladies' choir

A look at the fjord as we made our way back to the ship

Our guide, Sonja, was quite funny. She relayed a story about a Norwegian race driver who was being interviewed about a race. He made a comment about the risks of racing, stating that it isn't the speed that kills you, it is the bang (like when you hit the wall). The issue was that he spoke in a mix of Norwegian and English. The Norwegian word for "speed" is "fart". The Norwegian word for "bang" is "smell". So the exact phrase he said to the reporter was, "It isn't the fart that kills you, it is the smell." She also explained that the police can pull you over for "fart kontroll". Ha! The whole bus was chuckling.

A statue at the port entrance honoring Narvik's naval heritage

Arlona, auditioning to join the Norwegian Navy

A monument honoring the heroic deed of the crew of the Brøvig ship DS "Cate B" 

They asked me to test this mine - don't worry, they had me plug my ears

We returned to the ship and decided to toss in a load of laundry. We ate lunch while the load dried. Last night, I mentioned to the woman dishing out the gelato, Xolelwa from South Africa, that I was missing my favorite, mint chocolate chip, as one of the selections. She acknowledged that and said she would talk with the chef to see what was possible.

Today, at lunch, this is what I had for dessert.

It was yummy - flavored with Crème de menthe

All you have to do is ask, and if Viking can do it, they will.

We went to the gym for a short workout. Arlona did 20 minutes on the rowing machine, and I worked the strength machines: leg press, leg extension, seated row, lat pulldown, chest press. We decided to watch the sail away from the hot tub on the back of deck #7, behind the World Café.

It was nice as we sat in the chilly air, warm and comfy, watching the shore of Norway fade off in the distance. Afterward, we got chilled walking back inside, so we hopped in the indoor hot tub for a warm-up before going to the room to shower.

We sailed out through the Norwegian fjords, and it sure was pretty. These shots were from our balcony.

We went up to the Explorers Bar and watched the amazing scenery as we enjoyed pre-dinner drinks.

Nothing particularly inspired us for dinner tonight, so we asked if the pizza chef would make us a pizza. Of course, the answer was "yes", so we got a custom pepperoni, bacon, green pepper, and mushroom flatbread-style pizza. They cut it into strips and placed half on each of our plates. It tasted terrific and was perfect for dinner.

Viking has an impressive lineup of alcohol-free spirits

They were showing a movie on the pool deck tonight, so that meant popcorn. We stopped by and grabbed a couple bag and took them back to the room. We have already seen tonight's movie, The Imitation Game, so the popcorn was the more important item for us.

Tonight's show is Viking's ABBA Songbook show. We have had The Beatles show and the ABBA Songbook on every single Viking ocean cruise we've been on for the last five years. On a segmented trip like this, where we are taking two cruises, we'll have both shows twice. On our Vancouver to Sydney cruise, which was actually five cruises, we had those same shows five times. Viking needs to figure this out and offer more variety, new shows, and plan for these long voyages. The same is true with menus, especially in Chef's Table, where the menus reset each cruise.

There was stargazing and aurora spotting scheduled tonight on deck 9 forward at 9:00. That is highly dependent on clear skies. Arlona popped out on the balcony just before 9:00. No stars, no moon, 38°F, and significant winds. It doesn't sound like a prime night for sky activities. We decided to just hang out in the room. We left our notification active, so we will get a call at any time if the bridge spots the aurora.

This ends our time in Norway and also our time in the Arctic. Were en route to Amsterdam (actually, Ijmuiden) in the Netherlands on Sunday. We will be at sea tomorrow and Saturday. Theoretically, we'll still be in the Norwegian Inside Passage tomorrow for some scenic sailing. We'll see what we see tomorrow.