Day Six and Seven: Tuesday 13th August to Thursday 15th August
Journey: Hirtshals, Denmark to Seyðisfjörður, Iceland
View from the top observation deck of the Norröna ship as we near Iceland.
In total, we spent almost 48 hours on board the M/S Norröna, the Färoese ship serving as a regular ferry line between Denmark, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. As we weren’t exactly super productive during these days (we mostly layed into our beds and ate lots of junk food), we thought that, rather than giving you an hour-by-hour schedule of those two days, we could just write down some random, potentially useless thoughts instead:
Thought n:1: We’ve been spoiled! Indeed, during our trip on board the M/S Norröna, we couldn’t help but compare it to its glorious Norwegian counterpart, the Hurtigruten. The two ships might be quite different, they still share, deep down, the same functions: acting as a ferries for the locals and serving as a cruise for the tourists. In many ways, we were reminded how the Norwegian Hurtigruten has managed to make itself look so incredibly glamorous while still retaining its more functional aspects. The Norröna lags way behind its Norwegian counterpart and is still clearly more oriented towards the local Faroese population. All in all, it wasn’t all that luxurious but it worked quite well as a ferry still.
Thought n:2: The ship is in constant motion! No joke, the Norröna sails throughout the North Atlantic and is therefore subject to quite powerful forces that tend to, if not pull the ship apart, at least make its passengers quite dizzy at times. This movement was so powerful that myself, when writing this text three full days after leaving the ship, still have the sensation of walking on uneven terrain. Or maybe it’s just because I am a flat-footed wimp, you decide.
The ship stopped briefly in Thorshavn, the capital city of the Faroe Islands.
Thought n:3: The ship is cryptic! To get from point A to point B onboard the Norröna isn’t as simple as you might think it is. The ship’s nine levels can be accessed by five different staircases and some parts of each level can only be accessed by climbing one specific staircase. Also, these stairs are divided by color and the light red stairs were easy to confuse with the dark orange one. This tended to lead to interesting (i.e: confusing) situations…
Thought n:4: Children are everywhere! Something that’s definitely different compared with the Hurtigruten is the number of kiddos running around wildly everywhere. As previously mentioned, the ship is mostly used as a cheap ferry for the Faroese families and the Faroese families tend to contain at least one blond and overly-excited child per unit. This wasn’t much of a big deal most of the time but when sitting in the Cafeteria, adjascent to the children’s playground, it was enough to make us a bit annoyed…
A Faroese softdrink that tasted a bit like Sprite, the word ‘Sisu’ is also a Finnish phrase for stubborn resilience.
Thought n:5: Pizzas are bad! As previously said, we didn’t opt for the luxurious path when onboard the ship so we mainly stuck to the cafeteria. We mostly ate pizza, as it was the cheapest, and often the only foodstuff for sale. This wasn’t exactly a great experience. The pizza, regardless of its topping, tended to have an overall bland taste, was hard as concrete and left you feeling like the Michelin man after consumption. Don’t get me wrong, it was good for what it was, but after many years of splurgious Norse pizzas, we expected something a bit different. No offence to the people of the cafeteria again, as their breakfeast was in fact pretty yummy! They also sold a very cool Faroese drink with a strangely Finnish sounding name, Sisu.
Thought n:6: Let’s get to the next Post!
