Iceland & Greenland Cruise (August) 2024: Day 6 - Nanortalik, Greenland

On day 6, we landed in Nanortalik, Greenland - one of two ports in Greenland that we were to visit. When we got off the tender, the sun was shining, the sky was so blue that I felt that I was dressed inappropriately. Overdressed for sure. Everyone that got to the tender were dressed for cold weather, just like us. My guess is everyone checked the weather forecast and has seen that the high on this day was 32F. I most certainly did not expect a blue sky, sun shining brightly day.

Prior to the cruise, I had watched a few YouTube videos on ports in Greenland and had found that Nanortalik is small and can easily be explored on foot. Besides, most of the excursions offered by the ship were boat rides to see icebergs. The rest of the excursions offered were short walking tour of the town/island, which we believed we could accomplish more efficiently.

The word Nanortalik means "place of polar bears" in Greenlandic. We did not spot any polar bears at all; we were actually not looking.

Upon arrival, we followed the one road that seem to go around the island. Our game plan for the day was to explore as much of this place as we could given the alloted time.

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Floating near the port.

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View from the port of the colorful town.

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They have a small fish market.

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Community Center with an interesting and curious scuplture.

Across from the community center is a group of school children fundraising for a school trip. They were selling their artwork. I naturally helped by buying the one and only cat painting by a boy named Jonas.

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Further along the road, we reached the very pretty Nanortalik Lutheran Church.

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As we kept walking, we were told there's a museum up ahead. After paying a small fee, we were allowed to enter the Nanortalik Open Air Museum which consists of a collection of preserved historic buildings, including traditional turf houses, peat houses, and a fish packing house, offering insights into Inuit life and Viking history. Because we were doing this on our own without a guide to tell us what we were seeing, I was "forced" to read the info posted. Eventually, I got tired of reading and just took photos.

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View from a bench looking back at the church and on the right the rear of the ship is visible.

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I spent a few minutes sitting on bench looking out at this view and was filled with joy and peace.

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Traditional Inuit abode.

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Inside the house.

This is getting long, so I'll continue this post next week.

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