Monday, November 20, 2023

Qaqortoq Greenland

A larger village than Nanortalik, still a small town in our eyes, but classified as a city  when it comes to Greenland.

 As the sun rose over Qaqartoq we found that we were not alone sitting in this little harbour.  Holland America’s Zaandam had already started shuttling it guests back and forth.

Qaqortoq looks different in the light of day

 Having been to Antarctica earlier this year we felt we didn’t need to spend the exorbitant cost of the tours that took you out up and close and personal to the icebergs, a tour that was missed the last time we were here due to the weather. We spent the day just wandering around from one side of the town to the other. 

Zandam at Anchor
We tendered to the information centre which is this red building ... just next to it there is a small market set up by the locals as you can from the picture below...


To add to the quirkiness of Qaqortoq a local artist decided to create an open-air art gallery throughout the town.  Soliciting the help from other artists from other Nordic countries, she created Stone & Man. Many are around the waterfront, but as you wander around, you come across some of these wonderful stone sculptures.











Small open-air fishmarket


Fisherman having a rest and people watching..... or people watching them ...

Qaqortoq, just like all of Greenland is very Photogenic






I was just mesmerised by the moss in this little stream... made me think of Monet.







Finally found a place where we could sit for a coffee,  we ran into our friends with we shared our foodies tour in Reykjavik and they told us about their adventure out to these hots springs they had just been on... via a helicopter


Nice graffiti around the water front.


Called into the local supermarket and checked out the Wine Section ....  What the !  never seen this cask wine in Australia LOL....






On return to the ship we were feeling a little hungry so we ordered Pizza and salad to enjoy out on our back deck on 11

Before we left the Captain put one of the young bridge officers in charge of the ship and she did a big reverse and lined us up with Zandam.  What ensued was a horn-blowing match and then we quickly sped off.  Had to laugh as later in the afternoon friends debated with us that the Zandam left before us...
"It did we saw it sail past".... they did not realise that we were going backwards!!


Managed to capture the last of the iceberg we would see on this amazing trip.


I thought this photo gave a good concept of just how big these floating bits of Ice actually are.