July 20 – Nuuk, Capital of Greenland

Paul was up early and went out to take pictures as we cruised into Nuuk, Capital of Greenland.  

While up topside he had a chance to watch the crew dock the ship.

We took the shuttle into downtown Nuuk and joined a tour that started at the town hall (closed on Saturday).  It was a short walk to the cultural center.  The center’s exterior had sweeping lines with lots of beautiful wood.

The inside was spacious and housed the library, theater, meeting rooms and a café.

There was an exhibition of art by a Greenland artist.

We then walked down to a statue of Kaassassuk, the hero in a legend about never giving up and overcoming your limitations. 

Next stop was Our Savior’s Church. 

Nearby on a hill was a statue of Hans Egede, credited with founding Nuuk.  He was a preacher who also established the church here.

The walk took us to the Mother of the Sea statue.  She is underwater to the neck during high tide.  We were lucky as it was low tide.  Legend is that her long tresses screen out trash and debris from wave.

Our guide gave a demonstration of the ropes used to teach people to balance, a requirement for balancing in the traditional kayaks. 

The tour ended in the Old Town area…

at the Greenland National Museum.  The museum contained a lot of information about the various people that had settled in Greenland and there were a lot of artifacts on display.  It was a very interesting museum and well worth the visit.

We wandered further down to the waterfront for some views…

and then had hot chocolate and dessert at a small café in Old Town.  The day was sunny and it was almost warm.  We heard that it poured buckets of rain on the last cruise ship and the one before wasn’t even able to get into harbor because of the high seas.  So we have been very, very lucky.

After our break we headed out with our map to see whatever we could see.

Art on the end of an apartment building

Kayaks in storage

Buttercups

There was the Inussuk statue, three columns twisted together.  It represents the peoples of north, west, and east Greenland coming together as one people.

Right across the street was a series of apartment buildings with huge ravens on the sides.

We eventually found our way to the pedestrian mall in the center of town where we found the Amisut (Dancing Seals) statue.  We also did a bit of shopping and found some musk ox yarn.

We decided to walk all the way back to the ship.  Along the way we passed a cemetery.

We also did a short detour to the harbor.

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More Photos of Nuuk

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Once on board we had good views of Ukkusissat Mountains, the iconic symbol of Nuuk.