I had wanted to go to Greenland with my mother ever since I was a teenager and spotted an advert in the newspaper for a very cheap weekend in Søndre Strømfjord (now Kangerlussuaq) – if one left the next day. I was unable back then to persuade her to travel at such short notice, but the dream of our going to Greenland together stayed with me and now, more than 45 years later, we finally decided to go for it. The opening of the new international airport in Nuuk means that tourism to the capital is really opening up.
For this short trip, we had a package helpfully put together by Ayoe Leth Christensen from stjernegaard-rejser.dk. We were very pleased with all her arrangements.
To get to Nuuk from the UK, one can go via Keflavik or Copenhagen, but Copenhagen is the more convenient option because there are daily flights. We spent two nights in Copenhagen before the flight to Nuuk. On the full day there, we wanted to go to an exhibition of photography from Eastern Greenland at the North Atlantic House (a cultural centre focusing on Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland). The closest metro station is Christianshavn – where there are also some sculptures relating to Greenland. Note the little Greenlandic flag attached to the kayak in the first image. The day we went also happened to the UN day for Indigenous People (9 August) – and to celebrate Greenland, there was a kayak parade taking place in the canals by the North Atlantic House.
The flight to Nuuk with Air Greenland takes about four and a half hours – easy and comfortable. On arrival, we immediately headed out to explore the city. Nuuk is a tiny capital with ca. 20,000 inhabitants. The historic area was of particular interest to me because I am descended from Hans Egede, the controversial colonialist and missionary, and from his wife Gertrud Rask. The yellow and red house below was Hans Egede’s home – now used for representational purposes.
We had booked a beautiful apartment (Nuuk Hotel Apartments by HHE). Checking in at Hotel Hans Egede was not entirely straightforward, but we were delighted once we had the keys. The views were great and we were conveniently located for the supermarket (the Danish Brugsen chain, here known as Brugseni). The last image is taken at midnight – hence a bit of sunset.
Nuuk has a lot of fairly gritty apartment blocks, some of which date back to the time when Greenlanders were more or less forcibly moved from remoter settlements into the city. The forty light strips on one grey block are intended to mark the annual average of forty suicides in Nuuk.
Nuuk harbour, where the boat trips start and end by the so-called Tidal Steps. We did a number of trips with Nuuk Water Taxi (yellow boats).
There is quite of lot of public art in Nuuk. Click on the individual images for details.
A misty morning along the boardwalk.
Nuuk Art Museum is superb – here are some of my favourites. Click on the individual images to see the names of the artists.
We had a brilliant overnight glamping trip to Camp Kangiusaq, about three hours by boat from Nuuk. This was run by Nuuk Water Taxi.
We also did a separate evening trip with Nuuk Water Taxi – 10pm to midnight.
Finally, we also had two very successful trips with Nuuk Water Taxi looking for humpback whales.
I loved Nuuk – so visually interesting.
Nuuk fine dining – pork scratchings, mayonnaise and Qajaq seal bear. The food generally was very good, with excellent fish dishes at Restaurant Unicorn and Restaurant Tunit.
Peregrinamur 