HOLIDAYS TO SPITSBERGEN

SPITSBERGEN EXPEDITION CRUISES
9 days from £3175 pp

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Follow in Amundsen’s footsteps to these islands of extraordinary beauty with their glacial landscapes, migratory bird life and remote settlements. Here, where the sun never sets in summer, you lose touch with time, whilst slowly savouring a mountainous beauty unmatched anywhere in the world.

Spitsbergen is the largest of the Svalbard archipelago’s islands, whose capital, Longyearbyen, is the most northerly point in the world reachable by scheduled flight and where (between April 20th and August 22nd) the sun never sets. The name means “land of the jagged peaks” and geologists estimate that millions of years ago the archipelago was at the equator, subsequently drifting north over millennia to produce a dramatic cornucopia of mountain rock formations; heat hardened sea beds now pointing skywards and glacier walls, some as long as 200 km.

The largest settlements are Longyearbyen, with a population of about 1400, the Russian mining town of Barentsburg that is frozen in time and Ny Ålesund from where Amundsen began his epic voyage across the North Pole by airship. The old trappers’ huts, made from drift wood and logs carried down the Barents Sea, bear witness to the winter hardships still borne by a handful of hunters.

For botanists Spitsbergen’s some 200 species include the delicate Svalbard poppy; abundant Saxifragas particularly the prolifically purple oppositifohen; white heaths of Cassiope; pink mounds of Silena acaulis and the delicate blue hues of the Boreal Jacob’s ladder.

For the ornithologist the sheer abundance of the literally millions of Brunnich’s Guillemots and Little Auks are just mind boggling. With King Eider, Ivory Gull, Sabine’s Gull and Snow Buntings to add to the show, Svalbard is something of a photographic paradise.

If you take one of our expedition cruises partway round the archipelago then the arctic mammals are the stars of the show. This, of course, is Polar Bear country and you will have a good chance of seeing females with their cubs searching out food along with lugubrious walruses hauled out on sand banks and the Svalbard reindeer grazing.

DAY 1 OSLO Scheduled SAS flight to Oslo. Overnight Clarion Oslo Airport Hotel.
DAY 2 OSLO – LONGYEARBYEN Early morning scheduled SAS flight from Oslo to Longyearbyen. Transfer to your ship. Evening sail north along the west coast.
DAY 3 In Krossfjorden Zodiac along the sculpted front of Glacier. Kittiwakes, Brünnich’s Guillemots nest; Arctic Foxes patrol and Bearded Seals cruise the fjord. Later we sail to Ny Ålesund with its Barnacle Geese, Pink-footed Geese and Arctic Terns.
DAY 4 At Smeerenburg, visit the 17th century remains of a Dutch whaling station. Afternoon visit to the Little Auk colony, then sail past the 80th parallel to Moffen Island to see Walrus.
DAY 5 Sail to the mouth of Liefdejforden and go ashore on the tundra island of Andøya. King and Common Eiders and Pink-footed Geese nest here. We might also sail alongside the impressive Monaco glacier. Polar Bears can occasionally be seen.
DAY 6 At Hinlopen Strait we reach our most northerly position. A chance to see Bearded and Ringed Seals, Polar Bears and Ivory Gulls. On Lomfjordshalvoya we Zodiac to the bird cliffs of Alkefjellet. Later we land in Augustabukta. See Spitsbergen Reindeer, Walrus and a rare Ivory Gull colony.
DAY 7 Retracing our route westwards, visit Raudfjord, a fjord dominated by spectacular glaciers and Seals. At Ytre Norskøya the bird life is prolific, with colonies of Little Auks, Black Guillemots, Puffins and Arctic Skuas.
DAY 8 Sail south to Alkhornet. Seabirds nest on its cliffs and Arctic Foxes search for fallen eggs and chicks, while Spitsbergen Reindeer graze. Cruise through beautiful Borebukta following a glacier front.
DAY 9 LONGYEARBYEN – UK Dock at Longyearbyen. Return SAS flight(s) to the UK via Oslo.

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