Not lost its charm for centuries

(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).

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A little later, we visit the currently deserted, four-storey-high North Cape Hall. In order not to disturb the imposing landscape, it was partly built into the rock. If you want, you can even walk in underground tunnels to the edge of the Nordkapp plateau. In the high season, hundreds, sometimes even thousands of people gather here, for whom there are restaurants, stores, a post office and an information center. To give visitors an impression of the North Cape, they can watch a movie about it in a cinema room. As we have seen all of this before on our previous visits, we head straight to the large restaurant. “Hello,” says a friendly greeting from a colorful cook standing at the buffet, preparing fresh waffles for the visitors we hope to see. As the only guests, we settle down at one of the many tables and begin our work. “It’s really uncomfortable this empty,” says Tanja. “Yes, maybe it will be good if we continue our journey today,” I reply, typing the Wi-Fi password into my laptop. As I write down our experiences, I keep looking out of the restaurant’s panoramic window. Just a few hundred meters further on we see the famous globe. Meanwhile, dark wisps of cloud drift over the plateau. The changeable North Cape weather lives up to its name. I think of the first visitors to the North Cape, who certainly weren’t as comfortable as we were at that moment. At that time, this place was only accessible under difficult conditions and only explorers, adventurers and nobles were allowed to visit. The first mention of the North Cape began when three British sailing ships set sail to find the famous Northeast Passage. They left the safe haven of the city of London in 1553. The sailors were separated during a storm off Lofoten. Captain Richard Chancellor, who was in command of the ship Edward Bonaventura, passed a rock called Knyskanes on the way. Since he thought the dark slate plateau was Norwegian mainland, he called it the North Cape, although it was not, and certainly not the northernmost point in Europe. At the time, they apparently didn’t know that the Svalbard archipelago was about 800 kilometers north of the obviously incorrectly named North Cape. However, on a later voyage, Richard Chancellor lost his life when his ship sank off the Scottish coast. The first tourist, however, was an Italian priest named Francesco Negri, who set foot on the dark rock needle jutting into the Arctic Ocean in 1664. On 9 July 1845, the steamship “Prinds Gustav” sailed from Hammerfest to the North Cape for the first time, marking the beginning of organized tourism. The most famous tourist of his time was the Norway fan Kaiser Wilhelm II, who traveled to Norway a total of 23 times between 1889 and 1914 and also reached the North Cape. In 1907, King Chulalongkorn of Siam (now Thailand) visited the North Cape with his entourage, to name just a few personalities, because a trip to the North Cape has been something special for centuries and has not lost its charm and flair to this day.

Shortly before we leave the North Cape again, a colorful rainbow bends over the Arctic Ocean. “Thank you, you’ve gifted us with so many of your wonderful weather variations,” I say quietly and turn the ignition key. We slowly roll out of the large parking lot and head south again for the first time in months.

As soon as the North Cape is a few kilometers behind us, it starts to drizzle. Then the narrow strip of asphalt is swallowed up by a kind of lightning fog. Visibility is zero. “The same weather as yesterday during the trip to the North Cape,” I say. “I can’t believe how lucky we were to have experienced the Cape in glorious weather,” Tanja replies. “As soon as we find a parking lot, we should drive out and spend the night there. It’s just too dangerous to drive on in such bad weather,” I decide. “There, there seems to be a parking lot there!” calls Tanja. I immediately put on the blinker and leave the road. “This is where the hike to the real North Cape starts,” says Tanja, pointing to a sign half swallowed up by the fog. “Did you read that?” I ask. “You mean you’re not allowed to stay here overnight? Yes, I’ve taken note of that. Who’s going to check that now? Apart from that, this ban is only intended for the high season,” she replies, happy to have found a safe place for the night…