Vardø Things to Do

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Behind the only hotel of Vardoe you will find a monument for Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), who was a polar-explorer, winner of the nobelprize and a diplomat. In 1882 he made the first crossing of Greenland on skies and he also made several expeditions to the Arctic by his ship "FRAM" (you can still see and step inside that polarship in Olso)
As a diplomat and high comissioner Fridtjof Nansen created a special passport for refugees, who had lost their citizenship, and that kind of passport is still called "Nansen-Pass"

The church of Vardoe looks quite unique from the distance and it is a pity that I did not have enough time to get any closer. On the other hand churches are mostly locked in Norway during the day and so I decided to just take a photo from the distance and spend my precious time in Vardoe exploring other places !

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There is a park around the fortress with some nice decorations and fences. This lovely fence with a great entrancegate was built when the king had visited Vardoe. Inside that park you will find also some interesting buildings covered by grass (see it in my 4th photo!) and there are some old machineries and cannons as well on display.
All of these things are in the area of the fortress-park when you walk from the fortress to the city-centre instead of the direct way back to the ship !

When getting to Vardoe during the winterperiod there is another phenomenon of nature that you certainly shouldnot miss : In order to see the Nordic Lights (also called Aurora Borealis) you need to have a perfect combination of various situations:
1) the sky has to be without clouds
2) the sky needs to be dark, so you are able to see the reflections
3) you need certain activities of the sun, that are sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker
The way that I understood this is that these activities of the sun will happen all year long, but in summertime you cannot see them because of the bright sky.

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I was never lucky to see the Northern Light myself
so I took this photo of it painted in a mailbox in Hammerfest

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There is a small village inside of Vardoehus festning, including several houses and even a church. Tourists can walk on top of the small churchtower in order to have a great view. You will find several old cannons there as well. The first fortification was built there in the 13th century but Vardoehus festning as you see it nowadays dates back to the year 1734.

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The walls of Vardoehus festning are not really very high, but they are made of solid rocks and covered by grass. For "freeclimbers" of today it would not be a big problem to get over these walls but for the old knights it still might have been a problem and of course the fortress had guards as well watching out for enemies approaching and they could easily throw stones after invaders trying to climb up the walls.

1 May – 15 September: 0800 – 2100 hrs.
16 September – 30 April: 1000 – 1800 hrs.

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There is an interesting museum inside of Vardoehus festnig and it is showing old uniforms, documents and my favorite exhibit there was the winter-cannon, fixed on a sled instead of wheels. There is a small souvenir-shop in that museum as well and most of the exhibits are explained with norwegian, english and german inscriptions !

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Vardöhus Festnig
"The northernmost fortress on earth"
is the most important attraction of the tiny village of Vardoe and when-ever the Hurtigrutenship will get there during the southbound cruise from Kirkens to Bergen someone will wait there at the port and walk with you to that old fortress, so you will not miss it and will be able to make the best out of the short stay of just 60 minutes in Vardoe.
The entrancefee is 30 NOK, that is just about 3 euros and you have to throw the money into a former bomb next to the entrance - see it in my local customs-tips !