Our last stop in Greenland before returning to Canada was in Qaqortoq, the largest town in southern Greenland with a population of around 3,000 people. We weren't able to book any excursions and it's a small town besides, so we did our own walking tour. The cruise director had provided everyone with a simple map showing some of the highlights of the town.
Our first stop was at the Saviors Church, a Lutheran church built in 1832.
Continuing past Savior's Church, our walk led us to a scenic overlook of a small lake near town. If we'd had more time, the walk around the lake was supposed to be very scenic as well, but the weather was still very foggy, limiting the views.
This view reminded me of some of the eerie video game scenes I'd seen from long ago.
One of the things Qaqortoq is best known for outside of Greenland is the rock art, known as "Rock and Man". A local, Aka Høegh, created a permanent open air art gallery with the help of over a dozen artists from other Nordic countries.
Høegh oversaw the creation of 24 carvings, many of which you can see in the linked to photo album.
Qaqortoq does also have a small building containing a museum. However by the time we finished our self guided walking tour another, even larger, cruise ship had docked. By then the museum was so crowded that it was difficult to get into, so we gave up and returned to the ship.
Later that day the fog did lift, giving us a beautiful view of Qaqortoq from the ship.
If the ship had been docked at a pier we might have ventured back into town. However, since we required tenders to reach shore and the town seemed overcrowded with two cruise ships having in the neighborhood of 3,000 or more people visiting a town of just 3,000 people, we decided to stay on the ship and just enjoy the view from there. It certainly was a colorful town when the sun was out.
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