Kirkenes

The dock is within walking distance of town (1.5 km)

This is the turn round port for the Hurtigruten. Only 10 km away from the Russian border an 35 km from Finland.

Printable map to take along.

Bøkfjorden, an excellent harbor, has attracted interest from several large companies. Tourist attractions include Grenselandsmuseet (The Border Country Museum), which shows the history of war and peace along the Norwegian-Russian border, Sami art exhibitions by the artist John Savio and a history of the mining industry in the area. Kirkenes is also one end of the route of Hurtigruten, which cruises regularly down the Norway coast to Bergen.

Inside Kirkenes is Andersgrotta, a vast underground bunker built during WWII which provided shelter to the town's 9,000 residents. Tours of the bunker are available.

The Norwegian currency is the Norwegian crown (norske krone), abbreviated kr. A 1/100th krone is called øre. 1.00 EUR = about 8 NOK

ATMs in Norway are called Minibank.

Nearly all stores accept major credit cards such as Mastercard and Visa (Bring your passport/driver's license, as you are required to identify yourself when using a credit card).

Norwegian is the official language of Norway. The language is very close and mutually intelligible with the two other Scandinavian languages, English widely spoken.

Most Norwegian households are connected to the internet in some way (often broadband), making Cybercafés hard to find outside major cities, due to a relatively small market. Most public libraries have free public access to the internet. WiFi is in many spots (not free).

Opening hours in Norway are better than they used to be, but many smaller stores still close early on Saturday (1 PM or 3 PM is typical) and nearly everything is closed on Sundays. You'll often see opening hours written as "9-21 (9-18)" on doors, meaning 9 AM to 9 PM weekdays, 9 AM to 6 PM Saturday.