Kirkenes, Norway on the border of Russia - Tuesday, May 7, 2019

This morning we said goodbye to our Hurtigruten coastal vessel as we disembark in Kirkenes, a Norwegian port near the Russian border. It was strategically significant for its iron ore resources and its location near the Russian port of Murmansk.  Kirkenes was occupied by 100,000 Nazi troops during World War II. During the occupation, the Germans created shelters from old iron caves to protect its troops from attacks and raids by the Soviet Union.  These shelters were ultimately used by thousands of civilians during the war.   We went to one of the caves and saw a movie of the people coming out of the cave when the Germans were ousted by the Russian.  The Germans burned the whole city as they left......    The people in Kirkenes were very grateful to the Russians and continued good relations with each other.  

Entrance to one of the caves

Inside the cave

We stopped for facilities at the Norwegian/Russian Border

After our visit in Kirkenes we drove south toward the Norwegian/Finnish border where we stopped for a toast at a nice waterfall and then continued on to see a local cemetery.  We stopped for a wonderful, home cooked meal at a Finnish camping site.  

Skolltefossen waterfall

Anita, our tour guide, treated us to the traditional Norwegian liquor made from cloud berries 

Intersting Orthodox cemetery near Ivalo, Finland

Russian Orthodox cross has two horizontal crossbeams and a third one that is slanted downward.  The middle bar is where Christ's hands were mailed and the bottom cross shows the way to heaven and hell.

Finnish camping site where we had homemade food scrumptious!

After our lunch at the fishing camp site, we drove through Northern Finland - land of a thousand lakes! We enjoyed all the beautiful vistas.  We arrived at our hotel in Ivalo and had dinner and walked to the local grocery store to check out the local products.