Amazing Azamara – Day 16 – Qaqortoq, Greenland

Reading time: 5 minutes...

Day 16 — Sunday, 17th August
Qaqortoq, Greenland

Morning all! 👍

It’s Day 16 of our three-week adventure, having ‘done’ Canada, we’ll soon be heading for Iceland in a few days’ time. For now, here we are on a chilly Sunday morning in Qaqortoq (aka Julianehaab), for our penultimate day in Greenland. Having sailed through the night, we docked here at just after 5am this morning, ensuring that (after yesterday’s fiasco) we ensured we grabbed a prime anchoring position.

5.10am: Us (the Azamara Quest), the Oceania Sirena and the MS Zuiderdam now had completed the maritime equivalent of ‘getting your towels on the sunbeds before breakfast’ – and it looked like our overnight sailing at speed paid off! The Captain’s strategy had worked as we’d positioned ourselves closest to land (making it easier for our Tenders).

We have over 12 hours here before leaving at 8pm tonight, but the enjoyment factor is very much down to the weather!

Here, There and Everywhere!

Day 15 – Paamiut, Greenland Saturday, 16th August
Day 14 – Sisimiut, Greenland Friday, 15th August
Day 13 – No Nuuk! Thursday, 14th August
Days 10/11/12 – Next stop, Greenland! Wednesday, 13th August
Day 9 – Havre St Pierre, Quebec Sunday, 10th August
Day 8 – At Sea Saturday, 9th August
Day 7 – Saguenay, Quebec Friday, 8th August
Day 6 – More of Quebec City Thursday, 7th August
Day 5 – Quebec City (1st Day) Wednesday, 6th August
Day 4 – All Aboard! Tuesday, 5th August
Day 3 – Montreal (2nd Day) Monday, 4th August
Day 2 – Montreal (1st Day) Sunday, 3rd August
Day 1 – Montreal Bound! Saturday, 2nd August

📷 Photo Reel, so far, is HERE 📷

About Qaqortoq…

“Qatortoq – where colourful houses dot the hillsides and Inuit traditions meet Nordic charm!”
-The Insider, August 2025

With a population of just 3000, Qaqortoq (pronounced kak-a-tock) is the largest town in southern Greenland and set within a system of fjords. The town centre is home to 18th-century colonial buildings and a landmark fountain as well as a few shops, the school and many domestic dwellings.

After yesterday’s disappointment in not getting to Paamiut, we’ve booked a guided ‘town walk’ later today. It was a two-hour experience and cost us $99 US each.

11.15am: As we got ourselves ready for the trip ashore we noticed that the weather had deteriorated – significantly! FOG! And THICK fog at that! Was today about to be another ‘no go’?😕

12.20pm: Eventually, the weather Gods smiled on us! By the time we boarded the Tender, the fog had lifted, and it looked like a fine day ahead! 👍. In fact, the temperature defied the forecast and was pushing a mighty 8℃! ☀️☀️.

Consequently, we didn’t need our hats nor gloves. But what we DID need (and we had both, but left them back on the Azamara Quest) was: Midge Spray and Hats with nets. Once we got ashore, there were hundreds of the flying beasties – and they didn’t leave us for the whole of our stay.

The town looked very busy, but I think that was down to THREE Cruise Ships arriving at around the same time. Julia introduced herself as our Guide. A born and bred Inuit, she spent the next 90-minutes with us, pointing out various landmarks around the town and helpfully conducted our tour in English. Could we have wandered around under our own steam? Quite possibly, but it was good to get the background to some of the less familiar sights.

Carvings: ‘Stone and Man’

Julia explained these were pretty old – I think she said some dated back to 3000BC. It certainly gave a great introduction to how old the town was. You can read more about them HERE.

The weather seemed to be improving all the time, making it easy to bring out the best in this relatively small and straightforward town.

Julia explained the convention of the coloured exteriors (yellow = hospital, red = public building/churches, green = telecoms, blue = fish factories and others). Based on the Danish tradition, these ‘rules’ were maintained until the 60s, but since then, the different colours have no significance.

If the colours of the buildings didn’t make for a good photo, then Mother Nature came to the rescue. Just take a look and some of these random landscape shots from today. No colour boosting, no post-processing, just sky, land and water (sometimes, all three) in perfect harmony! 👍👍👍👍

As we continued our Tour, Qaqortoq felt that it had a real buzz about it. Maybe that was the gazillions of tourists (that just about outnumbered the midges, but it was a close run thing!). We tried to imagine what the town felt like in the depths of winter. The coldest temperature ever recorded here was -30℃ in 1983, but the average temperature tops out at ‘just’ 16℃. The major industries seem to be (surprise, surprise) ‘fish’ and the ‘processing’ of seals (and I didn’t think that means there’s a seal sanctuary here!) 😕. Snow lasts for around 8 months each year!

The local lake – Lake Tasersuaq – provides the town with all its water needs – washing and drinking – but also presents the perfect backdrop for some stunning photographs too! 👍

Stunning ehh!?!? We’re so glad we took the LATER tour where chatting to a fellow passenger (who’s been on the earlier Tour) commented that his had been shrouded in fog.

We must have been ashore for about two hours, and at a push, we might have spent a LITTLE longer there, but I feel that THREE hours would be the maximum. Apart from the stunning views, there’s not much else to do, although we did see a group of locals cooking reindeer on a BBQ as well as a building that looked like it served beer. Other than that, apart from the natural beauty of the place, don’t expect much more. There is a Museum, but it looked a bit unloved, proudly confirmed it DIDN’T have WiFi – and wanted $10/€10 each for an entry fee. We weren’t tempted! 😉.

We’re not sure that Qaqortoq is ready for the big time just yet – it just doesn’t have the right balance of infrastructure yet (did anyone find the public toilets?) but today was a good day! 👍👍

I’ll end this review of Qaqortog with a few extra photos that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else. Enjoy!!

We headed back to the Tender and only had to wait about 5 minutes before we boarded. It had been a very enjoyable visit, helped by the very bearable temperature but hindered (a little) by our new flying friends.

2.15pm: Back on board, a cuppa, a cookie, plus a visit to the laundry room followed (in that order!). A lazy afternoon followed.

6.00pm: Tonight was our final visit to ‘C Prime’ – the Steak Restaurant here on the Ship.

As usual, the food and service didn’t disappoint! 👍👍

7.01pm: Oh no! Our Captain is now becoming ‘The Prophet of Doom’! 😕. Tonight, just as we were tucking into our evening meal, more bad news! Because of the forecasted weather conditions, we will NOT be sailing to Prince Christian Sound tomorrow. Yoiks! That’s the THIRD location on the itinerary that’s been cancelled! 😡. Instead, we’re heading for Iceland earlier than planned.

Tonight’s Entertainment

That was painful! Surprisingly and disappointingly so! 😯

The Ship’s entertainers and dancers put on a show celebrating ‘Broadway’. Clearly, Ann and I were at a different show to everyone else, where for us two, most of the singing was either too screechy, too loud – and those ‘harmonies’!!! Ouch! Luckily, the Quest’s windows were toughened! OK not every number was a disaster at sea, but talk about ‘murder on the dance floor’! It didn’t help that we weren’t familiar with the majority of the songs either. For a public performance, why pick such an obscure playlist? Meanwhile, the rest of the audience seemed to be enjoying it – a lot! At the end, a standing ovation followed. Well, that’s 60 minutes of my life I’m not going to get back. Note to self: just in case, get my ears tested! 😕

Clocks went forward an hour tonight! We’ve almost caught up as we’re now only ONE hour behind the UK.

Tomorrow…

Bugger! 😕😕😕😕

Our final day in Greenland sees us sailing for Prince Christian Sound. Sounds like a 60’s Fairy Tale Jazz Band but it’s the name of a waterway here in Southern Greenland. It separates the mainland from Sammisoq (population 0) and other islands of the Cape Farewell Archipelago. The name was given in honour of a real Prince, later, King Christian VIII of Denmark.

Night night! See you Monday! 💤💤