Nuuk; Friday, 22 May, 2026

Whilst the alarm was set for 6am, that was technically 3am Nuuk time, so I knew it was going to be a long day. I had a quick breakfast in the hotel and then grabbed my bag and headed over to the terminal to drop my bag off and then wander through security. I’d assumed I’d also need to clear immigration as I didn’t think that Greenland was included in the Schengen zone, but it turned out that we were in the Schengen terminal, so it was a simple wander up to the gate when boarding was announced and then onto the flight.

The flight was pretty comfortable, heled by having a bulkhead seat and nobody sitting next to me, combined with a really efficient cabin team and a decent included breakfast – all on a flight that was about the same length as the UK to Cyprus.

The final hour or so of the flight was spectacular with us flying over Greenland from East to West and then as we reached the western edge of the ice sheet starting our descent down into Nuuk, landing with the mountains on one side and the fjord on the other.

Again, I had been expecting some form of immigration clearance for being out of Schengen, but we just wandered into the terminal building, grabbed bags and straight out to the waiting shuttle bus to take me over to my hotel for the stay.

After checking-in and dropping off my stuff I headed out into town, waking the 20 minutes or so to the heart of the old town of Nuuk. The city has expanded quite a lot over the last few years, so there are lots of modern apartment blocks, but down by the waters edge there are still some of the old historic buildings, including the cathedral – which was closed when I got there so I couldn’t look inside.

On the hill right next to the cathedral is the statue to Hans Egede, the first western missionary to reach Greenland and who brough Christianity to the Island. Today he’s a divisive figure as his methods of getting the local indigenous Inuit people to convert from their historic religious beliefs were brutal in modern eyes. Whatever you want to say about the statue, you can’t fault it’s position with commanding views over the old town of Nuuk and the Davis Strait that runs past it.

From the hill I headed down to the waters edge and the Greenland National Museum and Archive to have a look around their exhibitions and from there it was a couple of steps across the road to the Nuuk Local Museum. Between the two museums you get a good overview of the history of Greenland from it’s very earliest settlers through different waves of European settlement (first Vikings who then all left and later the Norwegian-Danish Christian settlement) and in the local museum the history of how things developed after the Christians had firmly established control up to the modern day.

Having looked round the two museums I decided I might as well complete the full set of the three main museums in town and walked the 15 minutes or so over to the Nuuk Art Museum to have a look around that, managing to fit it in before it closed for the evening.

I had a bit of a wander back through town before heading back to the hotel to try and sort out the mess that my tour bookings for the next two days had suddenly become as the company I’d booked through had cancelled one of the tours but then booked me on different tours. It took a bit of time to get sorted, but the upshot was I now had two rather full days, but no evening tours, which was probably a good thing as the 3am start was catching up with me.

Rather than heading out to find food I opted to have a pizza from the hotel café which was better than I was expecting before it was time to head back to my room and turn in for the night as by now, I was struggling to keep my eyes open.