Discovering a fascinating polar worldA territory with magnificent landscapes
Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2025 6:00 am
Land of glaciers and ancestral traditions, Greenland is one of those destinations that make travelers in search of the extraordinary dream. Long considered a difficult territory to access, the island now reveals its charms through cruises, designed to explore unique landscapes, ice floes, ice and a thousand-year-old Inuit culture. In this article, we take you to where the azure of the sky mixes with the whiteness of the icebergs, and where man learns, every day, to deal with the forces of Nature.
Greenland's reputation is well established: spectacular fjords, immense glaciers, expanses of ice floes as far as the eye can see... There is no shortage of superlatives to describe this gigantic island, which stretches over more than two million square kilometres. One of the unmissable stops on a cruise to Greenland with Ponant is the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is home to some of the largest icebergs in the world (along with Antarctica), drifting slowly out to sea in a silence broken only by the cracking stockholder data of the ice. As you sail, other majestic glaciers are revealed, such as the Eqi Glacier or the Upernavik Fjord, whose dizzying rock walls overlook the clear waters.
The encounter with a thousand-year-old culture
Greenland is not just a natural setting: it is also the birthplace of a people, the Inuit, whose history goes back more than 4,000 years. Several stops allow you to delve into their heritage. The Inuit History Museum in Sisimiut is a perfect starting point, with its collections of tools, everyday objects and crafts, witnesses to the ancestral way of life of the Arctic hunters and fishermen. Some small towns, like Qaanaaq, also offer a unique insight into life in the Far North of Greenland. There, the colorful houses stand out against a windswept hillside, while the sled dogs wait patiently for the next expedition on the ice floes.
Greenland's reputation is well established: spectacular fjords, immense glaciers, expanses of ice floes as far as the eye can see... There is no shortage of superlatives to describe this gigantic island, which stretches over more than two million square kilometres. One of the unmissable stops on a cruise to Greenland with Ponant is the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is home to some of the largest icebergs in the world (along with Antarctica), drifting slowly out to sea in a silence broken only by the cracking stockholder data of the ice. As you sail, other majestic glaciers are revealed, such as the Eqi Glacier or the Upernavik Fjord, whose dizzying rock walls overlook the clear waters.
The encounter with a thousand-year-old culture
Greenland is not just a natural setting: it is also the birthplace of a people, the Inuit, whose history goes back more than 4,000 years. Several stops allow you to delve into their heritage. The Inuit History Museum in Sisimiut is a perfect starting point, with its collections of tools, everyday objects and crafts, witnesses to the ancestral way of life of the Arctic hunters and fishermen. Some small towns, like Qaanaaq, also offer a unique insight into life in the Far North of Greenland. There, the colorful houses stand out against a windswept hillside, while the sled dogs wait patiently for the next expedition on the ice floes.