Greenland: Itilleq

As soon as we arrived to Narsarsuaq, we took the boat to Itilleq, in order to reach the village of Igaliku.

We were the only ones to disembark at the small Itilleq harbour, the picture on the left is from the day we left.

We took fast 12-passengers ship named Iluliaq that was saling to Narsaq.
We were so excited and happy of sailing between icebergs on Tunulliarfik Fjord! We even got quite close to Qoroq Ice fjord, a place we visited a fe days later!
By the way, Ililiaq means iceberg in Greenlandic!

Iluliaq is a fast ship but I stayed outside for most of the trip even if the wind was cold.

Itilleq is a small settlement with only one big farm and a few small houses.

According to the Lonely Planet Greenland Guide, only 16 inhabitants live there permanently.

Note that there are two settlements named Itilleq. The other one is larger (about 130 inhabitants!) and is located near the town of Sisimiut.

The reason we went to Itilleq is that this settlement is the main access point to Igaliku when coming from Narsarsuaq.
Itilleq is on the shores of Tunulliarfik Fjord (also known as Eiriksfjord), the same fjord where Narsarsuaq is located.

Igaliku has its own harbour, but it’s on another fjord on the other side of the peninsula.
It would have been very long (and expensive) to reach Igaliku directly.

As the boat arrived in the small Itilleq harbour, we had the feeling we were being dropped in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually, it was almost the case...

We saw the boat sailing away leaving us behind. We were left alone with no one around, only mountains, icebergs and the sea.
Even if there were 3 houses nearby, it was a strange feeling. Let’s say, a bit of apprehension, and a lot of excitement!

That’s when we realized that we were in Greenland and this trip was going to be better than we expected!

From Itilleq, Igaliku is only a nice 4 kilometres walk by a gravel road made for tractors and 4 Wheel Drive vehicles.
We only saw one car during the time we walked.

This road has a name: the Kongvegen, that means the King's Way in Danish.

The Kongvegen is not flat, but it’s an easy hike.

We made frequent stops along the way. It was good to take a break from carrying our backpacks but also to admire the landscape.

The views of Eiriksfjord from Itilleq are really gorgeous.
And they were even better on that sunny morning when we returned to Itilleq in order take the boat to Qassiarsuk.

Note that most pictures on this page were taken that day, on our second visit to Itilleq.

Itilleq means "isthmus" or "Crossing Place". That's exatly what we did, crossed to place to reach the next town!

After a very nice walk on the King's Way, the village of Igaliku finally appeared, and it look gorgeous from up the hill!

Our next mission was to find a nice place to set our tent for the night, and the following few days that we were going to spend in Igaliku.

Click here to read about Igaliku.

Greenland Links:

Greenland on Trip Advisor
Greenland Official Tourism board
Lonely Planet Greenland guides
Compare flights to Greenland

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