An anti-whaling outdoor museum in Stanley, Falkland Islands
Stanley is what happens when you drop a small British town at the bottom of the world, complete with fish and chips, a local pub, and Scottish soda on the grocery store shelves.
After two sea days from South Georgia, we arrived in Stanley, and since neither of us had been to the Falklands before, we kept our first day simple and took the free two-hour bus tour of Stanley and the area just outside it, which covered some of the local artwork scattered around town along with a general overview of the islands' history. We'd spent part of those sea days in an onboard lecture about Falklands history from one of our Argentinian naturalists, and hearing that history from an Argentinian perspective rather than a British one was enlightening.
We had fish and chips at a local pub with the local beer called Rockhopper, a name that didn't mean too much to me yet. (YET!) They love penguins in the Falklands as much as I do, even putting them on the currency. The Falklands penny has shown two gentoo penguins since the 1970s, and I was so excited to find a gold-plated one on a necklace. It’s now one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.
Rockhopper Beer from Falklands Beerworks
The Falklands are a real place where real people live, which means real stores, and Stanley is where I bought just about every gift I brought home, other than a few little things I'd picked up in Grytviken. If you're planning a trip like this, you could also do a lot of your gift shopping in Ushuaia before you board, since the touristy stores there are packed with Antarctica everything. Save some money for South Georgia and the Falklands, of course, but we saw a lot of the same things in Stanley that we'd seen in Ushuaia.
The Falklands have a surprising amount of whaling history of their own, and walking around Stanley means passing whale bones and other leftovers from that era, including a whale bone arch next to the cathedral.
An arch made from whale bones in Stanley, Falklands
If you're considering a larger ship for an Antarctica cruise, Stanley matters more than you'd think. Ships carrying more than 500 passengers aren't allowed to land anyone in Antarctica, so those itineraries sail right past, and Stanley is often where those passengers finally get a close-up penguin experience, usually by bus over some very rocky roads out to a nearby colony.
We headed back to the ship with full stomachs, bags of gifts, and a beer label I didn't fully appreciate yet. The next morning’s visit to West Point Island would fix that.
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