Blogs from Tromsø, Northern Norway, Norway, Europe - page 6

What better place to spend the longest day of the year than somewhere where the sun doesn't actually set?!! Destination Tromso - 72 degrees north of the equator, somewhere amongst the fjords of Norway in the arctic circle, still with snow capped mountains, glaciers and evening temperatures of a balmy 5 degrees is a rather large city (given the living environment), host to the midnight sun marathon. Why not??? I can list a few reasons why not - cold, far away, expensive, 21.1kms - but then the reasons for are much greater than against - Arctic circle! Fjords! Midnight sun! Quality time with great friends! We got off to a bit of a rough start, with 4 of 6 of us missing our already expensive flights, requiring re-booking. However, we made up for the expenses with ... read more

FROM THE INTERNET: “At a latitude of nearly 70 degrees north, four days’ sailing from Bergen and barely a two-hour flight from Oslo, Murmansk or Longyearbyen, at the same latitude as Alaska and Siberia, between the island landscape, fjords and mountain peaks, you find Tromsø - Gateway to the Arctic and capital of Northern Norway. “Tromsø is situated right in the centre of the Northern Lights zone and is, therefore, together with the interior ice in Greenland the tundra in northern Canada, among the best places on earth to observe this phenomenon. Most of the Northern Lights outbursts visible from Tromsø are green, but large outbursts can also include other colours. “Tromsø was founded in 1794, although the first church was built here back in 1252. In the 1850s, Tromsø became the centre for Polar sea ... read more

Hello Everyone....or as they say here... Hei Hei. (They say it twice very quickly) We left Bergen and made our way to a little place called Rauland in the Telemark area. We stayed in a lodge way up on the Hardanger Mountain Plateau. Please excuse my spelling but we figure you guys probably won't know the difference anyway...:) Our guide, Øivind - whom all the women have fallen in love with by now - told us that every Norwegian is born with their skiis on and a backpack. It's kind of hard on the Mother!! This countryside looks like high mountain terrain. No trees but lots of berry bushes & moss. Cloudberries are the sought after berry here and if you find them, you don't tell anyone where they are. There is supposed to be reindeer ... read more

Hi All! Well, what a past 2 weeks it's been I can tell you! Firstly let me apologise for not being in contact any sooner as the internet on the ship went down as we were travelling around Norway. Firstly, I highly recommend a visit to Norway. We're not talking sunbathing on the beach or party-nights but the breathtaking scenery is sure to move the most hardened of people. A glacier in one of the Fjords was an awesome sight. We cruised through this narrow passage-way slowly for the best part of the day, to take in the sights; clear blue skies, snow capped mountains & crystal clear water. One of the stops was Geiranger & a 2 hour trek with my 2 cabin mates enabled me to see the best of the views. The ship ... read more

So, after downing 2 entirely unnecessary early morning beers at the Mack (pronounced "Muck") brewery pub, due to there being no brewery tours that day, I took myself off to the Polaria. This modern building houses an aquarium of Arctic marine life. Not the world's biggest aquarium, probably due to its fairly small pool of potential tenants. But reasonably interesting nonetheless. The centre piece is a reasonably sized tank featuring 3 bearded seals. They seemed happy (and fat) enough, but I suppose if you have spent years swimming in circles in an enlarged fishtank, with fresh fish on demand, you don't really know what you're missing out on. It also showed a film of the capture of the 3 tenants of the tank. It may just be me, but it sat a bit uncomfortably as they ... read more