Northern Lights Tour Day 09

By travelerdon on March 5, 2025

Day 09, Feb 06, 2025, To Alta, Norway

After getting up and dressed at 5, I go outside but there are no Auroras. So it’s back to bed. Then it’s up at 7:00 AM. We get on the bus at 9:00 AM. We see lots of moose today and reindeer. Someone calls out every 5 or 10 minutes. Photographing them is a different story through moving bus windows.

The temperatures top out at -4C today (26F). We will be driving to Alta today. I spot Some Sami girls in costume getting into a car. I playfully point my camera at them and they smile, hop out of the car and pose for our cameras! The Sami girls in costume are on their way to a celebration. It is National Sami Day!

The winds are strong. There is a “Truc Dies” flag at Circle K. The winds have destroyed the flag. We believe it originally read, “Truck Diesel”, LOL. We all agree that we would prefer -30C to the winds.

The terrain is different here. We see a lot of Norwegian Birch. They are scrubby trees, almost what we would call bushes. It never gets warm or sunny enough here for a lot of tree growth. On the other hand, it makes it easy to see wildlife. The animals we see are very difficult to photograph from the bus moving at 60-70 KPH (45 MPH).

We arrive in Alta and visit the Alta Museum. It tells us all about the Sami culture and sits overlooking a fjord. The views from the open deck are fabulous. We move on and arrive in downtown Alta. We stay tonight in the Scandic Alta Hotel. We arrive in time to take a nap before dinner.

Dinner tonight is at Erica Mat & Vinbar (food and wine bar). Tonight we indulge ourselves and have a Smoked Whale Meat Tapas appetizer. Add to that Reindeer Steak for the main course. Now before you get all upset, it is allowed in this part of the world to hunt a certain amount of whales, usually “Minke” whales. Minke whales are commonly in over abundance and are not on the endangered list.

The Smoked Minke Whale is on the top grey plate, Reindeer Filet on the bottom! It is interesting that the whale meat is almost black in color!

Then a walk back to the hotel for the night in the brisk air. There is a church outside the hotel that charges for entrance, but it is closed so we can’t go in. This is a new experience for us to see churches charging entrance fees. We are finding Scandinavia expensive, from the food to entertainment.