2025 March | Around the World in 80 Trips (Or Less)

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Northern Lights Tour Day 13

Day 13, Feb 10, 2025, To Svolvaer, Norway

Another morning arising at 7:00 AM. Go to the breakfast buffet and fill up. We load our luggage and board the bus at 9:00 AM. The weather is dreary this morning and we drive around a fjord. Even in the dreary weather, the mountain scenery is spectacular. Shooting through rain soaked windows is difficult but our cameras insist! We pass through small enclaves of picturesque towns. There are a lot of one way bridges which forces us to stop a lot.

We stop at a Kafe for lunch and rest break. The scenery around the Kafe is interesting and I take a walk. My camera thanks me! I even see what appears to be a tipped over outhouse? What’s up with that? There is an electric charging station in front of the Kafe. We are told that over half of all the cars purchased are now electric!

We experience light rain all day but our parkas and hoods protect us. There are fish drying racks everywhere. This area is famous for “Lutefisk”, mostly Cod that is dried and stored. Then it is reconstituted and put into soups and stews.

Today we are traveling to Svolvaer by way of Evenes. We come across Henningsvaer, a part of Evenes. Evenes is a fishing village with a soccer stadium. We hike up a very picturesque trail overlooking the stadium. We find unique angles of a small lighthouse behind a hill from the stadium.

It is unlikely to have a chance of seeing Northern Lights tonight due to the weather. We walk around the town of Moloen on the way back to the bus and have a brief stop for a drink. I find another IPA and all is well!

We are in another Scandic Hotel tonight, apparently a favorite hotel chain of the Tour we are on. The rooms are a bit cramped as a rule but they are comfortable. Add to that the breakfast buffets and there you have a popular package.

We all meet at a pub a few blocks away for drinks and jokes. We have effectively taken over this pub as we are 25 people and the pub holds about 30. There are a few patrons in the pub but all but one leaves. The one left is a genial man who sits and observes us. Upon buying drinks for Elee and I, I also buy the man a drink from our group and everyone cheers! People take turns telling bad jokes and we all laugh.

Then we go our separate ways for dinner. We meet up with new friends John and Di and go to a fish restaurant, ‘Bacalao’. Here we order their signature dish, “Bacalao”, which is a stew featuring dried, salted Cod that has been reconstituted. This is similar to a famous Norwegian fish, called “Lutefisk”. If you look it up, it sounds unappealing but we found it amazingly good!

It has been a tiring day, so we turn in. Elee is nursing a sore ankle after taking a light fall in the crowded pub.

Northern Lights Tour Day 12

Day 12, Feb 09, 2025, Travel to Narvik, Norway

We get up at 7:00 AM and go down to breakfast. The typical breakfast buffet is, once again, very good! Then we go back to the room and pack up our bags. We head for the bus at 9:30. Today we make the drive to Narvik. It will be a three and one half hour drive. We stop at Go2s for pizza and beer. We underestimate the size of the pizzas and can only finish half of it between the two of us! They have a local IPA and I indulge. After all, it’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere! We end up taking half the pizza with us back on the bus!

The scenery is breathtaking! Watching the river ice is intriguing, sometimes frozen, sometimes not. Driving along fjords gives a scenic view that is mesmerizing. Viktor drives down one side of a fjord and then back along the other. We have lost count of the tunnels we go through.

Norway has over 1000 road tunnels, the longest is twenty four kilometers long! Very few tunnels have any guardrails and the walls are rough hewn rock! I can’t imagine the mess if you left your lane and came in contact with the side! We are told that some tunnels even cross and have roundabouts in them, but we haven’t encountered one of those. We do see a couple random emergency lay-bys for safety.

I mistakenly thought the architecture in Norway would be unique. We do see some grass roofs but photographing them is near impossible from the moving bus. I will keep trying. Most buildings are wood frame houses and barns throughout the countryside. Buildings in the cities are typical, with the occasional uniquely designed library or museum.

Narvik is an interesting city. We visit the Red Cross War Museum next to our hotel for the night. Having never been interested in history as a child (not classes I excelled in), I find it more interesting as an adult. I feel educated about Norway’s involvement in WWII. It seems that Norway was rich in iron ore and steel and was much sought after by Germany. Not to mention the protection all the fjords gave to the military ships!

After spending hours in the museum, we check in to our room and then take a walk around town. The weather is wet and snowy. But it’s not so severe that it stops us from our hike. There is a bar on the top (16th) floor of our hotel that opens at 6:00 PM. So guess where we find ourselves at 6? We find most of our tour group there and we queue up for drinks and tapas.

We are full despite having half of a huge pizza in the room that we don’t touch! We turn in early and sleep well.

Northern Lights Tour Day 11

Day 11, Feb 08, 2025, Tromso Cable Car and Northern Lights

We actually sleep in today with no alarm! We get up around 8:30 AM and go down to breakfast. We continue to negotiate our evening schedules and meanwhile head off to find the mountain tram. We ride the local bus, stopping to visit the Arctic Cathedral where we pay $8 each to go in. It’s nice but not worth the money.

We get back on the local bus and arrive at the queue for the Fjellheisen Cable Car at 11 AM. It takes over 2 hours in line to get to the tram ride up.

Our cameras are entertained and take several photos from the top. It has only cost $65USD for the round trip ride. Some people choose to hike one direction! Crazy!

We get back to the hotel to find our evening schedules are working perfectly. We dropped the reindeer excursion (there wasn’t enough snow for the sleigh ride) in favor of a Northern Lights Chase Bus. So we kick back for an hour and bundle up for the night. We find a local restaurant that serves good seafood soup and have an early dinner. Outside the hotel is a Sami Shop store and Elee clowns around with a stuffed reindeer in front! We even see an electric Porsche charging station!

Then it’s off to the bus for the Northern Lights Tour. This is a different Tour Group from our main Tour. We meet the bus at an agreed upon location and board. The tour guides deliver. Brendan and Meda deliver a fun night with Adrian driving the bus. The bus travels approximately an hour to get away from the city lights. We are taken to a fjord with magnificent mountain backdrops and get a Northern Light show that is fun! Brendan and Meda describe how to spot when the Aurora Borealis begins and it is different than we thought. What we look at when we look up looks like high wispy clouds. So I set the camera up on a tripod and take a shot of the ‘high clouds’. Whoa! Those ‘high clouds’ are green! So exposure after exposure are taken and before I know it, the ‘green’ is evident with the naked eye!

The band of Auroras grows brighter and darker green within a half hour. This show goes on for almost 2 hours.

More fun shots are taken and our cameras are having a blast!

Brendan and Meda light a campfire after and teach those interested how. Many campfire stories are told of Northern Lights lore and Sami legends.

After everyone boards the bus again, we head out towards Tromso. There is the promise of stopping on the way back if any activity is spotted. No activity is seen. We get back in our room about 1 AM and turn in.

Northern Lights Tour Day 10

Day 10, Feb 07, 2025, To Tromso

We climb out of bed this morning at 7:00 AM. Breakfast is the usual buffet and is good. I’m getting addicted to European Coffee. It is very rich! This morning there are Forest Rangers in the restaurant. We don’t find out why. Then it’s back to the room to pack up the bags as we will be in a new city tonight. We load the bus and climb aboard at 9:00 AM. Here’s a shot looking from our room down at the breakfast buffet!

The scenery is fantastic today, driving to Tromso by the fjords. Bits of blue sky and green water assault our senses. Colorful houses and towns along the way. Our cameras are happy! We go through many tunnels and over bridges. Frozen waterfalls are in abundance!

It is a whopping 8 degrees C today! That’s 45 F! Quite the change from a couple days ago! The landscape continues to impress us and the sun even makes brief appearances! There is much less snow here and no more frozen trees. This country has more tunnels than we have ever seen.

We stop at ‘Pa Taket Kafe’ for lunch. The Cafe overlooks a small picturesque harbor. Then it’s back on the road through the countryside and our cameras purr like kittens. More frozen roadside waterfalls and tunnels to go through! We stop at Circle K again for a break! We must be officially members of the Circle by now! I take a chance with what appears to be a chocolate bar!

As we head out from the break, rain sets in as the afternoon moves along. But the scenery stays fabulous.

We arrive in Tromso and check in to the Clarion Collection Hotel. We walk around town in light rain and come across the world’s smallest restaurant and bar! It is a tiny kiosk on the street! It has a huge line and we decide we really want to find a place indoors out of the elements. We find a place and order drinks. It is then we are told they stop serving food at 4 PM. What??? They do have a small charcuterie board that we call dinner! I also find a wine I’ve never had before and add it to my growing list of wines I’ve tasted! I’ll be able to join the Century Club soon!

We stroll the few blocks back to the hotel and call it a night. But not before finding a few sights for our cameras and even a troll!

See you again tomorrow!

Northern Lights Tour Day 09

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.