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Posts tagged ‘tromso’

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!