As I sit here now, the weather outside is currently snowing, but the forecast is for sunny weather tomorrow and the rest of the week, unfortunately, we’re flying out of Tromsø tomorrow so will miss the nice weather. This has pretty much been the case for most of our Norway leg of the trip so far, with cloudy/rainy weather in Bergen, overcast and rainy in Oslo and windy/cloudy/snowing/raining in Tromsø.
If you decide to visit Tromsø, make sure you visit during the winter or summer season, as during the shoulder periods (like now) a lot of activities/attractions are closed. eg We wanted to go dog sledding but the winter season finished at the end of April, so now they’re doing the summer activities yet it’s still snowing, the mountains are covered in snow and it’s abut 4*c.
Apart from all the above, I had a good time in Tromsø. It’s my first time inside the Arctic Circle and I would love to come back again in the future, not sure if I’d do the winter or summer season yet.
We visited Polaria (which is an aquarium of polar animals, fish crabs etc) and saw some very playful and intelligent seals, as well as a crab that kept trying to escape from it’s tank.
We payed a visit to the Arctic Cathedral (the name for their local church) and ate some very yummy custard pastries from a local bakery (they were very reasonably priced).
One afternoon we took a short trip to the Tromsø Alpine Botanic Garden which is open all year round, except at this time of the year it was completely covered in snow so everything was pretty much dead. Still I managed to find some deep snowdrifts and got my jeans and shoes completely wet (a visit to our hotel’s laundry was required later that day) and also managed to get some good photos and a 360 below –
It also snowed here in Tromsø and I managed to get a short video of it, plus a couple of pictures (I included one below)
For those who are interested here’s a little bit of info about Tromsø – Tromsø itself is situated on an island with the airport on one side and the city on the other. There is a road tunnel across the island, but halfway through the tunnel there is a roundabout, where four tunnels connect underground. Further on there is another roundabout and to the left is the entrance to Tunnel Parking, where you literally park you car in a tunnel and walk out into the city. It’s not cheap though at 100NOK per day.
Tromsø is located 350kms north of the Arctic Circle but is warmer than most other places located on the same latitude, due to the warming effect of the Gulf Stream. It also has Norway’s only all wooden church and hosts a lot of festivals and concerts during the summer. The city is also home to the world’s most northerly university, and botanical garden.
I’ve also included a picture below (IMG_1176) which is the view outside my hotel window at 11:30pm at night. As you can see it’s still quite light as the sun has only just set, but not to worry cause it will be rising again in a couple of hours time, so it was never really that dark while we were here.
We’re off to Sweden tomorrow and one step closer to Eurovision. Can’t wait…
Farvel
