Cold, windy and rainy Tromso was our next stop. We had scheduled a Northern Lights boat tour for the night of our arrival, but as mentioned in our last post, it was cancelled due to poor conditions and cloud cover – a bit of a bummer, but glad they canceled it instead of sending us out in rough seas for no reason!
So, we had our first and only night in Tromso wide open with only one sure-fire thing to do – wander about the city center in search of food and drink. So we did.
We ended up at Olhallen, which had 50 beers on tap on the back wall and another half dozen or so taps at the bar. It was very near the Mack Brewery, which is (so we’re told) the northernmost brewery in the world and purveyor of a mighty fine group of beers.
It was a very comfortable and hospitable bar, and we wound up in conversation with an Australian couple next table over who were traveling the world, which made for some fun story swapping over a of couple pints.
The next day we had a lot of time in town before catching our ferry southbound. Tromso is located on an island in the fjord, with long bridges on the north and south sides. We made a trek across the southern bridge to the Arctic Cathedral. It wasn’t open but was still worthy of a photo or two, and then it was back across for lunch and then a cozy pub to play cards to get out of the drizzle.
Our ship was leaving at 1:30 am with boarding starting at around midnight, which made for a pretty long evening waiting for our departure. Fortunately, the fine folks at the Comfort Hotel where we stayed, and which was just a short walk from the docks, let us store our bags and hang out in the lobby while we waited.
Boarding the Havila Castor was a breeze, with the only bummer being that the bar was closed. The Havila Castor is more of a small cruise ship than a ferry, and a quick tour of the ship yielded tons of places to watch both the scenery and the sea eagles.
Above the Arctic Circle, the landscape is dramatically different from below—very stark, steep and sometimes foreboding and yet beautiful. We sailed through fantastic scenery, including the incredibly narrow passages to get to the Trollfjord. And just as we were about to call it a night—the best part of the trip, so far, happened.
The Northern Lights alarm went off.
Yes, indeed, they have an alarm system set up to alert passengers when the lights are visible – which is awesome, but not as awesome as actually seeing the Aurora Borealis with your own eyes.
