Tromso, Norway 2020

We spent a week or so in Tromso in February 2020. We flew SAS to Tromso where we were quite happy to finally see some snow! And ice too, plenty of it! It was interesting to see how the sidewalks were cleaned but not the streets – probably because all the cars had studded tyres. But that made crossing the road a bit of a risky business, profit-raising for the Orthopaedic surgeons!

We visited the Arctic Cathedral, Fjellheisenn cable car, the Polar Museum where we saw some very interesting things about seal and whale hunting in Norway and Fridtjof Nansen’s and Roald Amundsen’s expeditions.

We were very lucky and got to see the Northern lights a couple of nights, putting on quite a nice, bright and dancing display for us. The most spectacular experience was watching them from an electric catamaran – no smoke, no engine noise, just amazing. The boat was interesting – the architect tried to allegedly design it as environmentally friendly as possible and it also looked nice, but had some technical impracticalities.

We also went dog sledding which was an amazing experience, and the dogs seemed so happy to be with the group, it was all just play for them. They were so friendly as well, and their paws were quite big for their size with very strong claws to have a good grip in the icy snow. Luckily it was -2 degrees the day we went – not too cold for us but cold enough for the dogs to be able to pull, as apparently if it gets to 10 degrees it’s too hot for them.

We also went on a snowmobile at Camp Tamok – a nice but very cold experience, that offered us amazing views.