Tromsø; Thursday, 19 July, 2007

After the last decent nights sleep for some time, I got up early to grab breakfast before heading back to the airport and the flight North, in fact the furthest north I had ever been, to Tromsø, capital of the arctic. After a relaxing flight I arrived in Tromsø and again had to wait a significant amount to time for my luggage, thankfully, this would be the last time, until the flight back to the UK, that I would have to let my luggage be handled by anyone else, and by the time I got back to the UK if BA wanted to loose a bag load of dirty washing then I wasn’t going to be too worried!

I still managed to, just, make the connecting Flybussen into town and walked the short distance to the hotel and checked in. After dumping my luggage, and pulling a fleece out of my bags, as the temperature difference 400Km north of the Arctic circle to Oslo was noticeable, I went for a wander through the town, mostly in search of the Tourist information centre.

All my guidebooks listed the tourist information centre as being just opposite the cathedral, even the street signs pointed to that location, but all that was there was a convenience store and a restaurant. I spent 5 minutes walking up and down the streets nearby trying to see if the sign was pointing somewhere else, then giving up I thought I might be able to get some information at the bus station. When I got to the bus station I found they had handed half of their office space over to… the tourist information centre! I went in and picked up some leaflets on things to do, as well as booking to go on a bus and ferry tour of the fjords around Tromsø the following day.

After leaving the tourist centre I headed back towards the centre of town and caught the bus out, across the fjord to the mainland and on to the cablecar. The car runs to a station nearly at the top of the hill that overlooks the island that most of Tromsø is on. The views are breathtaking, not only of the city laid out beneath you, but the whole of the island, and a large vista across the fjord and the other small islands and mountains that surround Tromsø. I spent nearly three hours wandering along the ridge and pathways before the weather started closing in, so I headed back to the cable car station and descended back to the bus stop and then back on into town. By now it was gone 8pm so I decided to stop for some dinner.

After dinner I had a further wander around the city centre, before, at a little after 10:30 walking the 30 minutes or so, over the impressive bridge that links Tromsø to the mainland, past the stunning arctic cathedral and back to the cable car. I re-ascended back to the top and took in the marvel of the city, at 11:30 at night, bathed in the light of the midnight sun (albeit from behind a fairly thick cloud cover!).

Weather

Sunny Intervals Light Showers
AM PM
Mild (0-10C, 32-50F)
9ºC/48ºF