So, we finally made it… After years of talking about it, we took the chance to chase Northern Lights. As you need several key ingredients for this (namely clear sky, dark nights and solar wind…) the places to go are not so many. Among them is Tromso in northern Norway, just beyond the Polar Circle.

The flight from Barcelona was ok but tedious. Customs clearance in Oslo where you have to change planes is mediocre; where else except the US do you have to collect your baggage, make custom clearance and then (this is a nightmare) you have to do a security check again… As we had bought bottles in Spain (guess what ) they even took them out of the sealed bags, checked them and re-sealed… And all this with 60 min of connection time. In the end we just arrived in time at the gate.

When reaching the hotel we got our first Norway impression – 80 cm beds Uuu… this is narrow; and the heating (as usual) at 5 so you have some cosy 28° in the room So our usual procedure… Heating off, windows open and getting out… We even took the folly to go to a bar (knowing how expensive Norway is) yet still the shock was there – 2 beer was 158 Krona (which is roughly 18 €)… Ts, ts, ts…

Next morning (the days are actually far longer than we expected – sunrise (which sun?) is around 06:30, sunset (ok, distinguishable… ) around 17:30) we strolled along the boulders of the beach

just to catch some fresh air and sunshine for a change

The scenery is just magnificent and breath-taking.

I really love these old withered wooden constructions

Especially when there is a scenic backdrop

and nice light

If you fancy rocks (like I do…) you can find plenty of them. I mean – nothing else really grows here aside them  

Driving towards our rented cabin (which actually turned out to be a small house ) was a fun thing. In the beginning the driving was a bit stressful (when did I drive in real winter for the last time???), but after figuring out that everything was fine it starts to get really beautiful. Especially knowing (which we found out at the parking when doing the shopping) that you have tires with spikes (yes, on all 4 – and the full version, not half spikes ) gives you quite some relief.

 

The distant mountains over the bay

and 5 min later… The weather really changes fast here

We just loved the combination of colors

Isn’t that nice?

Making a path for me (as I had only sport shoes this day…) to the water edge

a black bear…

Enjoying life

And another amazing view

5 min later

As you can see there is real winter – and still 2 more months of it (if summer comes at all…)

Birches, birches, snow, nothing…

The road…

Fortunately they had these poles – otherwise you have no chance to find your way…

The good thing is that it clears very fast as well – so just down the hill and 10 min later…

Being in our cabin we decided to watch the sea by candlelight and just enjoy ourselves

Then at night we saw a distant Northern Light through the clouds. According to its intensity it must have been very strong. Don’t get the wrong impression – we are talking about pitch-black night around 21:30 and the blue-green thing in the middle is the real stuff Just with 6400 ASA you can make the night look like day

After some time out we finally retreated to our fireplace… Oh how nice