12 September 2023

We left the bedroom curtains open last night in the hope that we might spot some coloured lights in the sky. No such luck. I slept like a baby!!! I’m pretty sure we didn’t miss anything though, as it was overcast, drizzling and foggy. Not ideal conditions for light spotting!!

Coffee alert!! 9/10!!! Grahame and I headed down from our apartment to the cool little Bakery nearby. I asked for a Flat White and got a lecture on international coffee nomenclature. I ordered a cappuccino instead as I didn’t want to upset the Coffee Cart. It was good!!! Happy days.!!

Our first stop today was the Polaria, The “most northerly” aquarium in the world. (Almost everything in Tromsø qualifies as “ the most northerly” btw). We had seen so little in the way of wildlife during our time here that we thought this might give us an opportunity to at least see some “not so wild” wild life of the aquatic kind.

The building housing the aquarium was quite impressive. “Its striking design represents ice floes that have been pressed up on land by the rough seas of the Arctic.” ( Google)

We spent a fair amount of time here, watching the seals play in the little pool (too little for my liking) and visiting the displays containing other Arctic fish, anemones and other marine life forms.

We stayed long enough to watch the training and feeding sessions with the seals. They looked like they were having “fun”. I hope so!!!

The Tromsø Cathedral was open today as We walked by, so we popped in for a quick visit.

It was lovely and warm and ….. colourful!

From one colourful place to another. We stopped for lunch at that hotdog stand in the Main Street that we had seen yesterday. Grahame chose the reindeer hotdog, and reckoned it was pretty good. Emily and I were a little less adventurous, and left poor Rudolf alone.

Emily and I were both keen to make the trek over the bridge to the Arctic Cathedral. We had actually done a little planning (Shock! I know) and researched opening times. Perfect timing. We arrived at 1pm, just as a private funeral was taking place and the church was unusually closed, due to these unfortunate circumstances, until 2 pm. Best laid plans!

Grahame and I did a spot of local Geocaching to while away the time. We found three, our first finds in Norway.

The Arctic Cathedral, technically not a cathedral at all, but rather a local parish church, opened its doors to the public at 2pm and in we went.

The stain glass window and the chandeliers were impressive, but I preferred the view back towards the pipe organ.

Now, Emily was a big fan. She loved the architecture, the clean lines and the chandeliers. We both agree that it was an impressive building and it definitely made a statement on the sky line in Tromsø, but my vote goes to the cozy wooden, actual, cathedral we saw earlier.

We still had many, many hours before we made our way to the Hurtigruten Terminal to join our southbound ship.

Emily helped us negotiate the local bus ticket purchasing system, (yet another App) and before long we were onboard and heading out of Tromsø towards the Arctic- Alpine Botanic Gardens. You guessed it. It’s the world’s most northernmost botanical gardens!!! The added bonus to this visit was that it was free of charge.

The gardens are situated on an old farm site, there are no gates or fences and they are open 24 hours a day. Although we missed the main flowering season by about a month, it was an amazing and worthwhile visit. There were still plenty of flowering plants along with an incredibly diverse range of arctic shrubs and ground covers, all meticulously named with little labels.

Now all this church visiting and flower appreciating is thirsty work apparently. Grahame didn’t need to consult the map once, but somehow managed to lead us back at the Mack Brewery.

We had a late dinner at a little cafe/ bar in town where Grahame, who had obviously developed a taste, ordered Reindeer Shepherds Pie. I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture. But I did record our dessert choice.

Minutes before midnight we boarded MS Nordkapp, Polarlys’s sister ship. We were issued with our boarding swipe cards, allocated our new cabin and set sail for Bergen. But for now, we had some serious sleeping to do.