Monthly Archives: February 2022

Friday we were sailing from Tromso to Bodo. Around noon the captain came on the ship’s intercom and announced that we would not be going to Bodo. Apparently the wind and waves were going to be too extreme to get into port. In addition he was having to cancel our last port of Lerwick, in the Shetland islands because of the storms we would be encountering.

We had a little rough water late on Friday. Most of Saturday we have been sailing in and out of fjords to avoid the rough seas. We are working our way south and should pass Bergen around midnight.

Currently the waves are around 25 to 30 feet and according to the last announcement by the captain the head winds are from 50 to 70 MPH. We are rocking and rolling, but we are warm and secure on the ship. Bob and I are staying in our cabin for the time being. They think we will be in open water like this until midnight and then hopefully will be able to get into more sheltered areas then.

Have tried to photograph the seas but I can’t go on our balcony for fear of being tossed around and hurt. Believe me it is wild out there.

Scandinavia’s largest city within the Arctic circle is Tromso. It has been called the Paris of the North. It has a population of approximately 70,000. The city of Tromso is situated on an island, with a suburb across the water. Tromso is one of the oldest towns in Norway, established in 1794. The city was not harmed badly in WWII. The Germans when they left did not burn the city to the ground as they did in other places in Norway.

We did a scenic tour in the early afternoon. We saw various parts of the island, stopping to take some photos of Whale Island. We also drove by the Arctic Cathedral, whose design is compared to the Sydney Opera House. It was closed to the public, so we could only see the outside. The city also is home to the northernmost botanical garden in the world.

Our big tour for the day was in the evening to again search for the Northern Lights. It was pretty cold again, around 4 F. We went to several places but the skies were too cloudy to see anything. Our guide did make a fire at one place to help us keep warm. He even took a photo of us in front of the fire. One with the lights behind us would have been better. When we got back to the ship after midnight there were sandwiches and a bottle of wine waiting for us in our room.

After overnighting we had a “shopping excursion”. The ship has been very strict about Covid protocols. We have our temperature taken daily, have to answer a health survey daily and have to be tested daily for Covid. To enable us to shop, 2 stores right next to each other in the town center, we’re closed to all others except for our group of 20. We were not able to go anywhere else during the 1 hour we had in town. Our guide said that she could lose her job if anyone wandered off. It was nice to get to do something that felt normal. Our group was mostly the only ones masked. Norway had dropped their Covid rules about 5 days before we started our trip.

Our second day in Alta had us touring the “City of Northern Lights”. Our first stop was at the Alta Museum. It is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. There are many forms of rock art in the area and the museum is built along side a huge field of the rocks. Unfortunately because of the time of year they are under about 3 feet of snow. However in the museum they have several examples of the rock art. The ones outside are huge, 15 to 20 feet of art. The oldest specimens are about 7,000 years old. The ones in Alta are about 3,000 years old. When we first arrived at the museum there were a group of pre-schoolers out for their daily hour plus of play time, weather not an issue. They were climbing on the snow banks and eating the snow. This morning the temperature was about 5 F.

The museum had some small pieces of the rock art to include one called Pippi which was a realistic figure of a girl. There was also an exhibition of Sami clothing and one about one of their national ski jumpers from the 1960s. In the basement was a theater that had a show of the aurora.

The city of Alta has a population of about 21,000 and is the 6th most populated place in Norway. The town center is tiny. They offered a shopping shuttle but we did not go.

Our second stop was the Northern Lights Cathedral. It is an unusual structure, sort of looks like a cinnamon roll. The original church for the town was destroyed during WWII. The first service after the war was held on December 25, 1945 and the 100 people who attended decided they would build a new church, and the donations began then. The cornerstone was laid in 2000 with construction started in 2011 and consecration in 2013. It is made of poured concrete with over 40,000 pieces of titanium for the outside panels covering the building. The flooring is Alta slate in the entry with oak floors in the actual church. Because this is such a small community the building is used by many religions and is also the town concert hall, teen center, meeting hall and gatherings place for many clubs. The statue of Christ is quite different. It is bronze weighing 2 tons, he is standing in a boat and is looking up to convey hope.

Again, the internet is not strong enough to add photos to this post. Hopefully we get somewhere in the near future and I will be able to send photos too.

The sail into the town of Alta was beautiful. We passed snow covered mountain after snow covered mountain. The sky was clear and the sun was shining. A beautiful morning. We had no tours today until the evening. We exercised, read our books and played bridge online.

Our tour started at 9:30 PM. It was around -12 C when we started. It eventually got to -17 C, a balmy 3 F! The landscape is pretty, lots of snow covered low mountains. The snow looks like whipped cream. It is pure white. We got to Paeskatun after a 1/2 hour ride. We were greeted and told the lay out. There were several small houses – 2 were for warm drinks and cake, a museum, a shop, a Sami tepee and an ice house. But the real reason we were there was to try to see the Northern lights. When we first arrived there were some small wisps of the lights, but they quickly disappeared. We walked around some and then went inside to warm up.

Then, the lights appeared. The sky was full. Long trails of lights, curtains. It was amazing. Once again, Bob got some great photos. For some reason my photo skills were lost. It was an amazing night.

I am still unable to post photos to my blog. Hopefully when we get to places that are not so remote I will be able to add photos.

After Bergen we had a sea day. There were lots of lectures to attend. The ship’s historian did a tour of the art work on all the landings. These are enlarged photos of the Bayeau Tapestry and he explained the story that they told.

We had another shot at seeing the Northern Lights while we sailed, but it did not happen this evening.

In the morning we were in Narvik. This is a town of about 14,500 inhabitants. It was founded around 1900 because of commerce. There is huge iron mining in Sweden at Kiruna, which is about 150 kilometers from Narvik. Since Narvik is a port whose waters never freeze due to the Gulf Stream, the Swedes use this port to send their ore to most of Europe and also to Asia. They move about 25 million tons of iron ore yearly.

The polar night lasts from December 6 to January 9 – this means the sun does not rise above the horizon for that time. It does get twilight for those days. The days of the midnight sun – no darkness – last from May 25 to July 20. I think you have to be a hardy person to go through these extremes.

The highlight of our day was our excursion to go dog sledding. We had to drive away from the coast for almost 2 hours. The scenery along the way was beautiful. Snow covered mountains, frozen lakes and rivers and amazing vistas wherever we looked. The dogs are Siberian huskies. They are smaller and colored differently from the Alaskan huskies which we normally see. The ride was fun. After we got to see the 4 month old babies who were friendly. Soup and hot chocolate was served and then we traveled back to the ship.

Dinner was at the Chef’s Table restaurant on board. It was a 5 course Scandinavian menu with wine served for each course.

We did get another viewing of the lights this night. Very cold on deck, but Bob again got great photos. Bette is still zero in photography.

Again, wifi not strong enough to share photos. Will try at a later time.

Friday morning we were still in Bergen. We had a Panoramic Tour provided by the ship. Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with less than 300,000 people. It is a popular tourist destination in the summer and is becoming one in the winter as well. The main source of income comes from the shipping and fishing industries.

We saw statues of Ibsen and Grieg who led the local arts scene. We saw the national theater where they worked together.

We stopped for a short tour of the Bryggen.

Then it was back to the ship for lunch and sailing off to our next port of Narvik. The seas were a little rough for the first few hours of this leg and we stumbled about as we walked to dinner and then around the ship after.

Since we still had not slept well we were in our cabin getting ready for bed around 10. At 10:15 they announced that there had been a sighting of the Northern Lights. We quickly dressed in our warm clothes and made our way up to the top deck. There we saw a shimmer of the lights on the horizon and then a little later shimmers in the sky. Bob was able to get some photos. I was just thrilled to be seeing them.

Mission accomplished.

(Due to spotty internet where we are photos are not uploading. Will try again to add photos when internet improves.)

We arrived in Bergen on the afternoon of February 16, after having flown from Boston to Bergen through Amsterdam. Our car and driver were waiting at the exit from baggage claim. We were surprised that we did not have to go through any customs/arrival security. Had we arrived just 3 days earlier we would have had to have special paperwork for Norway and take a Covid test at the airport. Norway had suspended all Covid protocol as of the 12th. There are no mask requirements in Norway, but we wore ours as a precaution.

We stayed at the Radisson Blu on the famous Bryggen. After checking in we walked a little, but went back to the hotel when it started to rain. Dinner was in the hotel restaurant, 26 North. The food and service were excellent. Our room had a very slanted ceiling, so we had to put our suitcases there to remind us to duck.

After breakfast we walked to an ATM to get some Norwegian krona. Everyone here has told us we do not need to tip, but we wanted to have some cash for our tour guides. On the ship we will tip on our account. A taxi ride got us to the cruise terminal. We had to answer health information again and have a temperature test. Then we had to do a Covid test. It took quite a while to gather enough spit to fill our vials to the number 2. Then after passport control we signed in, and were allowed onto the ship. We went to our muster station where we got our safety briefing and then we were escorted to our stateroom. We are confined here until our Covid test comes back negative. There was a second briefing on our TV and lunch waiting for us.

We have tried unsuccessfully to sign into the ship’s WiFi. Can’t get help because we are still hostages in our room. Our bags have arrived, but we will wait to unpack until we get the green light from Viking. We are sure we are OK, but I would hate to unpack and then have to repack because we are being asked to leave.

So far the weather today has been: 9:30 walk to ATM, cold and clear, 10:45 taxi to ship snow shower, noon sunny and now at 1:30 snowing hard.

It took until 4:45 PM for us to get the OK for the Covid test we took when we boarded the ship. So now we are free. Ready to leave the room, tour the ship some and get ready for dinner. Will be an early night tonight, since we are still not on this time zone.

Welcome to Norway!

After almost 2.5 years we are venturing out on our first international trip.

There have been so many ups and downs involving this trip. Almost daily for the last 3 weeks we have gotten updates from our cruise company with information on what we need to do to travel and get on our ship. One day we need a special European digital vaccination passport and then the next we don’t. We thought we needed special paperwork to get into Norway, but yesterday when we went to fill it out online, there was a notice that as of February 12, this paperwork was no longer necessary.

This morning we got our Covid PCR test and just got back from getting the results – both of us are negative so now for certain this trip is a go.

Our ship is Viking Venus and the cruise is called In Search of the Northern Lights. Hopefully we will see them in our 12 days in Norway.

Looking forward to keeping you informed about this first adventure.