Arrival in Lapland
Today, after a very short flight, we arrived in Lapland. In Tromsø to be more precise. We expected to land in a cold and snowy place, but to our surprise it was rainy and about 6 degrees Celsius. There were heaps of snow everywhere, but they were melting away quite rapidly. We set out trough the rain to our hotel to dump our luggage and go out exploring the town and hunt for some much-needed coffee. We found the coffee in a very cosy little brasserie with lots of cheeses, herbs and other kinds of food around. We gladly enjoyed some coffee and a good brunch there.
Tromsø is a small city situated on an island and surrounded by fjords. They have a small airport and the city is clearly a popular tourist destination. There are lots of shops for souvenirs and all the forgotten winter clothing that one might need. The main shopping street does look very cosy though and looks quite well maintained. Since the city is partly on an island it has lots of harbours on it’s shores. With smaller and bigger boats waiting to set out. One of the old whale hunter boats was rebuild into a floating spa. With a hot-tub on the deck and a ladder to climb out of the cold water after taking a dip. We were not quite ready to hop into a hot-tub and icy-cold waters (spoilers: we’ll do that later in a proper sauna and lake).
On the other shore, connected by a weirdly shaped and very high bridge, there is a church overlooking the water and the island. It’s quite a sight and clearly visible from the harbours. Especially when the sun went down and all the lights around town lighted up.
Since we’re quite a bit above the pole-circle the sun is only up for a few hours. We saw the sun come up at around ten o’clock. And it was already dusk at around two o’clock.
Although it was about 6 degrees Celsius the wind that rushed through the bay was very cold and chilly. When more rain doomed up in the distance we decided it was time to head back, check in to our rooms and freshen up. Most of us haven’t had real sleep in over 30 hours now. So some downtime was very welcome. Our journey over the bridge was more then a 16km walk there and back. But from the highest point on the bridge we had a great view over the bay.
Picture of the bay here
After warming up in the bar it was time to prepare for tomorrow and find something to eat. Preparations were easy with multiple supermarkets around us but finding a good restaurant was tougher. Not that there weren’t any good restaurants but most of them were booked solid.
One fun thing we did discover was that there was currently the Tromso International Film Festival happening. With one of the festivities being a open-air movie theatre where they would show kids shows in the morning and some interesting entries in the evening. This is of course quite easy when you don’t have to deal with that pesky sunlight.
After a walk around town we eventually found an indian restaurant that still had a table for us. It was very tastefully dressed and the food was delicious, I had some great Lamb Korpa. After the dinner it was time to head back to the hotel and prepare for sleep. Tomorrow we’ll have to get up very early to go on a Silent Whale Watch expedition.