Norway - Northern Lights - 29th March 2025

 March 29th we woke up in Tromso port. Beautiful and magical but with a snow twirling in a blizzard. We've never experienced this before. 

We are docked on the island and the town is on the mainland.

We have shuttle busses that ferry us into the city so off we set - very carefully, due to the snow and slush - all tucked up in thermals, coats, beanies, you name it. Hey don't mock this is our first walk in the snow.

Our trip on the mainland included the Polar Museum, Arctic Cathedral and a trip in the Cable Car. Even had a bit of a snow fight with it still snowing on us. Something of interest - Even though the snow flakes settled on us, we were never wet. Ha.

We have now travelled past the arctic circle and out time is same as back home.

At night we spend time searching for the Northern Lights until we freeze our inners, but nothing yet at this stage.

The scenery here is beautiful but more commercial than Andalsnes.

We sailed off into the sunset at 18:00 - the sun is now setting later and it was still light at 19:30.

A local Northern Fusion Band, the Habaneroz, were on stage this evening and were excellent. Drums, cello, guitar and violin and did they make their instruments sing. Lovely.

Norway - Northern Lights - 24th - 28th March 2025

 Clint is waiting for his jobs to come through so he has some time off - Lucky for us.

It's a two hour drive from Loughton to Southampton - the Queen Elizabeth II Cruise Terminal.- where our boarding was scheduled for 13:45. The embarkation times are staggered so that everyone doesn't arrive at the same time. It goes very smoothly and there is a ton of staff at the port.

It didn't feel right to leave our passports with the crew but that's the way they do it. Will get them back at the end of the trip.

In two ticks we were in our cabin on deck 11 - A193 - our luggage was already outside the door and we threw open the sliding door onto the balcony. Grabbed a bite to eat at the all day buffet at Horizon restaurant. I can see this being a big eating holiday. 

Two days at sea with a Black Tie dinner last night -26th March. The live show was the 'Motown Girls" screeching and a bit Brakpan. Three very heavy girls killing Tina Turner and Gloria Gaynor.

Early Morning Arrival - Andalnes

The morning of 27th March I took an early 06:00 peep out on the balcony. This is what the Vikings saw as they rowed back from months at war. (Okay - so I'm a lover of the Viking series)

What an amazing sight as we arrived at Andalsnes. It's cold, but not unbearable and on the ship the temperatures at a normal 20 deg.

Aldalsnes is a small walkabout village a Gondola or the Great Train up the mountain to see the views.

In that cold we found the best Ice Cream.

We were in port only for the day and set sail again at 18:00. 28th March is a sea day again. And by the way, that means an eating day again.