Around midnight last night we entered the Troll Fjord which is a 2km Fjord that is very narrow, we didn’t bother getting up to have a look as it had been quite overcast but talking to the waiter this morning apparently this was the first time this year they have been able to go through as up until now the risk of avalanche has been too great, oh well we should go through it on the way back so hopefully we will see it then. We spent the morning just cruising up the coast but at least the weather has changed again so the sun returned this morning and we sat out on deck watching the world go by. Although there were a few small towns along the way and some quite impressive mountains we didn’t have any specific points of interest to look out for. We arrived in Tromsø just after lunch and we have three hours here so we had booked on the Artic Capital tour which was meant to help us get to know Tromsø, I think in hind sight we might have been better off getting a city map and going for a walk around but then again we wouldn’t have made it to the cable car if we had done that. Considering Hurtigruten run these tours daily – there is a boat in each port every day offering the same trips so we have to assume they run them daily – they are totally disorganised. The first couple we went on we thought it might be us, but today we confirmed that actually it is them, but having worked out how to get 71 people who speak 3 languages onto 2 coaches it was then time to head to the Cable car. Tromsø is 2000km South of the North Pole and 400km North of the Artic Circle and it is where all the Artic expeditions started as well as being the base for the Artic Hunters. We got to the cable car and after a bit of discussion about the tickets we should or shouldn’t have been given on the boat we received our tickets and got on. This takes you to 421m above sea level to provide fantastic views over the Fjord and the city. It was built in 1961 as a tourist attraction and it would seem that a number of people hike up and catch the cable car back down! After this we went to the Artic Cathedral, this is not Tromsø Cathedral, it is a modern Church built to represent an iceberg and was built in 1965, the actual cathedral is in the old town and was built in the 1800s. This modern building should have had clear glass but because of the position during mass the sun shining through the glass was so bright the parishioners had to wear sunglasses, this had the unfortunate consequence of the priest not knowing if they were paying attention or if they had fallen asleep so a stained glass window was installed instead! After looking at the stained glass and the organ we got back on the coach and drove through town. We passed the British Embassy which is in the same building as the local brewery! I assume that is just a coincidence. Our final stop was the Polaris Artic Experience which was a very strange tourist attraction, first we watched a film that was actually about the animals that live in Svalbad (Greenland), this was followed by a film on the Northern Lights which we didn’t bother watching then going through to see four seals that have been trained to do tricks and were fed once the tourists arrived! All very odd and next door in a separate building was an Artic hunting ship called the Polaris which was a wooden ship used for seal hunting and over 33 hunting seasons they caught 97,000 seals, as Chris said it is a wonder they are not extinct! It was then time to get back on the boat and move onto our next location. We will end the day at Skjervoy around 11pm before we head out into open sea for a while this is 69 degrees north and we are definitely noticing the difference in the temperature although, in the sun it is quite warm and it now shines 24 * 7 clouds permitting!
