Days in the Arctic

Tromsø! 
Okay, we arrived and having booked it, were whisked straight from the ship to a dog-sledding outfit out in the countryside. They have 300 dogs there, all desperately keen to run and get a cuddle from anyone who likes dogs. I'll have to say that I'm not sure that keeping three hundred dogs solely for the entertainment of tourists is a good thing, but they seemed pretty well cared for, certainly friendly and really keen to run. It's well to remember, should you be doing this, that sleds have no suspension and there are, um, big lumps and small jumps on the 5k trail they use....ouch.
After the run it was time to fondle the dogs, and puppies, which are insanely cute - of course, clamber out of the borrowed playsuits and go inside for cake and coffee/tea.
After all this we went to our hotel, the Viking...No helmets or timbered rooms...all modern and quite comfortable.
The next day we went to the contemporary art museum, which had the usual strange installations, one of which was videos of an olive tree having it's olives violently shaken off by a machine....wasn't filmed in Portugal though. We also visited the local marine attraction, Polaria, a building shaped to resemble collapsed heaped pack ice...










They had an indoor seal pool with a walk through tunnel so you could see the Bearded and Harbour Seals, 'neath the water....

We decided not to go out on a Northern lights trip till Thursday night as the prognosis looked good for then. So we spent some time mooching about Tromsø, taking pics of interesting houses and buildings and visiting the other museum and a few cafes...

The architecture here is timber and generally a very human scale. Even the old Cathedral!
When we left the restaurant that night, we saw people down by the waterfront, hoping to see the Aurora, and sure enough you could, though rendered very pale by the city lights.

Last night was our time to go and look for the lights so we joined a large group on a bus to get away from the city lights and out from under the overcast of the city.
My camera’s batteries were not happy about the cold and I had to keep taking off my gloves to deal with it.
As we were pretty far out of town the weather was COLD! Minus 6, or so. We stood around by the side of a fjord waiting for the Aurora to be more than a pale green arch across the sky – which is pretty strange in itself…

After an hour or so we went back up to the bus for hot chocolate and cookies…and aurora started to dance….mind blowing.

Got back to hotel just after 0100, tired but well pleased.
Today we’ve been taking it easy! Tomorrow we are travelling home after a wonderful and memorable trip.