Tipsy in Tromsø
Tromsø is a darling little town to use as a gateway to your Lapland adventures. It is so much fun to walk around in the snow – for big and little kids and kittens – and is the kind of place that leaves you beaming, (cold), but filled with snowy joy.
We stayed at City Living – a lovely apart-hotel – as this meant we could cut costs when it came to food (which is just so expensive). It has very interesting artwork, a comfy niche-bedroom, nice sofa, and it also had a little laundry room which proved most useful to wash our doggy-scented clothes post doggy-sledding ride (more about that anon). It’s also really easy to get to from the airport – we took the Flybussen which drops you off round the corner (you can buy tickets on the bus, and they take card) – and it’s very easy to get to the port and the pick up to many of the tours.
The town is lovely to walk around. It’s quite small, with supermarkets on every corner, and is very pretty covered in snow – especially Kongeparken, the little park area behind the hotel (just watch out for the little girl throwing snow balls), the local library which seemed to have giant snow slides coming down from the roof (I don’t think they were actually slides, but Tipsy enjoyed them), and the harbour area.
Some pavements are snow-free, while others can be icy, so just be careful (we even lent a paw to a local who had a little slip, so it’s easily done). The funny thing was, there are hardly any snowmen anywhere – I suppose snow is just so normal, no one feels the need to immediately rush out and build snowmen the minute there’s enough snow. However, there are lots of fun things to see, like roof top sculptures and little twinkly lights that all of Norway seem to keep out in their windows at night, making it feel very Koselig.
The locals were also very friendly.
Fjellheisen Viewing Platform
An absolute must do when in Tromsø is to take the cable car to the top of the mountain. From the main part of town, we took a bus across the bridge (you can get tickets from the Information Centre or the Narvesen newsagents, and it’s better value if you’re going to make more than 3 journeys).
The cable ride itself is just a normal 10-minute cable ride to the top (it only runs on the hour and half past, so you may have to wait, and make sure you get a return ticket, unless you are planning on skiing down). But the view from the top is amazing.
It’s freezing, freezing cold – much colder than the town (which you would have thought we’d realise, but it was something we just didn’t think about, and as we hadn’t got that extra layer on, we couldn’t stay all that long). There is an observation platform and behind the café / bar (we think) places to go hiking and skiing. If you are properly layered-up, I’m sure you can spend quite a while exploring, but we just enjoyed the view of the city twinkling below and the full moon which was up that afternoon. Our hotel receptionist said you could also see the Northern Lights from here on good days, as there’s very little light pollution.
After getting the cable car back down, we stopped off at the famous Arctic Cathedral which dominates the skyline. We didn’t go inside as it only opened at 2pm, but peered in through the windows to see the pretty stained glass inside.
Tromsø – Narvik – Kiruna
We’ll tell you about our Tromsø adventures in later posts, but from Tromsø, we took the 10.00 am bus from Prostneset – right next to the Tourist Info – to Narvik. It’s very easy to do and cost us 380 NOK per person – you can only buy the tickets on the bus, and they take card. The coach travels across beautiful landscape and drops you off a short walk from the train station (the driver announces this) in plenty of time to catch the train to Kiruna. The train ride is beautiful too (we’d bought our tickets online), but get pretty full luggage-wise. Watch out for the tunnel between Norway and Sweden with the flags which show you the boarder crossing, and the people to ski away directly from the station.
When to go
We went in the first week of February, which worked pretty well for us. The days had sunlight (no more 24-hour darkness), and the weather clear, but cold (-4°C in the town and -20°C out!).
What to wear
We wore several layers when out and about – thermals, double socks and fleece-lined snow boots, fleeces and down-jackets, hats, scarves, and gloves (the tours provided suits as it got down to -20°C). You’ll need lip balm, and we also used shed-butter moisturiser, as the cold wind will just freeze any water-based creams.
A little word of warming: You’ll have so many layers on, it’s easy to drop jewellery – and Tipsy’s Little Pet actually dropped the watch she’d had for 20 years and feared it had been lost for good. However, good old Saint Anthony came to the aid, and having re-traced our steps and crossed the bridge by bus again, we found it under the bus stop where it had dropped off (phew).