Tromso

Today, we arrived in Tromso. The skies were clear and the sun, although very low in the sky (it doesn’t get very high in these parts at this time of year), was shining on the distant, surrounding hills. The view down the fjord was quite stunning…

Neither Tracey nor myself could remember what we did in Tromso the last time we visited. We were on tour escort duty this afternoon, though, on the ‘Arctic City and Cathedral’ tour (so, basically, a bus ride with a few stops along the way). Our first stop was at the Tromso museum, and the minute I walked through the doors, I remembered exactly what we did on our last visit… we went to the Tromso museum.

I have to say that museum tours are not my favourite things. One whole floor of Tromso museum is devoted to the history of the Sami (the indigenous people) so there are lots of life-size mock-ups of what they wore and how they lived; what they lived in, and how they hunted. On the floor below, the museum becomes more of a Natural History museum, with a particular interest in conservation and saving the planet (a lot more interesting, in my opinion). The floor is dominated by this whale skeleton…

I remember the last time I visited the museum and being bored out of my head by a guide who managed to make the whole thing quite tedious. This time around, however, we were blessed with a young guide who had a lot more passion and an interesting way of describing what we were looking at. He really knew his stuff, and he had the passengers hanging on his every word.

All of this just goes to prove that an excursion can be made or broken by the guide. At the end of the tour, I, as an escort, am expected to write a report of the trip, listing stops and any refreshments, notifying the Shore Excursions team of any issues or incidents, and rating the guide. Even the better guides rarely get more than a ‘Good’ from me… Carl, our guide on this occasion, managed to score an impressive ‘excellent’… well done Carl!

From the museum, we drove through Tromso, and Carl regaled us with life in the area, both past and present, eventually finishing up at Tromso Cathedral. It was only about 3pm, but darkness had fallen, and it felt like 8 o’clock at night.

Tromso Cathedral is only a cathedral by name; it’s a modern, pointy building, full of light. We spent about 45 minutes there, which was okay, but there wasn’t much to see, other than experiencing what it might be like to live inside a giant Toblerone.

Sadly, the weather turned the tables on us once again. Having been clear all day, they clouded over late afternoon as we left Tromso, and didn’t clear again all night, much to the frustration of the many light-watchers roaming around optimistically on deck hopeful of catching the greatest light show on earth… unfortunately, it wasn’t to be… maybe tomorrow…