This morning a celebration was held on deck to celebrate being in the Arctic circle (We’re in the circle for 4 days) & King Neptune visited. People who were silly enough to allow themselves to be baptised by having iced water put down the inside of their shirts were rewarded with a free shot of something Norwegian & alcoholic. We stayed well away.

This afternoon we went on an excursion into the countryside from the lovely city of Tromso to a place where you can go sledding with a team of huskies if you visit in the winter. The dogs are very friendly & love people & the puppies are georgeous. We could hold a pup – they were one month old. The woman who owns the place, Tove Sorensen, has raced in the famous Alaskan race, itidarod, in 2006. She has written her story; apparently it is an inspirational story. One of the other Aussies has read it.

We’ve now found 8 Aussies but I don’t think there’s anymore. The majority of people are Norwegian or German. Hardly any Americans, a few English but mainly, Norwegian & German. They don’t seem very friendly. You ask if you can share their table at breakfast or lunch & they’ll nod but it’s really hard work to get a conversation going. Of course, it would help if we could speak their language.

Over 250 huskies are kept, they are trained & in winter they take people on rides. It seems a very popular tourist attraction & I think a lot of locals go there too.

I’ve taken so many photos. It is so beautiful wherever you look. There’s a lot of snow in the mountains here & I think it looks so pretty. I love it!

Don’t we look elegant?

Very interesting rock formations:

This morning around 7:15 we crossed into the Arctic circle. The tour leaders made a bit of a fuss but it was a simply beautiful morning as you can see in this picture:

It didn’t get dark at all last night but tonight we are officially in the land of the midnight sun & will be for the next 4 nights. Everywhere we look, it is so pretty. There’s a great deal of snow on some of the mountains & it’s quite cold on deck but lovely & warm inside. This is the marker which signifies 66°33 minutes & the Arctic circle. We had early lunch today & then went on a great adventure which will be the focus of the next blog.

This morning we docked in Trondheim for a few hours & I really wanted to do the kayak tour but my shoulder is still sore from the surgery just before we left so I had to give it a miss, sadly. But I had to be sensible. Instead tomorrow we’re doing a rib boat tour so that should be fun.

We walked into the city of Trondheim which is Norway’s third biggest city with a population of approx 180,000. It is very historical & has some beautiful old buildings & a lovely river.

Hurtigruten is a coastal freighting company & passenger transport & our ship can accomodate just over 800 guests as well as 32 cars & freight. A lot of Norwegians use the ships as a way to travel between the ports to get home or go to the doctor etc. those in the little places we visit also use it as their local coffee shop & come on board for the 20 minutes or so that we are in port to grab a coffee. Our kiosk is open 24/7.

This afternoon we travelled through a narrow straight & the Norwegian royal yacht with the king & queen was anchored there. They are celebrating their 25th jubilee with a little holiday. We were asked to go up on deck to wave & cheer. Some of the staff of the yacht lined up on deck as we passed & perhaps the King or maybe the captain. Who knows?

We also sailed past a very quaint old lighthouse this afternoon.

We’ve been allocated the late dinner time of 8:30 which is very late for us, as you know, but with it being sunny until midnight, we go to bed late & sleep in so it’s all good.

I’m living on fish – most of it raw or smoked salmon which is delicious & I’m loving it – for breakfast & lunch. Dinner is a set menu – tonight the entree is fish something, duck for mains & rhubarb compote. They try to use all local product which they pick up from the ports we visit. David is not so keen on fish but there’s plenty of choice at breakfast & lunch. So we’re all good.

The scenery all day has been wonderful. The weather has been kind until about 5 but then it showered. We’ve had a lazy day, watching this beautiful world go past & reading our books.

Tonight the sun will set at 12:03 & rise at 3:15. It seems very strange.

The buffet breakfast & lunch are everything you could want them to be. Dinner is a set menu with no choice for any of the three courses. We weren’t impressed with dinner tonight but we did enjoy breakfast & lunch. We have a pleasant couple from Newcastle at our dinner table which is the only one which is set seating. Just the 4 of us!

I think doing Scenic River cruises where everything is included in the one-off cost has spoiled us for others. On this ship you pay for everything except your 3 meals & everything is expensive as you would expect in Norway. A cappuccino cost the equivalent of $8.

Here’s a couple of photos from today: the second one I took at 10:30pm. There’s lots of snow on the mountain tops.

We’re heading into Alesund. Everywhere I look it’s magical.

We had a lazy morning & then packed up again to prepare for our cruise. First we visited the Hanseatic Museum which was very interesting. The people of Bergen were part of a massive trading system.  Fish caught in the north of Norway was dried here & exported by ship to Germany & other parts of Europe. The fish was traded for grain which was brought back to Norway. The traders were mainly Germans who lived a very uncomfortable life as young men before returning to Getmany to marry & have families.

Because of the risk of fire in the old buildings which are now the coloured ones which are UNESCO protected, the traders could have neither heat nor light in the working quarters. The cooking was done in a separate area back from the trading area.

We boarded the MS Trollfjord at 4 this afternoon & we’ve had a very nice dinner – lots of beautiful fish, cooked & raw, salmon in many forms. It was delcious.

We’ve unpacked in our cabin, stowed everything away & we sailed at 8. Here’s a couple of views of Bergen as we left. It is, of course, bright sunlight now at 8:35pm. The maximum today was 15°. Snow still sits on the mountain tops. Very beautiful.

Lucky for me, I was so tired last night that I put my head on the pillow & I was asleep but the concert noise kept David awake. It has been going all day since around 10 this morning. We think it’s freezing at 12° tonight but the young ones are heading to the concert in mini skirts & light coats.

So we slept in this morning which was lovely. Our hotel has a really good breakfast with everything you could possibly want but the coffee was so very strong that I couldn’t drink it!

We then wandered up the street & into some lovely little laneways with shops selling all the beautiful knitwear, traditionally made here. Beautiful fair isle jumpers but way too heavy for Brisbane weather.

We took the finicular up to the top of Mt Fløyen one of the 7 hills surrounding Bergen where the view was spectacular.

We were wandering around back in town & came across a “Rock & Roll” cafe so we stopped for lunch. It was a bit of fun & we shared a milkshake for two

We wandered to the port area to see where we board tomorrow & saw one of the other Hurtigruten ships come into port & dock. She just backed in – no tug or assistance.
Our hotel is right beside the harbour & there are some very nice boats moored beside the footpath. Both afternoons we’ve seen many people on board these boats having drinks – some squashed in very close. They wouldn’t need their own music – the concert is loud enough. We could even hear it clearly from up on the mountain.

We board our ship tomorrow afternoon & are looking forward to the next stage of our journey.

Yesterday we drove from our lovely little “Wheel Lodge” cottage at Port Isaac to Chertsey where we returned the car. We’d prepaid the car hire company to drop us to our Holiday Inn at terminal T5 & the guy jumped in. He didn’t believe in sat navs – said he knew where to go but there are 4 Holiday Inns at Heathrow & our 15 minute drive took 75 minutes. I’m glad we weren’t paying for his time.

This morning our flight was scheduled for 7:55. Lucky the Edelmans are always early. British Airlines had moved it to 7:00 & even when we went to the desk to drop our bags the girl didn’t tell us that the time had changed. After we went through security etc we asked at the I desk. “Oh, it’s too early for it to be on the board. Check later”. So we went & had breakfast then I asked again & this time a different girl said “You’d better hurry. They’ve almost finished boarding”.   Grrrr!  Anyway, we made it, thankfully.

This is the view out of the window as we came in to land at Bergen:

It’s a very pretty place. We are staying in  Brygge the UNESCO protected world heritage site beside the harbour, very close to where we will board the ship on Sunday. We thought walking up the hill in Port Isaac was hard work but we’ve decided we’d prefer it to walking up the mountain here. It is so very steep.
David is very worried about how much seafood he’ll eat over the next few weeks. For lunch today we had King Crab & fish & chips & the crab was so yummy!  For dinner we had Thai which seems very strange. But then on our first night in Vienna in 2007 we had Vietnamese as it was the only place open on a Sunday night. Anyway I enjoyed my pad Thai!

The stories about how expensive it is here are true!  We bought a cup of strawberries, which by the way are delicious, & they cost 40 krone which is about $7.

Kyles, wish you were here!  You could show us around & interpret for us!  And it would be lovely to go with you to the places where you lived.

We’ve chosen a bad weekend to be here. The Bergen festival is on in the park next door to our hotel. Very loud music!  It’s been going all afternoon & will go on until 12:30 & all day tomorrow. Lucky us!  Hope we get some sleep.