This past weekend we took our first trip outside Oslo and flew up into the Arctic Circle to Tromsø (only a 2 hour flight!) We had 2 full days there and we got to see the surrounding areas and pretty much all of the city (it's a little island). Tromsø is a well known location to view the northern lights and also has the worlds northern most university and Burger King!
We arrived on Thursday night and set out for adventure Friday morning! After an amazing breakfast at our hotel (Thon Hotel chain is THE best in Norway!) we picked up our rental car and made our way to the Senja island. The weather wasn't the best at the beginning of our day but it ended up clearing up, allowing us to enjoy some of Norway's finest scenery. To get to the island we to take a 40 minute ferry to avoid having to drive around the fjords. On the ferry we saw a couple that had been on our flight and saw them at many stops during our drive. We introduced ourselves and found out that they were from Charleston, South Carolina and they were on their honeymoon. I was grateful to have met them because that's how we got pictures of Case and I together :-)
On Husøy (House Island)
On Saturday we had a relaxing morning (once again indulging in a great breakfast) and started the day with a walk around the city center. We were both surprised of how lively the city was considering the entire city has a population of about 72,000 people. There was a little farmers market with strange fruits and vegetables, local fish for sale, and a local man selling traditional Sami (what the indigenous people are called) garb and other souvenirs. In the afternoon we took a bus to a botanical garden on the other side of town. It had some cool arctic flora along with some familiar ones that can be found closer to home.
Arctic Cathedral
Visiting Tromsø in the summer was great, however we both want to make another trip up there in the winter to go for a husky dog sled ride, snowshoeing and hopefully see the northern lights!
