Our coastal-Norway cruise wrapped up early Sunday in Kirkenes, a town closer to Murmansk than to any other large-ish city I know of. It’s at 69N degrees; the arctic circle starts at 66N degrees. The above photo, taken shortly before noon, and two minutes after the take-off photo below right so at whatever altitude our plane had gained by that point, shows you the sun managing to peak both through some clouds, and over the horizon. We knew that at ground level the sun had only begun to peak above the horizon the week before we arrived in Kirkenes, and in general the most we had during the three full days we spent inside the arctic circle were maybe five hours of long dawn / dusk light (the same, with the sun actually above the horizon and maybe peaking through clouds) for a couple hours in the middle of it. It messes with one’s head and sense of meal and bedtimes, when full dark lasts until 9am and resumes by 2pm 🙂
I’ve stuck with just Norway posts since last Wednesday, so now I’m back in A’dam as of this morning I figured I’d reiterate my love of this city on a clear morning, circa two weeks ago on a morning bike commute to the office.
We’re back in Amsterdam now, and it was already a week ago that we had our first long port day in Ålesund. We used the time to hike up to that overlook, via the many switchbacks you see above. We then walked back down through the hilly park and picnic land on the far side, with lovely and surprisingly-green paths. I took the right-hand photo below because the sun had begun its struggle to liberate itself from the low hanging cloud cover, and we were excited because we felt it boded well for the aurora viewing. Which it did. The statue above depicts Rollo, a viking who both besieged Paris in the late 800’s and then later became Count of Rouen and first ruler of Normandy. Look it up, it seems to be true :-).
Kjeungskjær lighthouse (or fyr in NO) sits at the entrance to Trondheim Fjord in lovely Trøndelag County. The clearing you see in the sky is that very same clearing at sunset before the night in which we saw our first evening’s aurora, and then crossed into the arctic circle.
Look closely to the right side of the island above and you’ll see a circle marking where the artic circle passes through Jetvik, in Norway’s Nordland County. We crossed it heading north at 8:07 on Wednesday morning. The boat captain shone a light on the marker, as you see in the gallery below, but I found this image clearer.
Above taken at 14:06 with sun on the mountains behind Bodø’s train station, the northernmost in Norway. Bottom photo, taken once back on the boat at 14:57, is obviously post sunset.
Our boat docked at Svolvaer around 21:30 on Wednesday evening, and we had about an hour to explore this little village that was described as the ‘capital of the Lofoten islands.’ Then we hopped back on the boat for the overnight to Tromsø, which we’ll show you in due course. 😊The sun had set around 14:00 as we explored Bodø, the prior port call where I got lovely sunset shots which you’ll see in due course. It felt odd to explore a new village for an hour starting at 9:30pm, but c’est la vie on this cruise.
The sky cleared for this 16:55 sunset photo with visible planet (Venus, or Jupiter?) as we powered north from Trondheim on Wednesday. It was a harbinger of the clear skies for our two hour show later on 🙂
Look closely to the right side of the island above and you’ll see a circle marking where the artic circle passes through Jetvik, in Norway’s Nordland County. We crossed it heading north at 8:07 on Wednesday morning. The boat captain shone a light on the marker, as you see in the gallery below, but I found this image clearer.
Above taken at 14:06 with sun on the mountains behind Bodø’s train station, the northernmost in Norway. Bottom photo, taken once back on the boat at 14:57, is obviously post sunset.
(so much world, so little time....) 