There are windows in all these shots from the Snowhotel Kirkenes – starting with a photo of the frozen fjord taken from the dining room mid-morning after we arrived and checked in. Note that the photo at the very bottom, which looks rather late-night, was taken 3:26 pm. On January 26, so I think they said five days or a week after the sun returned to Kirkenes. 🙂
I think I’ll aim to use up my snowy and dark Norway shots in July & August, in hopes maybe it’ll help friends sweltering in hot summer weather appreciate the seasons a bit. Including myself, though sweltering hot remains, mercifully, a rare weather pattern here in A’dam specifically. Last from our short port call at Finnsnes in January.
This is only the sixth post we’ve shown you from Tromsø, where my photo time-stamps tell me our boat pulled in right around 2:30PM on the 24th of January. The center circle photo above, and the panorama below, were taken just before Gary & I began our roughly two-hour stroll through the lingering mid-afternoon dusk to dark of the city at that time of year. Since many of you fabulous readers are in locations where it’s now getting hotter by the day, I figured a reminder of cool winter evening-afternoons might be welcome :-).
All taken in Bodø between 14:30 when we docked and 15:30 when we pulled away. It was the first significant port call after we entered the arctic circle.
16:55 the 22nd of January, above; 08:58 the next morning, below. In between, roughly 20 minutes before the photo below, our boat entered the arctic circle. I thought this series would mostly be northern lights photos, but the general lingering light in these short northern days was endlessly fascinating as dawn and dusk lasted so long.
Yes, these photos were all taken within ten minutes of each other from the top of the boat, shortly after 11am on the 23rd of January :-). First whirlpool experience in the Arctic Circle!
This is the town of Honningsvåg shortly after 2pm on the afternoon of January 25th, the northernmost port call on our trip at pretty much 70N degrees. I took this shot as our boat began to pull away for the journey to the last port call where Gary & I moved on for our night at the Snow Hotel, in Kirkenes. We’ve shared only one post from Kirkenes so far, but will share more in due course – there were reindeer, sled dogs, ice beds and ice sculptures in the snow hotel and so much more still to come just from that one little border town in farthest-north Norway! From the dock here at Honningsvåg, we boarded a bus for the only formal paid side-trip that we signed up for: by road up to the actual Nordkapp itself, the northernmost point in continental Europe at 71N degrees. We haven’t yet shown you Nordkapp either…but it’s coming, whenever I catch up to it in the blog. Hugs, and enjoy these views of yet another interesting place in the world. Perhaps enjoy a bit of armchair tourism and dreaming about ways you can also enjoy the world around you, as an antidote to following whatever phone, computer or media alerts might be otherwise pulling you into non-productive feedback loops? The world’s still out (t)here, friends, so do let’s remember to enjoy it :-).
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 🙂
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.
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.
(so much world, so little time....) 