Ron and Sally Jo Blog

Our next off-ship excursion was in Tromso.  Had a walking tour of this arctic capital of 70,000.  It was the starting point for many seagoing hunting and exploring trips.  At one time it was known as the “Paris of the North” because many of the men would come back through Paris and bring their wives the highest fashion in clothes!  We stopped at the Polar Museum.  Learned about the ways of hunting.  Interesting.

We walked around more of the town and visited an old pub 1928 – Mack’s brewpub Olhallen.  Until a few years ago their claim to fame was their beer was brewed the farthest north.  It has 67 taps.  Townspeople, fishermen, students, tourists all gather to meet and converse.

Our last day on the ship turned stormy.  And we mean stormy!  Our tour leader said it was not uncommon for this strong a storm in winter or early spring, but it is usually calmer by May.  The ship had to skip several ports because it just could not dock.  On our last day we were supposed to take a bus trip to North Cape.  It is the northernmost point in Europe that can be accessed by road.  However, they closed the road just as we were to go because of the wind.  (We heard later that there were some accidents – for one, a car rolled over.)  Therefore, we just took a short bus trip around a small area to get some feeling for the harsh environment.  Our ship rocked and rolled most of the day and night!

Our last stop on the ship – and where we disembarked – was Kirkenes.  We visited a bomb shelter from World War II.  It was a large underground area (about 2 km of tunnels) and dark, damp, and cold.  Several hundred citizens lived here while several thousand were sheltered in an old iron mine across the bay.  The Germans and the Russians were both interested in this area for the iron ore and there was fighting back and forth.  We made a brief stop at the Norway—Russia border and then on to the Norway—Finland border.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2018 at 4:47 am and is filed under Norway, Scandanavia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.