Tag: Aurora Borealis

“In Search of the Northern Lights” with Viking Cruises Day 10

Sunday, January 30th, 2022

Overnight we sailed toward Tromsø and docked before 8:00 AM.

Looking out over Balsfjorden, a fjord that is over 35 miles in length.

Tromsø has been called the “Paris of the North”! This is because of its lively atmosphere, varied nightlife, cultural activities, and restaurants abound. It is also the largest city within the Arctic Circle and is also considered to be another great location to view the Northern Lights.

This morning we had an included tour of Tromsø.

A lot of snow!
Heated sidewalks!
Running Women Statue!

Our first stop was the planetarium on the Tromsø campus of the Arctic University of Norway and it was the first Norwegian planetarium open to the public. We went in and watched in the dome a movie from a photographer’s clips from his trips to watch and photograph the Northern Lights.

Campus
The Planetarium
Inside the dome

We passed by the Arctic Cathedral which was a Norway parish church and not actually a cathedral. Its construction was from concrete and metal.

The city also had an underground road system called the Tromsøysund Tunnel. It was an undersea highway tunnel and even had a roundabout! This road system connected the island of Tromsøya with the main suburb of Tromsdalen. Our bus driver took us in the tunnel and through the roundabout several times! The residents of the area have two ways to cross the water: the bridge and the tunnel.

Underground Roundabout!

Up a hill we stopped at a school where we had a great view of the town and surrounding area!

Up to our city view lookout.
Tromso Bridge
Arctic Cathedral

Even though it was dark, it was just a little after 3:00 PM, when we took a shuttle into Tromsø. There was snow all around but the sidewalks were perfectly dry and clear and that was because the sidewalks were heated.

Trolls are all over Norway!
Piles of Snow.
A Statue of a Whaler in a boat who is battling rough seas. (Arctic Hunter)
Tromsø Town Center
Town Center

In town we were able to visit two stores. The ship wanted to keep us in a bubble so the shops were closed to everyone except Viking passengers. We were given about 45 minutes to look around.

As we left the ship we saw a masked snowman created by some of the Viking Venus crew. There were many members of the crew that had never experienced snow!

Viking Venus Snowman

This evening we went on an excursion called “Chasing the Northern Lights”. At first the aurora borealis was faint but given time it danced across the sky and put on a show for us. We were lucky to see them three nights in a row! We got back to the ship very early the next morning.

Watch the three videos below to see how the Northern Lights danced, changed and filled the night sky!

Northern Lights Movie 1
https://videopress.com/v/V1FSt8ZK?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true
Northern Lights Movie 2
https://videopress.com/v/DjE2KsD3?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true
Northern Lights Movie 3

Below are some of our favorite pictures from tonight’s views of the aurora borealis!

“In Search of the Northern Lights” with Viking Cruises Day 9

Saturday, January 29th, 2022

It is much colder today with a high of only 5˚ and sunrise was at 9:27 AM and sunset at 1:53 PM. This morning we went on an excursion called “Northern Norway during WWII”. We traveled to the Tirpitz Museum in Kåfjord.

Kåfjord
Tirpitz Museum

The museum was a timber building from 1880 and was built in Lillehammer and then it was taken down and moved to Kåfjord in 1945 to help rebuild the war-ravaged area. When it was rebuilt, it first served as the first nursing home and stayed as one until 1961 when a new nursing home was built.

Nearby Altafjord was the largest German naval base outside of Germany. After the sinking of the Tirpitz and the Germans were losing the area, they destroyed Alta. It was part of the German Nazi’s “scorched-earth” policy when they retreated.

The Tirpitz was a huge Nazi warship. This battleship was the heaviest battleship and weighed 2,000 tons more than the Nazi Bismarck. It weighed 42,900 tons or 52,500 tons when it was fully loaded. It was the heaviest ship built by a European Navy at that time. In 1942 she sailed into Norway to be a deterrent against an Allied Invasion. Also she was to intercept Allied Convoys to the Soviet Union.

In September 1943, while anchored in Kåfjord/Altafjord, she was attacked by British midget submarines and put out of action for the first time. There was quite a Norwegian resistance against Hitler and the Germans so they helped to inform the British of Tirpitz’s location! On the other side of the hill with the thigh-high snow is where the Tirpitz tried to hide.

Over the hill is where the Tirpitz was anchored.
Our guide is showing us with a photograph of its location.

The war museum was filled with many relics from the war and had the largest collection of photos and artifacts from the Tirpitz. Below were a few of them that from the museum.

Photograph of the Tirpitz

We also visited the Kåfjord Church nearby. It was the oldest standing church in Alta. The Rallar family statue in front of the church was a symbol of the poor families that lived and worked in the copper mines in Kåfjord in the 1800s. Cooper mining was popular in this area after it was discovered.

Rallarfamilien Statue (Rallar Family)
Kåfjord Church

The beautiful Altafjord as we head back to the ship

The picture below shows what they call “Arctic Smoke” and it was caused by the water temperature being warmer than the outside air and it was really cold today.

“Arctic Smoke”

The sun was shining on Alta’s two ski jumps as we headed for our afternoon snowmobile adventure. They look very intimidating!

This afternoon we traveled by bus to the Igloo Hotel in Sorrisniva where we geared up for our snowmobile adventure. They had all the clothing, boots, and helmets that we needed to be comfortable during our ride. Before we got on our snowmobile we had a thorough safety instruction from our guide.

Our snowmobiles
The Safety lesson

Dave was an excellent snowmobile driver! Our ride followed along the Sorrisniva River. About halfway through our ride we stopped and enjoyed the views and if you wanted it was an opportunity to switch drivers. We did not.

Upon returning to the snowmobile hut and getting out of our helmets, boots, etc… we visited the Igloo Hotel. It was first built in 2000 and was Norway’s first ice hotel.

Igloo Hotel

Since then the ice hotel was rebuilt in late December and lasts through the beginning of April. Local craftsmen built the igloo hotel and inside it had amazing ice sculptures, an ice bar and an ice chapel. The hotel was the world’s northernmost ice hotel! We were given an explanation about the building of the igloo hotel by one of the craftsmen who had been a part of it for over ten years. He also poured us our shot of Aquavit in an ice shot glass at the ice bar! It was very cool to roam through the igloo hotel. No guests were in their rooms so we were able to walk throughout the hotel.

Lobby area.
One hallway to the rooms
Close up of the hall.
Ice bed with reindeer fur cover.
Lobby
Chapel where weddings and christenings occur.
One of the wall sculptures.
In the lobby.
The bar
Our guide and bartender
Our ice shot glass!
Enjoying his shot
Another sculpture
Sitting in an ice chair
Sitting area

After dinner we checked the temperature at 9:00 PM to see how cold it was outside.

This doesn’t include the wind chill!

Tonight’s entertainment on the ship was an evening with our assistant cruise director. His show was called “Scott Nichol- Caledonia”. He sang some of his favorite tunes and also discussed more about his background.

Scott Nichol- Caledonia

After the show we went back to our stateroom and bundled up because it was very cold and windy out on deck. It was worth it because we were able to watch the northern lights for a second night in a row! We were still awestruck watching them!

Northern Lights with the Arctic Smoke!

“In Search of the Northern Lights” with Viking Cruises Day 8

Friday, January 28th, 2022

Of course today started with our 2 ml. of saliva in our test tube for our COVID test, our health survey and our temperature check.

When we looked outside the ship decks had drifts from the snow and wind as we traveled to Alta, Norway. Around 11:00 AM we docked in Alta.

Snow Drifts on the Ship Deck
Brrrr…..

The ship sailing in the Altafjord, 23 miles long, had beautiful views.

Alta, Norway

Being this far north, the sunrise was at 9:33 AM and sunset at 12:47 PM. It was 23˚ when we arrived in Alta. It was windy too so it felt colder than the temperature indicated.

After lunch we had a three hour excursion that was a tour of Alta which has about 2,000 inhabitants. An interesting fact they shared was that Alta is on the same longitude as Athens, Greece!

Huge piles of snow everywhere!
Heading to the town center of Alta

Our first stop was the Northern Lights Cathedral. We listened to the Cathedral guide give us a brief history and explanation about the building itself. It was a parish church of the Church of Norway and was located near the center of town. If you walk down Alta’s main shopping street you will run into the cathedral. The church was built in 2013 and seats 350 people and it is made of concrete and wood. The exterior was made of titanium in a circular shape.

Shopping street view from the church
Northern Lights Cathedral

Inside was an impressive organ and a bronze statue of Christ that is a little over 14 feet.

Entrance
Up the entrance cylinder
Organ
Bronze Statue of Christ

The Cathedral’s lower level had an exhibit about the aurora borealis and it included a ten minute video that was a compilation of Northern lights viewings. It was beautiful!

A statue of Kristian Birkeland (1867-1917) was located outside of the cathedral. He was a Norwegian scientist who first tied the northern lights with electromagnetic storms from the sun. One is currently heading our way and we hope to see the northern lights this evening!

Kristian Birkeland Statue

The Alta Museum and World Heritage Rock Art Centre was another of our stops.

An ice bear.
An ice family.
The museum is in the background.
Ice Sculptures outside the museum.

It would be best to visit this museum in the summer. It’s known for its thousands of rock carvings. These carvings are from a settlement dating from 4200 to 500 B.C. It’s also an UNESCO World Heritage site. Unfortunately for us, all of the carvings (petroglyphs) are covered by several feet of snow!

The carvings are buried in snow!

Instead of looking at them outside we went through the exhibit, Traces in Stone, explaining the carvings. This exhibit did have some loose rock carvings that gave us an idea of what was outside!

These rock carvings are between 4,000-5,000 years old.

The stone below was named after the popular fictional children’s book character Pippi Longstocking who was known for her pigtails! In 1950, this stone was discovered in a potato field about 12 1/2 northwest of Alta.

“Pippi Longstocking” Rock Carving

The museum had an exhibit called “Natural Born Killers- Predators in Norway”. It showed the thirteen species of natural predators, from the smallest, a snow mouse to the largest, the polar bear. The exhibit talked about the lives of these animals and their role today in Norway. The exhibit had each predator represented by a taxidermist version of the animal.

A temporary exhibition was of Sami (native Norwegians) clothing and traditions and crafts. Jorunn Løkvold spent three years researching the use of mica which in the Sami language is called “fox gold”. The clothes were beautifully decorated.

A permanent exhibition about Bjorn Wirkola, one of the world’s best ski jumpers, and he was from Alta. The exhibit included his medals, awards, skis, boots, etc… It was quite a tribute to him.

Bjorn Wirkola Exhibit

The museum had a cafe where we enjoyed a mug of hot chocolate and the views out the back.

Hot Chocolate Break
View from the Cafe

At 8:30 PM we left full of excitement because we were heading out in search of the Northern Lights! It was an hour drive out of town to our stopping spot. The roads were narrow and steep!

Narrow 2-lane road.

When we got off the bus at 9:30 PM the aurora borealis was dancing in the sky. The night sky was full of stars and “dancing lights”! We were in awe and for awhile we just enjoyed the spectacular show. We had until 11:30 to view the lights. We were back on the ship after 12:30 AM.

The Aurora Borealis

Seeing the Northern Lights was definitely a highlight of our trip! It was a “bucket list” item that we were lucky enough to check off and also experience a new country, Norway!