Tromsø

Our last Hurtigruten buffet breakfast and we took it easy by getting up late and I even napped after breakfast. I will miss the herring varieties at breakfast - snacking on herring and crackers reminds me of my dad, in addition to lox with capers and caviar. I know that sounds fancy, but I remember as a kid we had received a fancy gift basket and remembering tasting all of these things - and there’s so much lox and herring here!

We had to be out of our rooms by noon, but wasn’t disembarking until about 2:30 pm, so we enjoyed the Panorama Lounge one last time with Mack ginger chili beers - I even scored a front seat!



The ship holds about 590 passengers and Alaskan cruises are 2,000 to 3,500 passengers. So I really enjoyed how much more lowkey the experience was as locals use this as a coastal ferry system and it carries cargo. As the German from the jacuzzi said, we can all feel a little less guilty about affecting the environment on this cruise.

We arrived in Tromso, considered the Gateway to the Arctic. It’s considered a hive of Arctic research and adventure tourism and holds titles for the world’s northernmost university and botanical garden.

After disembarking, we stored our luggage with “Radical Storage” which you sign up for online and drop off at certain locations and ours was 7-Eleven - this reminded me of the Japanese luggage forwarding system also coordinated through convenience stores if unavailable at your hotel. There was a proper storage facility nearby and also back at the ferry terminal, but we wanted easy access after seeing the city.

We first headed to Polaria, a center exhibiting environmental research in the Arctic with a small aquarium. It was quite informative and obviously focused on local wildlife. Here’s a view from the aquarium which is located near the docks:



I enjoyed watching these moon jellyfish:





And underneath this tank of rays:



But the highlight were the seals and we had known in advance there was a feeding. Here are the seals viewed from the tunnel:





After the training and feeding, the bearded seals munched on some ice:



As we walked along the dock, Rachel pointed out the artificial nests designed for the birds - I clearly was multitasking during the talk yesterday as I didn’t recall this:



As we walked through the town, we saw the main cathedral:



The square:



Library:



We met our Canadian friend at her hotel and walked across the Tromsø bridge to visit the iconic Arctic Cathedral with its beautiful stained-glass mosaic:









We then walked back across the bridge with a view of the city:



We stopped by the Gateway Arch:





We decided to visit a local bar called Balthazar and ordered some fast food from across the street. I ended up ordering a beer from Stavanger called Salikatt and enjoyed a smash burger and fries.

We then headed to the original Mack Brewery and favorite local watering hole, Ølhallen pub where the bartender said locals mix the pilsner with a darker lager which was tasty:





We enjoyed chatting and tasting the beers. Afterwards, we retrieved our bags and headed to the bus stop where we boarded the #40 bus which dropped us off about 5 minutes from our hotel, the Moxy Tromsø. Our last night in Norway together and we completed our cruise and got to check out Tromsø!