#escapism – microvacation

Two days ago Annika took the train from Umeå to Narvik to visit me in Tromsø. But what do you do when there is no bus connection to Tromsø the same day? Normally you’d take a hotel and continue the next day.

This time we made it slightly different. I took the car to Narvik as well – a very stormy ride – and fetched Annika from the train station.

Then we took the car to Harstad and stayed over night there. The next day we went up early and waited for our transportation to arrive. The Hurtigruten ship MS Nordnorge.

We left Harstad round 7:45 and passed the ship Havila Castor. Havila Kystruten serves the same route as Hurtigruten.

Then we took an extensive breakfast that we had booked with our 6½ hour cruise back to Tromsø. After that we listened to a lecture about the Arctic and the Antarctic. Then one of the main attractions followed: the hot tubs at the stern of the ship.

To my delight the weather forecast was wrong. It didn’t rain the whole journey, it snowed. That’s much nicer when you travel in February – even in the hot tub. Sometimes snow fall was intense enough to hide most of the scenic mountains we passed. A pity for the tourists.

At the Norwegian Polar Institute I often hear the tooting of the arriving Hurtigruten ship in the early afternoon. Now we heard it while we were standing on the top deck, passing the southern part of Tromsøya, where I live and then the Framsenteret, the building where I work. When we arrived I went to the car deck and fetched my car.

After arriving in my small apartment we were quite tired but decided not to take a nap but a walk to the bay Telegrafbukta. The reason: 15–20 cm fresh snow had fallen in Tromsø and it was still snowing. Just beautiful. The forecast however predicted warmer weather and a lot of rain for the next day.

This time the weather forecast unfortunately was correct. Today it really has been raining most of the day and the snow transformed into large puddles of ice and brown slush. Well, we will have snow and cold temperatures the day after tomorrow, when we travel to Svalbard for a week.

 

2 comments to “#escapism – microvacation”

  1. Johanna 2023-03-01 20:24

    Viel Freude und eine tolle Zeit für Euch .Für Dein anschließendes Projekt alles Gute ,Olaf LG:-)

  2. way-up-north 2023-03-02 06:54

    Danke, Johanna!

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