What Are They Doing?

come again another day! Yes, it is raining again today but accompanied with very heavy fog. We were planning on going on a tour this afternoon which took in some of the other islands up here and a ferry trip but with the weather the lady at the tourism office suggested that it may be a waste of money. So instead we wandered around the town and looked at some of the shops and chilled out at a local pub. Tone tried the local beer “Mack” which he thought was very yeasty and quite strong, and I chilled with a glass of red. It was really nice today to get a phone call out of the blue from my Mum and Dad and it made us think of all the friends and family at home that we will be able to catch up with again soon.

Filed under: Travel, Norway

After a broken nights sleep of checking the sky, we were ready to get moving on some more sightseeing. It was a horrible morning with steady soaking rain. We figured we should persevere and do our sightseeing. We wanted to ride the cable car up to the top of the largest mountain overlooking Tromsø. We made our way to the cable car station and found out that it wasn’t running. We knew there was a walking path that lead up to the top as well, so we took the only path we could see from the cable car station.
We walked up along the path, which seemed to be taking an easy winding path to the top, for over one hour. We were starting to get fed up with the rain and thought we should check that we were on the correct path. Our directions for getting to the top described a different path than we had taken. The path we were on seemed to be the one that the notes detailed for the way down, so we made the decision to keep going. We made it to the top of the walk but it was not the peak that we wanted. We were the next one across. There was a ridge that joined the two, but it looked to be another five kilometers of walking, and so with much frustration, we decided to give in and make our way back down.
We ended up walking for nearly three hours, got totally drenched with rain and still saw nothing! Not very impressed!
We headed back and chilled out in the hotel for the rest of the evening. We are still hoping that the weather will clear up tonight for some chance of seeing the lights.

Filed under: Travel, Norway

We got to the airport in Oslo without any problems and went to check in. Tony was upset because we missed out on a window seat and so would miss the amazing scenery of Norway. It didn’t matter in the end though because the clouds were very thick in the north of the country and there was nothing to see. We landed safely and caught the bus into the city centre and found the tourist office. There was a lot more things to do here than we thought, but the only problem was that we had arrived between seasons and so most summer things had finished and winter things hadn’t started yet. We were particularly annoyed at missing out on a day trip whale watching tour of the Norwegian Sea which finished only 3 days before we arrived. We left the tourist office with plenty of ideas and headed for our hotel.
We checked in and then headed out to explore. We saw on the map that there was a walk around a lake not far from our hotel, so we headed off to do that. The walk was really nice and headed up one of the surrounding mountains and gave us a great view over the city.
We then went to the grocery store and bought some food for dinner and lunch and then ate back at our hotel. After dinner and a quick rest, we headed out to explore some more. Tromsø is spread across two islands and we were staying on the smaller of the two. We made our way across the bridge to the larger island. We found the Arctic Cathedral which is a modern cathedral designed with a lot of Norwegian influences. It was really interesting to look at and looked like a massive white tent.
We were trying to wait out until it got totally dark in the hope of seeing some sign of the Aurora, but the clouds were still really thick. We headed home to bed, where I jumped up every couple of hours to see if things were any clearer. They weren’t.

Filed under: Travel, Norway

We are still on the road. This message is coming to you from the top of the world - well almost. We are in Tromsø at the moment, which is in northern Norway. We are hoping to see the Northern Lights if the weather is right. We had a few days in Amsterdam which was an interesting city and then a few days in Oslo which is a lovely city, so clean and green. Off to explore the mountains of Tromsø….

Filed under: Travel, Norway

After breakfast we stepped outside to a horrible rainy day, but we pushed on because we are the champions! We caught the tram here for the first time. We were heading to Frognerparken. On the tram was a family that we named “Team Denim Jacket” because they were all wearing denim jackets. The three children even had badges on their jackets from all of the countries in the EU. They were also heading to the park with us. When we arrived the rain was even heavier, but we started our walk anyway. The park had really nice fountains but the highlight was the collection of human statues. There were heaps of them and they all showed people of different ages from babies to old people holding different poses. The feature in the centre of the park was a totem pole which was sculpted to show people of all ages climbing to the top. It was really cool. When we had had enough we decided to head on the tram back into town to see Ackerhaus Slott. Team Denim Jacket joined us on the tram too!
The rain was pouring down so as we wandered around Ackerhaus Slott we got pretty drenched. Ackerhaus is a medievel fortress that was begun in 1299. Carmen was getting pretty sick of the wet so it was decision time - boat trip or home. We decided to see if the boat trip was running and if so we would do it. Brilliant decision as it turned into a beautiful sunny afternoon. We sailed around the the fjords of Oslo for two hours. The scenery was fantastic. One islandæs residents mostly work in Oslo. They can take the ferry which is a 20 minute journey or drive which takes 3 hours! All summer houses on the islands are required to be painted either yellow, red or green. This makes it look even more impressive. After the tour we walked past the Nobel Peace Centre (where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year) before heading home.

Filed under: Travel, Norway

We tried to catch up on more sleep and so lay in late. We went downstairs for our supplied breakfast. It was really good and we filled up hoping to be able to skip lunch. We first took a walk through town and found the tourist info office. We got some ideas for the day and then set off. We went down to the harbour for a look and found a cool jazz/blues band playing. We sat and listened to them for a while and they were really good. Carmen was scarred for life when before her eyes she saw a seagull type bird grab a small bird in its beak and kill it before flying off with it. Horrifying! After this we made our way to the pier to catch the ferry to Bygdøy - a peninsular across the bay from the main city. Here we went to a viking ship museum. Inside the museum they had three vikings ships that had been unearthed from viking burial grounds. The ships were from the 9th century and two of them were amazingly well preserved. There was lots of other viking items in the museum including beautifully carved sleds and boat decorations.
After the museum we took the ferry back to town. We made our way back towards our hotel and could hear music. We recognised the voice and song but couldn’t believe it was who we thought. But we were right - Angelique Kidjo was performing live in a free concert to raise awareness about African people. The concert was really entertaining and Angelique put on a great show. After, we stopped at a supermarket for dinner stuff and then cooked at the hotel and watched “The Bourne Supremacy” on DVD in our room.

Filed under: Travel, Norway

We slept in to take advantage of the midday checkout, made our yummy breakfast again and headed off sightseeing. We decided to do as the locals do and hired bikes. We cycled to the outdoor markets and had a quick look before heading to Vondelpark. This was a nice park with ponds and lots of paths. There was a free concert happening so we sat a rested a while. When we continued on our way we found the Rembrantplein where the museums are located. We were getting a little stressed so decided to head back and return our bikes. There were a lot of other cyclists on the road and they all knew where they were going! Carmen nearly caused many a crash with the locals as she kept forgetting to check her blind spot before pulling over or stopping! It was also quite stressful to have our own traffic lights to follow. We decided to fill in a little time before heading to the airport by having a drink by the canal. It was so strange to be surrounded by so many English accents (there were a lot of middle aged pommy male tourists). We then got our gear and headed to the airport destined for Oslo.

Filed under: Travel, Holland