Its hard to convey the magic of this place, in either words or pictures. The camera, with a few exceptions (not taken by me obviously) rarely captures the stark beauty; tiny settlements of dotted red and yellow houses, towered over by majestic snow covered mountains. Folds of fir covered hills that seem to be endless.
I see the attraction of coming here in the summer, for the midnight sun, but somehow the essence of the place is in the winter; its the Arctic, it is supposed to be cold, unforgiving and even hostile. I may regret that if we get another storm either on the last two days of the trip north or then later the return south, but somehow its not supposed to be gentle, or even welcoming, even if the people, virtually without exception, are.
So the big news is … we saw the northern lights last night. Another reason to come in winter of course. Just after midnight the northern sky was lit up for about half an hour with folds of dancing green curtains. Just as we passed through the narrowest of the fjords in the Lofoten Islands, obligingly partially lit by the celestial fireworks. Another magical moment on a magical trip. I do admit that by that time everyone up on deck was frozen and the only ones able to get anything like a picture worthy of the occasion were those with tripods and remote shutters, ie not me! Fingers outside gloves soon froze and I had enough trouble not dropping the camera. I gave up - I settled in to simply enjoy.
Today we have sailed under azure skies and through deep blue water, only making the contrast with the white land all around all the more stark. Paradoxically perhaps, the scenery seems to be forever changing, despite looking the same. In this weather it is mesmeric and I managed to spend hours simply looking out form the observation deck until we reached the capital of the Arctic, Tromso. This passage of the voyage is almost all in the fjords and inland of thousands of islands off the west coast. So it is also beautifully calm and peaceful.
The afternoon was a wander round memory lane, basically visiting sites I had seen in Tromso a few years back. Including an obligatory visit to the cinema to check if they were still showing the Japanese film with English subtitles (they weren’t). And somewhat unexpectedly I think one of Antony Gormley’s statues has found its way from Crosby to the centre of Tromso!
Last time I was here it was November and the days were very short. More daylight this time but lots more snow! Its still a lovely town, but its the end of March and it is still freezing!
Time for a coffee…