I woke early this morning as I knew that the ship would be docking in Tromsø at 8am. The sea had been calm on the journey overnight and I slept fairly well despite being disturbed by Lady Aurora.

We didn’t each much at breakfast, maybe due to the excesses of our five course meals every day. I just didn’t feel that hungry.

We had a bit of a plan today, mainly because the Coastal Experience Team on MS Trollfjord had left a guide to Tromsø for people to use, as well as a useful map. We thought that it was best to go to the Arctic Cathedral and also the Fjellheisen (cable car) before it got too busy. Besides, the cable car hadn’t been running the day before, so JC said we had more chance to go first thing in the morning.

We left the dockside and made our way towards Tromsø bridge. This structure is just over 1 kilometre in length and joins the mainland to the island of Tromsøya where Tromsø is located. The bridge has been opened since 1960 and at the time was the first cantilever bridge to be built in Norway. We decided to walk across it, which enabled us to cross the Tromsøysundet Strait. It was a nice morning, maybe a little too windy, but it took about half an hour or so to walk across it. We arrived at the Arctic Cathedral, Ishavskatedralen, which was at the other side of the bridge. It has been around since 1965 but to me it looks more modern than that judging by the design of the exterior.

Unfortunately the Cathedral wasn’t open until 1pm, which kind of messed our plans up a bit. However, we walked on to the Fjellheisen cable car to arrive some 20 minutes or so later. This wasn’t due to be opened until 10:00am, but the ticket office was open when we got there. We had to wait another 20 minutes until the first cable car set off. The ticket cost 415 NOK, which works out roughly £30.00.

The views from the top are absolutely incredible. We were here on a lovely sunny day and this gave us stunning views of the city of Tromsø, the landscape of the mountains around the Norwegian Sea, the Arctic Cathedral and the Tromsø bridge. We walked across the top of the cliffs to take some photographs of the scenery. It was absolutely beautiful, we couldn’t have picked a better day.

Cable Car (Fjellheisen) – Round Trip Ticket | Visit Tromso | Norway

Tromsø, Tromsø bridge and the Arctic Cathedral are some of the sights that can be seen from the top of Tromsdalstind (1238 metres)

We were there only about 45 minutes and then got the next cable car back down to terra firma. We walked down towards the Arctic Cathedral and realised that they had opened earlier than 1pm – it was only about 11:15am. This was perfect as we would have struggled to fit in visiting it later on. We did realise that some of the people that were in the Cathedral were from the ship, so they must have been those on the pre-booked excursion. I guess that they had opened their doors early for the passengers. Our ticket cost 70NOK, about £5.00.

The Arctic Cathedral is a beautiful piece of architecture. It is eye catching with its triangular front face, with huge glass panels to allow the light in. At the back of the cathedral is a glass mosaic window, designed by artist Victor Sparre. The light from the sun shines directly through the window with the hand of god at the top, and three rays of light shine from it, through Jesus, a man and a woman.

The glass window of the Arctic Cathedral/ Ishavskatedralen

We only spent 20-30 minutes here and maybe that was a good thing that we left when we did, as another coach load of people had arrived by then.

We walked back over the Tromsø bridge, which took us another half hour or so. We got our map out again to decide what we would do first. It was about 11:30am at this point so we thought it best to go to the brewpub Ølhallen, which belongs to the northernmost brewery in the world, Mack Brewery. This pub has been open since 1928 and has 72 taps that serve beer. We arrived three minutes to 12, and the waitress let us in before the official opening time. We liked the look of the interior of the bar, it had hi-tops in dark wood and other lower tables. We saw quite a lot of brewerania and pictures on the wall. The main feature was a stuffed polar bear.

There was obviously plenty of beer to choose from too, but the bar bill was expensive (£21 for a pint and a half of beer of pale ale). Prices are displayed on a chalk board so we knew what to expect. We then had a cherry sour which was much cheaper (still expensive compared to UK prices), at just under £9 for two x 330ml glasses. I expected it to get busier, but there was only us and another couple in there for a while. Then suddenly a coach load of people from the Cathedral arrived. This was our time to leave, apart from feeling rather hungry too.

Ølhallen – Mack’s brewpub with 72 tapshttps://www.mack.no/en/index.php?p=olhallen

We walked down the street looking for places that took our fancy. There were burger outlets, other bars that did food, and the odd cafe, none of which really appealed to us. We had almost given up when we found a cafe called Helmersen, which is a delicatessen and wine bar. We walked in and first saw a huge counter selling cheese. We then found an English menu and liked the sound of the quiche and salad. There were plenty of tables so went to the till to place our order and then sat down.

The quiche took a while but we realised why: it had been warmed up when it arrived. The food was lovely and fresh and totally hit the spot. We had also ordered a white wine each which had made the bill come to a hefty £55. We didn’t hang around for any more wine after the first one. Our next location was to see the monument to Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian polar explorer who led the first expedition to the Antarctic.

Time seemed to be passing by too quickly today. We had been allocated eight hours to explore the city, but by this point we only had an hour and a half left. We didn’t want to go back to the boat just yet, so we headed to Rakketkiosken (Rocket Kiosk), which we had read about. It was an absolute gem of a find, being Norway’s smallest bar. The only beer it sells is blonde or dark, from a tiny kiosk which was first a news stand when it was built in 1911. Margit Løkke was the original owner, and was 18 when it was first opened. It has been mostly run by women since. They also sell the most amazing reindeer and beef hotdogs, something that we had to try even though we’d only eaten an hour before. We were sharing though! The delicious hotdogs are served with chopped beetroot relish, fried onions, mustard and ketchup. The kiosk had a seating area next to it which was playing songs from a bygone era, such as The Beverly Sisters and Louis Armstrong. The hotdog was so nice that we decided to have another one which made me feel guilty but it made me understand why they managed to sell 463 in one day in 2024.

We went back to the ship and relaxed for an hour or so, before it sailed at 4pm. The ship went underneath the Tromsø bridge along the fjord heading north. We weren’t sailing for long before the ship made a stop at the Norline cargo terminal to pick up supplies to take to Svalbard, which is one of our stops. We must have been there for two hours or so, watching shipping going onto the ship. We saw big pallets of wine, fish and other items.

The sun was starting to go down when we left at 6:15pm. It was time to get ready to eat at our allocated time of 7pm in the Røst restaurant.

Tina, our server, was as wonderful as ever. For those who want to know what our meal was, here it is:

First course – North Sea shrimp with home made shrimp mayonnaise, horseradish cream, cucumber pearls, apple pearls soaked in beetroot juice, lemon pulp and dill;
Second course – beetroot tartare – red beet and sunflower seeds mixed in olive oil, with pickled yellow beet on top, filled with horseradish cream, finished with deep fried capers;
Third course – baked sterling halibut with lemon panko and chive, mange tout, hollandaise and skewered cabbage;
Fourth course – deep fried brie, caramelised cauliflower, cherry puree, chervil;
Fifth course – sweet white chocolate cream with cloudberry three ways (gel, sorbet and puree), topped with a traditional Norwegian biscuit.

The food, as always, was top class.

After our meal, we went up on the deck as it was getting dark and my Aurora app was telling me that there was activity over Northern Norway. It was amazing tonight, we did see the Aurora with our naked eye and early on before it was truly dark. It was quite weak to begin with, but soon was dancing in the night sky whilst we sailed through the fjords. It continued well into the night with a strong show at about 11:30pm. I decided to retire to bed at midnight, even though I could have carried on with the display, but we had a trip organised when we arrive at Honningsvåg, to the northernmost point in Europe – Nordkapp, the North Cape.