Norway (again)

Having completed our 2020 holiday in early February, scarcely 3 weeks later it was time for our 2021 (both covid rescheduled) trip, this time back up to the top of Norway with Hurtigruten. Not the original schedule or ship, nor even the second, but finally a booking we could actually undertake. We flew to Oslo, overnighted there and then took the train up to Bergen, taking some snaps from the window as we went:

We headed from the sunshine to the clouds, eventually the snow:

This was the highest point. Snow clearing vehicles were buried to their rooves:

From Bergen we took a day trip to a Fjord, again in foul weather, the rain did abate briefly as we reached the outward point of the voyage, watching this waterfall of snowmelt and rain coming off the hill just ahead of Mo.  We'd given ourselves a couple of days to explore Bergen so the next day we wandered around the old fort:

Hooded Crows abounded:

Before walking up the nearby hill (ok we caught a wee bus for about a third of the way). Bergen, the wettest city on earth had its sunshine hat on:

That afternoon we boarded the MS Trollford, and headed North,

docking for a whole day at Aalesund, in summer the tourists crowd up to Geraingerfjord from here. Aalesund is fasincating because it burned down in 1904 and was rebuilt in a couple of years with help and gifts from all over Europe:

This is the view from the overlooking mountain:

The next day was Trondheim, under the same weather we'd see for the vast bulk of the voayge, low cloud, precipitation from rain to sleet, hail, snow and back again. The old warehouses along the river are worth the walk into town:

We had some clear weather the following morning as the ship headed North, we finally got to see some of the sunrise and sunset colours we'd enjoyed previously:

And the sky added to the landscape:

As did the off-and-on sunshine:

The further north we sailed the deeper the lying and sometimes falling snow became:

And the less light there was by day:

We headed across the very top of Norway, by this time, for obvious reasons, a little wary of the approach to Russia:

Finally we arrived at Kirkenes, the midpoint of the voyage and pleasingingly the best weather of the whole trip too. we'd booked what we thought was going to be a twee visit to the snow hotel. We loved it. The hotel itself is a remarkable thing:

It's literally freezing inside hence it is adorned with all sorts of lit ice sculptures:

A frosty receiption.... apparently some folks chose to sleep in there. Not we!

Some side tunnels lead out into the snowy landscape:

That night as we sailed South we had a pretty good aurora, this is what was visible by eye. I managed to get my camera settings wrong (in my defense i'd be trying to sleep ahead of a nighttime snowmobiling trip and had rushed upstairs and was too tired to work out what i was doing wrong!).

Without the on-off cloud cover it would have been spectacular

A couple of friends we made on the voyage got their settings right, this is what the show looked like by camera:

And what a show! Going to have to keep trying:

The 01:20 departure for the snowmobiling became 02:40, it was fun if a little bit pedestrian, but the landscape, the blowing snow and the flickers of aurora were special. Halfway up the mountain a blizzard blew in pushing ice and snow into the face at various angles, i ended up driving one handed while shielding my face with the other. It was a relief to get aboard and to bed by 05:30:

From there it was the quieter journey South:

taking in the landscape and scenery:

Passing the stunning Lofoten islands has put us in mind to try a hiking visit there one summer:

We did get another aurora in Svolvaer this time the cloud was even thicker, again it would have spectaular:

Hey ho! We enjoyed the voyage, avoiding putting on too much weight and got our best view yet of the Northern Lights.