Our Nordic Escape and Hurtigruten Cruise

The day did not start early and we only managed to get to breakfast about 09.45 hrs. I can only put our late rising to the fact that the sun doesn’t make an appearance until well after 09.00 hrs so before that, it’s like the middle of the night.

Unlike many hotels/B&B’s, the crew do not start packing the breakfast goods away until 10.00hrs so we were able to enjoy the full breakfast experience. We sat with another couple, Ruth and Malcolm, who were retired and from Portsmouth but who had originally lived in Surrey. It was strange that their story was quite like we see ours after retirement, they had downsized from a 4 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment; had chosen to move ‘South’ to a destination within a days commute from their wider family.

After breakfast we took route in the comfy seating area on Deck 4. I had decided that enough was enough and following the completion of my 11th crocheted square, decided to lay down my hook. I felt I had made a good contribution to the cause and that my legacy would live on in those squares. As I threw my squares into the collection basket later on, I felt a sense of pride in my achievement.

We had quite a bit of time on our hands as were not due to dock in Tromsø until 14.15 hrs. We spent the time taking in the scenery and reading; chatting and drinking coffee, all very relaxed.

We went into lunch around 13.30 hrs but neither of us were really hungry having finished breakfast 3 hrs early and really having done nothing more strenuous than exercising our eyes since then. Never the less, Terry managed to down a few thousand calories while I had a bowl of delicious potato and leek soup.

The crew on the ship warned us of -12 temperatures in Tromsø, so we really layered up. For me, the increased amount of layers made it more and more difficult to bend so when we were ready to leave the ship, we had to get the lift up to the 3rd Deck (disembarkment Deck) as I couldn’t bend my legs enough to manage the stairs. 😂

We had a route mapped out in Tromsø but once in the city, couldn’t make head nor tail of the map we had picked up from the ship. Tromsø was a lot bigger than a lot of the other towns/ cities we had visited as part of the cruise however, seemed to be laid out in squares so was quite easy to navigate. We came across a city square full of snow sculptures and were really impressed with the detail on each one. I really wanted to buy some wool and a knitting pattern to make myself a Nordic style sweater so when we came across a fabric style shop, headed straight in. At the entrance Terry pointed out a notice to ‘…..remove spikes before entering…’ this notice next to a chair to do so but unfortunately, even bending sufficiently to sit on the chair was difficult enough and slipping off spikes impossible, so Terry had to take mine off as well as his before helping me back on my feet.

As with most things in Norway everything in the shop was mega expensive: a 50g ball of Norwegian sheep wool working out to about £8.40 – I would have needed around 10 balls, maybe more, as most of the sweaters had 4 or 5 different colours around the yoke, sleeves and base. I had kind of talked myself round to taking the plunge and buying it when I realised that all the knitting patterns were written in Norwegian. To me, this seemed like fate, I was not supposed to be doing this, so I headed to the chair where Terry was waiting to put on my spikes and we left without a single purchase. We were probably in the shop an hour. 😂

Whilst walking around Tromsø and on return to the ship we noticed again some of the greenish hues of the Northern Lights in the sky. Whilst nowhere near the display we had experienced the previous night, we were taken aback by the sheer randomness of the movement and the different shades and brightness of the light. These lights appeared, danced around the skies and disappeared pretty much throughout the evening much to our delight and the delight of our fellow cruisers.