Tromsø, Norway
June 7, 2025
Tromsø’s visit started with the aquarium. The slashed 'o' is pronounced like a German umlauted 'o'.
We got to the aquarium just in time for the feeding of the seals.
Watching the seals didn't leave us a lot of time for seeing everything else.
Our excursion was supposed to include a gondola ride to the top of a mountain. Repairs were still being done on the ride, so the excursion substituted a museum visit, and we were given more onboard credit to make up for it. On the walk there we had a good view into the town and saw some people in traditional costumes.
The museum included exhibits of Sámi clothing and artifacts.
A very fine photographer had shot portraits of Sámi people. We tend to think of them as reindeer herders, but most of them are sea Sámi, those who live by fishing.
Items from earlier periods of the fishing villages were on display, too.
Amundsen left for his adventures from Tromsø.
Back outside I got a better shot of the bridge and of the church we would visit.
We watched some rowers in some kind of competition.
The distinctive Tromsdalen parish church (not a cathedral, despite the Arctic Cathedral nickname), was completed in 1965. “The Return of Christ” stained glass window was added in 1972. The organ was built by Grönlunds Orgelbyggeri in 2005, with three manuals, pedals, 42 stops, and 2940 pipes. The bellows are made of reindeer hide. Before our visit, there had been confirmations in the Sámi language, so we saw people in traditional dressy costumes.
Back on the ship in the afternoon, it was time for my second taste of akvavit. The story of the Linie brand is that they shipped barrels of it to the South Seas, where nobody cared for it, and most were brought back. After all that time aging in barrels that were tossed by the seas, the stuff tasted pretty good. They claim they have never been able to duplicate the effect with mechanical rotations and such, so they still ship the akvavit twice across the Equator as part of the aging process. Perhaps you can see the world map on the back of the label that shows where it had been. I liked this one, too.
I do not recall that I tasted this beer, but just took the picture at the bar. The Svalbard Brewery is supposedly the northernmost brewery in the world.
When I got back to my cabin, I found they had left me my Polarsirkel Sertifikat, honoring my crossing the Arctic Circle.
