Tromtinden

The snow is melting fast now, it is starting to get nice and green along the coast and the midnight sun is back. The weather forecast for this coming weekend is excellent with sun and 16-20 C temperatures. Even though there is still a fair bit of snow higher up, the time for mountain hiking has started for us. Last Sunday was also warm and sunny and we went for an evening hike up Tromtinden, a hill on the western side of Kvaløya with fantastic views out to the ocean and a range of smaller islands. The last time that we were up here, it was grey and cold, but this time the weather was perfect and we enjoyed having our dinner on the top. We were the only ones on this top, but it was more crowded on some of the neighbouring peaks.

Nearly midnight sun

Prague

After an interesting and busy conference in Prague, we had a day and a half for some sightseeing. We mostly just walked around, visited several of the main tourist sites, found a couple of great viewpoints and sampled some of the many excellent cafés and restaurants. The weather was perfect most of the week and it was very enjoyable to be able to sit outside for lunch and dinner, particularly now the cold has returned to Tromsø. It is easy to see why Prague is so popular with tourists, it is a beautiful, friendly and clean city with lots of good coffee and food. I particularly enjoyed the early morning Náplavka farmer's market along the river, the views from the tower of the Old Town Hall and the Petrín gardens, and the excellent food in the Estrella vegetarian restaurant.

St Peter and Paul Basilica in Vysehrad

We joined lots of tourists waiting for the apostles to show in the astronomical clock at the old town hall

This is what we were all waiting for, the apostles showing in the windows above the clock

Old market square with the old town hall

The tower of the Old Town Hall gives not only a great view over the city centre, it also makes it possible to 'spy' on all the people below: street artists, Hara Krishna parade, stag party groups, and of course lots of tourists. Here a few photos from the tower.

Old Market Square and the Church of Our Lady before Tyn

Singing Hara Krishna

The soap bubbles were very popular with the children

In the evening we watched a show at one of the black light theatres. Afterwards they showed their 'secrets'.

Prague by night: the gothic Powder Tower

The next day we started at the Náplavka farmer's market along the river, where we gathered our breakfast from some of the market stalls, good coffee, crepe with lemon and a sausage roll. We continued our walk across the river to Petrín garden where we walked up to the view tower and monastery at the top of the hill. A visit to Prague castle and it's huge St Vitus cathedral is of course compulsory, even though the cathedral was closed unfortunately. Then on to Letenska park with it's large metronome, and back across the river to the old city centre, the Jewish quarters, afternoon coffee and an excellent meal in Estrella restaurant.

Náplavka farmer's market

Memorial for the victims of communism

View over the centre of Prague and the Vltava river from Petrín park

Prague castle and St Vitus cathedral

St Vitus cathedral

More winter images from Tromsø - March

March brought more days with good weather and fresh powder snow and below is a selection of photos from some of the ski tours. The first 2 are from a popular ski trip to the little hut Nonsbu. It is an easy track through hilly terrain and it is a nice tour all year round either on ski, foot or bicycle.

The next photo is a view towards Nordtinden from Kjølen. The weather was quite variable that day with several snow showers, and, as usual on Kjølen, it was pretty cold and windy at the top.

And last Thursday, we finally made it to Fugltinden in Malangen. Fugltinden is quite a distinctive mountain visible from the E8, the main road to Tromsø, and I had long wanted to go there. It is, however, more than an hour drive from Tromsø, so we often end up going to the more local mountains instead. It was a beautiful trip with great views all around from the top. And with good snow it was fun skiing down. Now we will have to come back to see what it looks like in summer.

Beautiful halo around the sun, photo taken by Tony.

New car

Sadly, our old car has given up after 19 years of good service. A repair would have cost at least 3 times the value of the car, so we decided that this wasn't worth doing. We spent a week test-driving a couple of cars and ended up buying a relatively new car, a 2.5 year old Subaru Forester. It is the same model that we had when we lived in Australia and with which we had good experiences. It doesn't have the greatest colour, but it should be reliable.

Some winter images from Tromsø - February

We have had a beautiful winter so far, a fair bit of snow and cold and sunny weather, and not so much rain and icy conditions. The days are getting longer quickly and soon we will be able to go on after-work trips in daylight. Below some photos from a couple of ski trips in February.

First some images from a short trip through fresh powder snow in early February. The days were still very short and the sun low, which gives a beautiful soft light.

The next 4 photos are from a ski trip to one of our favourite hills all year round, Nordtinden. Nordtinden is not very high, just over 600 m, but has a great view towards Vengsøya and smaller islands west of Tromsø.

Photo taken by Elisabeth.

And the last photo is from a ski trip to Ullstinden, another one of our favourites, on a cold and very windy day.

Photo taken by Elisabeth.

Soldagen

Last Thursday, 21 January, was soldagen, the day that the sun comes back to the centre of Tromsø, after an absence of 2 months. I didn't see the sun that day, it didn't quite reach the university area, which is 3 km north of the city centre. But we did get 'solboller', a type of donut, and hot chocolate at work to celebrate soldagen. I always thought that this was a tradition in all of northern Norway where the sun disappears in the winter, but I recently read that it is actually a Tromsø tradition. Today we did see the sun, finally after 2 months (not counting the 2 weeks in Italy and Gran Canaria in December). I am glad it is back!

Afgelopen donderdag, 21 januari, was het hier soldagen, de dag dat de zon weer terug is in het centrum van Tromsø, na 2 maanden weg te zijn geweest. Ik heb die dag de zon niet gezien, het bereikte niet de universiteit dat 3 km ten noorden van het centrum ligt. Maar we kregen wel 'solboller', een soort donut, en warme chocolademelk op werk om de soldagen te vieren. I dacht altijd dat dit een traditie was in heel noord Noorwegen waar de zon 's winters verdwijnt, maar het schijnt een Tromsø traditie te zijn. Vandaag hebben wij ook de zon weer gezien, eindelijk naar 2 maanden (dan tel ik de 2 weken in Italië en Gran Canaria niet mee). Welkom terug zon!

Whale watching

There are still a lot of whales around Tromsø. Today we drove out to Brensholmen where we saw many orcas, and several fin whales and humpback whales. Every now and then they would swim very close to the shore. We saw baby orcas jump right out of the water and several whales breaching, but I didn't manage to catch these on film. The photos below are all taken from land.