the next day we crossed the arctic circle. despite being in the far north, there still weren’t too many signs of winter, except a bit of snow higher up. nonetheless, with beautiful weather, it was really beautiful.

during the afternoon we visited bodø, the capital of nordland:

we also visited bodø’s railway station, being the end of the line: to get further north, one has to take the bus (or boat or plane).

finally, another shot of our boat:

this day, i also had the chance to photograph the sun diving into the ocean:

later the evening, we visited svolvær, the capital of the lofoten islands. there, we visited the magic ice ice exhibition:

the third night in a row there was an announcement of northern lights being visible. this time, there actually was something to see. still not as bright as i’ve seen it before, but beautiful nonetheless:

the next day, we visited trondheim for the whole morning. in trondheim, we met ms trollfjord’s sister ship, the ms midnatsol:

afterwards, we explored the beautiful city. it was a sunday morning, and whence quite empty, except for all the hurtigruten tourists:

during the afternoon, we went through the stokksund strait:

during the night, there was an announcement that northern lights are visible. well, they weren’t much more visible than the previous night (in fact less), but the light area was much larger, spanning over half of the sky:

we spend the beginning of march in norway, traveling with the hurtigruten ship ms trollfjord from bergen to kirkenes and back.

the ship offers quite some comfort, including two whirlpools in the arctic pool area on top of the ship. it’s quite fun to sit in the warm water while it’s cold and windy outside!

we left bergen on a late evening, when it was quite dark on the outside:

the next morning we landed in torvik, a little town on an island. also, for the first time on our stay in norway, the sun came out:

the view of the sea is gorgeous:

later the day, we had a longer stay in ålesund:

on early evening, we arrived in molde. there, we took a photo of our ship:

on the late evening, we visited kristiansund for a bit longer. there, we walked a bit around in the harbor:

somewhen later, there was an announcement on the ship that northern lights could be seen. when we reached the sun deck, we only saw the leftovers, which were essentially only visible by camera and very high sensitivity settings. here’s a photo of people waiting for the aurora to become stronger (again):

later in the night, while back in our cabin, i looked out of the window before going to bed, when i saw something which looked a bit like northern lights. i put on my clothes again and went outside, and there it was: an aurora! not very intense, but it was there, and for some moments even visible to the plain eye!

today, it was pretty sunny and quite warm outside, and we decided to play with our cats (and our neighbor’s cats):

a month ago, there was still snow outside:

our cats and our neighbour’s cats clearly enjoyed the snow:

part of it was also playing in the snow:

we were in brand for a second time. this time, we went for skiing, relaxing and taking photos.

well, unfortunately, there wasn’t much snow around when we were there, especially in the valley. many ski tracks were closed, but for beginners as me, this didn’t really matter. (except on one day, when due to upcoming storm they had to close some of the beginner’s tracks as well. :-) ) it was only on the day before we left that it began to snow, and on the day we left suddenly even the valley was covered in a winterly white, which we could watch from inside the bus…

anyway, what i’m doing on skis is now closer to what people would call skiing, and i’ve been able to practice almost every day – so it wasn’t bad after all. unfortunatly, the “taking photos” part of our trip suffered due to that and the small amount of snow. still, here are a couple of nice photos i took:

(on the second photo, you can see the lünersee dam.)

last week, we visited the säntis, one of the highest landmarks in northeastern switzerland. despite being quite crowded – after all, it was on a sunday with good weather – it didn’t feel too crowded on the top, and we caught some great views onto germany, lake constance, liechtenstein and austria. (i’m not sure whether we also saw france or italy due to haze. but in theory, we could have.) enjoy some of the views and panoramas:

two and a half weeks ago, we visited the zolli, the zoo in basel. equipped with my camera and perfect weather (i.e. not too good, so the animals won’t hide from the sun, and not too bad as well), we had a good time and saw many interesting animals.

more than one year ago, miukumauku, my cat, moved in with us. so when i was sitting outside and saw her playing in the sun, i had to take some pictures. she grew quite a bit, and stopped playing with most of her toys, in favour of having a real-life outside, playing with anything that moves and is not too big. and she’s still extremely cute.

here are some pics from today: