on the way back south, we visited tromsø for a second time. there, we attended a concert in the ishavskatedralen:

the next day, we had the chance of exploring the vesterålen island by bus. we first visited the trondenes church, where also the weather began to get worse: it started snowing. and later, hailing. both with a lot of wind, and sometimes pretty much horizontally. the island is really beautiful, eventually we have to go back and explore the nature in more detail. some hours later, we arrived in stokmarknes, where we had a chance to visit the hurtigruten museum. part of the museum is the complete ms finnmarken, parts of which can be freely explored. below, you can also find a photo from its bridge.

the next day we again crossed the arctic circle, this time southbound.

again one day later, we visited the (surprisingly) beautiful town of rørvik. it is quite a nice little town, with some quite beautiful places:

from rørvik we proceeded south, straight to bergen.

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:

last week, we visited tromsø in arctic norway for a couple of days. it is one of the largest cities north of the arctic circle, featuring a university (which, among many other subjects, also has a mathematics department – to my knowledge, the only one north of the arctic circle).

tromsø during daylight.

here are some impressions from tromsø during daylight. at this time of the year, there’s not too much daylight – the sun rises around 10 am, and is gone by 4 pm. the photos feature the tromsø gallery of contemporary art, the polaria aquarium whose form represents ice floes, the rica ishavshotel with its interesting form, the polstjerna (a seal hunting ship) museum, and some views on tromsø’s harbor, in part from the tromsø bridge:

tromsø at night.

most of the time, we saw tromsø during night. this is how it looks. the first picture shows the public library.

the last four pictures depict one of the hurtigruten ships, the trollfjord which was stopping by in tromsø one night. we used the chance to explore the ship a bit and have a nice midnight snack on-board.

northern lights over tromsø.

unfortunately, we only saw an aurora once during our stay. but it was a beautiful one! we were standing close to the public library, and later to the city hall:

polaria.

we also visited the polaria, the northernmost aquarium featuring bearded seals. here are some impressions from their feeding and training session:

tromsø airport.

finally, on our last day in tromsø, the weather was fantastic. that is, there was a lot of sun and not many clouds around noon. we were already at the airport at that time, but still managed to take some nice pictures:

yesterday, the german television showed the 6th part of their wildes skandinavien documentary series, this time about finnland. thankfully, someone recorded it and uploaded it to youtube:

(unfortunately, the video was removed from youtube…)

(the documentary is in german. and it seems that it was already running on arte.) the series also has movies about wilderness in denmark, norway, sweden, iceland, and greenland (all available on youtube), and there is also a “making of”. thanks to my parents for telling me about this!

moreover, the swiss television runs a documentary series about the arctic circle. you can watch and/or download all currently available episodes here (currently there are four). thanks to anmut for telling me about this!

here’s my project 52 shot for the tenth week. the topic was

fernweh.

this topic could be so easy if archive photos would be allowed. like in the last year, i visited many stunning places which i’d love to see again right now:

the photos were taken near vikajärvi, haines junction, keno and mayo, and yellowknife (from left to right, top to bottom). the message of these photos is plain and simple: i’d like to be far, far more north! somewhere near the arctic circle, or even north of it.

unfortunately, i couldn’t make it north. instead, i went south, and up by train, to recover a photography combining two aspects of northern travel: snow and railways.

technical details: 1/1000s, f/8, 32mm, iso 200.

(this photo is in fact older than the topic. originally i wanted to near to that place again, to take more photos, also for use for project 52. unfortunately, i was too busy and too sick to do this.)