the next day, we visited the island magerøya, the northernmost piece of the european continent. after boarding in honningsvåg, we were brought by bus to the north cape, the (almost) northernmost corner of europe. on the trip, the weather was awesome, but when we arrived it began to be cloudy. but well, that’s magerøya, where you can have all four seasons in one day, as our (excellent!) guide said. here are some impressions:

i took the last photo from within the bus driving back, when the wind was blowing snow over the road, enlightened by the sun. it was a great view, and we were happy that we didn’t had to drive!

the next day, we visited kirkenes. from there, we took a bustrip to the russian border. there’s nothing much to see, except a cute husky cub. from there, we continued to bjørnevatn, a mining town close to kirkenes, hosting one end of the northernmost railway (which connects kirkenes and bjørnevatn, and which main purpose is to transport iron ore, workers and tools). afterwards, we took a closer look at the langfjord, before we returned to kirkenes to get a view over the town:

the day after, we approached hammerfest. the weather began to get better, and we had a good time on the sun deck:

finally, we had a chance of visiting and exploring hammerfest. in hammerfest, we found among other things a nice bookstore, cramped to the top with books with narrow paths between them. such a great place! we could have spend days going through there (well, me somewhat less, as most books were in norwegian)!

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!

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

unterwasserwelt.

i took the photo near to kirkenes at the coast of the barents sea. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/160s, f/5.3, 220mm, iso 400.

while staying in ivalo, i did a daytrip to kirkenes in norway, and dipped my feet into the barents sea. it was pretty cold, and didn’t got any warmer while staying in it a bit longer. i’d still jump in if i would have taken my swimming gear with me… this is a thing you don’t do that often. as before in ivalo, it was cloudy. and rained a bit. but nonetheless, it was beautiful. lappland is just beautiful. the barents sea reminds me a lot of the north sea. which reminds me that i haven’t been there for quite some time.