Winter Europe Trip 8th December 2022 (Thursday) Day 12

(This posted is written on 13th March 2023, I finally have time as the school term has ended and I really missed our Europe trip) *Look at that, I managed to update my travel journal till Day 12!

This is kind of the brightest around 1130am

Once we were at Tromso, the lights in the buildings and houses were always on as there was only a couple of hours from 11am till maybe 1pm when we see some dusk like colors and the sky is a brighter or lighter blue, but that's about it. The sun have not risen in this part of the world for days and this take some getting used to. It's not as bad as we expected as we slowly traveled northwards and had seen the sunlight less and less as we traveled up.

But I think it has made us very dormant in a way, and after breakfast at the hotel lobby, we went back to the room to sleep or rest since we're mainly here for light chasing and we couldnt do that till it's night time. We skipped lunch and only started getting ready to go out when it was almost 6pm. Since we were not able to book the light chasing tour for this night, the plan is to get dinner and then go up to Mount Storsteinen as the lady at the "Northern Lights" store recommend getting up to the catch the lights and that's what some people do instead of renting a car to drive around for the lights. 

These snow cleats really saved us in Tromso

Look at those huge pipes Super Mario style

The decor clearly attract the 80s and 90s kids

Super Mario themed walls

Not many seats but the joint is popular

Our table 

The geeky stuff

Can you spot me? 

We came across this joint the previous night when were out looking for dinner, but I think it was already 9pm or 10pm and this shop was already closed. Being a game geek, P was attracted by it's Nintendo and iconic games decor. A search online showed that it's quite a popular place as the food are not too expensive and tasted good. So we headed there to look for food before heading up to the mountain. I would say the place met our expectations in all areas and P took the chance to take loads of photos while having his favourite kind of food.

There's even a Nintendo machine for patrons to play 

Not sure for sale or just decor or part of the biz

We ordered only one burger but it was good

Shoutout to the burger place Burgr

Mileshake was also great

Anyway, the joint is call Burgr, unlikely we will ever go to Tromso again, but I guess people who dont mind some casual food in Tromso can try this out. We went on a weekday but most of the seats are filled, so I guess weekends can be crowded. The bench outside was covered with snow at this time of the year. We checked the Google map schedule and there was a bus heading towards the Arctic Cathedral direction which is also the direction of Storsteinen, so we left about 10 minutes earlier to head to the bus stop near this big Peppe's Pizza shop. 

Taking bus 26 from Torgsenteret

Cloudy day but we hope we can see something up there

Cute little church? 

It's a nice traditional for Norwegians to keep the house lit

We lost our way and still looking for the cable car station

Exploring and saw many houses along the way

Some did simple christmas decor

Another nicely lit house

Trekking up the mountain looking for the cable car station

Finally found it, the fjellheisten

Unlike other parts of Norway, for these public bus around Tromso, they do not accept cards for payment of bus fare, therefore we have to download the app and buy the tickets in the app itself. We did not change any cash at all for the whole of the trip as Norway is such a credit card friendly country. At some of the christmas markets, there's many stalls which only accepted payment in card. Anyway, I just googled and it is possible to purchase tickets onboard but they only accept cash. After buying the bus tickets and activating it in the app, there's a time limit to utilise the tickets and passengers can take unlimited rides during this time period. There's a timing board in the bus stop to show the time duration for waiting for the next bus. 

We were waiting for bus 26 and there were a lot of people at the bus stop when we reached around 7.30pm Many of them also boarded the same bus as us, I assumed those were tourists like us. For these Tromso citybuses, the boarding is at the back door and there's a QR scanner to scan the tickets. According to my Google map, it's just a two or three bus stop ride so we kind of got confused as the bus stopped at the Arctic Cathedral (which was the second stop) and not many people got down over there. We took a few seconds and decided to get down over there as we thought the cable car station should be somewhere along the main road. Unfortunately, we got down one stop early and the next stop is quite a distance away, the bus was supposed to go up the foot of the mountain and drop the passengers some distance up. It looked like a 10-15min walk on the Google map so we decided to just walk up and it became an adventure in itself, it was a chance for us to look at the neighbourhood of the everyday folks in Tromso. Luckily we did find the station in the middle of nowhere after a 20 min walk uphill (and some parts downhill). 

The ride on the cable car, quite an awesome view

The cafe where many people waited for Nordlys

Quite a nice view

Very very snowy and some parts are knee deep snow

View of the city, but DO NOT fall at these area

Shot of P, supposed to be whimsical I guess

These are not us, but P said nobody knows

Super cold out there

The moon was bright and I loved this shot

We bought the tickets and stood in line waiting for the cable car, there were a couple of people in front of us and some people came and form a line after us, but I would say not more than 10 people. The cable car only run every 30 min if I'm not wrong, so we had to wait for the next one. We were 'kiasi' and wore those snow cleats to most places in Tromso, at first we thought we had to remove them when indoors and the first night we took them off before entering a supermarket, but we soon saw a lady wearing them inside. It kept us really safe so far and the cable car is one of those places where they specifically said those are not allowed onboard, so I guess a lot of tourists have those on when going up the mountain. No signages about taking them off at other places means they are probably fine with it. 

The cable car came and we finally reached the top at 9pm. There's a cafe right after we exited from the cable car and many tourists are there that night, all for the same purpose. The Northern Lights! It's a good spot for catching those and recommended in many of the guide books, if tourists want to try their luck. There's pile of snow at the area right outside the cafe and there was even a safety reminder that it is rather slippery outside and the snow cleats were recommended. We stepped out and realised the snow was quite fresh and not slippery, it was cold and windy so not many people were outside but there were some who walked really far to hundreds of metre away so we followed them and explored quite a bit. We did not hike all the way up as it was rather dark and we were only depending on the bright moonlight to see stuff and at one point, the snow got to our knee and we sank in at every step and it was an effort getting our feet out. 

Lady Nordlys showed up again! 

It was quite strong at some point

Cloudy night we did see the lights

The lights dancing away for a few minutes

This should be the strongest display I've seen so far

It was short but beautiful 

We only ventured about 100m or so and there were some people who trekked all the way up the far part of the mountain. We were struggling to get back to the cafe and to keep our feet away from the deep snow when suddenly, the magic happened again. The Nordlys appeared and at one point the lights were dancing. Despite our hands being freezing cold from all the snow and wind, we stopped in our tracks and took many photos. Suddenly, we could hear people coming out from the cafe and they were all crowding outside, some with tripod and stuff. We were lucky to come in time and catch it within 30 min of reaching the peak. For the next one hour plus, we kept waiting with the others, the lights came on and off but it was not as strong as the first time it showed up that night. 

The fjellheisen operates till midnight 

We bought hot chocolate and P captured the lights with it

Hot chocolate and the city lights

The cafe

We waited to get to see more of the lights but it did not turn up so we went into the cafe to warm ourselves up and got some rest. Every now and then, I walked out the doors to check on the lights and sometimes the faint stuff will turn up. Many tourists were doing the same, resting in the cafe and go out for photography every now and then. I guess the excitement died down after the brilliant lights extinguished from view. We stayed for another hour or so and kept waiting for the lights but after awhile, it did not appear again and we decided to take the cable car down when it was near 11pm. There's a sign inside the cafe showing the timing of the next ride so we waiting till the time was near before we stepped out into the wind again.

There were snow drifting down so P was fooling around

Trying to eat the snow

Lights predictions for next few days

The cable car station at the foot of the hill was built on a slope so we saw people slipping when we came and a girl also slipped when we were stepping out. P and I took the time to put on our snow cleats before we walked down the slope to look for the bus stop. Everything looked very quiet but there were quite a few people waiting for the bus with us. It was already 1115pm but there was still bus service, and it even started snowing a little. We were feeling happy that we still caught very beautiful lights that night so the trip up was not a waste at all. 

The bus came and something unfortunate happened though it was not a big issue. P and I were at the back of the line getting up the bus and we were the last two, I was opening the bus app to scan the tickets just as I was about to board the bus, when suddenly the door of the bus closed and it knocked my phone out of my hand. Luckily, people on board the bus saw that we were still there and shouted for the driver to open the door. I quickly told P my phone fell under the bus and he had to get down on all fours to retrieve my phone, but thankfully we got back the phone and boarded the bus safely after that. Bus 26 actually stopped quite near our hotel so we got down and walk just a few steps back to our hotel, finally back in our room when it was already midnight.