Chapter 9 - Magic Land to the Magic Light

Today our story begins with Lapland and a long journey to Tromso.

Tromso, known as the land of the midnight sun is indeed a magical light of our the universe, especially in the winters.

Our journey began when we started at 7am, yet pitch dark outside. We had no options of starting any later as we had a flight to catch at Rovaniemi airport to Tromso. The initial plan was to travel by

road, through Levi and Arctic Circle to Tromso. But the roads covered with snow, stormy weather dint allow us to choose the roads. Other reasons for not opting a drive to Tromso were freezing temperatures upto -30 as you drive further north, and the expenses would have been higher too. Not many people dwelling in these areas and there would probably be no one to seek help for any emergencies. One way car rentals from Finland to Norway would not be very budget-friendly. And for all

these reasons and to keep our trip within budget, we just took na ride to the airport and then a flight to Tromso.

Though we decided to take the flight, the drive to the airport by itself was an amazing fairy tale ride. With empty roads and snow, with the morning chill, we were lucky to find a small restaurant called "Kahvila Lohihovi Oy". Its not so easy to find a café around and when we actually did, was awestruck. This restaurant was a traditional Scandinavian-style café with large wooden walls and was run by a local lady who stayed just behind this café. Choice of food wasn’t very extensive, but our breakfast that included a decent egg meal and coffee was so content.

This entire scene was worth a drone shot – with a snowcovered landscape. Flying the drone at -25 wasn’t so easy, yet we managed to take some beautiful shots and compiled it in a video. We had limited time as this was only a short break before reaching the airport.

Watch Video Here - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1821216801515531

After having reached the airport, and returning the car, check-in processes were very quick as there were hardly any crowd. This gave us more time at the Souvenir shop. But being the airport, the products were highly priced.

There are no direct flights to Tromso, and our travel to Tromso was via Oslo. Flight was half hour delayed, and its usually so because of the weather. These flight delays are to be considered while making your trip itineraries. All our flights were booked through Norvigion airlines. We reached Tromso at 10pm after the long transit at Oslo.

Tromso…

The land of the midnight sun !

This dark place, especially during the winters has interestingly minimal day time. The sun shows up after 10 am and hides away before 3pm. The rest of the time is dark and the magic to explore are the northern lights that dance in this darkness. Tromso airport is not a big structure by itself and not well-facilitated. We had our car booked with Hertz. The

chauffeur waited for us but without pre-booking, it might have been very inconvenient in these late night landing times. All airport stores close early during winter. We did have to pay a little extra for the night service of our car but there is no other option. Outside temperature by this time has touched -15 and its very windy, visibly seen from the inside of the airport. Three layers of clothing still proved insufficient just to walk through these winds from the airport to the car park. While we were on our way to pick up our luggage, a friend suddenly exclaimed “ Look, the northern lights ! “ I did turn to see at the spark he mentioned….but I was probably tired after the long flight, it took me time to actually believe I saw the northern lights…I assumed it was just the dark sky and some sunlight in-between, ignored it and dragged him away too.

But as we were loading our bags, a Chapter of the sky shined more green than usual, and there was a flow of green in the sky ! Our hearts dropped a beat as this is what we really aspired to see Our dream of witnessing the northern light wave was in front of us, it was just so sudden to see and digest, and the amazement was so worthy that I dint bother hunting for my camera and capture it. The green wave disappeared in about 4-5 minutes. We all knew we got to the right place. All excited, we exited the airport thinking we will witness more of the green sky as we get to our stay. It was about 11 30, with freezing environments, heater in the car, and us gazing into the sky for more green-ness. Luck dint favour us this time, and we decided to call the day off.

Tromso is an expensive city and touring in this city for a few days can equal the cost of a 2-week Europe tour. Options like AirBNB are recommended to keep our trip within budget. Our AirBNB stay was called “ Greet’s Home” , with close proximity to the Tromso city and just outside the main Kaldfjord Island. Though we reached our destination with te help of Google maps, we barely could see signboards and street numbers. We reached out to the Air BNB personnel and our Host Greet and her husband received us. The couple who stayed at the upper portion of the house had rented out the lower portion.

Though we were super-tired and exhausted, the anxiety to see more of these northern lights kept us hooked, and we were all geared up for an exciting start of the next day. Tomorrow’s exploration would be a sail through the Arctic ocean to see the biggest of animal kind – the whales !