Beginning our journey into ice and snow

At some point, in the early hours of the morning, we moved into the fjords and the bed stopped moving; I turned over and slept with sigh. For the past two nights the only thing keeping me in the bed were the pillows laying lengthwise.

I have always had a yearning to visit Tromsø, I've absolutely no idea why, but the name appealed to me and I just wanted to be nosy.

We berthed at around 8am and whilst a myriad of trips vanished off, I took the shuttle bus into town and had a delightful wander.

It's ostensibly a fishing port which has grown into a cruise ship destination and a place to hunt for the northern lights as well as a very large university and research centres. 

Places advertised their trips and numerous hotels took back-packers, holiday makers and business people all coming to have fun. Here, scientists from all over the world come to study Global Warming and their effects on the oceans, ice caps and weather. I'd love to have found out more but that's not on the itinerary. 

Where we are berthed I am looking up over the giant ski jump which, I think, was used in an Olympics at some point. Behind us is the bridge over to the island part of Tromsø and to my left is the observatory. Tromsø maybe small but a lot has a lot going on.

Anyone gone round round-a-bouts in underground tunnels? Well, here there is an extensive road network bored out of the gneiss granite underneath Tromsø island and using these you can get to all the major places - hospital, university, city centre, harbour, airport.... without having to face the deep snows of the winter months. 

During the war it seems a few of these tunnels were already present as they were dug for protection from air-raids. 

The ice is easy to walk on and traffic stops to let you cross the road. Heavens, if they tried that on our roads.....😳😵🥺🚑

Just had lunch and am just charging my phone ready to go off on my trip in about an hour. So, catch you later.....