Slartibartfast Stories

Today we had a good long stopover in Tromsø, the gateway to the Arctic. We also unexpectedly received certificates of Arctic Circle crossing signed personally by the ship's captain. Tromsø is the largest city in Northern Norway and amongst many things is home to the Tromsø Film Festival which all fellow wittitainment followers will know (hello to Jason). Our first destination was across the Tromsø Bridge to visit the very distinctive Arctic Cathedral. We then had a good long tour of the Polar Museum and learned much about Amundsen, Nansen, Wanny Woldstad and cross-dressing in the Arctic. Roald Amundsen of course is rightly famous but he also had a ferociously competive friendship with the equally adventurous Fritjhof Nansen over many years. Wanny Woldstad was a women from Tromsø who was the first female hunter to overwinter on Svalbard. She was also Tromsø's first female taxi driver. The museum also had a temporary  ex...

So, what is the connection? Read on to find out. The route here from Tromsø passed by the Norwegian Alps as well as endless further stunning mountains, fjords, straits and sounds. We felt we were lucky to catch a glance of some whales over breakfast this morning. Just a few blowhole spouts and a tale fluke but still pretty exciting. Later however it was much better. On leaving Honningsvåg this evening we saw two separate pods of whales, a half hour apart, surrounding and feasting on bait balls of fish. Very exciting. I have some photos, hopefully, but not on my phone and not yet able to share. I will do so when I can. Meanwhile, Honningsvåg has a population of 2,100, lies at 71 10 21° and is the most northerly town on mainland Europe. It sits on the southern side of the North Cape. Much of this wider region in Northern Norway was systematically depopulated and destroyed by retreating German forces and Honningsvåg was no exception. The image below was take...

How many islands are there in Norway? This is a hard question to answer as there are many different definitions of an island. However, there seem to be a great many off the coast of Norway so far. A friend if mine, as well as bagging Munros and numerous other hill categories, has also been Island bagging in Scotland. I fear recommending Norway as it would take him more than a lifetime to get anywhere close. Apparently, according to Statista (https://www.statista.com/chart/15364/the-estimated-number-of-islands-by-country/) Norway has some 240,000 or so islands. This compares to between 600 and 900 in Scotland. Remarkably there is one country with even more islands. Any guesses?  The country is Sweden apparently with some 270,000 islands although where they keep them all I have no idea. The top three countries with loads of islands are Sweden, Norway and Finland. I believe that between them they may have more islands than are available to all of the rest of the countries of the world...

It was a longer sail here today than either previous days, about 24hours. Probably softening us up for our North Atlantic/Arctic Ocean crossing to Svalbard. The day was spent reading, watching the scenery glide by and attending interesting talks on the local Helgeland coast. The most spectacular view from the boat should been the Seven Sisters but unfortunately their summits were cut off in low cloud. We arrived at Træna and had the chance to get off and stretch our legs for a bit. The islands of Træna are quite magnificent. Think St Kilda but without the depopulation. Træna is very much like the St Kilda archipelago in terms of looks, beauty and remoteness. Except Træna has houses, people, a transport infrastructure, a local economy and an annual music festival. We could learn a lot from our Norwegian neighbours. Unfortunately I was struck down over the afternoon by what is probably just a cold but it made me very lethargic and uninteres...

We berthed at Åndalsne at 8:30 as scheduled. Our first night aboard was pleasantly rocky, like being in a very large hammock. We set off via cable car up the nearest hill, the 715m Nesaksla. It is a steep conical hill above the hamlet of Åndalsne and the steepness was considerably more apparent on our stiff descent via the superb viewing platform at Rampestrecken.  There was also a splendidly located wild camper up on the summit. The scenery here is quite magnificent and reminded us both very strongly of Switzerland, although the peaks here are considerably lower than in the Alps. We planned for a leisurely afternoon watching the boat head out of this long fjord and then head up north passed the island home of a friend of ours on Smøla and then on overnight to our next stop, the tiny little island and nature reserve of Træna. I also checked out the gym and sauna this afternoon. Very smal...

And we're off! After a lovely morning walk around warm and sunny Bergen we arrived at the port in time for wine and canapes before boarding at 1pm and heading straight for our cabin and then lunch. I can sense already that this holiday will not reduce our waistlines. We lunched at the buffet today, one of three dining experiences available and it was very high end food. Pickles, smoked dishes, seafood, salads, locally sourced deserts and cheeses. The freshly baked breads are amazing. All accompanied by a wide selection of red or white wines. We got access to our cabin before lunch and set sail soon after. More fizzy wine and an introduction to the ship, the cruise and the available excursions in the afternoon. We intend to be as independent as possible and mostly avoid organised excursions but we have booked one so far. In Svalbard on 10th June, which also happens to be our 35th wedding anniversary, we will emb...

Made it as far as Bergen after the first couple of legs of our Northern Lands trip. We are ultimately heading for Svalbard via a number Norwegian fjords and towns. Svalbard lies halfway between Norway and the North Pole and is some 1600 miles north of Edinburgh. The journey so far has been pretty uneventful apart from a very jam-packed 16 bus in Edinburgh and a rather busy train too. But at least we had our reserved seats. We were also very lucky to have alighted on a day in-between a series of train workers strikes. Last night we stayed over in an airport hotel at Heathrow which was pleasant, clean and cheap. Today we caught our flights for Bergen, via Amsterdam, which again have been pretty uneventful, other than a slight delay in departure of our Amsterdam flight. We arrived in Bergen in the late afternoon, were reunited with our luggage and taken to the Clarion Hotel to settle in. Bergen...