Norway

On our first full day in Tromsø we spent the daylight hours roaming around the city itself. It's a beautiful little harbour city but really we were just filling time until the sun went down. We rode a cable car up the Storsteinen Mountain (421m above sea level) and were surprised to see complete snow cover. Obviously we'd seen that the mountain had snow on the top but we wrongly expected some maintained paths this early in the year. In fact there was more snow on this mountain than when Ethan went to New Zealand to snowboard. This of course become an exciting feature in itself as we made snowballs and ran around in the snow (which we found later only served to make our hands and feet colder than they needed to be). We trekked a little way further up the mountain to get away from the crowds and lights so we could watch the stunning sunset over the fjords and see the city light up. It was a spectacular view. We then hung around (wishing we brought a towel so we could sit down), had some wine and waited for the sky to get properly dark and for the lights to come out.
Boy oh boy we're we rewarded for braving the cold for hours. This was definitely the best Northern Lights display we've had this trip so far, it was so clear and strong and continued for over an hour! There were more greens and reds but we saw a lot more movement and pulsing than we'd seen previously as the Aurora snaked it's way across the whole sky. This is certainly the type of display we hoped for but didn't dare to expect on this trip and were ecstatic that we got to see it, it was like a fever dream. We had always been told that often the Northern Lights don't look impressive to the naked eye but the videos show exactly what we were seeing without any additional help from camera settings. It was such a special moment for us both and will be a memory we will always cherish together!Read more