I took my parents to the botanical garden in Tromsø last Monday. We were lucky, it was a very sunny day! The garden is beautiful, and very large. So many plants and flowers from all corners of the world. We spent several hours there and took many photos of all the colourful flowers…

The little house in the photo above is a small cafe which also serves waffles – yummy!!! A very nice end to our visit. We walked back over the “ski” trails on top of Tromsø island. It’s only August, but the signs of autumn are already there – mushrooms and blueberries.

We spent the next day in the centre of Tromsø. There was a market on the main square and we just wandered around and visited lots of shops. These two photos are taken from the main square…

My mum had to visit this wool-shop of course! 🙂

Suddenly we were surrounded by police cars and ambulances – the hot dog seller in the square had been stabbed! We were very close by and saw the stabber being arrested and the victim being picked up by an ambulance. Luckily, we later read in the papers that he survived and was already home the next day. Apparently they had some argument about selling mobile phone sim cards -the other guy also runs a similar kiosk in the city centre! It was quite a bizarre experience, especially in a town like Tromsø where normally not much happens. In the photo below you can see “exhibit nr 4” – a ketchup bottle…

My parents stayed another day, and then took the Hurtigruten south on Wednesday night (taking their camper van onboard). They are arriving in Bergen tomorrow, from where they will drive back to the Netherlands. Must be quite a nice trip, if they manage to ignore the many crazy cruise-ship passengers, hehe.

Time is flying, I only have one week left here before coming back to Norwich. We’re moving house in a few days. We’re not really looking forward to it, as we’re really going to miss our current flat and its view! We won’t have much time to get used to our new place, as Paul flies to Longyearbyen (Spitsbergen) on Friday to join another research cruise for 3 weeks, and I’m flying back to London on Saturday morning. We’re planning to go for a nice walk tomorrow, I hope I can find some time to post some more photos!