Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

The institute where I work is located close to Prestvannet, the lake on top of Tromsø island – one of my favourite places in Tromsø. I love visiting the lake in all seasons, here are some photos taken in winter, in autumn and in summer. When I first started my job, I imagined lunch breaks spent at the lake 🙂 But I forgot that as a meteorologist on duty you can’t really leave the building during your lunch break 😀 Oh well, I try to visit either before or after my shifts instead.

Last night I worked the late shift, which finishes at 23:00. It had been a beautiful sunny day (though only 10 degrees!), but it was becoming more cloudy during the evening. The light is at its most beautiful at this time. It was very quiet and the reflections were beautiful.

There are lots of birds nesting around the lake. Seagulls, terns, ducks and (red-throated) loons. The loons are beautiful birds, and their call is quite amazing. They have several different sounds they can make, some of them sounds more like a wolf howling than a bird! Below is a photo of a loon just landing on the lake, and in the other photo you can see a loon sitting on a nest.

What a nice walk! And slightly more successful than my previous attempt… About a month ago, in early May, it was beautiful weather and I thought I could take some nice photos of Tromsdalstinden reflected in Prestvannet. Except I forgot that it takes a while for all the ice to melt 😀 I got wet shoes from walking around in quite deep snow, but I did get some nice photos of the sea gulls that were already gathering, waiting for summer to start. Looking back, it’s hard to believe it still looked so wintery just one month ago!

More photos soon 🙂 Ti på Topp has started again, and we climbed our first top last weekend. In less than ideal weather – it was actually snowing! – but it was a nice hike. I hope to do another one this week. Paul is in Oslo this week for a conference. Lucky him, it’s 20 degrees there!

A week ago we flew down to Bergen for a long weekend, to visit Stephen and Hari (friends from Norwich) who moved there last December. It was raining in Tromsø when we left, but in Bergen we were greeted with brilliant sunshine! AND, it was so green there that it felt like summer for us! After a long bus trip from the airport (traffic jams! we hadn’t experienced that in a very long time :D) we arrived in the city centre and met Hari.

It was great to see some colour, I loved the flowering trees. Hari showed us around, and we visited the fish market and walked around the waterfront.

This is the most famous part of Bergen: Bryggen. It’s a group of Hanseatic buildings, some dating from the 1700s. They are very pretty and colourful, and also very skewed. Actually, if you look closely at the second photo, you’ll notice that the building on the right is suspended about a metre above the ground. I guess they are repairing the foundation, as the buildings are apparently sinking.

Between the wooden houses there are narrow alleyways, and there are some shops and pubs hidden behind. It’s quite special to step from the bright sunshine into the shade and coolness between the houses. The streets are wooden too, and Hari described it as entering a church – which I think is an excellent description. Everything goes quiet, the noises from the street fade away, you feel like you are going back in time and you almost want to whisper 😀 It’s hard to take pictures in these narrow streets when there’s such a contrast between the bright light and the shade, but here are two photos to give you an impression.

Just to remind you where not quite back in the medieval times, we also found some modern items. And we saw this Viking ship coming in. It’s good photos don’t come with sound – the boy blowing the horn definitely needed some more practice 😉

All Norwegian cities seem to have art on their manhole covers. I like it! The other photo shows the inside of the building that houses the tourist centre, with very impressive murals! Too bad it’s a bit messy in there.

Stephen joined us in town when he was done with work, and we all went up Fløibanen – a funicular with a glass roof that goes to the top of Fløyen at 320 metres. The views from there were really nice!

We had dinner at Stephen and Hari’s appartment, which is really nicely located just a little out of town. It’s in the one of the highest houses on a mountain and they have a great view. Sometimes you feel you’re living in the clouds, especially when it rains and you’re literally inside the cloud. After dinner, we went for a walk in their “backyard”. There is a nice path starting just outside their front door – perfect! The evening light was really beautiful.

The views were great too, we could see the city centre, and several islands in the distance.

For the next 2 days, we had weather more typical for Bergen: rain. Still, it makes the tulips look pretty 🙂

We spent some time in museums, Bergen has many and they’re really nice. I loved this little piece of art, it was like a very small bowl, but no idea what its real purpose was. Perhaps just being pretty 😉

On the last day we decided to follow the path behind Stephen and Hari’s house all the way up to Løvstakken, one of the seven mountains that surround Bergen. It’s 477 m high. On the way, we passed Stephen and Hari’s favourite rock – it’s only 10 minutes from their house and they often go there to enjoy the view- nice! It rained a bit while we were there, but we managed to keep it dry for the rest of the trip.

These are taken from the top of Løvstakken, by then the sun had come back out and the views were wonderful!

After our walk it was time to get the bus to the airport again. It had been a great trip! Bergen is a really beautiful city and I’m glad we got to visit it. Thanks Stephen and Hari for a great weekend! Hope you come visit us in Tromsø soon 🙂

Summer has come to the Arctic! This is what our thermometer showed yesterday at around noon – in the shade…

We drove to the north of Kvaløya, to the end of a dirtroad, and started walking along the coast from there. There are still some patches of snow left, though they are disappearing very quickly now. Paul tried to protect his shoes from getting wet, and walked barefoot over the snow! After about 45 minutes, we reached a beautiful white beach with clear azure blue water – beautiful 🙂

Of course, beautiful places like this don’t go unnoticed and someone had built a cabin here. I think Paul was ready to buy it 😀 We spent some time suntanning on the beach, enjoying the views. Paul was tempted to go for a swim, but one toe in the water, and you remember you are in the Arctic and not the tropics – the water is so cold it hurts!

After our break on the beach, we had to walk back quite quickly, as we were meeting friends back in town for a BBQ. The original plan was Telegrafbukta, but we weren’t the only ones with that idea – it was extremely crowded there. It was easy to avoid the crowds though, just move a bit further along and you find empty beaches. We had our BBQ next to a small lighthouse, and Paul climbed on it to take this photo 🙂 A flock of birds kept flying by…

The clouds were beautiful too! We stayed there for several hours, watching one of the last sunsets for a while – from tomorrow, we’ll have midnight sun.

There were several people out in kayaks, enjoying the calm water and warm weather.

What a perfect day!! Unfortunately, I had to cycle to work for a night shift right after our BBQ, but I can’t complain after such a wonderful day 🙂