Saturday, September 12th, 2026

Distance hiked – 7.6 kilometres

Whether it was nerves or adrenaline, I do not know, but for once sleep was determined to elude me. I just lay there trying hard to go to sleep, in the full knowledge that merely thinking like that would mean that I would not be able to do it. I was right. At 04:30, I gave up and I got up.

The lounge was dark – but outside the window, it was light enough to determine that the placid waters of a fjord were hardly being disturbed by the stately progress of the Plancius. Then the orange glow of dawn appeared behind the high mountains that flanked the fjord on its eastern side. This revealed that some of these had a dusting of early snow on their peaks, proving that Sven’s weather forecast for September was accurate.

Small houses occupied spaces on the shoreline, many already had lights turned on and I spotted several sets of headlights in the slowly lightening gloom. We were back in civilisation.

The darkness in the lounge was, in part, due to the blinds at the very front being drawn for the night. In the gloom, a shadowy figure appeared and began to raise them. In the growing light this brought, I saw that that what I had presumed to be a member of the housekeeping team was, in fact, the top person on board, Captain Christophe. He gave me a rueful smile and said that the next time those blinds were raised, the Plancius would be in Antarctica, beginning its Winter season. He made himself a coffee, something of an act of bravery for a Frenchman and disappeared back to the bridge. 

No sooner had he gone than Mark, the expedition staff’s “birder”, appeared for his tea. We chatted briefly and he revealed that, in addition to his duties with Oceanwide, he spends his “holidays” on Henderson Island, in the Pitcairns, as part of a project to eradicate invasive Polynesian rats. An eradication of this type had actually been achieved in South Georgia, but Henderson Island is tropical and has no handy glaciers to confine them. I never cease to be amazed by the tiny, yet important, roles people fulfil that we would never even imagine.

Breakfast was announced just as the Plancius was docking. From our table, our little gang watched as the hawsers were tightened and the gangplank was lowered into place. The four of us enjoyed our last taste of the chef’s inventive morning selections – while we all tried not to say anything silly. Herman was a bit like Lucie and had both sweet and savoury articles on the same plate. We ate up with more haste than usual and retired to our cabins to pack our bags.

We could carry everything we had with us, but most people could not, the crew winched the bags onto the dock – and the guides scurried around to arrange them.

For some reason, we had to go through immigration to enter Norway. I cannot imagine why, because we had, in reality, at no point left the Schengen zone. Maybe someone in authority had also read McLean’s “Bear Island” and was checking for spies and imposters. With my Czech passport, this check only took a few seconds, but I wondered what dark secrets some of the others in the queue might have been hiding…

This is a chart of the whole voyage.

The port of Tromso is a large one and the Plancius had actually docked in a location about four kilometres from where we had been told that it would. All of our gang had booked hotels within a few hundred yards of where we should have been. Lucie and I had already researched the bus route and were quite prepared to get tickets into town and make a short hike to the Scandic hotel. Herman and Elise, God bless them, were Dutch and, as a point of principle, this did not work for them. Their luggage was heavy (ours, as always, was feather-light in comparison). They had prevailed upon Oceanwide to provide a free taxi for them – and we sneaked aboard with them and got a free ride into town. There was a brief farewell, while we all pretended to be stoic and then they were gone.

We walked around the corner and there was our hotel. Within a few metres of the dock gate was a huge Hertigruten liner. It was at least five or six times bigger than the Plancius and was probably the reason why our smaller ship had been “bumped” further down the fjord. To our surprise, the hotel was a different Scandic than the one we had stayed in in 2017. It seems that there are now four in town. Of course, it was too early to check-in, so we left our bags in the luggage room and went for a walk.

The main part of Tromso lays on an island and is accessed from the mainland by a long and elegant bridge. Lucie and I had arrived in the city by crossing it on a Harley-Davidson in 2017. At the far end, on the mainland side, sits the distinctive, Lutheran, Arctic Cathedral. On our previous visit we had not seen it up close, so now we decided to remedy that. The bridge was being repaired and updated, so traffic was restricted to buses only and these could only cross alternately. Luckily, the pedestrian walkway was still in use and we crossed on foot. It was a long walk but, not being led by Chloe or Charlotte, we could take it at our own, slightly more relaxed, pace.

Up close, the triangular front of the cathedral is impressive, but a trifle moderne (intentional final e) for my conservative tastes.

A number of locals, augmented by Hertigruten passengers (they all had labels on white lanyards) and people from the Plancius (who waved or, maybe, gesticulated rudely) were, nonetheless milling around outside. It has some impressive stained glass windows apparently, but it costs a fortune to go in – so we did not.

It was quite sunny and whilst it was not cold, it was not really warm either, just pleasant. However, in Tromso, the 15 degrees C was some way above the expected seasonal average and, by those standards, positively sub-tropical. You could tell the local people, they were all wearing tee shirts and some even had shorts on. We walked back over the bridge in the sunshine. The high span offered fine views over the city. 

A long way up back up the fjord, we spotted the tiny Plancius. I took one last picture.

Back on the island, it was still only a little after 11:00 and we had been told we might not be able to check in until 16:00. We walked through the harbour area. A lot of the buildings were very new, often clustered around far older ones. It was a Saturday and although there were cafés, none seemed to be open. An open door and a coffee cup logo tempted us in but the only coffee was the drip kind (which Lucie actively disdains), so we did not have any. We did have a couple of filled baguettes (Philly cheese and salmon and egg) that were very good. We drank these with water, which is usually provided free in Norwegian establishments.

With Lucie still un-coffeed, we walked further into town. There were more people around by then and all the real cafés were thronged. For old times sake, we attempted to find our previous Scandic, but our route avoided it initially and we found it only after reaching the edge of the city centre and then retracing our steps in a slightly different way. Elise was actually staying in that one, but a miscommunication with telephone numbers meant we did not see her again.

A short distance further on, we found an empty café and did our usual trick of going in, ordering something, in this case an espresso and a hot chocolate, while the place filled up around us. The café was in a pedestrianised area that was dotted with Troll effigies of varying sizes and, as we sat there, a pro-Palestine march passed noisily by. There were more police than there were protestors.

Still with time to kill, we headed back along the harbour to a Skanzen, which is collection of older, wooden, buildings in a state of excellent preservation.

Here, there were also some ancient cannons, so no prizes for guessing what happened next …..

Nearby was an area of urban regeneration called Vervet. Ultra modern buildings, very expensive cafés that were, nonetheless, totally crowded and a pleasant, low but amphitheatre like, seating area, facing the fjord. Very close to that were ramps that were once used to haul vessels out of the water so that they could be either careened or, in these parts, strengthened for Polar exploration. A sign nearby contained a quote from Roald Amundsen, one of Norway’s most famed Polar explorers, praising the skill and diligence of Tromso’s ship builders and reinforcers.

The ramps had obviously been updated since the early 20th century, they have hydraulics, but are decorative as opposed to working these days.

We sat in the sun for a while and, of course, encountered a few wandering passengers from the Plancius. Like us, most were waiting to be allowed to check-in.

At around 14:30, we returned to our Scandic and were upgraded to a slightly higher level room than we had originally booked. Being (or more likely, as it is us, lurking), in their records proved a bonus. We like the Scandic chain because of its corporate “attitude”, the staff are always helpful and smiling. I have also, in the past, commented on the chain’s wonderful breakfasts. This was no longer free, so we paid in advance. We hope this new policy helps to limit waste, as so many people often leave before breakfast, yet the hotel has to assume they will not. The bin in our room also allowed for segregated rubbish disposal – I liked that !

After my unusually poor sleep the night before, I was tired. I lay on the big bed (I am not a corporate stooge, but Scandics DO have nice rooms) for a brief rest and, quite naturally, went out like a light when the switch is thrown. If the proverbial “forty winks” is about half an hour, I had probably surpassed 250 winks before Lucie nudged me awake.

We decided to go out for a bite to eat and, not having heard from Elise (whose plans we would have fitted in with), we went to our “usual” place in Tromso, Arctandria Sjomatrestaurant (Strandtorget 1, Tromso). The word “usual” is a bit of a joke there, we have spent a total of two nights in Tromso and we ate there both times. The food (Arctic Char) was as good as we hoped for, the maitre’d was a complete hoot and our waitress, a Greek lady (for you oldies, she looked like Nana Mouskouri) was as funny as can be. The blackberry dessert was sublime. A great meal in a great atmosphere.

We walked back the short distance to the Scandic, found our room and, more importantly to me, our bed. That was another day gone.