Tromso in Winter: The City Around the Cruise

It is not as cold as it sounds

At close to seventy degrees north, a long way inside the Arctic Circle, visitors turn up expecting to suffer. The numbers refuse to cooperate. A January day here sits near minus one, dropping to about minus five after dark, which puts it above Helsinki despite Helsinki being a thousand kilometres nearer the equator.

The reason is the Gulf Stream, which carries warm Atlantic water up the Norwegian coast and keeps the sea ice-free all year. Tromso is one of the mildest places on earth for its latitude, and it is why there is a city of this size here at all. What you should still expect is wind and wet: January runs to 109 millimetres across twelve wet days.

The polar night, which is not darkness

From late November to mid January the sun does not clear the horizon, and the climate record shows zero hours of daylight for December and January. That figure is accurate and thoroughly misleading, because it is not the same as night.

In reality you get hours of blue in the middle of every day, thrown back up at you off snow and water, and it is the reason a certain kind of photographer books midwinter on purpose. Departure at ten aims squarely at the brightest stretch of it, so nobody is sailing around in the dark.

Getting here

By air, for almost everyone. Tromso has an international airport a few kilometres from the centre, with frequent domestic connections through Oslo and direct seasonal routes from several European cities. The approach itself is worth a window seat, since the runway sits on an island among the fjords.

The alternative is the coastal ship, which calls here on its way up and down the Norwegian shoreline. That is a slower and considerably more scenic arrival, and it makes Tromso a stop rather than a destination. There is also a road, but a drive from anywhere in mainland Europe is a serious undertaking rather than a holiday plan.

What fills the days between trips

More than most visitors expect, because Tromso is a working city rather than a tourist base. It has a university, which is the world's northernmost, and the student population gives the place a year-round life that a purely seasonal town would not have. There are proper restaurants, a serious coffee culture and a brewery that claims the same northernmost title.

For sights, the Arctic Cathedral is the white triangular landmark across the bridge, the Polar Museum covers the trapping and expedition history that built the town, and the cable car up Storsteinen gives you the whole archipelago from above on a clear day. None of it takes long, and all of it fits around a morning or afternoon excursion.

How long to stay

Three to four nights is the answer most people arrive at, and there is a specific reason for it that has nothing to do with sightseeing. Aurora is the main draw and aurora is weather-dependent, so a single night gives you one roll of the dice and three or four gives you a genuine chance.

The same logic applies to boat trips. Arctic weather changes fast and a sailing can be cancelled, so building in more than one opportunity is sensible. Booking a day trip like this one early in your stay leaves room to rebook if the weather takes your first attempt away.

Getting around

On foot, mostly. The city centre sits on Tromsoya island and is compact enough that everything central is within fifteen or twenty minutes' walk, including the harbour where the boats leave from. Buses cover the rest of the island and the mainland side, and taxis exist as well.

The one thing worth planning for is the surface underfoot. Pavements in winter are ice as often as snow, and the locals wear studded overshoes for a reason. A pair of those from any sports shop in town transforms how confidently you move about, which matters more over four days than any other single item.

What to pack for the city

Different from what you pack for the boat, and this catches people out. The tour asks for warm clothing and warm shoes because you will be standing still on an open deck. In town you are walking, generating heat, and going in and out of heated buildings constantly.

So layers you can shed, a waterproof outer rather than a thick one, and footwear with grip. The temperature will not defeat you; the wet and the ice might. A hat and gloves you actually wear are worth more than a heavier coat you have to carry around a museum.

One more thing about the light that is easy to underestimate. In the polar night the useful hours are few and they are in the middle of the day, so a morning excursion and an afternoon of walking about is a plan that runs out of daylight quickly. Fitting a four and a half hour cruise into that window works because it is timed for the brightest part of it, but it does mean the rest of the day belongs to indoor things.

Before you book