We woke up late today, still recovering from the 3am aurora wake-up call from the night before. But not too late, we still needed to make it to the dining area before breakfast ended. After eating and getting my mandatory morning coffee, we watched the sunrise from the observation deck. Even with our slow start, we still caught it, because here the sun doesn’t rise until around 10am. A lazy win.
Today the cruise was travelling from Finnsnes down to Stamsund, with one stop where we’d have two hours to explore. Since yesterday had been a long day, we decided we’d conserve our energy until then. So that’s exactly what we did: eat, sleep, repeat. We napped after breakfast, had lunch, and then napped again. Recovery mode was in full force.
In between eating and napping, we worked on updating this blog. Antoine sorted and edited the photos, and I wrote the articles. Teamwork at its finest. And voilà, here you go.
We also spent time watching the fjords from the ship. A fjord is a narrow inlet carved out by glaciers, and seeing them is one of the reasons we chose this cruise. We didn’t go directly between the mountains, but we got close enough to enjoy the dramatic views. Snowy peaks, still water, and quiet landscapes. Very worth the slow cruising pace.
At 6:30pm, our ship docked at Svolvaer. Time to explore. The town felt slightly warmer than Tromso, but the roads were incredibly icy. Antoine almost slipped several times… until he actually did. His running shoes couldn’t handle the ice of Svolvaer. But he saved his camera like a dad protecting a toddler, so all was well.
We walked along the seaside, more carefully this time. We took photos of the cute red houses, our cruise ship reflected in the water, and a few pretty boats along the harbour. We walked about 30 minutes to reach a bridge for a better view. Antoine started worrying we wouldn’t get back in time. I reassured him we had plenty of time, and indeed, we made it back a whole hour before departure. Crisis averted.
For dinner, Antoine ordered deer steak and I ordered beef. He’d already had reindeer tacos for lunch, so this was his fourth deer-based meal of the trip. After tasting some of my beef, he finally admitted he was “all deer’d out” and said he’d be ordering beef tomorrow. After dinner, we returned to our favourite spot: the bed. We continued bed potato-ing until actual bedtime. No regrets.