“We are definitely going to throw snowballs when we’re ashore,” I told my wife, and we would indeed do that later in the day.

We’d decided beforehand not to book any excursions for Tromsø. We knew that the ship wouldn’t dock right by the city centre but that there would be a shuttle bus provided, and looking at a map we’d identified a few things of interest that we figured we could visit on our own.

One thing that had been a potential place to hit was actually directly opposite where Ambience was docked. This was the Arctic-Alpine Botanic Gardens. Our thought ahead of the cruise was that it would make for a decent place to explore at the end of the day after we’d returned from the city but seeing it completely covered in snow kicked that idea into touch. The building on the hill beyond the gardens below is a science centre. These are still potential future visit options but the weather will determine that.

Breakfast consumed and suitably layered up, we disembarked the ship and hopped aboard a bus for the drive into the city.

The roads were in good condition, as you’d expect, but the walking surfaces for pedestrians were far more hit-and-miss with some areas cleared while others had well-trodden paths through them that had then compacted into ice. We actually found it easier in places to tread new paths through snow that was at times knee-high. Very much like the rain in our previous port of Trondheim we discovered that Norwegian snow wasn’t really that wet so there wasn’t much soaking into our trousers going on.

One of the places we’d had it in mind to look at before coming to Tromsø was the Arctic Cathedral as its architecture looked interesting. Getting to it would have required crossing the bridge that connected the island of Tromsøya on which we and the city were to the mainland and we will likely do this on a future visit to this part of the world but on this day we ultimately decided to skip it.

We started off by hugging the waterfront area of the city as much as possible as we trudged our way carefully southwards towards the aquarium that was top of our list of places to visit in Tromsø. This took us past numerous sculptures and sights, including a statue of Roald Amundsen and occasional bits of street art.

We passed another spot that was on our list of places to visit – and indeed, we’d be visiting it later in the day – in the form of a microbrewery complete with bust of the brewery’s founder and former local politician, Ludwig Mack.

The Blai Statue looked absolutely adorable, and we’d get closer to it on our walk back.

We eventually reached Polaria, the world’s northernmost aquarium. We are fond of an aquarium so we had to visit anyway but it’s worth just mentioning the fabulous architecture of the building first, although the snow everywhere didn’t make it easy to find a good place to take pictures of it. The design is supposed to represent ice floes coming ashore and rising up one on top of the other, although it’s easy to see dominoes toppling over.

As you might expect from an aquarium in this part of the world and with this sort of name, Polaria specialises in arctic sea life so don’t expect tanks of tropical fish. If you like seals, though, then you won’t be disappointed. However, while Polaria is the northernmost aquarium in the world, and worth visiting just for that alone, it’s not particularly large so it won’t occupy an awful lot of your time in Tromsø. We enjoyed it, of course, but there’s not enough there to warrant a return visit on a future trip to the city.

In the next post we enjoy more snowy sights in Tromsø, stumble upon lots of lovely weird sculptures, and then make our way to the northernmost brewery in the world for a drink. Or four.

But first, some sights along the waterfront area of Tromsø, because Norway’s coast is gorgeous in any circumstances but snow adds something magical once you’re up in the Arctic Circle.

Tromsø is one of Norway’s largest fishing ports and there was certainly a lot of evidence that people there liked to take boats out to sea.

We could see something odd not too far along the waterfront so headed towards the Hålogaland Theatre.

Inghild Karlsen and Bo Bisgaard are the sculptors responsible for a number of fabulous pieces of artwork just around the theatre in Tromsø. The first we’d spotted was a bronze dachshund dog gazing out to sea. At first sight we assumed someone had stuck googly eyes on the sculpture but these are actually part of the design. Something we couldn’t see, because of the depth of snow around it, was the tail, which is mechanical and wags whenever a performance starts in the nearby cultural building.

Set just back from the water, and running along the length of the theatre, there were seven sculptures in white concrete, representing theatre muses. The snowy conditions had given most of them a temporary hairstyle for the occasion of our visit.

I did wonder if the muses sculptures outside the Hålogaland Theatre had names but couldn’t find any information to suggest they did, and I did then wonder if I could embrace the spirit of colonial travel of the past and simply assign my own names to them with some idea that the names might stick by being the first person to give the sculptures official titles, trusting that the onslaught of Absolute Idiocy search results would happily list them in summary form for those searching in the future. I’m cruel, but I’m not that cruel. Although the one with the dinosaur-like face is definitely called Norgeosaurus. Trust me.

We spotted another few structures that we assumed were art installations of some kind as we headed back towards the city centre. We weren’t exactly right, although the design was supposed to be somewhat aesthetically pleasing in addition to being practical. These are called Krykkje Hotels and they’re designed to provide nesting space for birds in the winter months. They were certainly well-used.

I’ve already mentioned spotting the Blai Statue in the previous post, but here’s a closer look at the grumpy-looking woman, sat down and waiting for a bus with purse clutched in front of her. So much character here, and if a lump of metal can bring a smile to your face then it’s doing a grand job.

Our destination on this trudge through the snow was the northernmost brewery in the world, Mack, as you already know, but we actually spent most of our time next door in Ølhallen, as it happened to be Tromsø’s oldest pub and the location serving beer, which is what we really wanted. Dating from 1928 it’s not that old when you compare it to some of the pubs at home, but it’s still nice to visit a place that is part of local history. The pub was busy and got subtantially busier as the afternoon progressed, and served a huge range of ales. We absolutely had to stay for four pints each, for science, with an emphasis on the local brewery’s output. Everything we had was lovely, and at the end of our time there we popped next door to buy a souvenir in the form a t-shirt, too.

We’ll conclude our day in this Norwegian city in the next post where there’s a short walk back to the bus then the sail away from Tromsø to enjoy, plus our first sighting on this Arctic Circle cruise aboard Ambience of the Northern Lights.

So, after our lovely time crunching through snow, throwing the odd snowball (it’s the law), and finishing our time determining that Tromsø does beer well, we made our way carefully back towards where we’d need to jump on the shuttle bus back to the ship about four kilometres away. Four kilometres doesn’t sound like much but we knew from the trip out that it wouldn’t be the nicest of walks even in good weather, and the state of the pavements along the roads in winter outside the city centre didn’t encourage trying it either.

You’ll know from my previous two posts on our time in Tromsø – I’m pretending you’ve read them – and from our Travel Achievements page – I’m pretending you’ve had a good look around the site’s menu and all the different pages and navigational aids I’ve put in to help people looking for travel write-ups – that we like to spot things that are the most or least or smallest or biggest, etc., when travelling. Passing Tromsø Cathedral on our way to the bus, it was nice to note that this 19th century cathedral, in addition to being the only wooden Protestant cathedral in Norway, is regarded as the northernmost Protestant cathedral in the world. We’ll hopefully get to see inside it on a future trip to this part of the world, and it would be nice to check out the interior of the nearby Arctic Cathedral too to compare the architectural styles.

There was a memorial stone opposite the cathedral and outside the gift shop, dedicated to Richard With, born in the city and, in cruising-related news, the founder of Hurtigruten. They’re a line we’d be very interested in cruising with if we could just sort out inheriting vast amounts of money from a rich relative first.

A short walk around the corner and we found a bus already waiting to go, hopped aboard, and in very short order were back at the cruise port north of Tromsø city centre. A quick freshen up later and we decided to head up to the Observatory to start with for the lovely views of the surrounding area and a Kir Royale each as there was a little bit of time yet before we were due to sail away. We’d not left it to the last bus back because travel anxiety is real.

As the time for Ambience came to depart Tromsø I first made a circuit around the top deck for some views before heading down to our room and our balcony for more sailaway shots. I bumped into a couple of crew members on the top deck who were photographing the landscapes too plus each other, and I asked if I could grab one of them as well. Ambassador make a point of saying their crew are the friendliest at sea and we saw no evidence to counter this on this cruise.

The evening aboard Ambience mostly followed the usual pattern of trivia, music, food, and drink, culminating in a return to the Observatory late on for the disco.

While we were in the Observatory someone mentioned that the Northern Lights had become visible. We weren’t dressed for the cold temperature so only ducked out briefly, and we only had our mobile phones on us, but very faint aurorae could be seen with the naked eye and there’s some dodgy photography to prove it below. We’ve been lucky enough to have seen the Northern Lights many times now, with nothing getting close to the very first time we spotted them on a weekend break in Iceland in 2015. We always enjoy seeing them, though.

In the next post in this 2025 Arctic Circle cruise on Ambassador Ambience we reach the northernmost point of the cruise when we head off on a trip to visit the igloo hotel in Alta.