SUNRISE: None SUNSET: None
We were awoken this morning, around 7.45am, by the clanking, banging, rattling and changes in engine sounds of the Balmoral manoevring herself into port this morning, in Ålta, which is in the Finnmark region of Norway. At 70°N and only 1200 nautical miles from the North Pole, it would be the northernmost port we would visit this cruise.
We got up at eight o’clock as usual and, after getting washed and dressed in warm clothing, we headed up to the Thistle Restaurant for our breakfast. It was, of course, dark, but the sky was clear and the air was crisp, cold and clean. The temperature was around -1°C. Only 10 days ago, it had been -23°C in Ålta so, as with Tromsø, it seemed we were experiencing a heatwave! 🙂
We were booked to go on an excursion this afternoon, to the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel, but in the meantime we had the morning at our leisure. We decided to have a wander around on deck and take in our surroundings.
While the sun remains below the horizon, due to refraction and the scattering of light in the earth’s atmosphere, it can almost look like daylight; call it the blue hour, or the blue light, around and above the Arctic circle in December and January. Sometimes from 10 o’clock in the morning until one in the afternoon, there is “daylight”. If you look north, the sky is blue. But if you look south, there is a reddish tinge along the horizon, coloured by the sun. If it’s a clear day (as it was today), you’ll get a period known as the “blue moment”. Everything, the snow-covered landscape, as well as the sky, is illuminated by a special, magical blue light. This natural phenomenon only occurs in the Arctic and can’t be experienced anywhere else. It’s absolutely stunning.
The cruise terminal, such that it is in Ålta, is situated right next to the tiny airport, and we could see some aircraft parked adjacent to the single runway. This was our third visit to Ålta (the others being in 2014 and 2022); we’ve only ever been during the winter months.
As we had to meet at 12.15pm for our tour, we decided to have an early lunch. We made our way up to the Avon Restaurant again, and were shown to a table next to the window, which was ideal. An American guy on the next table said “Hello” to us, and asked if we had seen the Northern Lights last night. Indeed we had, and I showed him some of the best photos I’d taken; he was duly impressed.
It’s amazing how mobile phone camera technology has progressed in the last 10 years – I remember when we went to Norway in November 2014 we were unable to take any decent photos, unless we had an expensive digital camera with a delayed shutter speed to capture clear photos in the dark. But now, I felt that my photos were almost as good as the professional ones. 🙂
After lunch, we returned to 5007 and dressed appropriately in warm clothing and walking trousers, and thick socks and walking boots – ice grips were a must. We dressed in layers, because we had a coach ride of about 45 minutes and we didn’t want to swelter in the coach on the way (it’s happened before!)
We disembarked the Balmoral and proceeded towards the waiting line of coaches. On boarding, I took off my overcoat and hat as the bus set off in the darkness through the city of Ålta and into the countryside. Everything glittered and sparkled with frost and snow under the street lights and the lights shining from the windows of the nearby dwellings, which all looked lovely and cosy with their coloured Christmas lights.
Eventually we turned off and the coach bumped along an uneven road towards the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel. We were just so excited! 🙂
We all alighted from the coach and made our way to where a hotel employee explained a bit about the history of the hotel to us. It’s the world’s northernmost igloo hotel, adjacent to the Arctic Wilderness Hotel (which offers conventional accommodation).
In 1999, it became the second of its kind in the world (the first one was the famous Ice Hotel in Kiruna, Sweden which was first built in 1989). Each year, experienced artists and builders come together to build a new and unique hotel from scratch with a different theme each year. This year’s theme was Ancient Greece. The Igloo Hotel has an area of 2,500 m2 and it takes 250 tonnes of ice and 7,000 m3 of snow to build it. As we stood outside the long, low building, the air was crisp and cold with not a breath of wind.
As we entered the Sorrisniva hotel, we were each given a token to exchange for a drink in the ice bar. Trevor discovered that he had inadvertently been given two tokens! We were advised we had an hour to spend in here, and they said we could look in the standard bedrooms and suites, as well as the other rooms, in which absolutely everything is made from ice.
It was a steady -7°C inside the hotel, as we entered and looked on, amazed, at a series of intricately carved pillars. Turning to the left we proceeded a long a corridor which contained the ‘standard’ rooms. Each doorway curtained off for privacy, and each room contained a large bed made from ice; the bed was covered in reindeer pelts and sheepskin so you’re not lying directly on the ice. Of course, guests are all given a large, cosy down-filled sleeping bag and you have to sleep in all your warm clothing (including hat and gloves) but if you find you’re unable to spend the whole night in the -7°C internal temperatures, you are permitted to go into the conventional Arctic Wilderness hotel next door and sleep in a centrally heated room!
Inside the premium rooms or suites, there were four-poster ice beds and pillars and ice carvings decorating the walls, as well as ice armchairs, and the rooms are much bigger.
This was utterly fantastic! Not only was the workmanship amazing, but with the use of artistic coloured lighting, the atmosphere was ethereal and mysterious. The large rooms with their pillars, the carvings, tables and chairs, and even – to our complete astonishment – a chapel! Our guide advised us that a wedding had taken place in the chapel only yesterday. How unique! I bet it costs a fortune though.
We walked into the chapel, which had traditional wooden pews but which also had ice chairs with sheepskins, and an altar with flowers. In the cold, the flowers looked a bit sorry for themselves.
After we’d explored as much as we could, it was time for us to go to the ice bar, to enjoy a vodka-based drink. The bar, of course, was made of ice, as were all the shot glasses lined up ready for us. 🙂
We were each given a glass of vodka mixed with Blue Curaçao orange-flavoured liqueur. We had to wear our gloves while holding the glasses, not just because they were cold, but because they were also slippery, and we didn’t want to drop our drinks. 🙂
What a fantastic experience! We had never visited anywhere like it before. 🙂
After we’d finished our drinks, we left the ice hotel and walked outside into the polar night where, at -1°C, it felt comparitively warm after the -7°C temperature inside. We went over to the foyer of the Arctic Wilderness hotel to use their loos and have a look around the souvenir shop, which was selling the inevitable plush seals and polar bears and other Arctic keepsakes. We didn’t see anything we wanted to buy.
We were back on the coach at the required time of two o’clock, and we took off our coats for the 45 minute ride back to the cruise terminal. When we arrived, we weren’t ready to go back to the Balmoral yet; we spotted one of the shuttle buses waiting, and decided to go back into the city centre to photograph the main thoroughfare and, of course, the Northern Lights Cathedral, which we had visited several times before, but it is just so unique we had to do it again! We didn’t have long as the “all aboard” time was 4.30pm, so that gave us just over an hour, as we didn’t want to leave it to the last shuttle bus!
Ålta was just as we remembered it; cold and dark with lots of fairy lights; it was literally like walking through the front of a Christmas card. At the end of the main street we could see the distinctive spire of the Nordlyskatedralen (Northern Lights Cathedral), which was opened in 2013. The shape of the spire was apparently inspired by the columns of light and ‘curtain effect’ of the aurora borealis, hence its name.
We walked through the darkened streets; very few people were around and there was lots of snow. We passed an open space where there was a row of decorated Christmas trees, and nearby there was an ice rink on which several youngsters were skating or having a half-hearted game of ice hockey.
It was now time to start heading back to the shuttle bus stop, and when we arrived we spotted a bus waiting, so we boarded and took our seats. A couple of minutes later, it set off and within 10 minutes were were making our way up the gangplank and back into the cosy interior of the Balmoral, after stopping to take a photo of her. 🙂
Back in 5007, we divested ourselves of all our outdoor clothing and rested for a while, watching BBC news and pottering around in our cabin. Just after 5.00pm, the increased vibrations coming up through the floor told us that Balmoral was underway once more, and we looked out of our portholes and watched the lights of Ålta recede, as we started to head south again
As we had had an early lunch and hadn’t eaten anything since, we were good and hungry and ready for dinner tonight. It was the usual scrumptious meal in excellent company, washed down with chilled house Grenache rosé wine. There was no shortage of conversation as we regaled each other with what we’d been up to today, and the waiting staff had to drop hints for us to leave so they could get the table ready for the second sitting. 🙂
Trevor and I headed for the Neptune Lounge to take part in the pre-show dancing as usual, and we stopped to speak with some of our fellow bowls, Baggo and indoor kurling competitors. This is one of the things we love about smaller ship cruising; the fact that it is so easy to make new friends, both with your fellow passengers and the crew and entertainment staff. It’s wonderful. 🙂
Tonight’s show featured a magician / illusionist / mentalist called Ed Clarke. We hadn’t seen him before and he was very entertaining, performing a number of clever tricks all accompanied by humorous patter. His show involved audience participation, so if you didn’t want to be called up on stage, it was probably best not to sit in the front. 😀
Afterwards, it was time to go up to the Lido Lounge as usual for the trivia quiz, which we didn’t win. 🙁
Later on, George and Rosie (two of the entertainment team) put on a game of Majority Rules, which is a quiz with a difference, and which Trevor and I won on Bolette last year. Ten questions are asked to which there are no right and wrong answers. What you have to do is try to predict what the majority of people might answer. So if the question was “which is the best flavour of crisps?” and most people put “cheese and onion”, then cheese and onion was the correct answer, and everyone with that answer scored a point.
We formed a team with Bill and Ange, with whom we usually socialised in the Lido, but we didn’t do very well, as there was too much diversity of opinion. So no prize for us once again! It was all good fun though, and lots of the answers were very amusing. 🙂
We finished off the evening listening to the jukebox sounds with DJ George, and enjoying a few more cocktails as we talked over the day and reflected on the things we’d seen and done. What a lovely day we had had!
The evening winged by and we were amazed to see that it was 01:45am when we left the Lido Lounge to return to 5007. But no matter… we had a sea day to look forward to tomorrow so we could have a lie-in if we wished. The Balmoral was gliding along on a smooth sea and her slight movement was very soporific, so it didn’t take us long to fall asleep. 🙂