Tromsø

In Tromsø, I can catch some sleep and then have to wait until my colleague Franz is arriving in the early evening. I can use the 1hour and 20 minutes of daylight to have a look at some attractions.

After the in the snowy desert near Kiruna and Absisko, seeing the liquid water of the fjord feels strange. The temperature increase is also remarkable, as it remains near 0°C instead of -20°C.

Tromsø, located 340 km north of the polar circle, is a city of northernmost superlatives: it has the northernmost University and the northernmost cathedral, the ice cathedral (among others).

In the small and cute town centre, the famous arctic explorer Roald Amundsen is overlooking a stunning harbor, fjord and spiky snow capped mountains. Here, also huge cruise ships or the famous Hurtigruten line are stopping. Amundsen started many of his expeditions from this city. Tromsø in winter is only for the confident foot passenger, as some footpaths and roads are completely covered in ice.

The plane of my colleague Franz is delayed by 2 hours and I use the tome to buy some equipment to prevent cold feet.

When Franz finally arrives we figure out that the cable car is not operating due to strong winds. We wanted to do measurements from the top of the mountain. So we do a short survey of street illumination instead and find it interesting, that some streets are not having many street lamps. Some don't have lamps at all, some others do have a lot of new LED lights already. Light levels range between 1lx to 40lx under the streetlamps. The majority of light comes from shops and can be above 200 lx.

So now I have a co-pilot that can a) talk with me during the long night drives and b) operate the roadrunner system :D

 The skyglow of the city is still visible from distance. But the siluette of the mountain range Lyngen alps is shielding parts of it so the stars are becoming visible more and more.