Arctic capital — Northern Lights, midnight sun, and reindeer stew
Tromsø sits at 69°N, 350 km above the Arctic Circle, making it one of the best-placed cities on Earth to see the Northern Lights (aurora season: October–March) and to experience the midnight sun (May–July, when it never sets). The city itself is a lively university town of colorful wooden houses on an island, with the Arctic Cathedral across the bridge and the Fjellheisen cable car rising above it all. Whale watching in the winter fjords, husky sledding, reindeer sleigh rides, and the world-class Tromsø University Museum of Arctic history fill the dark months when the aurora dances overhead.
Tromsø was an important trading post for the Sami people long before Norwegian settlement — the Sami have herded reindeer across the region for at least 1,500 years. The town was established by royal charter in 1794 and became Norway's primary Arctic expedition base in the 19th and early 20th centuries: Roald Amundsen launched his South Pole expedition from here in 1910, and Fridtjof Nansen departed from Tromsø on his Greenland crossing in 1888. The Arctic Cathedral (Ishavskatedralen) — actually the Arctic Ocean Cathedral, built 1965 — with its modernist aluminium spire and enormous stained-g…