The cold air cut like a knife as we walked the cobblestone streets of Bergen to the docks. It was the 8th January 2019. This was the start of our next adventure. We were about to commence a six night cruise up the Norway coast and hopefully we would get to see the Northern Lights.

There were 200 passengers and 70 staff aboard the MS Richard With. Another early night in our cabin with single hard mattress beds. The wild seas during the night sent our loose items flying onto the floor and Ruthie scurrying after them. During the day we sat watching as we sailed the rugged passages along the snow peaked mountain shore. 

A lot of the bigger cruise ships we’ve been on have captains from this part of Europe. I can now see why. This ship does a “milk” run and we are in and out of seas, fjords and ports, all masterfully navigated by the captain. It’s hard to imagine how in years gone by the Vikings in their wooden boats transversed these rugged seas.

Our first port where we could disembark was Alesund. The town was rebuilt on 3 islands after the great fire of 1904 by Emperor Wilhelm. We walked down cobblestone streets until we climbed up 418 steps to the top of Mt Aksla where we had a birdseye view of the town. Again breathtaking scenery, the town being surrounded by the snowy peaks. Back to the ship for a delicious dinner and these explorers slept like logs.

We awoke early and already in our next port. This was Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city, founded in 977AD. We set of to find the Gothic Nidaros Cathedral completed in 1320. Google maps let us down and instead we found a small church but not the Cathedral. We were now headed into the open sea and were advised that there could be some rough weather.

Dinner was rough and things were sliding from one side of the table to the other. Plenty of diners were getting up and leaving as they couldn’t handle it and there were plenty of spills and cleanups for the waiters.

The next morning was the call for the crossing of the Arctic Circle. Ruthie’s FOMO wasn’t going to let her miss out on that and she will gladly tell you I piked it. Ruthie braved hurricane strength winds and upon her return even though she looked frozen, she had a smile from ear to ear. I gave her a kiss and tasted the salt from the spray. The ceremony was held on deck 7 and I personally couldn’t see any fun in getting ice thrown down the back of my neck in freezing conditions! Our friends Chris and Sandy reported that “they only live once” and opted to participate in the whole ceremony including the ice down the back when they went in March.

Our next stop was Bodø. All shore excursions had been cancelled due to the state of the weather. Ruthie and I braved the arctic weather and walked to the town centre. It’s remarkable how invigorating walking in cold weather is. Even though it was minus 3, we are wearing less than previous as we were getting too hot. It was a quiet night in the ships restaurant. It seemed like many passengers hadn’t recovered from the rough conditions. Not us though, we ate like Spartans. A lot of the food on the ship has been sourced from eco friendly family businesses and it seemed really healthy as well as being delicious.

The conditions were becoming more arctic as we travelled north. We awoke to snow on the ships deck and went on a short visit to Finnsnes where it snowed the whole time. We headed up to Tromso. The snow had stopped by now allowing us to explore this vibrant city. Sunset was at 12:30pm and the snowy ground really shone in the dark. We found a funky little bar to have a warming red wine and bugger me, the barman was from Byron Bay! He was living his dream.

The moon had appeared so we had our fingers crossed that later tonight the northern lights may appear, after all that was the main reason we have travelled this far north.

The scenery has become more rugged. Everything is as you might imagine in tones of black, blue and white. The North Pole was a mere 2000 kilometres away. This was our last full day at sea and we were told we had braved 5 to 6 metre seas which qualified us to get anchor tattoos on our forearms as true sailors. Our last stop was Honningsvåg. It felt a bit colder and icier as we walked the streets of another beautiful little town. Being Sunday, nothing was open and it was hard to imagine that in summer, this town has over 200,000 tourist visitors. We are in the polar vast where there is very little daylight. Again the contrast in colours was sensational. Not far from us was the North Cape which is the most Northern point in Europe accessible by car. The ship was now in the Barents Sea which was a bit calmer than the North Sea. At dinner I tried a bit of Deer Stroganoff but Ruthie opted out of eating Bambi.

We were tucked up in bed early as we had an early start to get off the ship the next morning. Suddenly the call came over the loudspeaker from the Bridge saying that the Northern Lights had appeared. Well, all hell broke loose! As it was so cold on the deck we had to layer up and it seemed you could hear the whole ship doing the same. Up on the deck there were cameras clicking away madly. Just when we thought we may have missed it, the phenomenon reappeared. It was magic. The long flowing swirls lit up the sky. The clouds had silver linings and the stars swirled more brightly than Ruthie’s smile. It was a shame that our cameras didn’t have slow shutter release but the memories are ingrained in our brains forever.

When we first sailed and stopped at some ports, I wondered why people would want to live here. The baron ice capped rugged cliffs and mountains. It’s isolated and cold. Perhaps that’s part of the attraction. After all, we are here in the middle of a polar winter, yet the beauty of Norway did hypnotise us. The peak season of summer would see an entirely different Norway.