This travel update is part three of our week in Tromsø, Norway. It covers August 4 – 5. “Any text in quotes and Italics has been copied and pasted from some informational website like Wikipedia.”

August 4, 2023 – Frigg’s Day (Friday): A Day Off

We’ve been very active since arriving in Norway on July 18, so we are taking today off. We slept late then went out for jogs (actually, I go on a jog, Patti says she goes on a run). Then we went to the grocery store and Patti prepared lunch.

On my jog, I went by this beach at the southern end of the island where people were in bathing suits and some were wading in the water.

The water temperature is around 52°F here right now. I do want to go there with my water shoes some sunny day and wade in the fjord. It would be cool to say that I waded in a fjord in Norway. I just don’t think I’ll spend a lot of time in it, since it’s cold.

There was also a park with pretty birch trees.

The weather was nice today (70°F) and it was great to just get outside and exercise a bit.

On my way back home I ran by this burger joint, called “Ragnarok”. I may need to eat there one day, just to be able to say that I ate at Ragnarok.

“In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a foretold series of impending events, including a great battle in which numerous great Norse mythological figures will perish (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdall, and Loki); it will entail a catastrophic series of natural disasters, including the burning of the world, and culminate in the submersion of the world underwater. After these events, the world will rise again, cleansed and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet, and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors, Líf and Lífþrasir. Ragnarök is an important event in Norse mythology and has been the subject of scholarly discourse and theory in the history of Germanic studies.”

One of our guides in Longyearbyen recommended a Netflix series to us called “Norsemen”. He said it was a hilarious spoof on “Vikings” which is another series on Netflix. So, we’ve watched a few episodes of “Norsemen” and it is very funny. But then I wanted to see what “Vikings” is about so I watched a couple of episodes of it today. “Vikings” is touted as a historical drama, so, it’s serious, but, it seems to also be following along with the actual Viking history that I’ve been reading about. The hero, Ragnar Lothbrok, is a real name from history and (in the series) he’s just become the Jarl (Earl) of his village in Kattegat, Norway and started raiding to the west. It’s the beginning of the 250 years of the Age of Vikings! I may end up watching all the episodes.

August 5, 2023 – Saturday: Another Day Off!

This makes two days off in a row! Maybe we’re getting lazy? We spent most of the morning getting caught up on my travelogues and Patti added them all to the website. I went out for a couple of walks. Patti colored her hair. I watched some more “Vikings”.

We’ve been stressing out a bit about what we’re going to do when we leave Tromsø. Before we left Florida we made reservations for flying to Oslo, staying a week in Oslo, flying to Longyearbyen, staying in Longyearbyen for a week, flying to Tromsø, staying in Tromsø for a week, and now we’ve done all that. After this, our plans are still in the mist. We have plenty of options but we need more time to do research before making a decision. I’ve mentioned before that it takes us a LOT of time to investigate what’s recommended and available and what we want to do.

So, I contacted our Airbnb host about staying here in Tromsø for an additional week and he agreed. So, now we’ll be here until August 18. We both feel better about that, we’ll have time to research what we want to do when we head south through Norway and we’ll also have time to enjoy Tromsø and have some days off. Also, this Airbnb is very comfortable, has plenty of space, a full kitchen, a washer/dryer, and is close to downtown so it is a good place to spend some down time. It costs $78 USD per night so it’s not breaking the bank. Oh, the TV is nice too and I’m enjoying Netflix.

We’re using a variety of resources to plan our next two months in Norway. We both checked out the Lonely Planet tour guide for Norway from the online library we use and it’s an excellent resource on what to do, where to go, etc. We also look at other guide books, websites, blogs, Facebook pages, etc.

On my first walk today I went by the Eurospar grocery and spent some time meandering around. Tacos seem to be popular in Norway, there is a whole aisle devoted to them.

These people have some pretty flowers on their balcony, I appreciate all the colorful flowers we’ve seen in Oslo and Tromsø.

The Bike Kitchen of Tromsø is on the main street going into town. Today there were people there working on bikes.

We’ve seen a lot of bicycle riders here, there are wide bike lanes and sidewalks for bicyclists. I passed by this bike parking structure. I’m guessing that in the winter it’s nice to be able to park your bike inside like this.

If we lived here in Tromso, we would definitely have bikes to get around the island.