5 Days in Tromsø

The Polar Museum is in an old harbor warehouse from the 1830s, and it tells the story that made Tromsø: the trappers who spent winters alone on Svalbard hunting polar bears and foxes, the sealers who sailed into the ice, and the explorers. Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen both prepared their expeditions here. On 18 June 1928, Amundsen took off from Tromsø's harbor in a French seaplane, the Latham 47, to search for the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile, whose airship had crashed in the Arctic. The plane disappeared over the Barents Sea and was never found. His statue stands by the water nearby.

Just behind the museum is Skansen, the site of the town's first fortification, and Tromsø's oldest house, the old customs house from 1789.

Walk down Storgata, the main street, past painted wooden houses from the 1800s. Visitors once called Tromsø "the Paris of the North", supposedly because they were surprised to find people this far north dressed in the latest fashions. In the middle of the street is Tromsø Cathedral, built in 1861, Norway's only wooden Protestant cathedral, painted pale yellow with a green spire. Its opening hours are short and irregular, so look in if the door is open. In summer it hosts late-evening concerts under the midnight sun.

Here in Storgata, in early February, the Sámi Week ends with the Norwegian reindeer racing championship, with reindeer pulling skiers down the street at full speed.

On the main square, Stortorget, is Raketten, a tiny kiosk shaped like a rocket. It was built in 1911 to sell newspapers, chocolate and cigarettes, and now sells hot dogs and drinks and calls itself the smallest bar in the world. Order a reindeer sausage with fried onions and lingonberry and eat it standing up in the snow, maybe with a hot chocolate.

At the southern end of the center is Polaria, an Arctic experience center in a building designed to look like ice floes pushed up against each other on the shore. Inside are a panoramic film about Svalbard, exhibitions on Arctic climate and wildlife, an aquarium of Arctic fish and a pool of bearded and harbor seals, which are fed in front of visitors three times a day. The seals moved to a new, much larger pool recently, but animal welfare groups still criticize keeping them in captivity, so decide for yourself. Either way, it's a good introduction to the sea around Tromsø.

The aurora borealis is caused by particles from the sun hitting the upper atmosphere, and Tromsø sits right under the auroral oval, the ring around the magnetic pole where it's most active. You need two things: a dark sky and a clear one. The first is guaranteed from late September to early April. The second isn't, and the coast often has clouds, which is why the tours are a chase: the guides watch the forecasts and drive towards clear skies, sometimes 2-3 hours inland, occasionally all the way to the Finnish border.

A good tour has a small group, a guide who knows the weather, warm thermal suits to borrow, a campfire and hot drinks, and a photo of you under the lights. Expect to be out from about 6pm until 1 or 2am. To the naked eye, the lights often look grey-green and faint at first, while a camera shows them brighter. On a good night they ripple across the whole sky.

The 1,036-meter Tromsø Bridge, opened in 1960, links the island to the mainland, and walking over it is the best way to arrive in Tromsdalen, with the Arctic Cathedral facing you on the other side. Take it slowly for the views up and down the sound. Please don't hang a padlock on it: locals hate them and the city cuts them off. Maintenance work runs on the bridge into November 2026, but you can still walk across.

From the bridge it's a short walk or bus ride to the lower station of Fjellheisen, the cable car that rises in four minutes to Storsteinen, a ledge 421 meters up on Mount Fløya. From the top you see the whole island city, the bridge, the airport, the fjords and the mountains of Kvaløya, and it's spectacular at any time: in the blue midday twilight of winter, at night with the city lights below, or in summer at midnight with the sun still up.

Both stations are being rebuilt, with the new ones due in 2027, so for now there's a temporary café at the top. Order waffles with brunost, the sweet brown goat's cheese, and jam, the classic snack at any Norwegian mountain café.

Walk down to the Arctic Cathedral, Ishavskatedralen, properly Tromsdalen Church, which isn't actually a cathedral, but nobody calls it anything else. Jan Inge Hovig designed it in 1965 as a row of white concrete triangles that step down like ice or the racks for drying cod, and it has become the symbol of Tromsø. Inside, the east wall is a huge glass mosaic by Victor Sparre, added in 1972, showing the hand of God sending rays of light through Christ, a woman and a man.

Come at dusk, when the church is lit from inside. It's also used for concerts, from short organ recitals to evening programs, so check the calendar.

Back in the center, have dinner at one of Tromsø's fish restaurants. The local specialty is røye, Arctic char, a fish of cold lakes and fjords somewhere between trout and salmon. From January to April comes skrei, the migrating cod, and with it cod tongues, torsketunger, fried crisp. Fiskekompaniet, by the harbor, is the classic (closed on Sundays). Many restaurants also serve reindeer, and some serve whale: Norway still hunts minke whales, which many visitors object to, so it's your call.

Have a drink at Ølhallen, the beer hall of the Mack brewery, open since 1928 and Tromsø's oldest pub, with 72 taps of Norwegian beer. Mack has brewed here since 1877 and long called itself the world's northernmost brewery. That's no longer true: there's a brewery on Svalbard now, and Mack moved its main production out of town in 2012. Ølhallen is still the place to try a tasting board of northern beers.

Tromsø is a university town, and on Fridays and Saturdays the bars along Storgata fill up late. Blå Rock Café is the rock bar, and Rorbua, by the harbor, is the classic pub.

Reindeer herding is a traditional livelihood of the Sámi, and in the reindeer herding areas of Norway it's reserved for them by law. In winter, the herds of the families around Tromsø graze inland, but some families keep animals close to the city and invite visitors to meet them. You feed the reindeer, which crowd around you in the snow, maybe take a short sled ride behind one, and then sit in a lavvu, the Sámi tent, by the fire.

The best part is listening, more than the short sled ride. Your hosts tell you about the reindeer year and the migrations to the coast in summer, about the Sámi language, and about the joik, the traditional song, which isn't sung about someone but to them: you joik a person, an animal or a place. Tromsø Arctic Reindeer and Tromsø Lapland are both run by Sámi families.

Lunch at the camp is usually bidos, the Sámi reindeer stew of meat, potatoes and carrots in a clear broth, served at weddings and celebrations. In town, the classic reindeer dish is finnbiff, thin shavings of reindeer meat stewed with cream and mushrooms and served with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. Its name comes from finn, the old Norwegian word for the Sámi.

Back in town, the Perspektivet Museum on Storgata tells Tromsø's own story through photographs and people, including the novelist Cora Sandel, who grew up in the town. It's the place to understand the Sámi, Kven and Norwegian history of the town, and the Norwegianization policy that from the mid-1800s until well after the Second World War tried to make the Sámi and the Kven give up their languages. In 2023, Norway's Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its report on that policy, and the struggle over a dam on the Alta river in the 1980s, which turned Sámi rights into a national cause, is still remembered across the north.

Book a session at Pust, a floating sauna in the harbor with angular lines that echo the Arctic Cathedral across the water. Inside it's hot and wood-paneled, with a big window over the water, and outside there's a ladder straight into the fjord, only a few degrees above freezing in winter. It's the best way to warm up after a day outside. Swimwear on, shared saunas.

End the night at Verdensteatret, a cinema on Storgata that opened in 1916 and is Norway's oldest municipal cinema still in use, with walls painted in 1921 by Sverre Mack with scenes from Norwegian folk tales. It has a bar where you can sit without a ticket, and in January it's the heart of the Tromsø International Film Festival, which also shows films on an outdoor screen built of snow.

When the huskies are harnessed they howl, jump and pull at the lines, desperate to run, and then the brake comes off and there's suddenly total silence apart from the sled on the snow. You can sit in the sled with a guide driving, or drive your own team of four to six dogs after a short lesson. It's easier than it looks, but you'll need to pedal uphill and hang on in the curves. The sled dogs are Alaskan huskies, bred to run, and the good centers let you meet the puppies and see how the dogs live.

Snow for sledding usually lasts from late November to April. In autumn, some centers do husky rides on wheeled carts, and in summer you can go for a hike with the dogs.

About 30 minutes' drive from the center, the road over Kvaløya drops to Ersfjordbotn, the head of a narrow fjord walled in by steep, pointed mountains that fall straight into the water. In winter, with snow on the peaks and the water still, it's one of the most beautiful places near Tromsø, and a classic spot to watch the aurora. From here the road climbs over Kattfjordeidet to the next fjord, the start of the long scenic loop around the island.

People live here, so please park only in proper places, stay on the road, don't walk into gardens for photos, and use the toilets in town before you go: residents have had enough of tourists using their land.

If you haven't seen the aurora yet, try again tonight. On a clear, active night, the lights are visible even from the city, but they're much better away from the streetlights: walk to the beach at Telegrafbukta or to the lake at Prestvannet on top of the island. Check the cloud forecast on yr.no and the aurora forecast in an app, dress as warmly as you can, and be patient. Activity often comes in bursts, usually between 9pm and 1am.

Or do what locals do on a winter evening: rent cross-country skis and glide along the lysløype, the floodlit ski trails that run across the middle of the island until midnight.

Several companies run fjord cruises from Tromsø's harbor, and the nicest are on quiet electric boats, which glide out between the islands almost without a sound. You sail past snowy mountains and fishing villages, looking for white-tailed sea eagles, the largest birds of prey in Northern Europe, and seals and porpoises. In February and March the low sun turns the snow pink and gold.

In the darkest months, a guided snowshoe walk in the hills above town is the better choice: you walk through the blue light of the polar night in the silence of the snow, with a fire and a hot drink at the end.

Back in the center, the Northern Norway Art Museum is a small museum of art from the north, from 19th-century painters who showed the light of the Arctic to contemporary Sámi artists. Look for the work of Joar Nango, the Sámi architect and artist, and for the landscapes of Northern Norway in every kind of weather. It's closed on Mondays.

Northern Norway's own cake is kvæfjordkake, from Kvæfjord near Harstad: sponge and crisp meringue with almonds, filled with vanilla cream. Norwegians call it "the world's best cake", and in 2002 it was voted Norway's national cake. Try it at Smørtorget, a café that's also a vintage shop, with a cup of coffee. Around 21 January, when the sun comes back over the mountains after the polar night, the bakeries sell solboller, sun buns with a yellow custard center, for Soldagen, the Day of the Sun.

Take bus 40 to the south of the island for the Arctic University Museum of Norway, until recently called Tromsø Museum. Its Sámi exhibitions are the best in the city: clothing, crafts called duodji, drums, and an honest account of the Norwegianization policy that banned the Sámi language in schools for decades. There's also an interactive exhibition that explains the northern lights.

Walk five minutes to Telegrafbukta, the town beach, which faces the mountains of Kvaløya across the sound. In summer it's where locals picnic and swim, briefly, at midnight, and in July it hosts the Bukta music festival. In winter it's one of the best places in town to watch the aurora, with the lights reflected in the sea. Nearby, the Folkeparken has old farm buildings and a lit walking trail.

For the last night, have a proper Northern Norwegian dinner: Arctic char, cod, king crab caught off Finnmark, or reindeer, perhaps as finnbiff. Tromsø's restaurants are good and busy in winter, so book a few days ahead. Bardus Bistro and Emmas Drømmekjøkken are local favorites, and for a tasting menu of northern produce, Smak, a short taxi ride north of the center.