Re: Winter 2013/14 | Page 72

across the sky. It was amazing and I got rather emotional. The atmosphere out on deck was fantastic, I would have guessed the 99 per cent of the people on board had come to experience this moment and you could feel the excitement each time a new wave of lights crossed the sky. We were blessed with a good few hours of the light show and I slept soundly knowing that my dreams had come true. The next day we rounded the northern tip of Norway and boy was it chilly, our main stop today was at Honningsvåg, we could have opted for a tour up to The North Cape but decided to just explore the down instead. The last morning we sailed into Kirkenes, which is only 15km from the Russian border. It was a beautiful sunny day but freezing, the ship glided through the icy waters bringing this section of our holiday to a close. The weekend was spent back in Tromso where we were lucky enough to see the Northern Lights again. We organised to go on a coach tour which took us to the Finnish border and in -17 Deg temperatures we had another chance to experience the magical lights, this time in the complete darkness of the countryside, laying in a bank of snow watching the lights dancing above us. It was so cold my camera actually froze up! The final part of our trip was spending a couple of days in Oslo and we were lucky enough to have on hand our own personal tour guides. Highlights included watching the national ski jumpers launch themselves from the Holmenkollen ski jump and visiting the Vigeland Park which showcases 212 granite and bronze sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The centre piece is a 14-metre high granite Monolith which took three stone carvers 14 years to produce out of one piece of stone. It depicts 121 detailed human figures and really is the most incredible piece of work. You could spend many hours in the park studying all the sculptures. To sum up my trip to Norway, it really was a trip of a lifetime, I got to see the amazing Northern Lights and witness some truly beautiful scenery which you just would not appreciate from the land. I would thoroughly recommend a trip with Hurtigruten, as long as you have your sea legs! By Clare Wells 70