Travelogue: Trip to Scandinavia - Stockholm: Gamla Stan

The first country that we started our Scandinavia trip in was in Sweden, famous for being the home country of Ikea. Would I be seeing Ikea shops everywhere in the country? We flew into Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden.  Just joking. One of the main reason we visited Stockholm was to visit my friend from back in my University days.What impressed us about Stockholm is how beautiful, clean but yet funky and stylish. It provides a lot of attractions and places for tourists to check out.

Stockholm

Travelogue: Trip to Scandinavia: An Overview

One of the main item on my bucket list was to see the Northern lights. I've written about it on a previous post . The husband and I went to Tromso in Norway to see it but we weren't going to fly all the way to Norway just to do that. For the trip, we took a 2 week trip and went to visit the other Scandinavian cities along the way. I have friends in Stockholm and Helsinki. Since we have never been to that part of the world, it was the great excuse to visit.

Snow everywhere!

Travelogue: Dogsledding in Tromso, Norway

We had five days in Tromso, one of which we went to the Polar Zoo. Check out the blog entry. And another day, we went to do dog sledding. It is a great winter activity that you cannot miss when you are in a winter wonderland. Despite the high costs, it would be a wasted trip if we didn't go on it. 

Dog Sledding

Travelogue: Trip to Polar Zoo in Bardu, Norway

During our winter 2012 trip to Scandinavia, the highlight of the trip was to see the Northern Lights. Since we flew from faraway Asia, we wanted to pack a lot more into the trip. One of the other highlights while we were in Tromso, was to visit the Polar Zoo.

Here's what is written on their website:

Polar Zoo is one of northern Norways most popular tourist attractions and well known as the worlds most northern zoo. The park uses an area of 114 acres with wild and beautiful nature in Salangsdalen in Bardu, in the county of Troms. These amazing nature surroundings will make your visit in Polar Zoo complete.

Our main attraction is Wolf Camp, where you have the possibility to join us inside the wolf enclosure to meet the mythical and legendary wolves close up.

The Wolf camp was exactly what we came for. From Tromso, the Polar Zoo is around a 6 hours round trip on the bus from Tromso. Here is the bus timetable. Of course, it is easier if you were to rent a car and drive there.

We caught the bus at 615am and reach the main road leading to the zoo at around 935am and the Zoo sent a van to pick us up. Even though the bus journey was long, the views along the way were amazing. It's just something magical when everywhere you looked is snowy and white :)

View from the bus

Travelogue: Northern lights in Tromso, Norway

It has always been my dream to see the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. I'm not talking about following in Joanna Lumley's footstep. Since 20 years ago, when I first heard of it, I have been wanting to go. Finally this year, I got the chance of a lifetime.

It was going to be a 2 weeks vacation to Scandinavia with the highlight of the trip - Northern Lights viewing. It has been predicted by astronomers that 2012/2013 will have solar maximum which will result in a high incidence of the Northern lights. This is the reason why we choose 2012 as the year we will go to watch the lights. 

The Northern Lights are usually observed above the Arctic Circle. We chose Tromso in Norway, which is 350km inside the arctic circle. It is also made famous when Joanna Lumley went there in the BBC documentary to catch the Northern Lights. Remember if you decide to go, to book your tours and accommodation early, as most of them get booked up very early.


We joined a bus tour, unlike the others, our guides Anja and Francesco were great. There were photographers, and not only they gave us loads of pointers, they were super enthusiastic and took care of us. I would highly recommend their service to anyone thinking of going to Tromso to see the lights.


Here are their details:

Arctic Guide Services - their facebook page.
Northernshots site where they sell the great photos they took each night.

Without further ado, here are the pictures I took on the 4th March 2012.