Oh, the Northern Lights. I saw them once on a February visit to Tromsø, and they were magnificent. But as everyone in Tromsø will tell you, the Northern Lights are fickle. Some nights they’re out, and other nights they’re nowhere to be found. The best way to make certain that you will spy them is to base yourself for a leisurely period in a rural location in the Northern Lights Belt, which in Europe stretches along northern Scandinavia and Russia.

But if you don’t have two weeks to hang out at a farmhouse in northern Finland and want to maximize your likelihood of viewing the Northern Lights, Tromsø is an ideal base. Low-cost airline Norwegian even flies direct to Tromsø from London Gatwick four times per week. My one-way fare was only 660 NOK ($73 at the time of purchase.) I returned via Stockholm on SAS.

Tromsø budget guide

Finding an affordable hotel room

On the ground, the high-cost index means that you’ll never forget that you’re in Norway. But there is relief. I found a “smartroom” at Smarthotel, a Norwegian hotel chain that opened a Tromsø outpost in 2013. A “smartroom” is tiny (7 square meters) but cute. I enjoyed the simplicity of the space: brushed concrete walls, a bed alcove tucked along with a window and a little bathroom. Those seven square meters felt much bigger than they were. And with breakfast, my room was one of the very cheapest on offer in all of Tromsø.

Search for hotels in Tromsø.

Exploring during the day

Northern Lights excursions leave in the evening, which means that days will be free for exploring. The first stop for many is the Polar Museum, the best-known museum in the city. The Polar Museum includes exhibits on Fridtjof Nansen, polar bears, Norwegian polar expeditions and Wanny Woldstad, the first female hunter in the Norwegian Arctic territory of Svalbard. Admission is 70 NOK.

Free museums

But honestly, the Polar Museum is not the best museum in town. It is informative, no question, but it feels a bit dated and claustrophobic. Perspektivet Museum, on the other hand, is a sheer pleasure to visit — and free to enter, to boot. They have rotating exhibits but a lovely tribute to Norwegian writer Cora Sandel is also on permanent display. A few blocks away, the Art Museum of Northern Norway is also free to enter, with permanent collections devoted to Norwegian art from the early 19th Century onwards. The permanent collection prioritizes artworks that address Northern Norway.

Soaring cathedral

Museums aside, it is the soaring modernist Arctic Cathedral (admission 50 NOK) that is to my mind the city’s star attraction. Designed by Norwegian architect Jan Inge Holvig, it is located in the neighborhood of Tromsdalen across the sound from the city center. Aluminum-coated concrete panels give the building its dramatic form; on the inside, these panels illuminate the interior in a glowing peek-a-boo. The cathedral is ambitious, grand, and welcoming.

Getting around town

Tromsø’s 24-hour public bus pass is a great value for visitors planning to do any running around. It’s 100 NOK; the bus pass begins to pay for itself after two rides. (A one-way bus journey costs 50 NOK.)

The Northern Lights just outside of Tromsø. Photo: Lars T

If you’re lucky, you’ll see the Northern Lights, and when you do you’ll have no doubt who runs the show. But even if you don’t, Tromsø has real autumn and winter appeal. It’s worth a trip to see this unique Norwegian city just to experience its Arctic charm.

Your Tromsø and Northern Lights tips

Have you been to Norway to see this natural wonder? Tell us how you saved on your Arctic adventure!

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Time to think

We are not talking posh cruises here, but thinking rather of the regular ferries that ply the seas and inshore waters of Europe. Boats are a chance to take time out and think. We love boat trips.

It may be a simple hop on a ferry from Calais in France to Dover in England – where shipping stalwarts P&O bring cruise ship luxury to a 90-minute journey which in good weather is a sheer delight. Those famous white cliffs at Dover are quite something. (Read our previous post about P&O’s ferry service from England to France.)

Or it may be the long haul, such as the weekly voyage with the Smyril Line vessel Norröna from Denmark to Iceland. Depending on the time of year, the voyage to Iceland takes two or three days.

Shipping links

Europe is a continent that has been shaped by its maritime heritage and shipping links. Ferries are still a major component of the continent’s transport network, taking heavy freight off crowded highways and allowing discerning travelers a chance to swap the rush of modern life for a few quiet hours on board a comfortable ship.

For many island communities, of course, ferries provide lifeline links to the wider world. And, at this time of year, the weather is quick to remind us of the fragility of those links. This week, for example, shipping services from the Scottish mainland to Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides have all been heavily disrupted by storms.

Ferry schedules

Sadly, there is no comprehensive guide to Europe’s passenger shipping and ferry routes, but the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable (ERT) does cover more than just trains. Each monthly edition of this wonderful book includes details of several hundred ferry routes in European waters.

For the majority of these routes, the ERT gives the full schedules but for a few routes it is no more than a tantalizing hint of a connection. The vessels of Bumerang Shipping, the ERT advises, sail irregularly from Yalta (in the Crimea) to Novorossisk (in Russia). The timetable tracks the twice weekly sailings of Siremar to Stromboli, and it waves the flag for the Virtu catamaran to Valletta.

Back in the more familiar waters of western Europe, the ERT gives the schedules for most major ferry routes. But still there are gaps. There is simply no space to include small routes of real character. Kintyre Express runs a year-round passenger link between Campbeltown in Scotland (on the Mull of Kintyre) and Ballycastle (in Northern Ireland). This is a route to clear the head. Life jackets are compulsory as the 11-metre RIB speeds over the North Channel on its two-hour run. Not for everyone, perhaps, but it’s certainly an antidote to the deadening boredom of air travel.

A taste of the sea

On longer journeys around Europe, an overnight hop on a ferry makes perfect sense. Here is our pick of a handful of long routes that run all year round. These are all routes run by leading shipping operators with vessels that offer every possible creature comfort.

Each of these five routes feature in this month’s ERT. But they are just five of a vast range of maritime connections that help keep Europe on the move:

Oslo (Norway) to Kiel (Germany):
Every night — 20 hrs — Color Line — ERT Table 2372

Hirtshals (Denmark) to Bergen (Norway):
Thrice-weekly overnight service — 19 hrs — Fjord Line — ERT Table 2237

Rotterdam (Holland) to Hull (England):
Every night— 12 hrs — P&O — ERT Table 2245

Stockholm (Sweden) to Tallinn (Estonia):
Every night — 16 hrs — Tallink Silja — ERT Table 2475

Civitavecchia (Italy) to Barcelona (Spain):
Nightly ex Sundays — 20 hrs — Grimaldi Lines — ERT Table 2520

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Don’t hold your breath. The first trains will not run through the new Gotthard tunnel for another six years. Clearly, some of the pundits who dubbed the Gotthard route one of the great missing links in Europe’s rail network obviously didn’t quite appreciate that the existing Gotthard tunnel already carries several trains an hour under the Alps. The point about the new tunnel is that it is deeper, longer—and when trains do eventually start using that new route they will be able to travel faster than through the previous tunnel which is now 130 years old.

The main missing links

But the Gotthard story set us thinking about what really are the key missing links in Europe’s rail network. And we have come up with three flights of cartographic fancy, each of which would hugely enhance connectivity. All suggestions are probably utterly impractical and don’t make a shred of economic sense. But wouldn’t it be great if instead of creating yet another tunnel through the Alps, someone would burrow under the Tatra Mountains to link the Polish railhead at Zakopane with the Slovakian rail network at Poprad.

Next up on our wish list would be a railway linking Norway’s two railheads north of the Arctic Circle. A new line along the coast from Bodø to Narvik would be a treat.

Our third fantasy would extend the railway that ends on the coast of Croatia at Ploce south along the coast, thus giving a rail link for the first time to the delectable Adriatic resort of Dubrovnik.

It is interesting that the fine folk who compile the monthly Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable evidently share our thinking on the importance of these missing links as all three of our dream journeys feature as bus routes in their timetable. Buses in a train timetable. Impostors, you might say, but these are three links where even the most devoted rail traveller must resort to road transport.

The Albanian connection

And as we dream, we have another little idea. That line to Dubrovnik might usefully be extended south along the coast into Montenegro and on across the border into Albania. It is a curiosity of Europe’s rail map that the Albanian rail network exists in splendid isolation. Not a single passenger train crosses the country’s borders. Albanian trains are deliciously antiquated and unbelievably cheap. Indeed we judge the 295 lek fare (less than $3) for the train journey from Podradec in the country’s east to the Albanian capital, Tirana, is the finest investment we’ve ever made. There are few more entertaining ways of passing six or seven hours.

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During a day or two in a small town in the Czech Republic this summer, we noticed a local gently chiding two tourists for smoking while standing at a bus stop in a small village. The lady’s reprimand was delivered in the politest possible way, and clearly no offence was taken. The two visitors promptly stubbed out their cigarettes.

A smoke-free Europe?

It was a quiet reminder that European practice with regard to smoking in public places and on transportation still varies widely. And it made us realise just how hard the whole area is for outsiders to fathom. The Czech Republic allows smoking in bars but not at bus stops. In Lithuania it is vice versa.

National exceptions

Hop onto many Finnish long-distance trains and you’ll still find a spot where you can smoke. True, it’ll not be an especially comfortable corner, more like a padded cell with industrial-strength exhaust ventilation. But Finland is very much an exception, for across much of Europe smoking has been banned on all trains for many years. Indeed, Norway banned smoking on all public transportation way back in 1988.

Differences within a country

Trains are one thing, but stations quite another. Try and light up on a Swiss train and the chances are that you’ll quickly be told to desist. Yet you can smoke to your heart’s content on Swiss station platforms. Shift to Germany and the smoking ban extends to most areas of railway stations too, yet some German trains (smoking banned on them too of course) make special stops at obscure railway stations so that smokers can puff away for ten minutes on platforms where in theory lighting up is banned.

Law vs common practice

This little tale highlights just how complex the topic is. The rules vary widely between different European countries, and even between different parts of the same country. And the law and popular practice often differ too. The smoking ban that is sacrosanct in one country is widely ignored elsewhere. The only sound advice we can really give to smokers is ‘If in doubt, ask.’ But the trend is very definitely towards a smoke-free Europe.

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Europe’s Niagara?

And last month, we were standing by the side of the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen in Switzerland and heard a guide tell her flock of attentive followers that they were gazing at Europe’s highest waterfall. Now the falls at Schaffhausen are very pretty indeed, but this is no mighty Niagara – even at times of high water. If you want high waterfalls, northern Europe has them aplenty including several that are higher than any on the North American mainland.

Cloisters in Schaffhausen.

We also heard the travel guide advise her group that this is where the author Conan Doyle staged a fictional tussle between Sherlock Holmes and the evil Professor Moriarty. Actually that episode was not at the Rhine Falls at all, but at Reichenbach Falls though the idea that the Rhine Falls figured in Holmes’ life still pops up frequently.

Size doesn’t matter

At a height of just 23 metres (about 75 feet) the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen break no records, yet they developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries into a milestone on the itinerary of early tourists. Goethe, Rousseau and Byron all made the statutory stop at Schaffhausen to see the River Rhine tumble over the gently arcuate cascade that effectively separates the River Rhine into two quite distinct navigable waterways: the upper part of the Rhine above the falls (including Lake Constance) and the lower Rhine below the falls that eventually flows north through western Germany and the Netherlands to drain indefinably through a medley of Dutch deltas into the North Sea.

A tourism icon

Schaffhausen’s merchants were canny folk, resisting every overture by engineers who suggested methods of circumventing this modest natural barrier to navigation. “No way,” they protested at each ingenious new plan, anxious to protect the good living they made from having to shift cargo between ships on the two sections of the Rhine river.

So yes, you can see waterfalls in Europe that are more than 30 times higher than those at Schaffhausen, but that’s to miss the point. Centuries of commerce and centuries of travel history have conspired to construct the Rhine Falls as a hydrological icon, as the veritable epitome of a European waterfall. It’s a wonderful spot, so let’s just go with the flow, marvel at the myths, and agree that Schaffhausen certainly deserves a visit.

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Air travel in Europe has taken a hard knock these past days. Media reports of all Europe being utterly paralyzed have a dash of hyperbole. Less than one percent of intra-European international journeys rely on air travel, and European bus companies, ferry and rail operators have jumped at the chance to remind the traveling public that they have seats to spare.

Rediscovering the train

True, there have been some pinch points where train capacity was stretched—for example, Eurostar services through the Channel Tunnel to London were very full. That said, all those who wanted to book were able to secure places, and even when the prospects for air travel were at their worst (last Saturday and Sunday), we noted that travelers prepared to book three days in advance could still secure rail tickets from Cologne to London for €59.

Reopening the skies

Chances are that today over half of all scheduled flights in Europe will operate. This will be the first time in a week that the flight success rate has topped the 50 percent threshold. On the three most dismal days for travelers—April 17, 18 and 19—less than a third of all scheduled flights operated.

Small is beautiful

Media attention focused on the chaos at major hub airports where travelers waited in vain for flights. Few folk noticed the little airlines that often managed to operate from minor airports while big jets were grounded. For example, Widerøe used its fleet of Dash-8 turboprops to offer flights to two dozen remote airports in Norway.

The Faroese factor

The Faroe Islands were less fortunate. That evil cloud hung directly overhead. The sole weekly ship to continental Europe left last Thursday as normal—before the full extent of flight disruption was really evident. Since then the islands have been effectively cut off from the wider world.

Now Europe’s skies are opening up again, and the Faroes are being reconnected, ironically just as the Smyril Line ship is due back in the islands for that weekly voyage to Denmark.

Rethinking travel options

For remote island communities, flights are a lifeline. But for much of Europe they are a luxury—at least for short hops across the continent of less than 1,000 miles. Many Europeans are now rethinking their travel choices for the future. There may yet be a silver lining in volcanic clouds.

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One of our favorites is Gozo in the Med. Gozo is at its best in midwinter when the crowds have gone and the grigal winds bear down fiercely on the rocky island that Calypso once called home.

Azores, Hebrides and Lofoten Islands

Then there’s Moskenesøya, the most rugged of the Lofoten island group in northern Norway. It is a place where fierce black peaks tower out of the sea.

Lovely Colonsay in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides surely stakes a claim, as does remote Corvo in the Azores.

Nor should we neglect tiny Fugloy, the Faroese outpost that is draped in mist for half the year and yet still the most delectable spot in the North Atlantic archipelago.

And what of Brändö in the Åland Islands?

Or tiny San Lazzaro degli Armeni in the Venetian lagoon with its cypress trees, peacocks and the Armenian monastery where Byron once studied the Armenian language.

The Scilly Isles. Photo © hidden europe

Our pick: Tresco and the Scilly Isles

That’s seven of the best already, but these past few days of Indian summer on Tresco push this remote outpost of England right up into the premier league of European islands. The Scilly Isles, of which Tresco is the second largest, are on the same latitude as Winnipeg and Newfoundland. But warm Gulf Stream waters bathe the islands, so frost-free Tresco has an almost Caribbean demeanor.

Palm trees and cacti, eucalyptus and strelitzia rub shoulders in the lush gardens that surround Tresco Abbey. Canny Brits have always had a soft spot for the Scillies, but the islands are not well known among other travelers.

Routes to Tresco

A half hour helicopter flight from Penzance (on the UK mainland) will bring you straight to Tresco, but, better still, take the boat as we did. The three-hour crossing from Penzance to St Mary’s (from where there is an onward ferry to Tresco) on the Scillonian III affords views of fabulous Cornish coastal scenery, basking sharks, dolphins, and porpoises.

Try Tresco! It might well get our vote to be Europe’s most beautiful island.

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