Tromsø, Norway: Arctic Gateway and Northern Lights Capital

The Aurora Borealis is visible from Tromsø on roughly eighty-five nights per year, almost exclusively between late September and late March when the sky is dark enough. The light must be dark (no moon, no city glow, clear sky) and the Kp index must be at least 4; on those nights, the display can range from a faint green arc on the northern horizon to overhead curtains of green, purple, and white that fill the entire sky and move. The science of why the colors appear (oxygen at different altitudes produces different wavelengths; nitrogen adds the purple and blue) is explained at the Tromsø University Museum, which has the best aurora exhibition in Norway.

The Arctic Cathedral (Tromsdalen Church), across the Tromsø Bridge on the mainland, was built in 1965 and is shaped like a prism intended to evoke Arctic glacier faces. The architecture divides opinion, but the stained glass window covering the entire east wall — the largest stained glass panel in Scandinavia, depicting Christ descending from the sky — resolves the question when the afternoon sun comes through it. Midnight concerts are held here in summer during the period of the midnight sun; the light through the window at midnight in June is worth its own trip.

The Fjellheisen cable car rises 421 meters from the city center to the plateau above in four minutes. At the top, a restaurant and observation terrace overlook the city, the sound, and the fjords extending in every direction. In winter, this is the best northern lights vantage point accessible without a car; in summer it is a starting point for walks across the plateau to the peaks above. The cable car runs until late; northern lights chasers routinely ride it up after midnight.

Polaria, the Norwegian Polar Institute's public exhibition center near the waterfront, focuses on Arctic ecosystems and Norwegian polar exploration. The building, designed to look like pack ice jammed against the shore, holds an aquarium with bearded seals, a panoramic film about Svalbard's landscape, and galleries covering the impacts of Arctic warming on sea ice extent, polar bear populations, and indigenous Sámi reindeer herding. The seal feeding presentations (usually around 12:30 and 15:30) are calm and informative rather than theatrical.

Tromsø's restaurant scene runs heavily toward Arctic seafood: stockfish (dried and reconstituted cod, here prepared in the Italian bacalà manner that the Lofoten islands developed for export centuries ago), king crab, and arctic char are the dishes most specific to this latitude. The Mathallen food hall on Grønnegata has the widest selection of local producers in a single space. The city's many microbreweries, a relatively recent development tied to Norwegian craft beer laws relaxing in the 2010s, are worth noting — Mack Brewery, operating since 1877, is the world's northernmost brewery and still open for tours.