November 2nd, 2025
We slept well and had a delicious breakfast, having done our food shopping the night before. Then we set off in our rental car towards Sommarøy. On the way, which we knew from our last stay, we spotted two reindeer fighting right next to a busy roundabout. They weren’t bothered by the constant stream of cars, nor by a jogger who ran past less than 2 meters away from them. The jogger was also unimpressed by them – scenes like this seem to be commonplace here.
A little further on, there was a beautiful view of the sea with the rising sun. Although, it didn’t really get bright and sunny this time either, as it was already quite late in the year. At the beginning of November, the days in Tromsø last only about 6 hours. The polar night begins here, north of the Arctic Circle, at the end of November. The sun then returns in mid-January.
On the way, we made a short detour to Ersfjord to see if the location was suitable for nighttime aurora photography and to find suitable spots in daylight. Although it was cloudy, we found a spot that seemed suitable for nighttime shots later on. Then we drove on.
The island of Sommarøy can be reached via a long bridge. As is often the case in Norway, this bridge is single-lane only. Traffic is alternately allowed to pass by traffic lights. At the bridge, I launched the drone for the first time. Unfortunately, it was still cloudy:
Then we crossed the bridge to the island. We had already photographed these three decorative little houses last time:
Unfortunately, the sky remained overcast, so we decided to head back. After taking lots of photos and flying our drones, we were in the mood for a coffee and drove to the Hotel Arctic in Sommarøy. It was very nice there, reminding us of the hotel of the same name in Illulisat in Greenland. We refueled with coffee and delicious cake 🍰.
In summer, you can also sit outside on the terrace. We really liked it there. We’ll have to remember that when we come back with our camper in the future. There are also parking spaces for motorhomes nearby.
On the way back, we passed an icy lake called Kattfjordvatnet. It was covered with a mirror-smooth surface of ice, reflecting the mountains in the background. This made for a very beautiful photo opportunity with the drone in panorama mode:
Then we headed back to Tromsø. Suddenly, we spotted a group of reindeer right next to the road. We pulled over to the side of the road to take some photos. We were able to get very close to the animals, which were not particularly shy and hardly seemed bothered by us.
Then we went back to our holiday apartment, where we prepared dinner together and enjoyed a cozy evening.