Day 07 - Fri - 10/03/2025 - Alta - Day 1

After a day and a half of sailing from Tromsø, we woke up to a sunny morning on the final few hours of travel to reach our anchorage at Alta, Norway.  With such a late arrival, our interdenominational Bible study met and we had another very good session.  Angela and I ate breakfast afterwards and then prepared ourselves and our possessions for the day's activities.  We were scheduled to arrive in the harbor at Alta at 11am where we would be anchoring as there was not a dock for us.  That also meant that we would be going to shore in tender boats or what Princess calls "water shuttles.".  I was really concerned that we wouldn't be getting off any time soon as there are over 1,000 Elite passengers and an unknown number of passengers on Princess shore excursions.  They all have higher priority than us.

With all of our things put in backpacks and dressed in the warmest clothing that we brought, we headed down to the tender ticket distribution area in the Explorer's lounge.  We were given ticket number 10 and it was only a very short wait until our number was called.  We surrendered our tender ticket, scanned off the ship and boarded our tender #23.  I could see that there were two other tender platforms so they were ale to handle the other groups simultaneously with us peons.  

It was a short ride to shore and we easily found our shuttle bus.  This bus which cost $20 for a round trip, was totally full and whisked us the 2 miles up the hill to the town center by the AMFI shopping mall.  We disembarked the shuttle and made our way to the nearby Cathedral of the Arctic Alta Church.  The entry fee was about $8US per person.  This structure was constructed totally out of poured concrete with a titanium skin on the outside.  Inside the architecture is quite plain and understated which I rather like. 

The cathedral is at the end of a long pedestrian mall.  We walked the mall and also the interior of the AMFI shopping center.  I purchased some licorice at a Normal store and we walked both levels of the mall.  We ended up eating at the UNO cafe where I had a Grazing Rudolph salad (bits of reindeer meat sprinkled over a green salad and topped with lingen berries).  It was yummy.

We walked around the downtown a bit more before catching the shuttle bus back to the port and then rode a tender back to the ship.  There was only a short wait to get the tender rider.  It had been a pretty simply day in Alta, and we were back a bit earlier than normal for us, but we rather enjoyed it.

We skipped our normal 5:30pm dinner so as to watch the 6pm folkloric show which was a man and a woman singing traditional Sami music. The man was an excellent guitarist and his partner was an excellent singer and story teller. The Sami are the indigenous people who faced near extinction before being recognized with legal rights.  Their battle appears to have been similar to what the Native Americans have faced in the US.  The show was excellent and we stayed in our seats for the evening main stage show who was a juggler from the Netherlands.

David Severins was a pretty unconventional juggler who has beeen doing it for some 30 years.  He kept the audience fully engaged for his full 45 minute show juggling all manner of objects, except there were no swords or knives.  But he did juggle among other things plastic shopping bags and up to 7 rings and even a single glass ball.  At 8:15pm after his performance, we headed up to the LIDO for a late dinner.   Afterwards we checked out the sky for Northern Lights, but there was too much cloud cover over the harbor area.  So we came back to the stateroom and rewatched Debbie's presentation about Alta to glean what we might do tomorrow on our second day here.  We came up with what we thought would be a cool plan, and we'll look forward to seeing it materialize.