Where to Stay in Tromsø, Troms

Tromsø is the great city of the far north, set on the island of Tromsøya well above the Arctic Circle. In the dark months it draws travellers for the northern lights, and the long polar nights make it one of the surest places to see the aurora. The north shapes everything here.

Across the Tromsøysundet strait the Ishavskatedralen rises on the mainland at Tromsdalen, while the museums of the city, among them Polarmuseet and Tromsø Museum, hold the polar history of this municipality in Troms.

Ishavskatedralen is the chief mark of Tromsø, its white peaks rising at Tromsdalen across the Tromsøysundet strait. The city holds many museums. Polarmuseet and Tromsø Museum keep the polar and the natural history of the north, while Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum gathers the art of northern Norway and Polaria carries the life of the Arctic sea.

Churches and parks fill the island too. Elverhøy kirke and Grønnåsen kirke stand among the streets of Tromsøya, and the open ground of Folkeparken gives the city its green edge in this municipality of Troms.

Tromsø grew on an island in the far north. A settlement took hold on Tromsøya in the Tromsøysundet strait, a sheltered harbour off the mainland coast that drew traders, fishers and church-builders to a foothold well above the Arctic Circle, where the open sea and the long polar year shaped the life of the place from the start. The sea ruled the north.

Its harbour became the base for the great polar voyages, and the expeditions to the Arctic ice gave the city its name and its trade, a story now kept at Polarmuseet, with the monuments at the Nobile-monumentet and the Alfred Hansen Monument standing for the men who sailed north. The city spread across the island and beyond. Elverhøy kirke and the later Grønnåsen kirke served the growing parishes of Tromsøya, while the museums gathered the record of the north, Tromsø Museum and Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum among them.

Bridges tied the city outward. A span at the Tromsø Bridge reached across to Tromsdalen and the Ishavskatedralen rose on the mainland shore, and Tromsø settled into its place as the administrative city of this municipality in Troms, the great northern centre of northern Norway.

Tromsø lies on the island of Tromsøya in the Tromsøysundet strait, in the northern part of Troms, in northern Norway. The city centre fills the island, with the mainland and Tromsdalen on the eastern shore across the Tromsø Bridge and the island of Kvaløya to the west over the Sandnessund Bridge. Mountains ring the water.

The strait and the open sea surround the city well above the Arctic Circle, and this municipality in Troms reaches across Tromsøya, the mainland and the islands offshore to Kvaløysletta and the coast beyond.

Tromsø has a cold but surprisingly tempered climate for a city so far north. The warm coastal current keeps the winters milder than the far-northern setting alone would bring, though the polar nights are long and dark, with the sun gone for weeks and the aurora often filling the sky above Tromsøya. Snow lies deep and long.

Summers stay cool and bright under the midnight sun, when daylight holds around the clock for weeks, while cloud and rain off the open sea reach this northern part of Troms through every month of the year.

Tromsø sits on an island in the far north of Troms, reached by air on the long routes into the north, by the coastal ships that call along the shore and by road across the bridges to the mainland. The Tromsø Bridge and the Tromsøysund Tunnel link Tromsøya to Tromsdalen on the mainland. Many fly in.

From the centre the roads run east to the Ishavskatedralen and west over the Sandnessund Bridge to Kvaløya, while the airport and the coastal route carry the longer journeys of travellers reaching this northern corner of northern Norway.