As good as it gets: Tromsø and the northern lights

I was standing on Storsteinen (Big Rock) on mount Fløya in northern Norway: on the one side was the city of Tromsø covered in a red, yellow and orange autumn coat; on the other beams of sunlight were sneaking through the clouds, leaving shimmering silver traces on the water. All of this was set against a background of blue mountains with white patches of snow.

The fact that there was no-one else in sight made it even better. It was just me, the mountains and a magnificent view. I didn’t know if I wanted to sit down, keep quiet and take it in, or if I wanted to run, jump up and down, cry (out of happiness, of course) or burst out in laughter. In the end it was a crazy mixture of all the above (I should probably not be so honest).

At that moment I thought, if this is as good as life gets, it’s good enough. Tromsø is certainly one of my favourite cities and was a highlight on the See the World with Spar itinerary. 

Little did I know the day would even get better. 

I didn't expect to see the northern lights or aurora borealis at all, since most locals I asked said I've arrived just a little bit too early. (Your best chances of seeing it is from 21 September to 21 March, while we were there in the beginning of September.)

Although it was overcast most of the day, the sky cleared up a bit during the afternoon. My fellow Spar travel reporters and I did, however, follow someone's advice to take a look outside from about 22:30 onwards (just in case). 

We were staring into the sky with little hope, but after a few minutes we saw a white line of light – not bright at first, so much so that we thought we might be imagining it. Then it suddenly became clearer and started swirling around, forming patterns of light in the sky. We knew that was it. The colour later changed to a light green (although not as green as most pictures make it look like). 

We couldn't believe our luck - coincidentally experiencing something many people dream of their entire life. 

That evening 'as good as it gets', got even better.

Happy as can be on mount Fløya in Tromsø, Norway.

The view over Tromsø.

You stay exactly where you are, turn around and then you see this...

Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera that's good enough to capture the northern lights - not that I think the best photograph in the world could truly convey the experience of seeing this natural phenomenon. Darren Gayson, Spar reporter from Ireland, took this picture.