The number one attraction in Tromsø and rightly so.
If there´s one thing you must do when you visit Tromsø, it is to go up the cable car called Fjellheisen (literally means, the lift up the mountain). You ascend for 4 mins up to a mountain ledge called Storsteinen which, at 421m more or less straight up, then gives you …the..most..spectacular..views of the city, the mountains and sea beyond.
We did it on an evening in January so our view was of a fairytale-like city dressed in snow and loads of lights and although the cable cars (one up, one down on the hour and half hour) can carry a maximum of 28 people, in these corona times this has been restricted to 8 and in our case our timing was lucky and we were only 4 up and 8 on the way down.
At the top there is a cafe as well as a wide, well-placed viewing platform that has views on three sides. Now, I always have an open mind about feeding establishments at tourist attractions – how hard do they try to provide decent food at a decent price given they have a captive audience? Well, in the case of the Fjellstua cafe, I can honestly say the food we had (from a limited choice of local dishes) was the best food we had all weekend in Tromsø. The reindeer burgers (this was before our visit to Tromsø Arctic Reindeer!) came with a red wine sauce, salad, mushrooms and oven roasted small potatoes and was so yummy even I didn´t need even a splash of ketchup (I know, but we all have our vices…).
Regarding the practicalities:
Cost: adult return trip – 240 NOK
Access: 45 mins to walk, take the 26 Bus from the city centre or jump in a cab (we did this and it cost just over 200 NOK). I believe there are also some tours you can hop on that take you up, but I can´t see the logic in paying extra for this when it´s so easy to get there yourself. There´s also a car park at the base station if you are driving yourself.
Lastly, although I am sure going up Fjellheisen is amazing at all times of year (20 May-22 July for midnight sun and between September and April on clear nights you stand a chance to see Northern Lights from there), I would plan your visit carefully, having consulted the local weather forecast. We knew our best chance of decent views was the day we arrived so we hightailed it up there straight after checking into our hotel and were glad we did so. Earlier in the day it had been closed because of wind and the rest of the time we were there was dominated by heavy cloud, snow, rain and wind. As with all things in extreme environments, be prepared for the worst and you can only be pleasantly surprised!
Before I finish though, I should also add that since the end of last year, Fjellheisen has been under new ownership and I understand the new owners have plans to expand into guided tours, a souvenir shop and conference facilities, so my opinions are from the status quo now. I just hope they maintain the standard of the food in the cafe and don´t mess about with the concept too much!
Website: https://fjellheisen.no/en/
Location: https://bit.ly/3ITLq6Z
Wanderlust never fades 