Visited towns
Longyearbyen, Barentsburg, Ny-Ålesund
During our adventure on Svalbard we visited three towns on the island of Spitzbergen. They are the most important settlements with a permanent population.
The first town we arrived at on a plane from Oslo was Longyearbyen. We slept here one night before taking the boat to start our actual adventure on Svalbard.
We continued our visit onwards to Longyearbyen where we stopped for nearly one day. Tourism is now becoming an important part of the economy in Longyearbyen. There are many great places to eat or drink a beer and shops where you can buy technical equipment for sports.
We reached the mining town of Barentsburg by boat. This town is smaller than Longyearbyen so we stopped here for just a couple of hours.
This town is gloomy and quiet and looks as if time stopped decades ago. Nonetheless, it has a souvenir shop and a hotel.
In the time gap between our first and second camp we arrived by boat to the scientific town of Ny-Ålesund. This settlement is small, clean and has some monuments dedicated to Polar expeditions.
It is the most northern inhabited town of the planet.
None of these towns can be reached by road. You get there by boat, plane, snowmobile or after a long walk.
The towns of Svalbard are very different from the towns we are used to. All of them are surrounded by a quiet, surreal atmosphere.
There are no traffic lights and cars are scarce. Air is fresh. No-one is in a rush and life runs at a calm pace.
Those who love quiet and scarcely populated destinations will love these towns. They might even want to live there for a period to escape from the chaos of city life.
Comment this page
Do you want to leave a comment to this page? Write your impressions and questions about "Visited towns".
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS comments feed on this page. TrackBack URL
