Radisson Sas Polar Hotel Longyearbyen

The starting point for my Arctic Expedition around Svalbard, an island archipelago lying North of the Norwegian mainland, was Longyearbyen. Longyearbyen, lying at 78 degrees North, is the main town of Svalbard, with about 1900 inhabitants. Being this far North, it experiences 24hrs sunlight for a few months at this time of year (which means good curtains are required if you don't wish to upset your sleep-wake cycle). I can understand the attraction of constant daylight, but find it amazing th...

So here we are. We landed in Spitsbergen last night at shortly before midnight (in broad daylight). We've had the day here in town - exploring the place didn't take long, as you can see from the photo it's not huge! It's definitely weird, the not getting dark thing. It's looked pretty much the same outside the whole time. And the hotel hasn't had the common sense to put thick or blackout curtains in the rooms so it's nice and bright when you get into bed too - thank God for airline eyeshades....

Clear weather as we approached Svalbard meant we got some good pictures from the plane. Arrived in Longyearbyen a little late due to the extra passenger issue at Tromsø. We had to walk across the tarmac in Longyearbyen, -19C when we arrived so it was a bit of a shock coming out of the warm plane. We then caught the crowded FlyBus to our hotel, Radisson SAS Polar. Checked in and got our stuff ready then walked down to the supermarket and got our bearings. Decided to have an early dinner at the...

We got up at 7.30 and had breakfast at the hotel then were picked up by the tour company for our dogsledding trip at 9.30am. Driven to tour company office where we changed into snow suits and then drove on to kennels. Harnessed dogs and attached them to the sled then we were off, one driving the other as a passenger in the sled. After a few bumps at the start we went ok. Reasonably flat run until just before half way when we hit our first hill. Driver had to push the sled up the hill in knee ...

We got up at 6.15am and breakfast at the hotel before being picked up by tour company at 8.15am and driven the their office to change into snow suits and have a very brief introduction into driving a snowmobile. We left at 9.45am for a 10 hour trip to the east coast of Svalbard and back. S was given a few chances to get up to speed for the trip but the dogsled fall left her low on confidence and she had to ditch her snowmobile and ride as a passenger. At the first scheduled stop we all had to...