Tromsø in the Polar Night
Hardly anyone flies to Tromsø for the Christmas market, and I wouldn’t either. It’s one small square of huts round a few fire pits, and you can walk it end to end in ten minutes.
What you fly to Tromsø is December itself. From late November the sun doesn’t rise at all, so you get a few hours of deep blue twilight around midday, which is every bit as strange and beautiful as it sounds, a town strung with lights, and then a long night when, if the sky clears, the northern lights can show even over the town.
The Tromsø Christmas market sits in the middle of all that, on Stortorget by the harbour, with chairs and reindeer skins round the fire pits and the tree lit up behind them. Round them are about 20 stalls, mostly food, and a couple of huts selling knitwear and crafts.
As the warm hour before an aurora tour, sat by the fire with a reindeer sausage, it’s a lovely way to start a Tromsø evening.
When Is the Tromsø Christmas Market 2026?
The Tromsø Christmas market on Stortorget runs every day from Friday 20 November 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027, 11:00 to 19:00, and it’s free.
Last season’s revival felt like the biggest market Tromsø had ever had, and this is the first year it carries on past New Year.
The market says it’s open every day, but its hours for 24, 25, 26 and 31 December haven’t been published, so check its Facebook page nearer the time.
That matters less than it sounds, because Christmas itself shuts most of Tromsø. Most shops close from the afternoon of the 24th until Monday the 28th, and supermarkets stop selling beer at 15:00 on the 24th, so stock up before then.
Christmas to New Year is still busy with visitors, though, and the hotel restaurants and tour operators that do open fill up fast, so book Christmas dinner and any tours well ahead.
| Date | What’s on |
|---|---|
| Fri 20 Nov | Tromsø Christmas market opens on Stortorget |
| Sat 28 Nov | Polar night begins, with no sunrise until mid-January |
| Sun 29 Nov | The city Christmas tree is lit on the first Sunday of Advent |
| Sat 5 Dec | Christmas concert at the Arctic Cathedral, 17:30 and 20:00 |
| Sun 13 Dec | GospelCompagniet Christmas concert at the Arctic Cathedral |
| Sun 20 to Tue 22 Dec | Julefred Christmas concerts at the Arctic Cathedral |
| Thu 24 Dec | Christmas Eve services at the Arctic Cathedral, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00 |
| Thu 31 Dec | New Year concert at the Arctic Cathedral at 21:00 |
| Sun 3 Jan | Last day of the market |
| From Mon 4 Jan | Closed until next season |
The Market on Stortorget (Fire Pits in the Blue Hour)
You come out of Storgata onto the square and there it is, the tree, a giant bauble and a ring of wooden huts round the fire pits.
Much of the food in those huts is touring street food, gyros, pasta, goulash, crêpes and Dutch cheese, and 350 km inside the Arctic Circle I want something more Arctic than a crêpe.
The gift side is a couple of knitwear and craft huts, so I wouldn’t plan any Christmas shopping here. There’s hardly anything Norwegian on sale, which is a shame.
The square makes up for a lot of it, and so does the town round it, with lights strung everywhere you look, so the whole place feels like Christmas well beyond the stalls. It’s at its prettiest after fresh snow, with the lit tree standing out against the harbour.
Try to go at the 11:00 opening, because the only light of the day, a long pink-blue twilight, lasts until about 14:00, while in Edinburgh the sun doesn’t even set until about 15:38.
Then come back after dark, when the fire pits are the warmest place in town. The market closes at 19:00, just as the aurora tours are leaving.
What to Eat at the Tromsø Christmas Market (The Reindeer Sausage Stall)
The one very good exception to all that imported street food, last year at least, was a stall run by a local who’d tell you the history of everything he sold, and it had the best food on the square.
He runs a food truck on the square the rest of the year, so he’ll probably be back, and if he is, get his reindeer sausage.
It’s nearly 90% meat, wrapped in paper with sweet mustard, and his fishcakes are the lightest, fluffiest I’ve had, with potato salad and smoked caviar on the side.
Last year that came to NOK 280 for two hot dogs, restaurant prices for a market snack, and I’d still pay them.
If that’s more than you want to spend, Raketten, the tiny rocket-shaped kiosk round the corner on Storgata, does the famous reindeer hot dogs, and they’re one of the cheapest meals in town.
The queue there can stretch to an hour, though. If it’s long, walk back to the market stall, which is just as good and had no queue at all last year.
Before a night tour, Ølhallen, the old Mack brewery taproom, is a cosy place to wait out the cold with a local beer or a Mack Christmas beer.
Chasing the Northern Lights
That night tour is why most people come to Tromsø in December, me included. You should book a small-group aurora chase, where a minibus drives wherever the sky is clear that night, sometimes over the border into Finland, and the guide lights a campfire, hands round soup and takes your photo under the lights.
A small-group chase costs roughly €140 to €245 a head, and you’re usually back around 00:30. I wouldn’t try it in a hire car, because the roads are icy and drivers stopping on them to look up are a real problem up here.
December is a gamble, because cloud cover is common and rain or sleet can blow in off the coast, and it’s the cloud that decides your night.
So try to give yourself three or four nights, and book two tours with a gap between them, so you can cancel the second within 24 hours if the first one strikes lucky.
On a clear evening you can sometimes make out a faint aurora from the fire pits on Stortorget, washed out by the town lights. It’s enough to make you want the real thing, and that’s out in the dark, well away from the town.
Things to Do in Tromsø in December
The nights the cloud wins, and the long dark afternoons, are easy to fill in Tromsø.
- The Arctic Cathedral, across the bridge, holds Christmas concerts right through December, and I’d walk there over the Tromsø Bridge, about 20 minutes with the town lights behind you, rather than take the bus.
- The Midnight Concert in Tromsø Cathedral, a few minutes from Stortorget, starts at 23:00, about 30 minutes of candlelit music, NOK 295 for adults, and it suits a cloudy night when the aurora won’t play.
- Fjellheisen, the cable car to Storsteinen, gives you the whole town lit up below for NOK 645 return, though the upper station is a building site, there’s no parking at the bottom and the queues can be long.
- Pust runs three floating saunas in the harbour with sea access, from NOK 150, and the cold plunge straight into the Arctic harbour in the polar night is for the brave.
- Dog sledding on Kvaløya or out at Malangen takes four hours or so, and it’s worth booking as soon as you’ve got flights, because December dates sell out early.
- The Polar Museum is cheap and very good, and between it and Polaria you’ve got a stormy afternoon covered.
- Whale watching runs into January, but the whales now gather far to the north around Skjervøy, so it’s a long day out rather than a quick trip from the harbour.
Weather in Tromsø in December and What to Wear
Thanks to the Gulf Stream, the town is milder than you’d expect, about 0°C by day and −5°C at night, though the wind and damp can make it feel close to −10°C.
Out on the aurora and husky trips inland it can drop to −20°C or colder, so you’ll want waterproof layers over thermals, a hat, mittens and a neck warmer. Most tours lend thermal suits for the nights out.
In town it’s the ground that’ll catch you out, because the square and the streets down to the harbour turn to sheet ice. Pack spikes that slip over your boots, because they cost a few pounds and they’ll keep you upright all week.
Getting to Tromsø
Tromsø is a flight for nearly everyone, with direct winter flights from Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton, and the airport is only about 15 minutes from the centre on the Flybuss for NOK 125. Once you’re in, cards and phone payments work almost everywhere, and the city buses take no cash.
There’s no railway this far north. The overland route is the sleeper from Stockholm to Boden, a day train on to Narvik and then bus 100, about four hours, into Tromsø, a journey of about a day from Stockholm and roughly three from London.
The Hurtigruten coastal ships sail up from Bergen too, reaching Tromsø on the afternoon of day five.
Is the Tromsø Christmas Market Worth It?
On its own, no, and I’d never send anyone here just for the market. If you want stall after stall, go to Nuremberg.
But Tromsø in December is one of the great winter trips in Europe, and the little market on Stortorget is part of what makes it feel like Christmas.
Give it three or four nights so the aurora has a fair chance, and book the tours before you book anything else.
