Actually I should have done other things, but I wanted to record my impressions about our trip to Lofoten Islands and Abisko. The travelogue got a little bit long, but maybe you feel motivated enough to work through… I still need some days to before I can publish the gallery. Var god vänta!

Thursday
We started at 5 in the morning in order to catch the ferry in Bodø. We followed the E4 up to Skellefteå, before we travelled inland, passing Arvidsjaur and Arjeplog. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anything of the car testing tracks I was writing about 2 months ago. After Arjeplog, the scenery became more and more mountainous. On a stop at a petrol station I counted more snow mobiles than cars refilling their tanks.
Finally, we crossed the Norwegian border and covered the distance to Bodø. We arrived so early they we could have taken the famous Hurtigruten (the Norwegian mail boat cruising along the coastline), but unfortunately they had no more capacity for cars. So we waited another hour and took the regular ferry to Moskenes. The crossing lasted 4 hours and we used the time to get some sleep.
We arrived at Lofoten Islands in the dark and collected the first impressions: striking mountains, scattered dwelling with thousands of lights mirroring in the sea, and stockfish all over. We were supposed to go another hour before we get to see our accommodation, but then we underwent our first surprise: Due to heavy rainfall during the last days, an avalanche had blocked the one and only road. We had no chance to get at Stamsund! After calling the Youth Hostel we decided to go back to Å in the very south of Moskenesøya. There, we found a really homey accommodation.
On a short walk we examined the bizarre stock fish frames in the rainy night.

Friday
After breakfast we started with a short look around our accommodation. Later on, we drove though the final tunnel to end up on a parking site, the most southern point of Moskenesøya accessible by car (ergo the end of the E4). There, we followed the little footpath and climbed the neighbouring hills. We noticed a gigantic field of stock fish frames and a frozen inlet which created beautiful reflections of the snow-covered rocks. Both observations were made repeatedly in the following days.
The road was re-opened today and we started our journey up north to Stamsund. We stopped at a nice and sandy beach (of course it was too cold to take a bath), had lunch in the tiny Nusfjord and discovered the secret of Unstad: this spot with its maybe 20 houses lies in a flat and almost quadratic plane which is framed by the mountains on three sides and the open see on the forth. Very nice!
Finally, it was time to go to our Youth Hostel in Stamsund. It’s constructed as a pile dwelling and has a very ancient interior. When we arrived, the warden was cool as a cucumber and started smoking and talking to his fishing friends before he finally showed us the place: Groaning stairs, the worn mattresses in the dorm, an oven heated by fire – the place turned out to be really cosy when you can resign comfort and privacy. The ambience is young and international, and we had some nice hours in this place.
After dinner, we went out for a walk in order to see the fantastic northern lights. The night was perfectly clear and the sky was illuminated in changing colours. It was really fantastic to experience that remarkable spectacle.

Saturday
Today, we wanted to discover Austvagøy. We started driving on the beautiful road 815 along the coastline of Vestvagøy. At first, we visited Henningsvær, a romantic fisher village on a little island. At this spot, the fishing industry is still intact: Vessels are seaming the port, and you can walk along the small establishments where the cod is processed. The pleasant weather and the idyllic atmosphere made this place the most memorable of our tour.
Subsequently, we made a short visit to Svolvær, the biggest “city” of Lofoten Islands (4.500 inhabitants). The port esplanade is very touristy – the little island Lamholmen is a commercial built-up area of the famous Rorbuer (red-painted fisher huts). We had our lunch break at this place (it’s still off-season) before we continued our trip to the landing stage of the car ferry in Fiskebøl. After checking the timetable, we had a look into tight Raftsundet, which is a passage for Hurtigruten.
On your way back, we followed another, unfortified road. I think it took maybe one hour for the first 15 kilometres. Laure felt really sorry for her car. But she also managed that task and we went successfully home to Stamsund.
Once again, we checked the sky for Aurora Borealis, and this time I succeeded in shooting a nice picture.

Sunday
It was already time to leave the Lofoten. We started quite early in the morning and caught the ferry to Melbu. We enjoyed the last views of Lofoten Islands and were happy to realise that the adjoining Västerålen Islands are also a pleasant place to be. The mountains are not as rocky and everything is a little bit more moderate, but it’s still a fascinating interaction of land and sea. We followed the E10 up to Sortland and made a trip to Myre and Nyksund, where we had lunch at the untouched shore. This place was – when I can trust the map – the most northern point I’ve ever been.
We went back to Sortland and continued our travel on the European road. Finally, we reached the Norwegian mainland again. We decided to visit Narvik, which is an important harbour for the iron ore from Malmberget/Kiruna. On my journey to Kiruna two months before, I visited the mine and gathered a lot of information about the powerful railroad which is transporting the ore to Narvik. The city is obviously affected by the industry (as many cities so far north) and has a year-round ice free harbour.
In the end, we coped with the last stage for the day and covered the distance to Swedish Abisko. (It really started snowing again!) The road ran parallel to the railway, and also our youth hostel was only some meters away from the rails.
Our accommodation is actually a “Dog Camp” and is a common starting point for dog sledging tours through Abisko National Park. They had at least a dozen of huskies on the courtyard and everywhere we could see sledges, scooters, snow shoes and other winter equipment. We had a good sauna in the evening.

Monday
Today, we wanted to do a hike in the national park. The popular Kungsleden (“the King’s Trail”) is crossing the park and we planned to follow this route for some kilometres. But during the wintertime, the footpath is almost invisible (and covered with tons of snow). In exchange, a wide network of cross-country ski tracks and scooter ways is established. We followed these routes three hours long (without finding a particular place to visit), before we turned around. Once again, the weather was friendly with us and we eventually had a warm and sunny day. The scenery was beautiful, but after almost 6 hours of walking we were a little bit fed up with all that snow. On the way, we met a couple of skiers who looked at us as we were aliens. They stated, that it was 3 years ago that they saw (some Japanese) hikers in the wintertime. It was hard for them to understand that we didn’t lose our skis on the way and that we actually wanted to hike.
We used the rest of the day for recreation, took another sauna and let Easter die away.

Tuesday
The last day of our journey consisted basically of sitting in the car. We left Abisko in the morning and went to the famous Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi. The others went inside, but I had been there two months ago. So I walked a little bit around and had a look at the ice production scene. Big cubes were cut out of the frozen lake and transported with fork lifts. Later on, I walked to that little parish church and observed some German tourists starting for a reindeer trip.
We made lunch break in Gällivare (another typical characterless northern city) and followed E10 and E4 home to Umeå. Album of the trip was Moby’s “Hotel”, but my supplied “Sportfreunde Stiller – Die gute Seite” was also able to score, especially the fantastic song “International”. Altogether, we drove about 2.600 kilometres in 6 days. The trip cost about 1.600 SEK (175 Euro) for each person.