Finally, after losing almost three years of travel time, we were on our way! Norway has been on our bucket list for years, and since they were the first country to fully open up with absolutely no restrictions, off we went. Norway has to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world!
We spent arrival day in Oslo thinking we still had the tenacity of doing a full day of sightseeing after 17 hours of travel. Those days are over! We visited the Oslo Opera house where you could climb up to the rooftop for panoramic views of the city, drank some local beer at the pubs, and then called it a night.
The most beautiful part of Norway, the Lofoten Islands, starts 95 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The hype about this area was 100% true. But… it was not an easy place to get to. You need time, expense, and perseverance. We were a go on all three! It took two flights to get to Svolvaer, our home base in Lofoten. The first was a big jet plane to Bodo, then a 20 minute flight on a prop job to Svolvaer. Being north of the Arctic Circle at this time of year, the sun never sets. Unfortunately, we never were able to stay awake to see the “midnight sun”.
The first thing we noticed when getting out of the taxi at our hotel in Svolvaer, was the smell. UGH! Those dried out stock fish hanging on the fishing racks ALL OVER THE PLACE sure did a number on the air smell. No way in hell were we going to eat any of those. Sort of reminded us of how bad chicken litter smells after being dumped on our pasture. We don’t know which is worse. Our hotel unit was an actual cabin where locals had stayed when working during the high fishing season. Very unique experience, perfect for this area. The mountains surrounding Svolvaer has a 500 ft. peak called "The Goat", with two huge horns of rock sitting on top. We watched people climb up, and jump from one rock to the other. They were out of their minds!
To see as much as we could in our time on the Lofoten archipelago, we arranged a two day tour with a guide. He was great! Eric took us to all the beautiful places you see in photos on the Internet. The stories he told, sites we went to, and picture suggestions he gave were awesome! Henningsvaer was our favorite island, it had a soccer field at the very end. Eric told us about the woman who lives in the house overlooking the soccer field yelling at tourists for flying their drones taking pictures. Too funny! Leaving Henningsvaer, we passed by a mirror “sculpture” along the road with reflecting walls. The artist created this so that when standing next to it you can view the beautiful scenery double. We had fun standing in different positions in front of the mirrors, creating illusions of us missing our heads. Norway’s most famous beach, Haukland Beach, has the designation as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, most likely due to all the scenery around it. It was a great two days traveling with Eric, seeing and learning about this MOST BEAUTIFUL area of Norway. While here we tasted whale jerky for the first time, yikes! The flavor was fine, but somehow rubbery jerky is wrong.
