Norway📍Tromso and Lofoten – beautiful nature, harsh conditions, bridges and fjords, wilderness and raging elements / travel blog

Lofoten in Norway is a very remote place in the north, where nature is beautiful, but also very harsh and living in such conditions is not easy. There are characteristic fjords and wooden houses, bridges, mountains, whales and killer whales, few people, and the elements are teeming with life..

Located 300 km above the Arctic Circle.

This place was on my “bucket list” for a long time, and on the day of departure it turned out that the storm of the century came and our flight was the last one flying on the day, as all the other ones were cancelled. I couldn’t believe it… Landing in a storm is a nightmare because of turbulence and rapid changes in height and when I was waiting at the airport to collect my luggage, I was still shaking and saw that a few people were still crying – I’m not surprised 😅 The situation got complicated, as many bridges were closed and we rented a car and booked a hotel for the first night so we had to reroute. At night it was very difficult to drive like this, we didn’t even know if it was safe, but somehow we managed. The next morning, when we stopped by the road, a local man approached us to talk and ask if everything was okay (many cars were in the side roads after the previous day). He told us that he was repairing his elderly parents’ house and his father, who has been living in Lofoten for over 83 years, has never seen such a strong storm… So this was the beginning of our trip to northern Norway 🙂 Later I also found out that one of the – typical for the region – fishermen’s cabin, was torn from the foundation by the wind and fell into the cold ocean at night – along with the tourists inside … Nothing happened to them except shock, others came to help them pull out of the water, but the cabin smashed against the rocks – that view was frightening. The owner of the cabins we stayed in came to assure us that everything is safe and built in a specific way, adapted to the conditions here, and tons of concrete in the foundation was poured by a reliable Polish company 🙂 Indeed, our row of cabins did not fly into air nor to the fjord, but was holding up well.

Surprisingly, it is not as cold as you would expect in this part, because sea currents carry warm water north along the Norwegian coast. It’s the Gulf Stream that keeps it around 0 degrees C in winter. The felt tempeture can of course be much lower and sometimes I was cold in my “jacket – sleeping bag”. But after all, it’s not as freezing as in Lapland with it’s -30 C.

This is what the far north of Norway looks like:

Aurora Borealis

The aurora borealis is something truly spectacular and I am fascinated by it. It is an amazing dance of colors in the sky. If you are planning to see it, it is worth to install an application on your phone that forecasts and alerts when it appears. It is visible to us when there is no rain or snow, the sky is clear and we are far from the light of lamps:

Morning in yellow wooden cabins in Sakrisoy Rorbuer:

Hamnoy, A, Reine, Sorvangen

While in Sakrisoy, you also have to stop in nearby village Hamnoy for a famous photo from the bridge – traditional red cabins “Rorbu” with the mountain peak in the background. If you don’t know where it is, Just look for photographers with big lenses 🙂 There are plenty of photo tours here, you can stop where they are because they know the best places.

In the area, it is also worth going to Reine, A (the shortest name of the town in the world) and Sorvangen for a hike, where in winter it is like in Narnia:

The Northern Nature:

The beach Uttakliev:

Hike to Ryten Mountain and Kvalvika Beach

It is a beautiful place for a hike. In many sources it is written that it is an easy trail, but in my opinion it depends on the conditions and the season. For me it was quite challenging though – as you can see in the video below. Good crampons for shoes were necessary. But the views were definitely worth it.

I went for a walk to see wild reindeers and suddenly I fell in snow up to my thighs 🙂

Some hotels, like the one in Leknes Basecamp, have saunas overlooking the fjord where you can also take an arctic dip:

Husky Lodge

Here you can rent a traditional cottage in a remote area, use the sauna by the river, surrounded by llamas and huskies, and go for a dog sled ride. The llamas were quite shy, but the dogs were very eager to interact:

Unfortunately, the food in the north of Norway is not of good quality and it is generally hard to find something, at least in winter. If you eat vegan, you have an even greater challenge. Often the only places open are gas station pizzerias. Here we also had to buy food for breakfast in the shop, because everything is closed. There is no breakfast in hotels – wooden houses.

Lofoten road trip through fjords and bridges:

A painful matter is the fact that whale hunting in Norway is still legal there and has been going on for hundreds of years. They are extraordinary animals, we need them badly for the balance of the entire planet. It is better to go on a trip to, for example, Andenes to admire them in their natural environment.