Norway

This is part of our holiday of Scotland, Norway and Amsterdam, and seeing the remarkable Northern Lights.

I’m very spoilt. Firstly, marrying a travel agent was a great move. Secondly, we’ve seen the Northern Lights before so this was always going to be a bonus if it happened again.

Looking at the forecast in the lead up to our trip to Norway, it wasn’t looking good. The solar activity wasn’t as strong as it has been, and bad weather was forecast. Unfortunately, while you want snow, that means cloud. And cloud means you can’t see the lights.

So we would have been happy seeing the lights at least once. Wow, were we blown away.

Norway is a big country but sparsely populated. It’s pristine in places, very busy in others.

This really was a chance of a lifetime trip.

Getting there and getting around

Our trip to Norway was the main part of a big overseas adventure, following on from our trip around parts of Scotland.

From Edinburgh we flew through to Oslo where we got to experience our first real taste of Scandinavia – exorbitant airport prices made worse by the stupid price of everything in this region!

From Oslo it was a quick hour and half flight up to Tromso. Here we relied on taxis (also expensive) and mainly the local bus.

Our overnight cruise from Tromso to the Lofoten Islands was a great way of getting there, as opposed to hours and hours of driving through treacherous conditions or flying.

And having a hire car in the Islands was ideal. It was easy to get around and gave us the ability to travel at night to see the lights.

Tromso

Tromso is one of the larger cities in Norway, and one of the most touristy. It’s worth acknowledging that the number of visitors, especially from overseas, is causing a bit of angst for people in the area because of the sheer numbers. But it’s a town that is now built around tourism.

The city is built on a large island, surrounded by large snow-capped mountains. It has a beautiful harbour that has a constant stream of boats heading in and out, and across the water is the famous Arctic Cathedral, one of the most famous buildings in Norway.

We stayed in an Air BNB near the airport, which is on the other side of the island. It was right on the water and gave us incredible views of the Northern Lights.

We also took a day trip to a nearby island, seeing seals frolicking from a far in the water, reindeer munching away, and beautiful fjords and iced-over lakes.

Getting to the Lofoten Islands

We’re not cruise people. Never really had an interest in cruising the pacific, eating and drinking your day away while staring out the water.

So we considered the Hertigruten cruise from Tromso to Svolvaer somewhat ‘functional’. But it was an incredible surprise.

We boarded the ferry in Tromso well after midnight and went straight to bed in our cabin. However we rose before sunrise, looking out our cabin window to see snowy mountains slowly passing by.

Over the 16 hours or so that we were on the ferry, and stopping in at a number of ports along the way, we saw incredible landscapes that you would otherwise not be able to reach, including the famous Trollfjord.

This was a real highlight of our trip.

Lofoten Islands

The Lofoten Islands is a chain of islands that jut out of the cold Artic sea, linked up by bridges and sparsely populated.

It is one of the most spectacular and natural places you’ll find.

We based ourselves at the Hattvikka Lodge in the village of Ballstad. The village consists of a couple of streets of homes, the fishing company down by the water, and a few accommodation providers. The Lodge was spectacular, and our upgrade room was a refurbished fishing hut that sits right over the water. It ended up being the perfect place to see the Northern Lights.

Having a hire car, it was easy to get around and see other villages. When you look at a map, it appears that it’s a long drive to everywhere but you can easily drive from here to the bottom of the accessible areas of the islands, around Rheine, in an hour or two.

We were fortunate in some ways that there wasn’t too much ice and snow around which made it easy to drive to the nearby islands like Samoy, Nusfjord and Hamnoy.

It is fascinating to see how day to day life, tourism and tradition work together here. From the stockfish that hang on wooden racks in each village (it’s a traditional method of preserving fish using the cold Arctic air to dry out the fish), to the fishing boats that ply the waters, and the serenity of these little fishing villages.

While at the lodge we enjoyed an impressive meal at the Fangst restaurant which included stockfish, reindeer and local produce (some of which is caught or made in the village). We also enjoyed a couple of hours kayaking around the harbour. They deck you out in arctic wetsuits and the water is cold enough to still feel through the padding! But it was one of the highlights, paddling around as the sun went down over the mountains.