Lofoten Islands
6/15
As is often the case when flying, our flight was delayed. We had one stopover in our flight, Trondheim to Bodo, and then Bodo to Leknes.
When we arrived in Bodo, the flight had already left for Leknes. After a bit of confusion at the airport, we were booked to fly in a couple of hours, and finally left for the Lofoten Islands.
We are now 175 km (just over 100 miles) North of the Arctic circle.
Arriving in Leknes airport, we aren't sure what the car rental situation is going to be, at least it's all in the same room, arrivals, departures, and Avis. With all the mixup of the rental, we were pleasantly surprised to be given a nice VW Touran, it was even an automatic. I still don't know how much we paid for it, but it would be so worthwhile to explore this part of the country.
The place I found to stay was going to be different than everywhere else we had been, (Sjøstrand Rorbuer) it was a fisherman's cabin just outside the town of Ballstad, which is at around the mid point of the Lofotens. Seems like a good place to explore from.
It was a cute little place, complete with a full kitchen, bathroom and living room on the main floor, and 3 bedrooms upstairs. Those stairs were very very steep, it made taking suitcases up a little exciting. Just in front of our place was a fire burning Sauna and Hot Tub with views over the harbour.
Being a fishing resort, there was dried Cod Fish hanging everywhere, turns out they are hung all over the Lofotens.
We drove into Leknes to do to stock up with breakfast items, drinks and snacks at the Extra 7-23. While in town we decided to have dinner at Peppes pizza. It's basically the Norwegian version of Boston Pizza, but their pizzas are huge.
We made a stop on the way back at this beautiful wooden Buksnes Church. It's history is a bit rough though, the first written record referring to the church at Buksnes dates back to 1324. Storms badly damaged the church in 1639. A new, wooden church was completed in 1641. In 1802 the old church was torn down and replaced, using some of the old timbers from the previous church. In 1882, the church was again destroyed by a storm and a new church was built in 1885. The new church was struck by lightning in 1903 and it burned down. The present church building was completed in 1905, makes you wonder why a church would be targeted by God so much though, doesn't it?
At 10:00 at night it's as bright as ever, so we decided to go for a hike. Above the Arctic circle, being so far north, the sun never really sets. The host at our place had recommended a nice circle route that takes us past some nice meadows, mountains and lakes.
Fog would be something we had to get used to here, so we never really saw much of the mountains.
As would be the norm for most of Norway, we did see lots of sheep though.
Such a nice easy hike, a couple spots were a little marshy, but the scenery made up for a little soggy shoe.
Norine was a little worried about having to use the stairs in the middle of the night, but when it's still basically as light out as the middle of the day, she didn't have to worry about it.
Our view across the harbour at 1:00am
6/16
Unfortunately it looked like we weren't going to get much cooperation in the weather department for our time here, so what are you going to do? Pack up the umbrellas, and make the best of it. We decided to drive south on the first day, at the farthest end is the small town of Å, about an hour and 15 minutes away.
A nice stop along the way is Skagsanden beach in Flakstad. A nice flat water beach great for stand up paddle boarding, but no-one was doing that today.
The sign basically says in badly spelled English, "thanks for coming, now move along"
Next along the way is the tiny fishing village of Sakrisøy.
When you arrive at the end of the Hwy 10, you go through a small tunnel and come out into a parking lot. Further South you can hike around the Southern tip of the islands and see as far as the fog will allow you.
That's as far South as you can go on the Lofoten Islands.
Just to the right of the tunnel we came through, is the trail leading to the small town of Å. The village (originally a farm) is first mentioned in 1567 (Aa). The name is from Old Norse á which means small river. The name was spelled Aa until 1917 when the Norwegian language reform changed the letter aa to å. The village is sometimes referred to as Å i Lofoten (i means in) to distinguish it from other places named Å, because I'm betting there is a lot of them.
Everyone was bragging about the cinnamon rolls from their bakery, but when we got there, all they had was bread and pretzels.
It seemed like every time we went into a tunnel we came out into a small fishing village, and Hamnoy was no different.
We decided to explore a little and veered off the main route to see Ferdvang, famous for it's bridges and Yttersand white beach, it was like we were back on the Atlantic Ocean Road again.
Ramberg is famous for one of the longest white sand beaches in the Lofoten's, and although it looks just like a tropical vacation beach, the water is only 15° Celsius... brrr, but it sure is nice to look at.
This entire stretch of connected islands, does have a tropical feel to it, and we are stopping quite often to look at another great view.
Nusfjord is one of the oldest and best-preserved fishing villages with long Lofoten fishery traditions, dating back to the 19th and 20th centuries. Once, Nusfjord was the most important fishing village in Lofoten, and now is listed by UNESCO.
The town of Nusfjord is setup like a museum, right down to it's current businesses, including a general store right out of the last century.
From Nusfjord, we were a short distance from our cabin, and started heading back. Not before stopping and meeting some of the locals, and wait, what does that scenic drive sign mean, and where does it go?
Instead of heading back we ended up down a winding road, then through a tunnel, and we popped out at a beautiful white sand beach called Haukland. We didn't even know this was here.
As it turns out, you can walk around the point and get to Uttakliev beach from Haukland beach using the old road from before the tunnel was completed. We decided to drive the new-fashioned way, and came to the even more beautiful Uttakliev beach. This area was hopping, from campers on the beach and hills, to people walking the nice trail that would take us back to Haukland beach
Oh, and there was sheep, lots of sheep, sheep on the trail, sheep on the beach, sheep on the hills, sheep on the rocks. We decided not to walk all the way around the trail, as seeing all these sheep, I was starting to get hungry 
Back to our car and through another tunnel, past more scenery to look for a lamb dinner in Ballstad.
We ended up at another Rorbuer lodge that our host had recommended called Kræmervikka Havn, and it was amazing! The food was fantastic, the service was great, and the view was spectacular.
That night we stayed in and watched a rainbow over the harbour at midnight.
6/17
Our second day's drive was going to be focused on going North, our first and main destination being the Viking Museum at Borg. The Lofotr Viking Museum is a historical museum based on a reconstruction and archaeological excavation of a Viking chieftain's village.
In 1983, archaeologists uncovered the Chieftain House at Borg, a large Viking Era building believed to have been already established around the year 500 AD. A joint Scandinavian research project was conducted at Borg from 1986 until 1989. Excavations revealed the largest building ever to be found from the Viking period in Norway. The foundation of the Chieftain House at Borg measured 83 metres (272 ft) long and 9 metres (30 ft) high. The seat at Borg is estimated to have been abandoned around AD 950.
Borge church is first mentioned in written sources in a document from 1335. A church in Borge was built in 1798, rebuilt in 1877 and burned down in 1896. A new church was consecrated in 1898. That church burned down on Valentine's day in 1983. The present church was built in 1986 to replace the previous one. It doesn't quite have the historic look of the other buildings here.
It's a bit of a hike down to the water from the Chieftains house and the main museum. The museum includes the chieftain's house, a blacksmith's forge, two ships (replicas of the Gokstad ship, one in full scale size) and their boathouses, and various reenactments intended to immerse the visitor in life at the time of the Vikings.
They even had what I believe was an authentic toilet from the Viking period, because it was the grossest most disgusting bathroom I have ever seen, we spent time by the horses pooing just to get the smell out.
We were shown how the actual blacksmiths created items back in the day, and then we were trained by local Vikings in the skills of axe throwing and archery. When he pulled out his personal bow to show us how it was done, and his arrow practically went right through the target, we knew these were true warriors.
The Gokstad ship here is a replica of the ship we saw at the Viking Ship museum in Oslo, and even the boathouse is a recreation of an excavated boathouse from another Viking archaeological discovery.
Unfortunately there wasn't enough people here for us to go for a ride on the Gokstad, so we packed up our Viking helmets, our axes and bows and continued on our day.
Borga Eggum is the location of a stone fort, and Kvalhausen is the hill it is located on, which was used as a radar station by the occupying German forces during the second world war. The foundation wall around the old radar station still stands.
From the Fort/Radar we headed down the trail to explore the oceanside, the mountains, and the famous art installation.
The art installation was about the size of a human head, it was supposed to be 12 different faces as you wander around it... Described as "On the west side stands an intricate artwork by Marcus Raetz: a head looking out over the sea with the top either down or up, depending on your angle of vision." It looked like a big potato to me, for the longest time we were arguing about whether that was actually the art installation, surely there had to be something bigger (and better).
Of course no hike in Norway is complete without passing some sheep, they were much more interesting than the potato head.
We headed back to our starting point, and just in time too, right below the fort is a little snack shack and bathrooms, this is where I made the 2nd best purchase of our trip... a Chocolate covered muffin, and it was only $5 Canadian!
Our next stop was the main city in the Lofotens, Svolvær. Basically the town was shut down, and because we arrived after 3:30, we missed the Trolls fjord tours. We used just enough time to grab a quick snack and drink at a pastry shop and left.
Vågan Kirke (Lofotkatedralen), near Svolvær is the largest wooden building in Northern Norway. This has been a church site since the 12th century. Lofoten's first church was built there during the time of King Øystein Magnusson. Five or six different churches have been built on the same area of today's church over the last 900 years. The present church (nicknamed Lofoten Cathedral) was built in 1898 to be large enough to accommodate all the fishermen who came each season.
What we thought would be the last stop of our day was the small fishing village of Henningsvær. Apparently there was a short hike with amazing views, but no matter how many people we asked, we couldn't find the recommended hike.
Henningsvær is a unique village spread across multiple islands, with it's main industry being fishing, and most recently tourism.
Having covered as far North as we had time for here on the Lofotens, it was time to turn around and head back to our cabin. Of course we had to make several stops along the way for scenic viewpoints, even if it was rainy, it was still beautiful.
So when we were in Eggum looking at that god awful potato head statue, you could hike to Unstadt using the old road, we didn't do that, and decided to drive there on our way back, so glad we did. When we came out of another tunnel, we drove up to a beautiful white sand surfing beach behind a gate with an ominous sign on it...
When we translated it and realized it just said "close the gate", we went through and checked the beach out. There was surfers and boards in the parking lot, but the beach was empty. Most likely resting after 24 hours straight of daylight surfing.
If that was going to be our last stop in our self-driving tour of the Lofotens, it was a pretty great way to end it. I am pretty sure we covered everything from Å to Svolvær.
Back in our little home base town of Ballstad, we drove around trying to find a restaurant and ended up at Himmel & Havn. A little restaurant tucked away in the marina, and a table view that looked out through the rigging of a Viking ship from the LOFOTR Museum we were at earlier in the day.
Everything was traditional here, in that nothing was what you expected, not one chair matched, not one glass or utensil matched, the meals were stellar, but served in an unconventional way.
After having to try their desserts, we basically rolled home, could not recommend this restaurant more to anyone in that area.
Weather wasn't great, so we stayed inside and watched a movie instead of doing another midnight hike.
6/18
In the morning we cleaned up our cabin and since it was the only really nice day of our time here, we drove back South a bit to see what some of the mountains looked like without the fog.
after a little last minute sight-seeing it was time to head to the airport for our Flight back to Bergen. There was a stopover in Bodo again on the way, but no drama this time.
Other than a quick pit-stop in the airport, we picked up our luggage and grabbed a taxi into Bergen.
