Travel memories: Lofoten Islands (Northern Norway)
This was one of the most beautiful places I probably visited. An archipelago, north of the Arctic circle, at the end of the world, with settlements with such surrealistic names, such as “Å”...
The setting is quite spectacular: you board a ferry in Bodo and head towards the archipelago. During the crossing the shark-tooth-like ridge start appearing on the horizon falling straight into the water. As if geology had created this archipelago yesterday...
This landscape, you find it everywhere, even though there are a few settlements here and there, and these famous rorbu, the fishermen's houses. Even though many of these houses have been reconverted into nice bed and breakfast, some of them are still used and you can still see the cod drying on wooden constructions.
There are not so many roads on the archipelago, but you can still follow some unpaved road without any signs. That's what I did back in 2011. At the very end of one road, that's what I had stumbled upon.
The mountains are surrounded by water, everywhere. There are some places where you may easily feel on a paradisiac island (which it is) with clear beautiful warm water.
This is only an impression, though...
And, as this is Norway, you have a constitutional right to sleep anywhere you want in the wild and thus enjoy some unbelievable landscape that makes you feel like the luckiest person on earth.
And as it is so much up north, the sun never really sets. But wildlife, for some reason, feels as though it is night and you cannot really see them. And this is how I saw a beautiful couple of foxes, playing a few yards away from the tent for quite a while, before disappearing as discreetly as they had come.
To be continued in 2020...