Sat, 02 Aug 2003

author Tim	location Tromsø Camping, Tromsdalen, Troms, Norge
posted 19:37 CEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Norge ( all photos )

Around the Lofoten Islands ( 38 photos )
We got up and organised reasonably early, and headed straight down to the tip of the islands - a town called Å. Yes, just a capital "a" with a circle on top.
This was a nice enough place, most of which has been made into the Norwegian Fishing Village Museum. Choosing not to pay the official price and have the tour of things we didn't really want to know, we wandered for quite a while just looking at the old red huts built on stilts above the water and rocks, plethora of fish-drying racks, and interesting old buildings.
One of these old buildings was a bakery from 1844, where we grabbed some sweet rolls cooked in the old ovens to suppliment our earlier breakfast looking over the water on the way down.
Resisting the urge to sample the produce of Europe's oldest cod liver oil factory, we re-traced our path north, noting all the way just how harsh the scenery is, yet how people have managed to build and exist on land you would not expect them to. This is of course due to the plentyful fishing reserves all around the area.
One of the notable places we stopped into looking for an early dinner (still no Campinggas) was Henningsvær. Described in some places as 'The Venice of Lofoten', it was indeed very pretty. More so than Å, although this was at least partly due to the improvement in the weather.
After a little deliberation, we decided to eat at a café of sorts serving up an interesting menu, but we shunned the recommended local dish in favour of some rather nice chicken burgers. At the prices we are paying, we want to make sure we enjoy the food as our only meal.
Continuing the deceptively long drive North, we drove back through Svolvær where we grabbed some more cash from an ATM (lots of places don't accept foreign credit cards, notably for fuel, which is rather annoying).
The road lead us North until the road went no more at Fiskebøl, where we waited for a couple of hours for a large ferry to arrive and shuttle us across to Melbu. We relaxed with a couple of coffees as the half-hour or so ride was one of the roughest so far, which is to say not very rough at all.
From Melbu, we drove further north to Sortland, where one of our camping guides says that the caravan park has gas, but this proved to be incorrect. I think perhaps Norway in general has none of the required gas, but we have definitely seen it elsewhere.
The weather had turned great by this stage, and watching the sunset reflected across onto clouds and mountains provided some magic vistas as we drove along happily.
By now it was rather late at night, and we were thinking that our decision to eat in Henningsvær was a good one. The next decision was where to sleep - solved by the large number of people free-camping by the road, making us feel quite safe in joining them.
We pulled into a nice little area by a lake, and enjoyed a suprisingly quiet night's sleep.

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