Norway: amazing Lofoten

Do you know Lofoten? Have you ever heard the them? I’ll be honest with you – until recently the name was a mystery to me as well. I guess you haven’t heard about it either.:) There’s so many well known travel destinations that we dream about going to. What’s more, we usually dream of going to hot countries as the weather in Poland is rarely stable and the sky is often gray. We dream of white sandy beaches, palm trees and turquoise water. About long baths in the ocean. About Maldives, The Caribbean or Seychelles. In the meantime, a few months ago, I started dreaming of going to Lofoten…. And Łukasz quickly followed…

Inspiration came from “Twój Styl” magazine… I was randomly shuffling through one of the summer issues in my car when I came upon the “Travel” section with a feature about Lofoten. I don’t even remember what they wrote about and didn’t manage to find the issue even though I looked for it a lot. I only remembered some basic information and most of all, amazing pictures. Lofoten is a more than 100 km long archipelago on Norwegian Sea north of the Arctic Cirle. Tiny islands, amazing hills sticking right from the ocean sometimes green with numerous plants, sometimes raw and snowy. Add little, colourful houses and you’ll get the idea that time has stopped in Lofoten. And that’s what I dreamed about. Even though I rarely get such inspirations from articles read in some magazine. But still, I put it on our travel dreams list. You have one? Ours is constantly changing – we cross something out and add even more destinations because each year it turns out that there is still so much to see. If you don’t have such list – make it! It’s always worth dreaming, you know:)

Henningsvaer – fishermen’s village

rorbuers – wooden houses on poles that practically stick out of the sea

charming, colourful houses

Our travel dream about Lofoten came true faster than we thought. We didn’t even expect it when in the middle of February we got an invitation from The Nrowegian Seafood Council (NSC) that promotes fish and seafood from Norway around the world (easy to guess :)). At first we were supposed to go to Tromso, 350 North of the Arctic Cirle, that’s sometimes called “The gateway to the Arctic”. It already made us excited! Wow, Norway and the Arctic Circle – we haven’t been there yet! And delicious fish! You know that we love fish so much that we sometimes leave Poland for a few days just to taste some delicious fish and seafood! But we got even more excited when we heard the name Lofoten! Even my grandmother who is usually against leaving Maks at grandparents while we fly a plane together (you know the story about the president and the prime minister not being supposed to fly a plane together? :)) understood and knew that we just had to go there! 🙂

not that far, isn’t it? 🙂

Going to Lofoten from Warsaw isn’t easy. For us it was 8 flights in 3 days! You may think it’s not worth it. Well IT IS, even if we had to fly a hundred times! Warsaw – Copenhagen – Oslo – Bodø -Svolgvær – not that long (7 hours) but it was 4 flights! Not for the faint-hearted. Especially the last 20-minute flight on a little plane that can drive you close to heart attack if it gets too windy. Fortunately, the weather was great! Blue sky and winter sun welcomed us in Svolvær, the main harbour and the biggest “city” in Lofoten. “City” because the biggest village has 5 thousand citizens, and whole Lofoten around 24 thousand. We were quite lucky as during winter sea storms and other rather unpleasant weather conditions are something common. In the summer the greenness of the hills is supposed to be particularly amazing as well as the polar day lasting from June to the half of July. It’s also a bit scary as so many tourist come in this period that little streets in the fishermen’s villages are completely filled with cars. March is ideal: it’s cold but not freezing (0-3 degrees), beautiful, and there isn’t too many tourists around… Actually during our 3 day stay we only encountered fishermen around!

fishing boats – a common landscape element

mysterious and quiet Henningsvaer village

When your tiny plane lands on a tiny airport in Svolvær situated among hills and the Norwegian Sea waters you get the feeling that suddenly, a few hours after flying from Warsaw you’ve found yourself in a mysterious, calm and hidden world. In a world of nature, fishermen, cod, salmon and fairy-tale-like houses (rorbuer), that usually look as if they have “grown” out of the water! Suddenly you get yourself thinking that even though you have seen a lot, the charm and beauty of Lofoten hits you hard. The nature, mountains, nature-friendly life cycle, the variety of fish, the wild are all amazing… The rocks and the sun setting over the little red houses. The silence around when we go for our dinner. The eagle right next to our boat when we go rafting. Bending bridges that connect the neighbouring islands which is quite important as many villages (including Henningsavaer where we stay) are located on a few little islands. “Our” island got its bridge in 1981 and therefore it still looks like a little independent world that is completely unfamiliar to us! Henningsvaer has only 403 citizens! 🙂 There’s pretty much no shops, a tiny restaurant called Lofotmat, to which we will invite you later on. There’s a Lofoten museum, where you can find paintings depicting everyday life on the islands years and centuries ago, a introductory film and some souvenirs to buy – I want to buy a usual gift for Maks – a teddy bear – but Norwegian prices blow me down. I give up – there’s 3 seals and one polar bear living in our house and Maks doesn’t care if they come from Lofoten or Smyk shop in Galeria Mokotów shopping mall in Warsaw. 🙂

afternoon in Henningsvaer

Norwegian Sea and wild nature

amazing sunset on the sea

Henningsvaer, fishermen's village, Lofoten, Norway

in our little fishermen’s village… the boat delivers us right to our hotel

What can you do in Lofoten? I heard you can go scuba diving or rock climbing (we’ve seen some brave ones do it!). You can also go rafting on Norwegian Sea or participate in cod fishing and eat local specialties (like we did)… But beware: if you don’t like fish, don’t bother coming to Lofoten!! 🙂 For all fish eaters (like us) Lofoten is a place from a dream…. Salmon, cod prepared in thousand different ways, skrei (Norwegian wild cod), even cod roe (I didn’t think I would like it, but it turned out to be amazing, especially with cream and red onions)… and a delicious and delicate fish soup that makes an ideal warming meal after a few hours spent on a boat… Feel your mouth watering? There’s even more to come in our culinary entry… 🙂 In the meantime, check our Norwegian Sea rafting pictures! 🙂