Sweden – Finland – Norway

Summer 2015, the yak set out to explore his new northern territories.

So for our family and friends, here is a bit of photos and text from Sweden, Finland and Norway.

……………..

SWEDEN

……………..

First, we crossed southern Sweden. We drove through nice Swedish forests and beautiful midsummer fields of wild flowers, stayed overnight by a nice lake and finally arrived to Stockholm. Here it is Gamla Stan – the old town of Stockholm.

We went to see the Vasa Museum – impressive and scary!

Then we ate very nice Swedish food under a big chestnut tree.

And then we took the ferry across to Finland in fine weather through the beautiful “Skærgården”.

It was possible to stay outside and enjoy the sun setting veeerrryyyy slowly while drinking 3 gin tonics…then it got too cold and we had to go inside. The sun was still shining. 

……………..

FINLAND

……………..

We arrived to Turku in pouring rain, had a coffee in a quiet gas station and drove to Helsinki. Helsinki is fantastic! Weather you like architecture, art museums, shopping for vintage finnish design stuff or just to walk the streets randomly to explore a bit, Helsinki is really nice!

The train station is impressive! Just like a proper train station should be. A travellers temple. It makes you want to jump on the night train to somewhere. 

In Helsinki we ate vorschmack, reindeer steak and small fried fishes, drank a wide selection of finnish beers and enjoyed a lot to cycle around the city while Frida rested a little bit.

Here eating the vorschmack in the famous Sea Horse restaurant.

And here the small fried fishes with mashed potatos and lingonberries – a summer-time delicacy.

From Helsinki we drove north through the lake-land of Finland and further up into Lapland. We were trying to catch the “arctic high pressure weather system” but it seemed that the arctic high pressures had moved much further north for the summer…. It rained and it rained and it rained…

As we crossed the arctic circle, traffic got a bit slow…

Way up north we found a nice place to sleep. But it was still raining…

A bit of blauburgunder and parmesan to cheer things up… Poor…! Why didn’t we go to Spain???

Here the view just around midnight at a short pause in the rain. 

The best things about Finland are 1) Helsinki and 2) the Fins. The Fins are very nice people – and not so politically correct as the swedish 😉

Finland reminded us a bit of both Japan and Russia….! Japan, because Finland is just very Finnish in the same way that Japan is very Japanese. And both countries are very clean, no garbage, public toilets are nice (and for free) and the locals are kind and helpful to strangers like us. Russia, because Finland (outside Helsinki) is full of trees! It is like a small (very small) Siberia without garbage.

……………..

NORWAY

……………..

We drove up through Finnish Lapland, exited Finland at the northeastern corner and entered Norway. First destination Kirkenes, just a few kilometres from the Russian border and Murmansk. It was late in the day but we were eager to stretch our legs a bit so we made a quick walk up to Øretoppen, a small insignificant top in a remote corner of Norway but wow, Norway is just beautiful! Beautiful, wild and rough.

—————-

KIRKENES and THE NORTH COAST

Kirkenes is interesting in its own very quiet way…but there is basically nothing to see.

Marco tried to have a haircut but after trying all the 3 hairdressers in Kirkenes he was offered an appointment only on 6 July = 10 days later. Makes you think…maybe there is more to Kirkenes than meets the eye? Kirkenes is also a shopping destination for Russians so there were lots of “border shops” selling everything from furniture, clothes and shoes to different kinds of food, beauty products and a lot of home brewing equipment.

We forgot to show you what Frida looks like when she is packed for a small 3-week road trip like this one……here is the situation after one week, already some inventions had to be made!

From Kirkenes we drove west along the coast towards Nordkapp, the North Cape. The views were fantastic and we even had some sunshine! The first since…..well we can’t remember when!

—————-

THE NORTH CAPE and KNIVSKJELLODDEN

Driving Lucio to the North Cape – he was very excited!

North Cape (Nordkapp) is actually not the northernmost point of mainland Europe. It is just the most spectacular. The northernmost point is Knivskjellodden, just west of the North Cape. To reach Knivskjellodden is a 9 km walk from the road. For this reason you are most likely going to be more or less alone once you reach the northernmost point of Europe. Quite a different experience from the North Cape.

Reindeer along the way to Knivskjellodden.                  

Off to the end of the world (almost).

Also here, the gummistøvle! North Cape in the background.        

At the tip of everything! Of course it was raining once we made it there but it was still an incredible feeling to be all alone at the northern tip of Europe – and as we were standing there on the rocks in the rain we saw both whales and seals in the waters just off the coast. What a present! It is the North Cape in the distance.

Making the obligatory photos at the cairn.

Fortunately we could check into the Scandic hotel in Honningsvåg the same evening. Time to dry some clothes and take a shower…

The next morning we drove up to the proper North Cape tourist destination….in the beginning we couldn’t even see where to go from the parking lot! The whole cape was covered in a thick cloud and it was raining aaaaaaa loooooottt!

Finally it cleared up enough to see which direction to go and we got the obligatory picture at the North Cape with the globe 😉

We are starting to understand why people are speaking about the “white nights” instead of the “midnight sun” because we haven’t seen much of either the midnight or midday sun!!!

—————-

On the way to TROMSØ – MIDNIGHT SUN and PØLSER

From North Cape we drove towards Tromsø on the west coast. The weather was really no surprise…

It cleared up a bit as we moved further west and we had some fantastic view along the way. Norway is just beautiful, in rain or in sunshine (but camping is definitely easier in sunshine).

We took one of the small ferries across the fjords. Here Marco is checking the situation before departure… 

…and we had the “pølse” onboard!             

We found a really nice place for Frida to sleep.

And a nice place for the parents of Frida and Lucio to drink a glass of wine and to watch the colours change as the hours passed and midnight approached. 

Finally a glimpse of the midnight sun!          

Panorama view from our camp site – 10 pm at night, midnight and early morning:

First time Lucio experiences the midnight sun!

—————-

TROMSØ

We have arrived to Tromsø and found a paradise for mountaineering! Here is Tromsø:

We chose to climb the Tromsdalstinden, just outside Tromsø, 1238 m high and a beautiful mountain. Here Tromsdalstinden in 1885 and in 2015:

It would have been possible to go with the skis – even now on 1 july – but we went just by foot. A very nice trip!

—————-

LOFOTEN ISLANDS

From Tromsø we drove further south to the Lofoten islands. By now our lunch had become very norwegian with extra dark myse-ost (grandmothers recipe), multesyltetøj and potetbrød!

When we arrived to Lofoten it was raining (of course) but Lofoten was also beautiful in the rain…

We found a nice camp site…

…and the next morning the weather had improved. We went to the Justadalstindan.

When we returned back to our beach campsite, the yak had a bath in the sea! It was VERY cold.

The evening was beautiful…

The next day we went to Himmeltinden, we surprised a small sheep family on the way.

We had beautiful views to the islands Flagstadøya and Moskenesøya to the south.

The next day we drove to Moskenesøya, probably the most spectacular of the Lofoten islands.

They are producing a lot of “tørfisk” – dried fish – and the smell is easy to recognize.

Tørfisk ready for shipment.

We took off with the tent and sleeping bags to climb the highest mountain in West Lofotoen, the Hermannsdalstinden at 1029 m. It was an unusually beautiful day when we hiked up.

Here it is Hermannsdalstinden with the small red Munkebu hut to the far right.

The weather was so fantastic that we decided to go all the way to the top immediately.

At the top!                             

On the way down, we could enjoy the views in the early evening light.

Looking back up at the peak Hermannsdalstinden.

Finally at 8 o’clock in the night we could set up the tent and drink a nice bottle of rose wine!

Hermannsdalstinden with almost midnight sun.