Ferry to Lofoten

We got up quite early this day. We needed to catch ferry at 6am, otherwise we would be stuck in Bodø till 10am and then needed more than 3 hours to get to Lofoten. That would ruin our planning because we needed to pass about 300km in Lofoten. With many planned (hoped for) stops that would be realy bad.

Thus we got up soon enough to avoid any possible queue in the port. We even skipped breakfast, that does not happen often to me. But there should be enough time to grab some bite on ferry.

Well, as it turned out we were there as 2nd car and queue never occured. Most people at ferry were German tourists using their bus. But that does not mean that you should underrate potential of not getting into this ferry at time you planned!

I haven't shown any photos from Bodø in last post. I am going to fix it - followig 2 photos show Bodø from ferry.

After 3 hours we are approaching Lofoten. All hope for nice weather is over.

Moskenes

Our ferry reached Moskenes. We could see more colours now, but still it is loooong way from what Lofoten can offer.

Lofoten consists from several islands, I do not know names of them all, and I do not care much. But I know Moskenes is at island Moskenesøy. It was not so hard to remember, I guess :-)

Ferry that brought us here. Thank you ferry! :-)

OK, I am going to confess now. Since I've seen photo sold by IKEA with boat on it I wanted to take photos with boats. Norway allowed me to fulfill this dream plenty of times. Not the last time here though :-)

Å

I am tired of long names. Since this moment I will use only those short like this! Don't worry, just kidding :-)

Å is the southest village on road E10, you need to turn around and go back. But that should not discourage to come here! Å deserves any attention and attention of photograper at least twice as much! Judge yourself.

Just proof I did not make it up

Cods are dried on these racks. I do not miss its smell, but photo would be better if we came in season (winter I believe, or was it winter during Vikings times?)

Short stop on the road to Reine

Reine

If you have seen photos of Reine with nice weather... they would be nicer than mine :-( But we got bit of sunshine and it helped tremendously.

This is probably not Reine, but it is very close to it. So I leave it here.

Ramberg & Flakstad

Ramberg & Flakstad are two beautiful beaches with white sand. If we had blue sky it could be quite hard to guess they are above Polar Circle.

We stopped here for lunch in local restaurant next to camp. Sympathetic staff, tasty meals. Only problem was we came too soon before daily menu was ready and it looked very promising. So I ended with local specialty - dried cod in tomato sauce. As I said before it was tasty.

People really went to water. I would not!

Nusfjord

Old fishing vilage turned to museum while still drying and processing cod. Museum approach is manifested in necessity to shell out 50 NOK (to get ticket with printed price 30 NOK!).

Because we are addicted to red wooden houses (rorbuer) now we do not mind to pay :-)

Those strange things is dried cod. House next to this is full of them and quite unpleasant odor is reeking through open door. Fortunatelly tourists are forbidden to get in (otherwise we would ;-) )

Harstad

After leaving Nusfjord we are only driving, no stopping. Our navigator is not aware of one new tunnel and suggests we need to use another ferry. So there is reason to avoid stops if possible. Still we came to hostel in Harstad quite late.

Good impression from Lofoten is gone after dealing with young lady in hostel. She was not aware of 15% discount for Hostelling International members (we are not surprised with this anymore), but after asking if we could pay less because we have to leave before provided breakfast tomorrow she agrees and asks if discount 40 NOK is OK. Hell, no! Breakfast for one person is 60 NOK and we are 3! Does she play dumb or is she?