The Lofoten Islands

August 2022

One week and 3000 km ahead of us. Already with the locations pinpointed in our maps, we anyways knew this was for sure going to be one adventure of a kind – when it comes to Norway, you never know how the plans will change.

We drove all the way from Finland, crossing the wide and green valleys covered with rivers of Sweden. Welcomed by rain and darkness, we finally crossed the border to Norway. It was tempting, but we barely stoped until reaching Lofoten, as we already knew exciting things were waiting for us.

As we finally made it to the western side of the islands during the evening, and the weather looked nice, we figured we could just as well go for a hike. Even though we were tired from all the driving, the sun was setting and the wind was calm, so we basically saw ourselves in the perfect situation to go for a short hike.

The hike was longer than expected, and in a matter of minutes we suddenly were trapped by the long mountain shadows brought by the setting sun behind them. It was still a slow sunset, as the midnight sun had just ended a couple of weeks earlier. The blue hour covered the whole set, and the wind started to catch up, holding us back from completing the hike. Even so, we managed to observe the mountain ranges that surrounded us.

It was indeed a good first day in the Lofoten Islands. Managed to go on an evening hike, met a sweet Norwegian couple that told us we were lucky with the weather, and enjoyed some sunset views almost at the top while being pulled and pushed by the strong Norwegian winds.

We continued going on hikes as much as the weather would allow us. Something that really impressed me about Lofoten was the amount of wildlife. I already had low expectations when it came to spotting wildlife here, as I knew the islands are usually very crowded especially during the summer time, but I was wrong, and of course super happy. It’s hard to estimate how many sheep we saw during this trip, but I was super thrilled when we started spotting eagles, otters, and even a weasel on its summer brown coat.

But of course we are speaking about Norway, so rainy days were more than expected. Nevertheless, this did not make the scenery any worse, rainbows appeared behind random mountains, and sun rays made their way through the clouds.

If I have to chose one moment from the whole trip, it would be this one: we had been waiting to go to this specific spot to spend the night. We were looking forward to it as it is a bit away from the crowd in Lofoten, and it is the perfect spot for those late evening, early morning mountain views from inside the camper van. The weather that day had been quite random, ending with a partially covered sky during sunset, brightening up the whole landscape at the beach. The scenery reminded me of a painting, and quite rarely a picture makes justice of the real version of the place. It was windy, the waves were crashing on the shore, and the seagulls were hunting, but I could only feel peace standing on the beach, admiring the slowly shape-changing clouds, and the sun steadily hiding behind the horizon.

There are way too many memories from this trip to be able to show and tell them all here, and I feel like this journal does not really portray the real feel and look of the trip. Even though it makes me not be satisfied with the end result, this is okay, as the best memories will always stay with us. In the meantime enjoy a couple of pictures from our way back to Finland, when we spotted two moose!