Arctic Circle Tour - Alta to Narvik, Norway

We left our hotel in Alta after another delicious breakfast highlighting fish. My clothes were starting to get tight – but surely the fish can’t be responsible – you can never eat too much salmon.

We travelled south along the Kvaenangenfjord and Lyngenfjord in the Troms Province still north of the Arctic Circle. The weather was absolutely perfect and we were enthralled by the scenery yet again. I

don’t think our photos really reflect the beauty of a sunny day in Norway. Thankfully, John was so distracted by the magnificence he forgot about the price of beer for a short time.

Travelling along the headlands and inlets of the fjords would have taken so long in the past however now there is a lot of work being done to drill tunnels through the headlands and build bridges across the waterways reducing travelling time significantly. I think if you want a good bridge builder or tunnel maker you should look for a Norwegian engineer.

As we travelled south a lady in her late 70s discovered that she had motion sickness and the only way to lessen the impact was to sit at the front of the bus on the side with the best views (for the whole tour). How terrible for her to discover she had motion sickness AND

she was booked on a bus tour BUT there way no issue on boats or cable cars. In general we don’t agree with Sandi that bus tours are terrible however this group was particularly badly behaved.

One of the architectural features we’d seen in Finland and how in Norway was the turf roof or “torvak” in Norwegian. These were very common and are making a comeback to some degree. The roofs are covered with sod on top of several layers of birch bark (because there are plenty of birch trees) on gently sloping wooden roof boards. The sod keeps the walls draft proof and straight; it is waterproof; has insulation properties and the materials are abundant and inexpensive.

The climate is mild enough to allow successful farming and you can see hay bales ready for winter. Barns were torvak-roofed and a grassy ramp would allow delivery of the hay to the second floor. Talk

about using the terrain.

After a beautiful, mostly sunny day enjoying the scenery we drove down into Narvic and settled into Scandic Narvic Hotel. It was a high rise hotel with huge windows to see the Northern Lights. Again, despite waking up every hour whilst it was dark there was nothing to be seen.

Our friends Ric and Dawn are well travelled and have lots of tricks to get better rooms and plane seats. This time, though, the “I can’t get into the bath with my dodgy knee” didn’t work and they ended up in a very cosy (small) room tucked away with the bus drivers.

We had dinner at the hotel and a buffet breakfast in the morning – probably the best food on the tour. We visited the war museum and had the rest of the day at leisure.

Narvik is a town of about 20,000 situated on the shores of the Ofotfjorden in Northern Norway, still inside the Arctic Circle (annual mean temperature of 3.8 degrees). Whilst Vikings lived in this area it is the WWII history that is significant.

The harbour is ice-free in winter and thus strategically important to the Nazi’s who could ship out iron ore by train from Sweden to Germany. The harbour was also suitable as a submarine and warship base. The area was occupied during the war and was also the site of major naval battles. It was totally rebuilt after the war.

After this we decided to find a nice place to have lunch – the town appeared very functional with port and rail facilities dominating the town. We found a small shopping area and decided to head towards

the marina – surely there would be a restaurant or café. Alas no. We trudged through suburban streets and looked over the very unimpressive commercial marina.

Back in the shopping area we had lunch at a restaurant that cooked food selected from the fresh fish market next door. Some of our fellow tourers tried some whale – whilst we wouldn’t eat it on principle it didn’t look too appetising either – a black looking meat. Ric was excited to find a frozen box of New Zealand green lipped muscles and discussed this with the shop owner.

Next: Arctic Circle Tour – Narvik to Mo, Norway