Today we are heading south from Tromso to the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago off the coast of Northern Norway. Our 3 hour ferry ride is at 7am which is a great shame as we didn’t get to see any of the scenery along the way due to it being dark the whole time. We arrive and it is snowing again, which Abbie and Ella still can’t get enough of. We catch a bus to the airport and pick up a rental car for the next couple of days.

Ahead of us now lays a 2 1/2 hour drive in the snow, in the dark and on the wrong side of the road. Our luggage only just fits but we get going towards Svolvær where our accomodation will be a traditional fishing cabin called a rorbu. The road is quite narrow in places and there are a lot of trucks and buses. Amy constantly complains that I am driving her off the road and into the snow bank, but some time later we make it to our accommodation. The cabin is right on the water along with several others. They are all painted red and are old but cozy and really nice, it is finally good to have a wood fire again.

With a car the next day we had some freedom to explore, so we head south. There is only about 3-4 hours of twilight here so we can’t drive too far if we want to get some photos. So we head to a place called Henningsvær and it is spectacular, a small series of islands connected by bridges jutting out into the ocean. We find a nice cafe to stop at and have coffee, along with a cinnamon and custard pastry. The girls want one every time we stop anywhere, and I don’t mind them either.

We head back with some more photos on the way of course as it is starting to get dark. We decide on the way that we would try for the northern lights again on our own that night. The forecast is good for the weather so I study the map to try and find somewhere looking north to see them. We come up with a plan, and after dinner rug up again and hit the road. The girls are a little tired of all this so they take pillows and sleep in the car on the way. We look at a couple of spots and there are far too many lights and houses so we keep going and find a spot looking over the fjord and out to the ocean a little. The forecast was for clear sky but turns out to be some cloud about. We decide to give it until 10pm and then head home if we see nothing. It is getting on and we think we can see some green in the sky but it is so cloudy that we decide to call it and head home. After about 10 minutes towards home the sky starts to clear so we stop and I take another shot and the sky starts lighting up bright green. I take another shot then decide to head back to our original spot. There is still some cloud but the show starts first to the left where we thought we had seen it before. Next it starts to come from the right from the top of a mountain. This one we can see green with the naked eye, it is spectacular, but if the sky had been clear then it would have been something else. We are not too concerned, we have seen the northern lights twice within the week, and this is something not many people get to experience, even in their lifetime.

This very nicely concludes our trip to the Lofoten Islands and to Northern Norway. Tomorrow we drive 2 1/2 hours back to the airport and fly back to Oslo to head for the Flåm railway and Bergen for Christmas. The Lofoten Islands are a very special place, amazing scenery at every turn with snow capped mountains and fjords. You could easily spend weeks in a van driving from one end to the other and still not see everything. This place is definitely going back on the wish list for another time. The days are short and it is beyond cold but it was worth every second.