Day 15 10 August Lofoten

This may be a natural landscape highlight of the trip. A rugged landscape but whereas settlements seem to cling to the Norwegian coast, there are areas of rolling countryside inside the coast, with several of the islands connected by bridges or underground tunnels. Here is the Viking Museum. Great sailors but limited in architectural skills when it is basically an upside-down boat.

Essentially it is an archipelago connected where possible by bridges.

There have been people living here in significant numbers since 250 BC. I hoped they liked eating cod…a lot. The scenery is spectacular, which is why it attracts over 1 million tourists a year.

There were lots of attractive flowers.

We had a 3.5-hour bus and boat tour. Our bus guide was a Frenchmen nicknamed “Nikko” the same name as his dog apparently and was quite amusing. He confirmed that when a Norwegian says it is an easy hike, you need to take equipment and food for three days. Our German guide had told us the same thing, that physically it was the most difficult thing he has ever had to do. Our French guide also told us that there are only two types of bus drivers in Norway, good ones or dead ones.

 Apparently, the cattle here are able to produce so much milk in summer that their udders drag on the ground. The solution is to have them wear a harness. Apparently, it was mistranslated for a French group as a brassiere. A case of Victoria-moo Secret.

It seems they are Highland cattle that are very cute (not that we saw any). There are meant to be more sheep than people here, but we only saw six sheep today, so I am not sure. About 25,000 people live in Lofoten which is a result of the warm Gulf Stream current making it warmer than the rest of the Norwegian coastline.

Our boat journey was rough at times, not too bad but the picture does not do it justice and we saw several people hell bent on falling over, luckily that did not happen. 

On the boat there was a Spanish marine biologist doing his master's research into Norwegian coral reefs and he does this and diving with tourists as a side gig. Surprisingly they have some beaches here and a windsurfer, well and truly above the Arctic Circle (who was hurtling along).

 

The marine biologist told us they have kelp forests here that are attacked by bastards (his words not mine) which apparently must be the scientific name for sea urchins. Still haven’t seen a puffin, let alone eaten one.

 

Our ship nestled in amongst the landscape.

We had a talk onboard about the Sami who are the indigenous people of the north. It was very good and heartbreaking as they treated them the same way as indigenous peoples around the world…terribly.

They gave us lots of things, skis, reindeer sleds, costumes for elves. They have over 300 words for snow. Of course, reindeer are the only deer where both male and female grow horns. The females grow then after giving birth to protect their young and the males lose them. That means that all of Santa's reindeers at Christmas are females. Another example of females always doing the heavy lifting!