Arctic summer-Prologue

This is a story about a trip that happened not so long ago in a land not so far away. Far too long have we been dreaming of walking the Norwegian wilderness and breathing strong, northern air, hiking mountains of alluring mystery and myth, sleeping under a starless sky, where midnight is lit not by the Moon but by the never-dying Sun. It is a story about nature, beautiful people, cities big and small, villages and the unpredictable.

Like many other occasions, our trip started in our imagination but soon took shape when we decided to buy train tickets. As legends go, Norway is an extremely expensive country so we had to act carefully not to go bankrupt after only one week. The cheapest option, considering our plans, was to buy a national interrail ticket, usable for 6 days in a month. For the record, this is probably the best solution if you want to cover a large distance, no matter the country you travel to.

In the end we used only 3 days of travelling out of the 6 but we still managed to save a lot of money.

At first, our plan included reaching the North Cape, a bit of hiking in Lofoten Islands and even more hiking in Jotunheim National Park, all in one week. The conclusion was: not in our wildest dreams. It was simply not feasible because the distances are too great to be traveled in such a short time. From the starting point, Oslo, to Bodø, where we had to take the ferry to Lofoten, the distance is approx. 1200 km. Since we traveled by train, the total travel time was around 17 hours, split into 2 days. From Oslo to Alta, where there are connection to the North Cape, there are 1800 km but the train goes only up to Bodø and from here you have to take a bus which adds another 2 days to your journey. So, 4 days (one way) spent on the road didn't sound very realistic so we settled "only" with Lofoten Islands.  

The trip to Oslo was relatively calm although 2 days before our departure, of all countries, Norway was the target for a terrorist threat which apparently caused a lot of stress for the Norwegian authorities. When we entered the country, there was police and television (in charge with spreading panic and fueling mass hysteria) discretely checking passengers for "unusual and potentially dangerous behavior". Luckily, our stay in Oslo was short, in other words, we took the first train north to get the hell out of there. Our first day on the road ended in the small town of Lillehammer.

We arrived here on a Saturday, at midnight. There were few scattered people, finding their way, probably home, after a long, long night out. Since the town is not that big we were soon in the outskirts, looking for a place to camp. We found a decent space near the Olympic park and quickly camped before anyone could say otherwise. 

Now, we managed to get some good 2 hours of sleep before someone politely knocked at our tent door, cheerfully shouting "police, police". We slowly opened our eyes and the tent to discover that the voices belonged to two teenagers in search for "a fix". One thing to know about Norway is that "modern" prohibition is actively implemented throughout the country, meaning that after 17:00 it is forbidden to buy strong alcohol in any supermaket, except bars and pubs, which are very expensive even for Norwegians. Our brave ambassadors of Norwegian youth were in fact looking to buy some alcohol from us, at a rather insulting price of only 50 NOK. Unfortunately for them, since we had just landed in the country, we were not carrying any alcohol  and we were not in the chatting mood either. They soon gave up any attempts and zig-zaged away, singing carelessly.

We tried to go back to sleep but now there was too much light. Already at this latitude we got a glimpse of how short nights are and that soon we will have big problems with sleeping. We started packing, had a quick breakfast and headed towards the town center.

 How the town seemed that morning

 It was not a good day for photography so we just wandered through the small streets until we realized that there is nothing else to see.

 Wall paintings

Small as it is, Lillehammer is best known for being the organizing town of the winter Olympics in 1994 and the future host for the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics. For us, it had nothing interesting to offer, except a place to camp over night. We moved on, taking the train to Trondheim, our next pit-stop on the way to Lofoten Islands.