Holiday to Norway and Sweden 2016 Days 5 & 6

 

I don’t know how long this link will stay live for now the holiday is over, but it gives full details of the holiday from Ffestiniog Travel. click HERE

 

 

Day 5 Svolvær

A leisurely start today as due to the MS Polarlys being in dry dock we would be taking the high speed catamaran ferry to Svolvær and this does 30 Kts so a much shorter time onboard and later departure at 1600 hrs. We had to be back at the hotel for a buffet lunch at 3 pm., again paid for by Hurtigruten as compensation.

We spent the morning wandering around a very snowy town

We arrived at Svolvær at 9 pm where a coach was waiting to take us to our hotel. Richard the tour leader went to find the coach and driver while we waited on the quayside, while he was away the coach driver appeared from the opposite direction and wanted us to go to the coach, but we felt it better to wait for Richard to return first. The Rica Hotel stands on a very small island a few hundred yards by water from where the ferry docked but about 15 minutes by road. You can see across to the harbour from our hotel in this photo.

At 10pm another coach arrived with a local guide  to take us out of town to see the Northern Lights and we were very lucky to see a spectacular show. Unfortunately the compact camera we had with us was not able to photograph them, but hopefully the guide will be sending us copies of the ones he took and I will add them when they arrive. After the first sighting had faded we went to the other side of the mountains where we managed to see another display returning to our hotel at about half past midnight. I have finally received the photos of the Northern Lights, one shows us all standing in front of the lights, for the photo we were illuminated by a quick sweep of a LED torch.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 6 Tour to Lofotr and Henningsvær Ferry to Tromsø

A gentle start for a coach excursion to the Viking Museum followed by a visit to Henningsvær.

The first photographs are from our coach trip to the Lofotr Museum. One of the interesting points on the journey was the bridge between the islands which looked more like a ski slope than a road bridge.

This is the largest wooden church in the islands

The museum has a visitor centre which shows a video and an area with artefacts  with all the information via hi tech headsets.

Museum visitor centre

Up the hill from the visitor centre they have built a replica Viking Chieftain House, this is modelled on one they excavated in 1983 and stands a few meters away from it. This is a very large building some 83 meters long and 10 meters high.

Once inside the replica Viking Chieftain House we were shown several  replica  items of tools and a chieftains chair. There was also a selection of dried fish hanging around the place.

After this the Queen invited us to stay for lunch, this was a lamb stew cooked in a cauldron over an open fire. There was no chimney above the fire and the smoke went straight up through a hole in the roof. The stew was served with bread and there was also mead to drink as well as water.

After this we continued by coach to Henningsvær a very pretty fishing village on two islands connected at one end by a causeway. Access to the islands is via a slender single lane bridge in the bottom left corner of the aerial photograph below.

Our journey to the island was quite dramatic with snow covered roads and mountains plus slender concrete bridges that are all high enough for boats to pass under.

 

As we arrived at the village it started snowing heavily so we adjourned to one of the many cafés for coffee and cake until it abated. We then had a pleasant couple of hours wandering round taking photos.

We headed back to our hotel  and had a wander round the area taking a few photos. This area is famous for its dried fish which is dried in the open air on these wooden racks. They also do a lot of rod fishing from here and there was a steady flow of boats coming and going. In this area land has been reclaimed from the sea by putting large rocks along the coast

We returned to the hotel for diner and then collected our luggage before catching the bus again that would take us back the to ferry terminal, here we waited for the Hurtigruten  MV Vasteralen to dock. This was to be our home for the next 18 hrs as we made our way north to Tromsø. We had an outside cabin on level C which meant we had a non opening porthole, we also had two single bunks, one above the other, and an en-suite toilet & shower. Included in the cruise was breakfast and lunch the next day. All boarding and disembarkation was recorded by a bar code pass that also operated the cabin door lock and could be used in the bar etc to charge drinks' to the cabin.

Click here for Day 7 Tromsø