As mentioned a few times in this blog, we made a road trip in Southern Norway one year ago with a Volkswagen Van and got an overload of landscape beauty.
This time we headed to the North of Norway to see the Northern Lights and were totally surprised: The beauty of the north even beats the one in the south and turned us to real Norway lovers.
Maybe there’s something more beautiful out there. Maybe not. At the moment we don’t know. Tell us if you know a better place. We‘re always willing to worship pretty places.
Moskenes
After a long warm-up and a picture post, this is finally the first post about our Norway road trip. We arrived on a Friday night, stayed somewhere near the airport (there are many offers on AirBnB) and headed to Moskenes the next day.
Moskenes is the name of the southernmost island in Lofoten; this region is the most famous part. Especially Reine village is in constant presence when it comes to Norway pictures. The mountains here are steep and the villages fit perfect to the scenario.
The villages here are so small; most of their streets don’t even have names. That’s why a lot of times booking an accommodation made the host sending us the GPS coordinates so you can find the place. So be prepared and bring Google Maps (or any other system) with you.
The ending –øy is something you should keep in mind. It means island and for obvious reasons, you will face it many times.
On the financial aspect: The Moskenes Island is the most expensive region of Lofoten. There aren’t many accommodations or generally speaking a lot of civilisation in this region. Therefore booking in advance at least for the main season would be a good idea.
We had the following places on our bucket list: Å i Lofoten, Sørvagen, Sakrisøy, Hamnøy and Reine. They’re well-connected by the E10 (more about it on the previous post).
Å i Lofoten
Probably the place with the coolest name. Å means ‘stream’ and is located like the other places on the eastern side of the Moskenesøy. Back in the days, people made their living with fishing. Today it’s just a Museum Village.
The Rorbuer, the traditional red fishermen’s shacks, were the prettiest here. As Å depends on tourism during the summer months, the appearance of the village is really important.
Sørvagen
We actually didn’t have Sørvagen on our radar. Buton our way back from Å, we made a coffee break here. The café is called Maren Anna and Coffee and Cake were worth the 13€. The beautiful but annoying cat was for free.
Reine
We were most excited to see Reine. First of all because of the amazing landscape. Secondly, we wanted to hike the Reinebringen. Unfortunately, over the last years so many tourists had the same idea and nature just couldn’t handle it. The local tourist information told us, they’re building a new hiking trail to the Reinebringen and it will probably open next year. Sometimes you just have bad luck.
Thank God, Reine, in general, is incredibly beautiful and we had good weather that day. Sometimes you just have luck.
Sakrisøy
This place is located between Reine and Hamnøy and actually nothing special. But this is the place where we had our accommodation. It’s called Sakrisøy Hostel, but we had one of the deluxe rooms downstairs, it doesn’t have anything to do with a hostel. It offers parking opportunities, a nice host and you can even decide whether you want a room with shared bathroom or your own.
Sakrisøy looks amazing from the opposite island (Olenilsøya), hiking the little path up. The colour of the water is incredible.
Hamnøy
And another picturesque place where nothing ever happens. There are a few accommodations here (especially Rorbuer) and restaurants. Looking, taking pictures, leaving. That’s it.
In total, we totally loved this region. We stayed at Moskenes for two nights. Depending on the number of hikes you want to make (more than one), you should plan more nights.
What bothered us a little bit: The lights were too bright in the villages to see the Northern Lights. Seeing it with the naked eye as well as on photos was hardly possible. We had to leave the villages to go to ‘darker’ places. It’s sad because otherwise, the villages would have made a perfect scenery.
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