Lofoten Pictures: Part I

This is a view of one of the islands of Lofoten from the ferry--at this point, I have no idea which island, but I loved this photo's dreamy look so much that I decided to post it and admit my ignorance!
This is the village of Sorvagen, where we rented a fishing cabin. The village was charming, the cabin was adorable...I felt like I was standing inside a postcard througout the whole vacation!

The weather was quite chilly and overcast the first couple of days we were there, but we channeled our inner Vikings and braved the elements! We went on a few gorgeous hikes--this was the view just steps from our cabin door:

And this was the view once we reached the top of a huge mountain...I mean, ahem, a medium-sized hill:

We had reserved a car...that was, um, interesting. First, we called the woman at the car rental shop. She gave us directions and told us we could walk there. After walking quite a distance and seeing no car rental business (or any other business) we hailed a cab. It's a good thing we did, because the shop was still several miles (and one long, dark tunnel) away. (I think that anyone giving directions needs to realize that just because it is technically possible to walk somewhere does not necessarily mean that it is a good idea!)

When we arrived, we realized that the business wasn't so much a Hertz or an Avis, but a fish shop specializing in dried fish (torskfisk) and whale meat which happened to have one ancient 2 door Nissan with 250,000 kilometers for hire. We were all feeling cheerful and adaptable (not so adaptable that we were willing to sample whale meat, though!) so we piled in and drove off to explore the archipelago.

There are some gorgeous North Sea beaches throughout Lofoten. This one in the picture below is called Brunstrand. As beautiful and inviting as it was, it was also very cold. People do travel to Lofoten to surf and in August the water warms up enough to swim, but mid-June is far too early in the season to do much more than stick a toe in, squeak and run away!

This is the town of Eggum. We were told at the tourism office that we should definitely check it out, as there is some crazy statue of a head there that is really worth seeing. The town is tiny, we drove through it a couple of times, and we never saw any kind of cranial sculpture. Oh well, the drive was beautiful, the town was picturesque and the Nissan chugged along without incident, so no complaints!

On the drive back to our cabin, we passed this building with a flock of sheep grazing on the roof. How did they get up there? Is it possible that they climbed the ladder? Even the sheep in Norway seem hardier and more rugged than their American counterparts!

There really isn't a good way to explain how amazing this vacation was. Yes, the pictures are nice, yes, I can recount little anecdotes here and there, but I just can't recapture the crazy joy of this trip. Michele and Victoria are a couple of the funniest people I have ever met, and we all got along so well. I can't remember the last time I have laughed so hard for 5 days straight. We're talking about taking a vacation together next year too, maybe to Paris. I can't wait, but in the meantime I have so many awesome memories to savor. Like our trip to the bird cliffs...I have lots more photos to post, so stay tuned!