Tromsø and the Lofoten Islands in winter

At the end of February 2019, we spent nine days travelling through northern Norway.

The main objective was simple.

We wanted to see the Northern Lights.

The trip began in Tromsø, far above the Arctic Circle.

A dog-sledding excursion was planned for the first few days, but the weather had other ideas.

The first trip was cancelled.

Then the second one was cancelled too.

So instead of dog sledding, we went snowshoeing.

First above the fjord at Ersfjordbotn, and later from the top of the Fjellheisen cable car, with Tromsø, the mountains and the fjords spread out below us.

From Tromsø to the Lofoten Islands on the Hurtigruten

After two days, we boarded the Hurtigruten coastal ship at midnight and began travelling south.

We hadn’t booked a cabin.

After exploring the ship for a while, we slept as well as we could on the seats in one of the lounges.

The following morning made up for it.

Mountains and fjords passed continuously outside the windows, and we even had the sauna and the outdoor hot tub at the back of the ship almost entirely to ourselves.

We left the ship in the Vesterålen archipelago and continued towards the Lofoten Islands by car.

Another excursion, this time to look for whales from Andenes, was cancelled because of bad weather.

But when we reached Svolvær, there was finally some good luck.

Watching the Northern Lights in the Lofoten Islands

Our accommodation, a converted fisherman’s rorbu, was enormous: two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a fireplace.

And outside, in the car park, we spotted our first Northern Lights appearing through gaps in the cloud.

The following day, we travelled by RIB boat towards the Trollfjord to look for sea eagles.

Then, in the late afternoon, we reached Henningsvær.

For the first time, the sky was properly clear.

We immediately headed back outside and found a spot beside a fjord, with mountains behind us.

At first, pale white shapes appeared in the sky.

Clouds or aurora?

Then the light grew stronger and gradually turned green.

For much of the evening, the Northern Lights appeared and disappeared above the mountains.

Some lasted only a few seconds.

Others seemed to move across the sky.

At one point, we even saw traces of purple.

By the time we returned to Henningsvær, every supermarket had closed.

We found a pizza and went back to the hotel, where the aurora was still visible directly from the bedroom window.

By the following morning, the landscape had changed again.

Heavy snow had covered the village and strong wind was blowing across the harbour.

We ate breakfast inside while watching the weather, then eventually decided to go out.

Henningsvær is built across several tiny rocky islands linked by bridges.

We followed the canal as fishing boats returned to harbour.

This was also where we first saw the enormous wooden racks used to dry cod throughout the Lofoten Islands.

The fishermen unload the fish and hang them by hand.

Some racks hold the bodies.

Others are covered only in fish heads.

And the smell becomes a fairly memorable part of the landscape.

Then we reached the place that has made Henningsvær famous in countless aerial photographs: its football pitch.

The pitch sits on a rocky islet that seems barely larger than the playing field itself.

There are a few metres of bare rock around the edges.

Then the sea.

From ground level, it’s already unusual.

From above, it’s obvious why the place has become so famous.

There’s something slightly absurd about seeing a perfectly marked football pitch sitting there, surrounded by snowy mountains, fishing harbours and racks of drying cod.

Visiting Hamnøy and the bay at Reine

After Henningsvær, we continued further south through the Lofoten Islands.

Hamnøy, Reine, Å, red rorbuer and beaches where snow seems to run almost all the way down to turquoise water.

On the return journey, we travelled back towards Svolvær and boarded another, smaller coastal ship.

This time, we booked a cabin.

And from the ship, we saw one final display of Northern Lights.

Dog sledding in Tromsø

Back in Tromsø, there was still one unfinished piece of business.

Those dog-sledding trips that had been cancelled twice at the beginning.

This time, the weather cooperated.

At night, we set off through a snowy valley, with five dogs pulling each sled.

I drove while Sandrine sat in front.

During one downhill section, I even managed to get thrown off the sled and had to run beside it for a few metres before climbing back on.

The dogs did not appear particularly concerned.

Over nine days, we eventually saw the Northern Lights on three different evenings.

But what remained from the trip was much more than the aurora.

The coastal ships, icy roads, rorbuer, sled dogs, sea eagles, snowstorms and tiny fishing villages squeezed between mountains and ocean.

And, somewhere in the middle of all that, a football pitch that seems to occupy almost an entire island.