They had never seen that. This June 27, it is 25 ºC on the Lofoten Islands. The sun floods the fjords. Hikers swim in mountain lakes where the water is 12 ºC and go out to dry off on the grass or the rocks. Two days later, the fog returned, and we had to fight at the edge of the ridge against a wind that could dehorn the oxen. Is everything normal again? It will not last: the next day, an unusual sun shines again. “It’s unprecedented” professes to his hosts (secretly delighted with this unexpected warmth) Roar Justad, owner of the youth hostel in Stamsund, south of the island of Vestvagoya.
The slopes are steep, the cliffs often steep. The ridges, sometimes vertiginous, draw a line from one summit to the other.
Octogenarian with a sarcastic humor, settled here for 47 years, Roar Justad is a wise old man among the backpackers who come to settle there before going to climb the slopes of the island. Originally, his inn was a rorbus, a traditional cod fisherman’s hut. It has been transformed into a gîte like a number of similar establishments. Its pontoon, which opens onto the Norwegian Sea, offers a postcard setting: calm dark blue water, a day-to-day view of the “coastal express” of the Hurtigruten line passing in the distance, a small round lighthouse with a red hat in the background. harbor entrance.
The Lofoten are a string of islands located north of Norway, 200 kilometers above the Arctic Circle, separated from the mainland by the Vestfjord. Twenty-five thousand people live there over 1,227 km2. Very close to each other, they are now linked by sometimes very long tunnels (more than 3 km for one of them) or bridges, some of which, with tapered and curved lines, are architectural marvels. Around roams the maelstrom, one of the strongest currents in the world. But the Gulf Stream, which caresses its coasts, makes the temperatures relatively pleasant: in summer, they are around 15 ºC, and the city of Rost sometimes lives in winter above 0 ºvs.
Cloudberries and Carnivorous Plants
Winter, summer… The period chosen implies a necessarily different approach to the stay. Winter means permanent night, snow, skiing and the northern lights. Summer is the day that never stops, the famous midnight sun, hiking and even swimming. Peaks culminating at 1,000 meters and sometimes haloed with eternal snow, long white sand beaches on which some even indulge in surfing and many of which host campsites: the Lofoten are a bit like the Alps resting on the Caribbean.
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