Trip to Lofoten - part 4 (Værøya - Moskenesøya)

It's Friday morning, we are waking up because it's pretty hot in the tent. We opened the tent and it's really nice weather outside, the sun is reflecting on the sea surface, no wind. We're having a breakfast and we think that our first camping beyond the Arctic Circle couldn't be better. We are in a great mood, we plan to take a trip around the island today.

It's surprisingly warm weather, we packed the tent and we are going to try the water in the sea. We went to the same place where i washed the kettle yesterday. The water is crystal clear and with the rocky beach it all creates really beautiful landscape. The rocks go till the water and then there is white sand on the bottom of the sea. The water is cold, it has about 15°C in the summer, so we cleaned our teeth and try the water only by feet.

Trip to Lofoten - part 3 (Bodø - Værøya)

Thursday morning we are arriving to Bodø. There's really great weather, we are beyond the Arctic Circle which we passed by last night. The city of Bodø lies on the cost and it's almost completely flat. Around the city are mountains which have snow on tops. All that creates really nice landscape. The city is pretty small, everything is so close. The railway station is not so far from the harbor.
We are going to buy some food first, after that we want to check timetables of ferry which goes to Lofoten. When we get the tables right, we are choosing Moskenesøya as destination we want to go. We planned to go to Værøya first, but we lost a day in Oslo because of the canceled train, so we have to move on. Værøya is the island located just south of Lofoten. We are having a breakfast and relaxing in the harbor, we have some 3 hours to wait. It's really warm and sunny there, about 25°C quite uncommon there. I'm not feeling well, so i'm staying at harbor, Stepan goes to the town.
Large travel ship is arriving to the harbor, named Midnatsol - Midnight sun. A lot of people are getting of the ship and they have smile on their face, wheeled suitcase in hand and they seem to be happy.
Stepan is back and after a while some ferry is arriving. We are asking others where it goes, but nobody knows, so we are going in and asking there. The ferry goes to Værøya. We have a dilema again, we would really like to see Værøya.
Finally we are staying on the board and going to this island. :) The way to Værøya takes two hours more than directly to Moskenesøya. To Værøya, the ferry goes first to Røst, which is about 20km south of Værøya, after that to Værøya, which is about 20km south of Lofoten. There are strong currents between the islands. But at all, the way to Værøya isn't that more expencive.
On the board, we are relaxing, charging our cell phones, and checking the weather online. Once in a while we are going on the upper deck. We are floating around some rocks, mountains with snow on the tops. Seagulls are flying around us, the sky is clear, strong sun, fresh air and sea wind. Beautiful.

Trip to Lofoten - part 2 (Sandenfjord - Bodø)

Finally, we are in Norway, that's great. Nice sunny weather welcomes us by 17 degrees of Celsius. We are unpacking our baggage and wrapping tarpaulin. We are checking the map, which way to go to the train stop Torp and we are heading there. We are going on the road and enjoying everything around. There are a lot of wooden houses, well-trimmed houses with beautiful lawns, there is no distraction for eyes like rusty fence or plastic clotheshorse around these nice houses. That's totally different compared to our country. Almost every house has flag of Norway with flagpole waving in the wind.
As we get to the train stop, we are waiting here for two hours. You can easily go by bus from the airport, it's about 4 minutes ride, but we had a lot of time. We jumped to the train heading to Oslo and now we are relaxing, checking emails and weather. After a while, we are reading shocking information from NSB site. Our night train that continues from Oslo to Trondheim is canceled due to flooded tracks. And we had changed our tickets before getting on the train. But we are now using them. That sucks.
We are trying to think about changing our plans, maybe we could go to some National parks in the middle Norway. Going up to north would be really expensive with new tickets now. We are pretty upset.

Trip to Lofoten - part 1 (Brno - Sandenfjord)

Since the last visit of such beautiful country as Norway is, i really thought about how to get there again. That wasn't only me, who had this thoughts. My friend Stepan and I started to look around for some cheap fly tickets, trains and other travel possibilities. Last year we really thought about the idea to go beyond the Arctic Circle, but we weren't so sure because of the tough weather there and our equipment.
So this year, we started thinking about the trip beyond the Circle at first. We agreed that the place we want to travel are Lofoten, an archipelago in north of the Norway. There was a lot of possibilities to travel there, but we want to travel cheap, so we decided to travel by train across the whole country of Norway. We have a great experience from last year with traveling by train with Norwegian NSB company.

So we are starting our trip on Monday morning 10th of June. Stepan's dad took us to the bus station near Grand Hotel in Brno, from here we are going by bus (Student Agency) to Prague. The journey was quite ok, but the breakfast that i ate too soon didn't think that.
We are in Prague and we have about one hour to wait till our next bus departure. In 8:40AM we are heading to Wroclaw by PolskiBus. The bus is going across Hradec Kralove. About 2:00PM we are entering the city of Wroclaw, the edge of the city seems to me industrial, but the center is quite large, historical and well-preserved. We are leaving bus station and going north to more historical part of the city. There are lot of well-repaired historic buildings, a lot of churches made of bricks and there is also a new skyscraper named Sky Tower situated near the center. We are approaching to Rynek Square, so scenic place surrounded by period buildings with incredible facades, classic pubs and wooden shops around. The old city hall is dominating to the square.

The classic brick churches or cathedrals are literally everywhere, wherever you look you see one. But all of them are repaired and open. I really like the style of these buildings, the brick finish.
We are looking around the Square, after a while it started to rain so we went for a lunch to the KFC. We have a great meal here and we are enjoying nice prices here compared to Norway :)
After a lunch we are meeting our host Andrej, Stepan contacted him via couchsurfing. Andrej is a nice guy, he's student of university here. We are going to his apartment to leave there our baggage, after that we are going to look around the city but the rain is quite strong. We endure and we are trying to make that, so we are seeing a lot of nice places, buildings, churches a great fountain in the rain.