This travel update is for our three-day stay in Svolvær, Norway. It covers August 23 – 25. “Any text in quotes and Italics has been copied and pasted from some informational website like Wikipedia.”

August 23, 2023 – Sunday: Driving to Svolvær

It was a short drive from Stamsund to Svolvær, so we decided to fit a workout in this moring. Patti went on a “run” and I went on a “jog” along the nicely paved bike / walking path that is set beside the main road in Stamsund. We left at noon for our drive from the Island of Vestvågøy to the Island of Austvågøya.

The mother of the Airbnb host was waiting for us outside and gave me the key. We are in the lower apartment of this older house. You can see our front door on the ground floor, under the two white balconies.

We have a nice, big living room with older furniture.

Full kitchen.

Comfy bedroom. You may have noticed (in this post and others) the bed covering set up in Norway is much different than in the U.S. So far, of all the places we’ve stayed here in Norway, there is no top sheet, blanket and/or bedspread. Instead, you get a fitted sheet over the mattress with one or two down comforters in duvet covers. Interesting and different concept, but it works. We’ve experienced this type of bed covering set up at various times in various locations throughout Europe throughout our travels over the past several years.

And a cozy bathroom.

We have a private sitting area outside our front door and can also go up the stairs to the wooden balcony if we want to.

It’s a comfortable place.

After unpacking, we walked into the downtown area and got lunch at a popular restaurant called “Bacalao.” I got the bacalao and a beer, and Patti got a burger (surprise, surprise).

My bacalao dish was excellent. I’ve read that Norway has been exporting bacalao (dried and salted cod) and stockfish (dried cod) to Europe for a long time. When we were in Portugal we learned that the Portuguese took salt cod (bacalao) on their long sea voyages of discovery. I’ve also read that at some point Portuguese recipes for Bacalao started getting back to Norway and now Norway has lots of Bacalao recipes. I actually like the Norwegian bacalao better than the Portuguese bacalao.

After lunch we walked around the harbor and downtown area then went back home to finish unpacking.

August 24, 2023 – Thursday: Hiking to Djevelporten (Devil’s Gate)

We decided to do another hike today. This is a relatively well-known hike that starts from a trailhead that’s only a mile from our Airbnb, so, around noon, we walked over there. AllTrails describes it as: “a 2.9-km out-and-back trail near Svolvær, Nordland. Generally considered a moderately challenging route.”

On this AllTrails map you can see the hike is just to the north of Svolvær.

There were some more Sherpa Steps here, like we hiked in Tromsø. Here’s Patti going up some of the steps.

I get out of breath on steps like this and have to make frequent stops. I tracked the uphill hike on my Samsung smart watch and it recorded an average heart rate of 120 beats per minute but with spikes up to 140. Maybe I’m too old for this?

Patti likes to count things and she told me she counted about 1,600 steps on this hike. Here she is with Svolvær in the background.

At the top we got our picture with the Devil’s Gate.

Some people were actually climbing out onto the rock, like this girl, but we decided not to do that.

We did have nice views of Svolvær from up there.

In some places there were no steps and we sometimes just did a controlled slide down the rock face. Here’s Patti negotiating one of the difficult places on the way down.

It was a fairly challenging (if not dangerous) hike for us, and most of the people on the trail were younger than us. We’re wondering if we should pick easier hikes from now on.

August 25, 2023 – Friday: Henningsvær and Kabelvåg

We took a short drive today to the west to visit two other towns on this island of Austvågøya where we’re staying. I circled the two towns on this map.

The scenery along the way was of course beautiful.

When we got into Henningsvær we drove the length of main street then lucked out by finding a parking spot in a lot with one-hour free parking. We read that parking is difficult to get in Henningsvær. We walked around for a while then got lunch at a café. Then we decided to drive on over to Kabelvåg because there is an aquarium there and a couple of museums. On the drive to Kabelvåg we found a spot for Patti to model the dress she bought yesterday. I think it looks nice against the Lofoten Islands background.

The aquarium in Kabelvåg was small but interesting and we spent a couple of hours there. We liked their flounder tank.

There were plenty of salmon.

And cod.

We learned about the Norwegian aquaculture industry. There are a lot of salmon farms here. For part of their life cycle they put the salmon in round pens like these in the fjords.

But the new concept, called Havfarm, is to move the pens out of the fjords into the ocean. It’s a giant ship that either is anchored or moves around. Here’s a picture of it off the Havfarm website.

“The Havfarm concept – developed by Nordlaks alongside veteran ship creators at NSK Design – has been heralded as a potential game-changer for Norway’s already burgeoning salmon fishing industry.

The ship-shaped Havfarm 1 will feature a catamaran-like hull measuring 430m in length and the capacity to accommodate up to 10,000 tonnes of salmon at a time. Havfarm 1 will be a stationary platform moored approximately 5km south-west of Hadseløya, an island in Norway’s Vesterålen region. The steel structure will extend more than 30m below sea level and act as a framework.

Havfarm 2 will use a dynamic positioning system – a commonly used solution in the shipping industry that allows vessels to automatically change their position and heading using thrusters and propellers. Based on forecasted weather conditions, the platform will be able to propel itself to a sheltered location in the event of a storm. for six separate mesh pens, measuring 50m across and ten metres deep.”

That will be an interesting thing to see! I’m not sure when they will be operational.

The Sea Anemone tank at the aquarium was pretty.

Here’s a Halibut edge-on.

There were five harbor seals in an outdoor habitat. Here’s three of them sunning themselves.

There was an interesting gallery of deep-water corals, I never realized how widespread the deep-water corals are. Here’s Patti with some lighted panels of coral pictures.

The red x’s in this picture show where the reefs are around Norway. 

Some of the corals look like this. Very pretty.

So, it was a nice aquarium and worth our time spent there.

After the aquarium we drove around Kabelvåg a bit more then headed back to Svolvær. I filled our gas tank at a Shell station when we got into town, which cost about $75 USD for ¾ of a tank. If we lived in Norway we either wouldn’t have a car or we’d get an electric vehicle, gas is too expensive here!

When we got home I went for a jog, and Patti did laundry and some pre-packing in anticipation for tomorrow’s departure.