Our first stop in Lofoten was the old fishing village of Nusfjord. Here are our girls at the shore of Nusfjord with the fog against the mountain in the background.
This building served as home for many seagulls who set up their nests on the windowsills and other parts of the building along with surrounding rocks along the water.
Cod is the primary cash fish for the area. The fishermen hang the cod on large racks to dry before they are shipped off around the country and the world. Here's Lydia next to one of the codfish.
Nusfjord was a very picturesque village and the fog lent an aura of mystery to it.
I think the coolest museum we went to was the Lofotr Viking Museum. There we learned how the Vikings lived, worked, and played, and I was very appreciative of the excellent interactive exhibits and activities. The kids got to ride a horse that was led by workers dressed in Viking dresses.
Derek still talks about riding a horse whenever he sees a horse in a book or something, just like he reminds us that he kissed a moose if he sees a moose.
We sailed out into the fjord on a replica Viking ship. It was kind of funny that because of the direction and strength of the wind that day, we sailed out, and then took down the sails and used the outboard motor to make it back to the dock.
The girls (and I) got a chance to shoot a bow. I used to shoot archery as a teenager, but haven't done it in years. I think my first arrow missed the target and wound up going through a hole in the backdrop, so no idea if they ever found it (how embarrassing), but my other two were at least on target. The girls did a great job getting the arrow to fly to the target.
Of course, Derek thought he needed to try too. We hoped that he would be fine with holding the bow, but no such luck. He screamed when we took him away from that station without a chance to actually pull the string back and fire the arrow. Not pictured since we didn't take any pictures, the girls and I came back to this station to throw metal hatchet/tomahawks into a log target - another thing I haven't done since I was a teenager, but I managed to get all four of my hatchets to stick in the target. The girls could use more practice.
This balance beam is part of a game the Vikings apparently used to play. Two competitors were armed with sacks of straw or something and they would climb onto opposite ends of the beam (which I guess was more of a section of fence) before walking across trying to knock the other person off by swinging their sacks at them. I guess I would describe it as extreme pillow fighting. Karina wanted to try it after watching a few demonstrations; we convinced her to just treat it as a balance beam and try and walk across it.
We eventually made our way to the indoor portion of the Viking museum. It is housed in a recreated Viking long house (the building in the background).
Derek had fun throwing gravel up in the air in front of the longhouse - he probably would have been just as entertained at a building site here locally as he was traveling to a different country.
Inside, we learned about Vikings and how they lived. Karina got to try out getting dressed as a Viking warrior (the helmet was really heavy).
The girls learned how to weave on a loom.
And also how to play Viking board games. One of the strategy games we were taught is called Hnefatafl or Tafl, and predates chess. It was interesting to learn how to play and then try to play a few games.
We spent the night at the surf shop/apartment Arctic Surf at Unstad Beach. Another surf shop just up the street (and presumably a few feet north of where we stayed) advertised itself as the northernmost surf shop in the world. We walked from our apartment to Unstad Beach, and there were a dozen surfers in their wetsuits braving the cold water and surfing in the waves. We looked it up and learned that the big waves for the advanced surfers are between September and April, so these waves weren't as big as they could get. The summer waves are for beginners.
The kids loved running around the sandy beach and darting in and out of the cold North Atlantic water. The water temperature averages between 8 and 14 degrees Celsius (46 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit). We forgot to bring swimsuits, so our clothes just got wet, but I don't think anyone really cared.
The next morning, the skies had cleared a little bit, and we went back to the beach for more splashing. As cold as the water was, the sand on the beach was remarkably warm. After watching the kids and Tanja for a while and debating internally whether I wanted to take off my shoes and deal with the sand getting all over my feet so I could join them in the water, eventually my inner child won out. I crossed off an item on my bucket list that I never knew was there and waded in North Atlantic surf. Here are some more of the pictures before I joined everyone.
You can see one of the surfers riding a wave in the background of this next picture.
On the way back to our return ferry, we hiked up a mountain called Tjeldbergtinden near a town named Svolvær that you can see down at the bottom of the mountain in these pictures.
The kids were getting tired as we neared the summit and it was getting pretty steep, so Mimi and Mormor stayed with the kids while Tanja and I succumbed to summit fever and kept climbing to the top. I'm very glad we did as the views of Svolvær and the surrounding mountains from the top were breathtaking.
To get back to Mimi and Mormor's house, we took a ferry from Lødingen to Bognes which was a much shorter ferry ride than what we took coming to Lofoten, but then had to drive a few hours back to Hopen, where their house is. The views on the ferry were beautiful.
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