Together with Russell & Roza and Flo & Mike, Chris and I collected 2 x hire cars and drove a spectacular route from Tromso to Lyngseidet our base in the Lyngen Alps for the next 6 nights. We were fortunate that both cars were upgraded at no extra cost and we enjoyed the luxury of driving around in new top of the range Suzuki Across’s.
The reason for choosing this particular week in early July was to experience 24 hours of daylight, as mentioned in the previous Tromso blog post, known as ‘the Midnight Sun’. This occurs in the summer in the Arctic Circle each year.
With Lyngseidet being at sea level and surrounded by the towering Lyngen Alps we didn’t see much of the sun at midnight however with sunset and sunrise both at 00.46 it was continually light. It just didn’t get dark or even semi dark at night at all.
The Lyngen Alps are a mountain range located on the Lyngen Peninsula and have a length of around 56 miles. There are 140 glaciers within the range and many hiking trails to explore them.
While based in Lyngseidet for 6 nights we did a number of hikes throughout the week which are captured in separate forthcoming posts. This was our ininerary:
- Sunday: drive from Tromso
- Monday: Hike to the Gorsa Bridge
- Tuesday: Three Country Cairn
- Wednesday: Hike to the Blue Lake
- Thursday: Steindalsbreen Glacier hike
- Friday: Nordmannvik circular hike
- Saturday: drive back to Tromso
This photo was taken at around 11:30 pm.
With continual light it was easy to lose track of time and we had to keep reminding ourselves we didn’t have to get back from a hike before it got dark! Most nights we didn’t go to bed until around 1 am and had a later start each morning.
Food and drink
Lynseidet is a tiny village and had limited restaurant options. In fact there were no restaurants just a burger bar and a bar. However as we were staying in a cabin we had facilities to cook for ourselves which we did most nights. This was also a good way of keeping our costs down in pricey Norway.
Norway has strict regulations for the consumption of wine and local shops or even supermarkets are not allowed to sell it. Our cabin was a 5 minute walk from a large supermarket which was handy for buying everything we needed except for wine. Supermarkets can sell anything with an alcohol content under 4.7% so we could buy beer and cider only. And you could only buy this before 8 pm on weekdays and 6 pm on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays.
Tip: you can buy wine or stronger beers from Vinmonopolet which is a state run store and there is one of these in Tromso. Vinmonopolet literally means ‘wine monopoly’ and these close at 3 pm on Saturdays. So if you have the opportunity, you can stock up on wine before heading off to somewhere more remote like the Lyngen Alps.
Driving to Lyngseidet
We had a choice of 2 routes, both of which would take around 2 hours. Rather than take the road we opted for the ferry route which crossed from Breivikeidet to Svensby.
We downloaded the ferry app but then learned the major car rental companies have a deal with the ferry companies and you are charged for your ferry trips when you hand the car back at the end of your trip.
As soon as we had parked on the ferry everyone got out of their cars and enjoyed the splendid views. Ferries also have indoor seating areas and a cafe selling hot drinks, cold drinks and snacks.
With towering peaks of around 1000 meters high, spectacular scenery and well maintained single carriage roads this reminded Chris and me of driving in New Zealand. We realised you don’t have to travel to the other side of the world if you want to experience such magnificent views.
Card is king!
The currency of Norway is the Norwegian krone and Chris and I had taken 1300 NOK with us (around £100) so we had some cash if needed. However throughout the entire trip we were able to pay for everything with our commission free credit card and ended up using up the cash in the supermarket.
So we found there was no need to take any cash at all.
Car parking
At the start of each hike was an official car park and each time we were able to use the EasyPark app to pay. This was with the exception of the car park in Finland for the Three Country Cairn which was free. We had 4G almost all of the time so there were no issues with mobile signal even in remote car parks in the middle of mountains.
Russell had found and booked a wooden house in the heart of Lyngseidet village. The house was built in 1963 and had been recently renovated. With 5 bedrooms between 6 of us there was enough space.
We spent most evenings in the cabin with its large dining table for 6 and enough seating for all of us.
Summary
The cabin had everything we needed and was an ideal base from which to explore the Lyngen Alps. The village was small however we had two decent cars between us which enabled us to spend each day driving through breathtaking scenery to the start of each of our treks, the details of which are to follow…
frombluetogreen.com 