Lofoten Travel Diary Day I

I have written the following travel diary/guide using my furious scratchings during the Lofoten trip. Also included are reflections and commentary made in retrospect to make these writings useful for anybody considering a similar venture into Norway.

Day One: Stockholm
Traveler summary:
- Traveling to the Lofotens via Stockholm to Narvik is possible and recommended because Stockholm is awesome.
- Eat sandwiches, drink lattes and people watch in Stockholm.
- The train from Stockholm to Narvik is relatively cheap, but very comfortable.
- Bring your own food onto the train and if you get a private cabin, bring booze.

Online resources as well as bookstore travel guides describe several approaches to the Lofotens. For the sake of international travels, the most often mentioned approaches involve a train from Oslo and a ferry from Bodo. Svolvaer and Leknes, the two largest towns on the islands have domestic airports for those who are too inpatient for ground travel. Our approach, which I call The Stockholm Approach because our journey originates from the island city is conspicuously absent in published guides. It is the most obvious route to take to the Lofoten islands.

Stockholm's superiority as an urban playground is self-evident. Aesthetically pleasing in its architecture and its people, the city's residents move about with just the right balance of serious concern and playful ease; as fashionable as Manhattan, but as easy going as the small fishing communities that awaited us in Norway. Sodermalm, one of the more hip urban neighborhoods in Stockholm is almost too laid back. Not so much so that restaurant and cafe owners can ignore the fierce competition, which gives rise to some of the best lattes and most imaginative sandwiches I had ever tasted.

Tali, Richard and I spent most of our time in Stockholm people watching, lattes in hand, as trendy-looking denizens zipped past. The perfect weather accentuated the feeling of being in a fantasy land that refuses to betray a sense of being contrived for the purposes of urban chicness.

An immigrated Manchester cab driver drove us up to the train station from Yvonne's apartment in Sodermalm leaving us with an impression that reindeer frequent his suburban home just 45 minutes out of Stockholm. The stations fairly intuitive layout led us to our train several minutes before it left on a twenty-hour-ish journey all the way up the East coast of Sweden and then westward across a mountain pass nearly 200 km above the Arctic circle. The cost for a private three-person room on the sleeper car was equivalent to a roundtrip ticket from Washington to NYC on Amtrak. The bathrooms and shower were shockingly sanitary Public garbage bins were constantly renewed suggesting a high standard of clean. While the dining car was cramped, our room was very sufficient with our very own private sink and fold down, three-tier bunks.

Photo: view from the top bunk. The room locks, therefore we were able to consume alcohol despite rules against booze outside the dining car.

The private bunks were by no means the cheapest configuration. The "lie down" cars resembled the Hogwarts express with six people per cabin, and six beds that folded up during non-sleeping times. There were also regular non-bed seats, which offered zero privacy and looked rather uncomfortable for sleeping. Another way to save cash is to do as we did by bringing your own food (for us: chips, chocolate, cheese and bread) onto the train. Sleeping on a bumpy train ride was as pleasant as can be expected. They even gave us pillows, sheets and towels.