From the 2005/07/28 to the 2005/08/03 --From Narvik to the North Cape then southwards to Sweden

After visiting Lofoten Islands, the change was brutal. The landscapes are more austere and especially the weather was increasingly bad as I progressed towards north.  Low temperatures, rain and gusts of wind awaited me at the North Cape.

 

 

 

The museum of Alta is certainly the richest, it exhibits rupestral engravings when walking beside the sea with picnic and rest areas. Alas, it rained and the sky was very low. I made despite everything the complete trip before taking refuge in the very didactic museum for these engravings as well as for life beyond the Arctic Circle and even showing the  German occupation conditions during the WWII.
Opposite the most famous rupestral engraving, it appears in all guide books and it is taken in photograph by all visitors.

 

The North Cape, everybody dreams to go there in spite of the reading of certain very negative guide book. Admittedly the myth is very well maintained. It is a commercial business managed very well and undoubtedly very profitable. The cost of the tunnel to reach the island of the North Cape is prohibitive and the entry fee on the place of interest is not less. The rush of campers and private cars was uninterrupted even by bad weather which inferred that the midnight sun was not au rendezvous.
Such it was my case and I went there to make three photographs, to visit the museum, to buy and write postcards to testify to it!

The N71°10'21 sphere "

The reception centre

Children from the world


 

 


Hammerfest is the most septentrional city in the world, N70°40'-E25°30'. Nothing encouraged me to visit it neither its bay nor its cathedral, if it is not the pressing need to go to the local garage approved by MAN. Indeed the temperature in this first day of August was 8°C with a permanent Breton drizzle, violent wind and cloudburst. Even the corbels, or which resembled, flew low.
 


 

 



I took the RV93 road from Alta to the Finnish border. The rest areas with Norwegian cleanliness accommodate the tourists of passage. I stopped on one of them at the edge of a very full of fish river due to the number of fishermen.


 

 

 

The RV93 road is inserted in the gorge of the Altaelva river before leading to the plateau covered by a thin vegetation announcing the tundra which was going to accompany to me during hundreds of kilometres.

I left Norway 43 km after the village of Kautokeino to cross through Finland for a few kilometres only before entering Sweden which I found again to go to Stockholm before taking a ferry over Finland. The crossing through the borders of these three countries of the "Schengen Agreement" was done without control driving slowly.


Kiruna the 2005/08/03

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