Ves­t­vå­gøy – 08th Novem­ber 2017

Wed
8 Nov
2017

Today, we explo­re the lar­ge Lofo­ten island of Ves­t­vå­gøy. The sun is abo­ve the hori­zon from 8 to 15 hours, but it remains hid­den behind a thick cloud cover, so the­re is not too much light. That does not ham­per the beau­ty of the sce­n­ery, actual­ly it fits this rough land­scape pret­ty well. But we limit our hiking acti­vi­ties to a litt­le ascent of a slo­pe next to Ball­stad for a gre­at view over the sett­le­ment and the coas­tal land­scape (have a look at the 360 degree pan­ora­ma of Ball­stad that I shot on this occa­si­on. Then, we fol­low a small road to explo­re the stun­ning coast­li­ne. We also have time for a short visit to the famous viking muse­um Borg. The muse­um is quite impres­si­ve. The­re is the 1:1 recon­s­truc­tion of the huge long house of a viking chief. The muse­um was ope­ned in 1995, and I hap­pen­ed to be the­re on the day of the ope­ning. I was impres­sed back then, and I am still impres­sed today. The modern exhi­bi­ti­on house with cine­ma and sou­ve­nir shop and ever­y­thing that is part of a muse­um today did not exist, but the long house was the­re, and that was and is gre­at fun. You can dress and feel like a viking. But to spend the polar night here, which is seve­ral weeks long, wit­hout any light source that we found find accep­ta­ble, from our 2017 per­spec­ti­ve? The­re are no win­dows. Glass was as expen­si­ve as its weight in gold, and that was too much even for the powerful viking chief of Borg. And it was dark any­way out­side during lar­ge parts of the win­ter. So they spent the win­ter in dark­ness.

Gal­lery – Ves­t­vå­gøy – 08th Novem­ber 2017

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

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