NORWAY 2019 - Part 5: From Bodo further north

Bodo is not beautiful or really worth seeing. Bodo with the crossed o at the end, which is pronounced as ö in Norway: Bodö! A functional industrial and port city without any sights, as the first pictures of this arc show . . . - and yet of great importance for my further travel route.

Bodo is the terminus of the Nordlandsbanen (which is also written without a silent h in Norway) and thus the furthest point of the connected Norwegian railway network. Countless times I have driven the route up and down on the map with my finger during the last years. I have looked at pictures in railroad books and reverently and respectfully wondered what it would feel like to sit in one of the pictured trains and cover the approximately 750 kilometers from Trondheim to Bodo in the indicated time of just under ten hours . . . - it's a damn good and really great feeling. Absolutely cool and extremely sensational. – Mega awesome, so to speak! To sit in a train, pulled by a 3330 horsepower diesel locomotive, which, with a deep humming and a powerful and intense diesel engine noise that gives me goosebumps, pulls this train past lakes, through elongated valleys, narrow gorges, very numerous tunnels, and several fjords along two mountain passes and beyond the Arctic Circle to Bodo.

Bodo is also the point where I boarded a Hurtigruten ship. Fascinated, I look at the numerous mountain peaks along the Nordland coast from the ship and wonder if someone has really been on top of each of these perhaps hundreds of peaks. On the horizon, the Lofoten Islands, 90 kilometers away from Bodo as the crow flies, can also be seen. In the evening, we reach the secret capital of the Lofoten Islands, Svolvaer, where I use the half-hour stop of the ship for a short walk. We continue past adventurous-looking peaks through the fjords and sounds. Further through the fjords to the famous Trollfjord . . . - it is now 23:15. The rush on deck is enormous considering the designated tourist attraction. However, I still want to present two pictures here before I go to bed this evening: the entrance and exit of the Trollfjord.