Lofotens, Part 2

   Today we transited the Lofotens again, only this time it was during the afternoon, not like last time after midnight. There was a touch of rain in the morning but the afternoon turned sunny and gorgeous again. We made a 90 minute stop at Svolvaer, the "supposed" most scenic town in the islands. It was nice for sure, but nothing like the rest of the scenery.  We started today at the north side of the islands and took a couple of narrow channels to make it to the south side, from here it's back to the coast on the mainland.

   The makeup of passangers is hard for me to figure out. I don't think there are more than 2 Americans on board right now. There are maybe a couple dozen Brits at most and aside from one conversation I heard in French today, it mostly seems German with a few Norwegians. Although the German and Norwegian languages are very different, I can't tell them apart yet. The Norwegians seem more 'town to town' passengers, while the Germans are tourists like me.

   I saw one little kid today with a Norwegian "Where's Waldo?" book and there was a 20-some fella on the pier who just got off the ship. He was waiting for his motorcycle to get taken off the car deck, then he started it up and drove away for a private tour of the Lofoten roads. I've never really wanted a motorcycle, but for a few minutes today, I was thinking about it.

   When we stop in the small towns, the visits are usually only 30 minutes or less. It's enough time to walk around but there's never much going on. Every dog in the village gets his picture taken by the ferry folks. I've included a couple of shots in Sortland today, some flowers I haven't seen before that were covering someone's lawn. At first I thought they were dandilions, but they're much prettier.

   There are also some pretty houses. I got another shot of the woman statue in the Svolvaer Harbor; I really like it. And no, John, I didn't take the polar bear plunge. The ice water baptism when we crossed the Arctic Circle was enough swimming for me on this trip. Have a good weekend, all!