Reine

Good news! We found an adapter in Leknes today (Thursday), a town that’s essentially the geographical middle of the Lofoten archipelago. Success! And now we can charge our electronics again, including my laptop. No more leaving the adapter behind when packing up for the next place…

So, let’s get back to Reine, where we left off last time. Reine (pronounced Rain-a) is beautiful. After our fabulous night of sleep on Tuesday night, we woke up with energy on Wednesday morning. I went for a (hilly) run while Tim walked over to the local Kaffebar in Reine to look for coffee. No dice; the Kaffebar didn’t open until 10am. Then Tim walked over to Circle K, thinking he could get a coffee there. Nope; Circle K didn’t open until 8am. (Btw, there are a ton of Circle Ks around Norway. It's hysterical, and also completely practical.)

No matter – we grabbed breakfast at the hotel restaurant. It was another glorious buffet. We dawdled at breakfast for an hour or so, enjoying our down time. Afterwards, we returned to our little cabin, packed, checked out, and then drove up the (hilly) road to a small parking lot. From the parking lot, we walked half a mile to a well-known trailhead: Reinebringen. Reinebringen is the most popular hike in the Lofoten Islands. It’s not a long hike, but it’s steep; you climb about 1,700 feet up a stone staircase (2,000 stairs) to the top of the mountain, take in the awe-inspiring view, and climb back down.

Walking (on the one highway on Lofoten) to get to our Reinebringen hike.

The stone staircase was added between 2016 and 2021 to help with trail erosion. The entire time we were climbing these stairs, all I could think about was the poor team that had to put the stones in place. There must have been a helicopter flying stones up and down the mountain, and a couple folks on the mountain setting the stones. Brutal work.

At any rate, the four of us climbed those stairs. It didn’t take long for our legs to burn. Thankfully, there were stone benches every so often where you could sit and take a break. We took advantage of most of those benches on the way up.

Starting the climb.

Taking a break on the way up.

See that road down there? That's where we started.

With probably 20 minutes to go, Taylor reached her limit. She didn’t want to keep going to the top, so she and Tim began the hike back down. Wyatt and I continued up, but it soon got ridiculously windy – the wind was going at 37 km/h, which comes out to 22.9 miles per hour. It felt like the wind was lifting us up by the arms and flying us up the stairs.

Wyatt and I pulled off at a ledge that was sooooo close to the top, maybe just 20ish steps to the summit. But the wind was gnarly and getting worse the higher we got. We had an amazing view from this ledge and decided to call it. Heading back down was wild; the wind kept pushing us back. Finally, we got low enough where the wind subsided. From there, the hike was much more manageable.

At the ledge; Wyatt holding onto his hat so it doesn't fly away.

Posing in the wind.

But look at this view of Reine!

Still windy some of the way down.

When we got back to the trailhead, we met up with Tim and Taylor and walked back to our car. Our legs felt like jelly and we all felt exhilarated.  

We treated ourselves to some pastries from the Reine Kaffebar and then decided to hit the road for the next town we were staying over in, Ballstad. The 75-minute drive was full of gorgeous scenery. We passed by a beach and Tim pulled over. He and Wyatt thought about going for a swim in the water; they dipped their toes in and ran right back out.

The moment they decided not to go for a swim.

We reached Ballstad, Lofoten’s largest operational fishing village, and checked into our hotel – again, a little fishing cabin, although more modernized than our cabin in Reine. We did a quick drive around town and came back to our cabin five minutes later. That evening, we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant (because yet again, there are two restaurants in town and they’re attached to hotels)…and saw a Viking ship load with Vikings and a couple regular people and then set out for a sail. As my kids would say, no cap. Although some of these Vikings vaped, so it wasn’t totally authentic.

I was obsessed with this Viking ship. We watched everyone -- most in costume -- board from our dinner table.

Nothing says Viking like a big, fluffy dog.

There it goes! All the Vikings on board sang a Viking song as they set sail. It was amazing and I loved it so much.

We took a walk after dinner and finally turned in for bed about 11pm. It was broad daylight still. You know, I googled “summer Norway packing lists” before leaving home and I kept seeing eye masks listed on all these lists. I scoffed at the time, but I am totally getting it now. I reallllly wish I had an eye mask, and if I have another night where I wake up at 2am and can’t get back to sleep because it’s so dang light outside, then I’m going to walk myself to a Circle K and buy myself an eye mask. No cap.