Hej guys! We are back in Lund since Wednesday, so it is time for a report from our awesome holiday in Abisko/Lapland. Even though I was really looking forward to this trip it turned out to be far better than expected. Everything went perfect from the beginning on, the flights were in time, we had a great breakfast and our rental car was ready when we arrived. And it was a nice brand new Volvo V50 with only 20km on the speedo.
We were travelling with friends, namely Brice, Marie - both from France and Kristina from Germany. The guy in the middle is Örjan our friendly Swedish host in Abisko
We drove immediately from the airport to Abisko and started to explore the surroundings there. The landscape is magnificent, they have really nice mountains, a huge frozen lake where you can drive with snow scooters and almost 1.5 meters of snow. And even better: They are surrounded by wilderness that starts in front of the house and is just waiting to get explored. One very characteristic image is the following showing "Lappporten" - the gate to Lapland.
landscape on the way to Abisko - the mountains are getting higher and higher as we get closer to Norway.
it had around -25°C during the whole February. However we were more lucky and had temperatures between -10°C and +5°C
a lonely fisherman's hut in front of the frozen Tornetrask
a nightly view from Björkliden over the Tornetraks to Abisko (the few small lights in the background is Abisko city with it's 150 inhabitants. Björkliden is a very nice winter sport village with only 25 people living there through the whole year. Out of those 25 people my father has a friend living there which was of great help when planning the trip. But not only that, she also invited us all to here place for an awesome reindeer-stew(dt.:Eintopf) and a nice dessert. Her house is lying in the middle of nowhere with probably the best view out of the window I have ever seen (and unfortunately we left our cameras in the car...).
But, to return to our activities we did a guided Ice-cave tour at the first night. The most dangerous part was the way up with the scooter were our guide had a little accident and the scooter rolled over. The cave was the narrowest I have seen so far, we had to bend down almost all the way, but it was nevertheless fun!
Annina on her way deeper into the cave, taking advantage of her "size" ;)
The following days were characterized by many different activities like cross-country skiing, a snowshow tour to the hightest peak in the surrounding, a snow-scooter tour into the Abisko-valley and ice-climbing on a frozen waterfall.
For some of us this was the first time on ski :D
equipped with snow shoes on the way on the mountain...
on the top of the mountain :)
and back down. The slope on the other side is off-track but there is a ski-lift going on the top of the mountain and you can easily come back to the start of the ski-lift, so it's just perfect, nothing else. I kicked myself several time for not having my snowboard with me -> but I will be back one day to ride those perfect slopes.
"the girls" trying ice-climbing on the frozen waterfall
Me with a snow scooter driving deep into the magnificent Abisko valley. I have no other explanation than that snow scooters are tools forged by the devil himself. With the crawler you have endless grip even when pushing hard forward, the brakes on the other side are of no use and even though we got the "smallest" one those machine had around 50hp which was far enough to frighten us from time to time. Top speed around 100km/h on a frozen lake no problem to reach that. And it's so much fun, really amazing!
We have also just been walking around on one of the husky-trails where the snow was a little bit compressed. You don't have to walk more than 5 minutes to be in the middle of nowhere. We were really lucky and had such a nice sunset.
Annina making a "Schnee engerl"
But not only was the sunset amazing we were also lucky to have 3 days of northern lights in a row. Amazing!
The most intensive northern lights are unfortunately not on any photo because we have seen them while standing naked in front of the Sauna - brrr. But it was worth it!
But we were not only lucky seeing northern lights, we have also seen a horde of reindeers and four elks. I keep loving those animals more and more. They are huge (up to 2.4m of shoulder high), massive (up to 400 kg), calm (you can get to them up to 10m before the run away) and very beautiful. And even more amazing with their long legs they seem to have no problems to run at a high speed in over 1m deep snow - I have seen one running away from the noise of a snow scooter, it's amazing. In Sweden live about 30% of the world wide elk population which equals to a total amount of 350.000. Since elks do not have natural enemies(except the 60 wolves living in whole Sweden) they have to be hunted which leads to a total of 100.000 shot elks every year and is the reason why we can enjoy elk-steaks here.
An elk running away from our car
One in the wilderness, watching us until we came to close
One of the beautiful Husky's that belonged to our host.
A horde of reindeers in the mountains.
Except from the beautful village of Abisko have we visited two major attractions far away from Abisko: the first one were the beautiful fjords of Norway that I have seen in the summer but not in winter and the second one was the world famous ice-hotel in Kiruna. I will start with Norway here:
After a tipp from my fathers friend we drove to a nice fjord southwest from Narvik. The contrast of snow, ice, mountains and the sea is just amazing. Although the sea is warmed up through the golf-stream snow is lying the beaches.
the mentioned Ejfjorden. I found it amazing that trees are growing even on the steepest parts of the mountain so far up in the north.
A small island with a holiday hut, called "stugga" on it. Almost every Scandinavian family has a "stugga" somewhere on the country side, mainly used for weekends and holidays during the summer.
coast close to Narvik
nice frozen water can be seen almost all along the roads.
And finally (you have almost done it!) a few pictures from the Ice-hotel close to Kiruna. It is rebuilt every year and can be visited roughly between New Year's Eve and the end of April. They use a mix of snow and huge ice blocks that they cut from the local river. Those blocks are massive and weight around 2 tons each. The ice hotel has around 600 rooms and around 50 suits which are all individually designed by different artists and look really, really fancy. The temperature in all the rooms is -5°C but you sleep on reindeer skins with a warm sleeping bag, so I guess it will still be warm enough.
the ice-church in which around 100 couples marry each year. Out of whom around 80% Japanese people ;)
one of the suits
another one with Brice and Marie
The ice-blocks used to built the hotel.
of course do they have an "Absolut icebar" in the hotel. The whole hotel is owned and build by Absolut by the way.
the outside of the absolute ice bar
the main hall of the hotel. Fancy, eh?
Well, that was a really long post (took me around 3h with sorting of photos etc.), I hope you all enjoyed it and it at least gives you a good impression of what we experienced so far up in the north. Of course being there is a whole different world. I don't hesitate to say that this was the best trip we did since I am here and that the landscapes up there can hardly be described in words. I am sure I will come back one day but then with a whole lot of sport equipment and more experience to rock the mountains all around. For those who want to see even more photos I can only forward you to Brice's blog that can be found
here.Labels: snow show, vacation
