Bodø in Norway just north of the Arctic Circle

August 31, 2008
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I’ve been travelling around quite a bit lately and this time in Norway. All the visits and nice comments encourage me to go on reporting from my country. This time I’ll take you to Bodø; up north of Norway to the Land of the Midnight Sun. I always want my readers to learn something from my posts – that’s another great thing about blogging: I got to learn something new too, you know, so let’s take a look at this charming old town:

Nordic Countries Bodø, granted township status in 1816, is the administrative centre of Nordland County. With its 45 000 residents it is the second largest town in Northern Norway, with excellent communications and fully modern facilities. I got there by plane, a bit more than an hour trip from Oslo. Most of the city was destroyed during a Luftwaffe attack on the 27th of May 1940. 6000 people were living in Bodø then, and 3500 people lost their homes. However the town was subsequently rebuilt after the war, ended in 1959 with the completion of the new town hall.

The town is surrounded by nature’s beauty and since I had a window seat in the plane, I took the opportunity to shoot some of the scenery with my Nokia mobile phone. Don’t worry: In disconnected mode! – sorry about the quality, but they did not let me open the window :lol: . Let’s start with one of a glacier Svartisen (click to enlarge):

Svartisen

Norway’s second to highest glacier and has an area of 370 square kilometres. It is the lowest positioned glacier on the European mainland, just about 20m above the ocean. This makes it easily accessible for glacier trips and other adventures. The highest point on the glacier is 1594 meters above the sea and the Engen-glacier has a thickness of up to 450 meters.

Then the magnificent, wild island coast line before we landed:
Bodoe #1 Bodoe #3


Downtown, you find the most wonderful docks with some breath taking mountains in the background over the fjord:
Bodoe #11


At the harbour, I found another beauty: A ‘Fembøring‘ is the largest type of open Nordland’s boat. It is about 12 meters long and has 5–6 pairs of oars:
Bodoe #15 Bodoe #12
This very boat has even been sailed as far as too Istanbul (Constantinople) – talk about good old seamanship – and you might know that the North Vikings was there with their boats a thousand years back.


Bodø lies just north of the Arctic Circle where the midnight sun is visible from June 2 to July 10. Due to atmospheric refraction, there is no true polar night in Bodø, but because of the mountains south of Bodø, the sun is not visible from the city from early December to early January. Average temperature for January is -2C (28F), while July 24-hr average is 13C (55F). When I was there, we had the loveliest weather and around 20C (68F). To give you the proof of the pudding, I took some picture outside the University College. The semester had just started and the student was enjoying the art of a sculpture in the sun:
Bodoe #6 Bodoe #7


I hope you learned something new about Northern Norway and enjoyed as much as I did sharing this. Admit it’s a town with a beautiful nature and I can tell you the people are warm and friendly! It’s a perfect place to spot the Northern Lights too, mostly in the winter time of course. If you go there in the winter time, you get a bonus: lots of snow :-)

Next stop on my round trip was Bergen, the capital of Western Norway. I’ll take you there in my next post, so stay tuned!

Nature, Summer, Travel Norway