Shiny Things in Svolvaer

08/10/2025

My diary entry for this day says “Repulsive Weather”. It was wet and windy and felt gloomy all day long.

Svolvær shopping

It didn’t help that I was working so I was cooped up in the van with the rain drumming on the roof and Paul fidgeting beside me. In a search for somewhere to work we had ended up in Svolvær, one of the larger towns in Lofoten and somewhere that many people start their exploration of the islands.

Because of it’s status as a tourist hub the town felt bustling in comparison with some of the places we’d stayed recently. At the retail park the supermarkets were busy with people of all nationalities and had a wide variety of produce, including some tourist centric displays of local goods; salmon, jams, brunost. We picked up some of the famed brunost (brown cheese) and some smoked salmon which seemed reasonable value despite it’s colourful tourist packaging. We’ve sworn off jam. We have a habit of picking up chutneys and jams and we never get through them as fast as we expect. We need no more.

Paul spotted a sports store and homed in, looking for fishing equipment. He was in luck, there was a sale on as the store was being switched from it’s summer to it’s winter stock. Bright shiny lures in various shapes, sizes and colours caught his eye and he picked up a handful. They were a definite bargain compared with some of the lures he’d already bought. When we got back to the van he unpacked them and lined them up on the table to admire his glittering trophies. This wasn’t his only visit to that store. After doing some investigation of prices online he decided they were cheap even compared to UK prices and he returned to pick up some more shiny goodies.

Svolvær motorhome parking

Our parking in Svolvær was at the ferry terminal. It was not salubrious, just a car park with a 24 hour limit where we lined up with other vans along the edge of the water. We had a view of the ferry arriving and departing and behind us the bus station toilets were open 24 hours a day. The main road was not far away. It was just on the acceptable side of noisy.

We did walk down to the industrial estate to look at the official motorhome parking, but it was completely empty and the surroundings were no less busy. Cheekily we decided to stay a second night in our parking spot and overstay the 24 hour limit, but we did drive down to use the service point before we left. At 100NOK we wondered if we would get access to the showers as well as the service area, as we had elsewhere, but the entry codes for the service point and the bathrooms were different. So we had long showers in the van before emptying our waste water and refilling the tanks.

There was a hike we’d wanted to do here but the weather wasn’t playing ball. The thing with Norway is that there are beautiful and scenic hikes around every corner. Rather than staying any longer in Svolvær and waiting for the weather to clear, we moved on.