Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sleeping
Sorrisnava Igloo Hotel
ICE HOTEL €€€
( 78 43 33 78;
www.sorrisnava.no
; per person Nkr2000; mid-Jan-mid-Apr)
Its
30 bedrooms - and beds too - are made entirely of ice, as are the chapel, bridal suite (no
complaints of wedding night frigidity so far) and stunning ice bar with its weird-and-won-
derful sculptures lit by fibre-optics. Then again, you might just want to drop by and visit
(adult/child Nkr100/50).
Gargia Fjellstue
LODGE, CABINS €€
( 78 43 33 51;
www.gargia-fjellstue.no
, in Norwegian; s/d Nkr775/990, cabins with
outdoor bathroom Nkr600, with bathroom Nkr875)
Around 25km south of Alta, direc-
tion Kautokeino, this mountain lodge offers a forest getaway and a range of summer and
winter outdoor activities, including the best foot access to the Sautso-Alta canyon.
Hammerfest
POP 9700
Because of its strategic location and excellent harbour, Hammerfest has long been an im-
portant way station for shipping, fishing and Arctic hunting. In its heyday, ladies wore
the finest Paris fashions and in 1890 Europe's first electric street lighting was installed.
Nowadays it proudly claims to be the world's northernmost town (other Norwegian com-
munities, while further north, are, Hammerfest vigorously argues, too small to qualify as
towns!).
Neithermannornaturehasbeenkindtothetown:itwassetalightbytheBritishin1809,
decimated by a gale in 1856, burned severely in 1890, then torched again by the Nazis in
1944. Its parish church has gone up in flames five times over the centuries. All the same,
God may at last be smiling on the town in a way that is having a huge impact.
A 143km-long undersea pipeline starts beneath the Barents Sea, fed from the huge nat-
ural gas fields of Snøhvit (Snowhite: one great friendly, evocative name for such a giant
industrial project). It runs to the small island of Melkøya out in the bay, where the gas is
liquefied and transported by tanker to Europe and the US. With estimated reserves of 193
billion (yes,
billion
) cu metres, the pumps, which came on tap in 2007, are expected to
pound for at least 25 years.
