*23 August 2025* *Elisabeth starts our blog today....* Lunch break on the road from Kautokeino to Alta. Occasional car or lorry. Rain keeping away. Break in the clouds. We are nearly at our northern most destination, Alta, where we will stop for 2-3 nights. Coming to the coast where it never freezes as the Gulf stream is near. We met a Dutch couple last night in the sauna who said the roads where we have been driving are ’so boring… only trees and trees…’ I so disagree - this landscape, the history of the whole area, the people, the small settlements, the rivers, the lakes, the tarns and the windswept vegetation… it all moves me and touches some deep place within me which I cannot put words to. It is about a huge respect for the people who have lived here, who live here now and who see the world from way up here… looking down towards Europe and the world. I am often close to tears. Cannot explain. So much history going 1000s of years back (more about that after Alta) to today’s life here. The stories of burnt churches and towns during the Nazi occupation… As a Swede it still shames me/us…as we were spared due to neutrality. Now of course we have joined Norway in NATO so the Nordic countries stand as one. Love our visits to the occasional church and  small museums. I love going into small supermarkets. Gumboots stand next to Coke. Good selection of outdoor wear and hunting knives of various sizes. Fishing gear, frozen trout in the well stocked freezers and reindeer hides hanging available for sale. 2-3 aisles of groceries. As well as the excellent fast charging stations for electric cars. We are in Norway! ----- Today we drove to our northernmost destination, Alta. ![[11-GNT - Map.jpeg]] We traversed the hauntingly beautiful Finnmarksvidda - a high, relatively barren and uninhabited plateau with endless vistas of lakes and trees. We stopped at Pikefossen (the Girl's Falls). The name comes from a Sami legend about a servant girl whose master threw her into the waterfall after her herd of reindeer drowned in the river above it. ![[11-GNT - 1.jpeg]] At Masi, a small settlement on the river, we visited the church which has interesting history. The first chapel in Masi was built in 1729 to serve and evangelize the local Sami people. The chapel was closed in 1778. By the 20th century, the ruins of the old chapel had long since disappeared. On 19 July 1927, a royal resolution was passed which authorized the construction of a new chapel in Masi. In 1931, a new wooden church was completed. The church was not used very long because near the end of World War II in 1944, the retreating German army burned the church. After the war when there were funds available, the church was rebuilt. It was completed in 1965. ![[11-GNT - 3.jpeg]] The graveyard has gravestones made from the remarkable green local rock. ![[11-GNT - 2.jpeg]] Further north Ester and I did a quick short walk from the main road, up 100 metres to a hill with spectacular views across the Vidda. The following four photos are taken looking roughly west, south, east and north. ![[11-GNT-WSNE - 1.jpeg]]![[11-GNT-WSNE - 2.jpeg]]![[11-GNT-WSNE - 3.jpeg]]![[11-GNT-WSNE - 4.jpeg]] There is little, for me, more beautiful than this wilderness. ![[11-GNT - 4.jpeg]] ![[11-GNT - 5.jpeg]] Approaching Alta the terrain changes dramatically, with higher hills and a spectacular river descent which we could not capture well on camera. ![[11-GNT - 6.jpeg]] We've seen only three reindeer since Gällivare, much to our surprise. We're told that in this area they're mostly taken down to the coast in the summer. So we reached Alta! We've driven 2,156 kms so far. The fastest route according to Google is 1,840 kms but that would be up the Baltic which is (relatively) boring! ![[11-GNT - 7.jpeg]] << [[The GNT, Day 10 - Kautokeino]] | [[The GNT, Day 12 - Alta (culture)]] >>