Narvik; Thursday, 07 May, 2026

I got up relatively early, mostly because the blackout curtains the hotel claimed they had turned out to be about as thick as tissue paper and I had sunlight streaming into my room from just after 6 am – very thankful for the mountain view as it took the sun about three hours to scale the mountain and peak over the top.

After a leisurely breakfast I packed most of my bag and then headed out for a quick wander around some of the parts of town I hadn’t been to before, focusing on the parks to the opposite side of the railway tracks. The first of these the Gulbransons park starts with the Rallar'n or the monument to the men who built the Ofotbanen and stands where they could look down on their completed line.

A quick scramble up the side of the hill takes you to the highest point of the park where there aren’t great views as the trees are all a little too high, blocking out all but passing glimpses of the Ofotfjord below.

From the park I walked the short distance to the Polish War Memorial. During the battle for Narvik in May 1940, 59 Polish sailors went down with their ship when it was sunk and the memorial helps to show in how many theatres of the Second World War the Poles fought alongside the other allies against the Nazis. Behind the monument and plaque with the inscription detailing the reason for the monument are some very pretty views out over the fjord where the men lost their lives.

From the memorial I headed down hill to the edge of the fjord to take in some of the stunning views across the waters to the mountains in the distance, and off to one side one of the best views of the Hålogalandsbrua, the bridge that connects Narvik north and one that I would be traversing again in a couple of hours’ time.

From the waterside it was as short walk-up hill, then partially back down hill to reach my final stop of the morning the Helleristning also known as The Moose of Brennholtet. This is a 5,000-year-old rock carving into a large piece of glacial rock that depicts a moose, which in the strong sunlight was probably more difficult to make out than if it had been a bit overcast, but it was just about discernible.

From the carving it was time to head back to the hotel to finish packing, check-out and head on down to the bus terminal for my connection onto Harstad.

When I’d booked the trip I’d seen there were connections at the mainland side of the Tjeldsundbrua to Harstad, but I wasn’t certain they would be guaranteed and if I’d missed one it would have been a very long wait, which is why I’d continued into Narvik and had the night here. Of course, the journey in the previous day proved that the connections are held if the bus from Svolvær is running late, so I could have done that and saved the 90 minutes of overlapping journey to get back to the Tjeldsundbrua today.