Alta; Monday, 22 May, 2023

Considerably less stiff than after the 9 hour journey the previous day we picked up luggage and walked the 100m or so from the bus station over to our hotel to checkin.

After dropping off our bags we headed back over to the bus station and picked up a local bus to head out the 10 minutes or so to the edge of town to visit the Alta Museum. In a recurrence of Sunday the card machine on this bus wasn’t working, but the driver decided he’d just let us off the 60Kr fare, which I suppose is probably easier to get away with than the 980Kr the driver in Kirkenes was charging.

The Alta Museum is located in a picturesque spot at the top of one arm of the Alta Fjord and at a point which has one of the highest concentrations of ancient rock carvings, or petroglyphs, in Northern Europe. The museum tells the history of both the rock carvings and the town, but the main attraction is being able to follow the 3Km or so walk way that takes you out of the museum and past the carved rocks.

All the rocks have been treated to lighten the colour of the rock to show the carvings off more closely, and about half have also been painted in red to make them stand out more. It’s certainly an impressive site, aided by the very picturesque backdrop of the fjord.

From the museum we caught the bus back into town, thankfully (or perhaps not) with a working card machine to pay for the fare this time, and then headed back over to the hotel.

A bit later we headed out to grab dinner, but with not may options decided to visit the Peppe Pizza – a Norwegian chain that always appears to get decent reviews – located underneath the hotel and were pleasantly surprised with a decent and reasonably priced (for Norway) meal.

After dinner we had a bit of a wander around the centre of Alta, taking in the Northern Lights Cathedral located just behind the hotel. The cathedral is best seen in the dark when hidden lights in the spire light up, during the middle of 24-hour daylight it looks more like a district waste heating plant or possibly a small polyclinic with a metallic chimney for disposing of hazardous waste.

Wander round Alta complete we headed back to the hotel and turned in for the night.