It took us 4 busses and 3 trains to do it, but we have finally arrived in Narvik, Norway, from Helsinki, Finland - the starting point for exploring the Lofoten Islands and fjords via rental car over the next few days. Narvik is a cool little town that has the northernmost train station (and supposedly disco) in the world. It is a few hours north of the Arctic Circle by train.

This completes our overland trek from Beijing - from the Pacific to the Atlantic across Eurasia. Going from Asia to Norway seems like traversing planets instead of the same land mass. What a contrast.

On the  way through we stopped at Rovaniemi, which is known for being so close to the Arctic Circle and having Santa's "official" residence.  Surprise, surprise - it was a giant gift shop!

I wasn't really upset - i just love making stupid faces in these contraptions.

 We did cross the Arctic Circle for the first time there though...

...so we can check that one off the list.