Hiking in Harstad

When we arrived in Harstad, we were picked up by Geir, who took us out to lunch at the Four Roses Café.  Upstairs from the Café is the Four Roses Restaurant, which is one of the top restaurants in all of Norway.  Halvdan later told us that the building for the restaurant originally stood on Grasholmen (the island where Nolan’s great grandfather grew up).  After lunch and a bit of walking around the center of Harstad (there was a big festival going on, so lots of things going on), Geir took us to meet his mother in law and cousin to Nolan’s Oldemor: Aase.  Most of the family calls her Mor Aase because Geir’s daughter is also named Aase.  We learned that Mor Aase’s stipulation for Geir marrying her daughter Bente was that they name a daughter Aase. 

While in Harstad we spent a lot of time with Geir and Kirsti, another relative to Nolan.  We went on two beautiful hikes with them, the first up to the top of the mountain behind Geir’s house where we got a great view over all of Harstad and the fjord.  Geir and Kirsti go on a lot of hikes right around where they live. There are so many beautiful places to see around here, so you don’t have to travel far to find wonderful hikes.

The second hike was up to the top of Keipen.  This time we also brought Aase, her daughter Tilde, along with her uncle Ole and his girlfriend Monica. It was a lot of fun to hike with the whole crew. The top is right on the edge of a huge cliff. On the way up it was quite foggy, but it cleared up in time for us to have a stunning view of the fjord below. We also saw a huge rainbow from the sun hitting the fog at our backs. While admiring the rainbow, we ate cookies and drank hot coffee. It seems to be a common practice here to bring hot drinks and snacks to the tops of mountains.

On our last night in Harstad, we made dinner for everyone with our freshly caught fish! We fried the fish in butter with a light layer of flour, salt, and pepper. We also made roasted cherry tomatoes, rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, and carmalized onion crostinis with baked brie.

For desert, ice cream sundaes…and a new episode of Game of Thrones! Aase and Nikolay are also very excited about the show so it was a lot of fun to watch with them.