North Norway - Practical

North of Norway is much too far from France to consider driving. We had to fly.
We decided to go through Sweden : quite a few flights go to Kiruna, from Frankfurt (we live in Nancy, France, less than 3 hours away from Frankfurt, which is closer than Paris). Round ticket : 280 € per person, with SAS, + 25 € for the 3rd baggage (for the camping gear) + 58 € extra baggage for return trip (no online purchase available) : this is much cheaper than a flight Paris - Tromsø, and SAS is an excellent company...
Tip : a parking space may be reserved in Frankfurt Airport, which cuts the cost in half (still 75 € for two weeks).
Flight Frankfurt - Stockholm (2 h), then Stockholm - Kiruna (1h30).

Note :
- Temperature has always been between 15 and 18°C, night and day. As we never had any wind, we always had a warm and comfortable feeling - it was frequently a bit too warm at night, in the sleeping bags.
- We saw no mosquitoes : was it because of the time of the year ? or because we were close to the ocean ?

Hikes :

We found the description of the hike to Lyngsdalshytta in the program of a French trekking outfit.
There is a new Tourism Office in Lyngseidet, where we collected some useful information.

In Senja island, we got information from the Skaland Tourism Office. There, we purchased a very good 1/75 000 hiking map. Unfortunately, the first hike we attempted (Nb 67, in the Gryllefjord), does not exist, though it is shown as being well marked. And the steep slope was covered with wet grass : a bit too dangerous for us.

But we can recommend the hike above Skaland, towards Sommerdalen : the trail is well marked, and the view is magnificient. Starts from the church.

Conclusion : do not expect many marked trails on Senja. And the Tourism Office does not help much.

Tip : If you are interested in the Lyngen Alps, you will love the book "Mountaineering in the Land of the Midnight Sun" (Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond), published in 1908, reprinted by Amazon as a facsimile. It is the story of an english woman who explored these mountains systematically. She came back several years in succession (with her swiss guides) to make first ascents of most of the mountains in the range. And the book is very well written : a delight !

KIRUNA :
Tiny airport. The various car rental agencies work together : we had made the reservation through Europcar, but we ended up with an Avis car. The desk attendant was obviously a suppleant : her english was quite poor, and she was - let's put it this way - a bit rough...
But the car was in perfect conditions.
No reason to worry about toll roads in Norway : there are none in that area.

Cost of rental (13 days) : 4 175 SEK (455 €) + 200 SEK to allow border crossing. Group G car (Station Wagon, similar to Opel Astra). Rental was prepaid, leading to rebate. The price is almost half of was it would cost to rent a similar car in Tromsø...

ABISCO :

Since we were coming through Sweden, we decided to visit the Abisco National Park, on the way to Norway (1h1/2 from Kiruna Airport).
We had made reservations for the first two nights of our trip in the Abisko Fjällturer : very nice room, brand new, private toilets. Kitchen and showers on ground floor. Sauna available. Do not forget to bring your bedsheet. Price is a bit high (800 SEK, equivalent to 88 € a night...) - but this is standard in that country...

Abisco National Park :

We made a classic hike (where we were not alone), along the mountain stream. It rained most of the time...
On our future trips, we will stay only one night in Abisko : the Park is probably much more interesting during the winter season.