📷 Winter Sea

While the weather in Moscow and the region is very hot again for several days, I switch from memories of spring Italy to the spring Lofoten Islands, Norway. It's funny that the photos from both Tuscany and Lofoten were taken in March (different years), but how different the weather is! And the mood. In Italy, everything is already breathing warm and in spring, everything is green, and in Norway...

... and in Norway, in March, a real winter fairy tale! And now, while it is more or less comfortable for me to be in my apartment only during the short night hours, I definitely prefer the cold landscapes from Lofoten :) I invite you to admire them with me.

In fact, in those few days it was not very cold there, I was even a little afraid before the trip that a thaw would come and all the beautiful snow would melt right before my eyes :) This, fortunately, did not happen, and at a comfortable -5-10C it was pleasant to just walk and take pictures. In a warm winter jacket, hat and boots, of course :)

I am glad that I managed to admire and, I hope, convey well the atmosphere of the Norwegian Sea against the background of snow-covered land: mountains, rocks, hills and plains. I like this combination of large open ice-free water and snow, it is mesmerizing. Perhaps it interests me, among other things, because from childhood I was accustomed to something completely different: if I go to the sea, then it’s the south, it’s warm, and the snow that fell literally 1-2 times during the winter where I lived in childhood is always melted for several days. And those days I definitely did not go to the sea :) Accordingly, to see the sea beach like this, half covered with snow, would have seemed to me then, as a child, very unusual :)

Well, many years have passed since those early childhood days, I become adult and managed to see a lot of interesting and unusual things, visited different countries — but I still love the sea. Now in any form: both in a warm, when the hot sun is shining and in the water you can swim and dive with pleasure, and in a cold one, when there is nothing to do in the water without a dry diving suit (preferably heated). I discovered that the sea can be admired in any weather — it is always beautiful and always attracts me, just like the mountains. And when both happen in one place, like in Lofoten, it's just super :)

By the way, that my trip to Lofoten took place literally on the eve of the beginning of the massive closures of the borders of some countries due to COVID-19 in March 2020, the termination of regular flights and the introduction of various quarantines. In particular, towards the end of the trip, we began to have serious doubts whether we would be able to get to Oslo normally and without problems and fly home from Norway, or they would catch us somewhere on the islands and forcibly lock us in a hotel, or cancel our flight, or there will be difficulties when entering Russia ...

Fortunately, we managed to get home before the big problems started and everything was ok. This was my last overseas trip at the moment, but since the summer of 2020, having spent a lot of time almost staying at home and getting bored without travel, I began to travel more around Russia by car, which is also good. I hope that I will always have the opportunity to travel and enjoy it, until old age :) And I wish you the same!