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The long, thin counties of Trøndelag and Nordland mark the transition from rural southern to blustery northern Norway. The main town of Trøndelag, appealing Trondheim , is easily accessible from Oslo by train, but north of here feels very far removed from the capital and travelling becomes more of a slog as the distances between places grow ever greater. In Nordland things get wilder still, though save the scenery there's little of delaying interest until you reach the surprisingly interesting steel town of Mo-i-Rana . Just north of here lies the Arctic Circle , beyond which the land becomes ever more spectacular, not least on the offshore chain of the Lofoten Islands , whose idyllic fishing villages (and cheap accommodation) richly merit a stop. Back on the mainland, Narvik was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting by the Allies and Norwegian resistance in World War II and is now a modern port handling vast quantities of iron ore amid some startling rocky surroundings. Further north still, the provinces of Troms and Finnmark are enticing too, but the travelling can be harder still, the specific attractions well distanced and - when you reach them - subtle in their appeal. It was from Tromsø , northern Norway's largest urban centre and a lively university town, that the king and his government proclaimed a "Free Norway" in 1940 before fleeing into exile in Britain. The appeal of Finnmark is less obvious: it was laid waste to during World War II, and it's now possible to drive for hours without coming across a building more than fifty years old. Most travellers head straight for Nordkapp , from where the Midnight Sun is visible between early May and the end of July. The train network reaches as far north as Fauske and Bodø, buses making the link to Narvik, from where a separate rail line runs the few kilometres to the border and then south through Sweden. Further north, approaches are more limited, and access is either by the coastal boat ( Hurtigrute ) or bus. The Hurtigrute takes the best part of two days to circumnavigate the huge fjords between Tromsø and Kirkenes; bus transport throughout the summer (and some of the winter) is efficient and regular, using the windswept E6 Arctic Highway as far as Kirkenes, with the E69 branching off to Nordkapp on the way.
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