ALTA AND ROCK PAINTINGS NORWAY

Our first stop after North Cape on the way to Kautokeino was on the fjord at Alta to look at the Rock engravings there.
There are over 3000 engravings made between 6000 and 3000 years ago. There is a 3 kilometre board walk among the rocks at the head of this very beautiful fjord.

The battlecruiser, Scharnhorst, lay in wait for WW2 British convoys to Russia in Altafjord until it was sunk in December 1944. (John says this date is wrong) * [who am I accusing of being wrong? The Official War Diary? And how, in the absence of easy internet access or a complete historical library – something oddly lacking in our motorhome – am I expected to check the facts?] It is hard to believe that the war reached as far as this lovely and ancient place but in the museum we learnt that Hitler ordered a scorched earth policy in Finnmark – this part of Norway - when he knew Germany was losing. At the start of a long and bitter winter he evacuated the entire population and burnt the towns to the ground. People hid in dugouts in the forest with little food. The curious thing we learnt was, the very day Hitler ordered the policy, the Russians decided to advance no further in Norway.

Back at Rüdesheim in Germany some 2 months ago, we took a ferry across the Rhine. Cycling from Geisenheim next day we came across the ramparts of a ruined bridge. Wondering if we, (the Allies) were responsible for its destruction, we found a plaque that said that it was blown up by the German army 2 weeks before the war ended - a hopeless, useless waste of a necessary resource for people.