The first word that comes to mind is surreal.

The Scandinavian airliner that was en route to Kiruna, the largest Swedish city in the north (20,000 souls), offered our eyes an infinite expanse of snow.

Once we collected our luggage, we took the private bus which, after an hour on the road, stops in Abisko, a hamlet of Kiruna, permanently populated by about 100 souls. In such a place where time seemed to flow more slowly, silence reigned supreme, and they were devoid of sunrise and sunset: beyond the Arctic Circle, during our stay over the Christmas period, we never saw the sun rise, and the few hours of daily light painted the landscapes with variations of blue and pink, as if we were in an eternal polar twilight.
The photos in this article make our description better.

From Abisko starts one of the most famous trails in all of Sweden, the Kungsleden, or the king's path, which winds for kilometers per year throughout Swedish Lapland.

The path can be covered entirely only in late spring and summer, but crossing the first kilometers during the Christmas period, covered with snow that crunches at every step, breathing pure air free of pollution, gives a wonderful feeling; it was as if our body remembered being in close connection with the natural world, away from noisy society.

Away from this din, on our first attempt at exploration we were greeted by a giant moose grazing in the woods! We got so close (always keeping a safe distance) that we heard her nibble on small twigs! Truly a memorable encounter, which alone was worth the price of the entire vacation.

The following day we visited Narvik with an excursion, a Norwegian town protected by a dramatic fjord, which in the 1900s became an important trading port for the export of iron from the Kiruna mine, which took place by rail. For this reason, Narvik was the scene of fierce battles between the allied army and the Nazis, who occupied it during the Second World War. The modern and well-kept historical museum has offered us a detailed reconstruction of that period, with many artifacts from the period, where the human being fought against himself and against the elements.

Such a remote place where it is possible to see the reindeer herds of the Sami population, the true master people of Lapland, which with its ancient centuries-old traditions constitutes a very precious social and cultural testimony.

You are wondering: why Abisko? Why spend Christmas in a place on the edge of human civilization, with an average temperature of around -15 degrees, without royal lunches and dinners?
Because even then we were aware of the importance of social distancing ...
Joking aside, Abisko was chosen for two reasons.

The first was certainly dictated by the desire to switch off, to live the days slowly, surrounded by unspoiled nature. Walks in the snow-covered birch forests, on paths on the edge of a frozen lake, or near streams that jumped up gradients making small thunderous waterfalls, gave us precious time to think about ourselves, to set goals for our personal improvement.

The second reason was dictated by the possibility of making a dream come true: seeing the dancing lights of the Northern Lights with the naked eye, a phenomenon that we will talk about in the next article.