Gateway to Lofoten — midnight sun, the world's strongest maelstrom, and Norway's aviation hub above the Arctic Circle
Bodø (pronounced BOO-duh) is Norway's second-largest city north of the Arctic Circle, the transit hub for Lofoten and Vesterålen, and home to the Saltstraumen — the world's strongest natural maelstrom, where 400 million cubic metres of water surge through a 150m-wide channel four times daily at up to 22 knots. The city itself was almost completely destroyed by the Luftwaffe in May 1940 and rebuilt in a plain functionalist style, but the Norwegian Aviation Museum is world-class and the Arctic Cathedral and nearby Kjerringøy trading post are worth the visit. Midnight sun runs from 4 June to 8 J…
Bodø was established as a trading post in 1816 and grew slowly until the herring boom of the late 19th century. The German bombing of 27 May 1940 — which killed 15 civilians and destroyed 75% of the city centre — was one of the most devastating aerial attacks on a Norwegian city in WWII, carried out as cover for the German retreat from Narvik. The post-war rebuilding created a modernist city that lacks Tromsø's older charm but has the Saltstraumen, one of the world's most extraordinary natural phenomena.