The town of Alta is not what-so-ever worth a detour. Spread out over 5 km with not less than three centres it could certainly pose as the Norwegian equivalent of one of those remote villages in an American road movie where the hero ends up in after having taken the wrong turn on the highway and gets tangled up in a weird story.
Not that I had any bad experiences in Alta but it just was not my kind of town. I also understood that the people living through the long and cold winters up there actually get a tax deduction for their heroism. Bless them all...