Norway in a Nutshell and Farewells cont…

The Highlight

The absolute highlight of this road trip was when Yves took me to the Borgund Stave-church. This was the Norway I had always imagined, ancient churches and viking influences.

Truly stunning

It was truly spectacular, I was so excited and just ran around looking everywhere, much to my friend’s bemusement.

A little bit of history: Stave-churches are Norway’s unique contribution to world heritage. Most were built between 1130 and 1350, when the Black Death brought an end to new building. Similar churches existed elsewhere in Europe, but only Norwegian ones have survived. Of the approximately 1000 original stave-churches only 28 are still standing and Borgund is the one with the least alterations.

The timber for the church her in Borgund was felled during the winter of 1180 and the building erected soon after. The complicated structure was built by travelling craftsmen with skills and experience.

Dragon Heads

The entire church is covered in tar to protect it and rests on stone foundations, therefore the wood does not rot and survives the ravages of time.

A Stave-church can consist of 2000 pieces, the sturdy was put together on the ground then raised upright, probably with the help of long poles. Not unlike the Amish communities barn raising.

Here are some pictures to help you understand the true grander of this stunning place.

Beautiful carvings

Part of the main doorway with acanthus vine-scrolls on the pilasters. The side panels and door lintel are decorated with serpents and dragon like creatures and foliage.

The medieval stone altar.

The altarpiece was painted in 1654 and depicts Christ’s crucifixion. The frame dates from 1620.

The diagonal cross-braces are named after St. Andrew who was crucified on a diagonal cross.

Animal masks

Truly amazing, so much history I could have stayed and explored all day, but we were off to find lemmings!!

Suicide Alley

We planned to go up and over an amazing viewpoint before heading home and then onto Bergen and the airport. Unfortunately we got up and discovered that the road was closed for construction. However, there were stunning views on the way up.

Autumn colors

Driving up this beautiful road we started to notice an unusual number of squashed rodents…. yup it was suicide alley Lemming style. They were everywhere, we counted over 70 in just 5minutes of driving.
Then, as luck would have it we found a live one, I hopped out and started chasing it trying to get a picture. They are a lot smaller than I expected but apparently can be quite aggressive, for some reason I felt like it would leap at me with vicious teeth baring towards my throat. But I managed to gather my courage and get an ok photo before running away from this cute fluffy suicidal creature!

Flight Time

Randomly in Voss there is a center where you can experience the exhilaration of skydiving with only being a few feet off the ground. Also professional teams can come and practice here safely. It was a bit expensive so I just watched.

Off to Bergen and a Final Hoorah!

All to soon it was time to toss my bag in the back of the rent a wreck and head to Bergen. One of our friends, another tour guide, joined us for the drive. Bergen was amazing and I really wished I had made time to go and explore it.

Airport Napping

Yves and Anna Maria dropped me off at the airport just after midnight. We only had 5minute parking so I told them not to worry about coming in. I have always hated farewells, and prefer a “see you later”. Holding back tears and giving good hugs we said cheers and I headed into the airport to find a comfy chair to nap till 4am when I hoped I could check in for my 6am flight.

Finding a place was not too difficult, however getting comfy and sleeping was a whole other issue. I got a few winks here and there in between pee breaks (for some reason flying makes me need to pee).

Eventually, around 4am, we could check in and go through security to wait for the plane. Farewell Norway it has been wonderful, expensive, but wonderful!

Thanks again to Yves for inviting me to go camping in such a stunning area!!!

 

Norway in a Nutshell and Farewells

Rent A Wreck

My last day before leaving this stunning country my mate got to play tour guide in true fashion. We rented a car and toured around the region, visiting stunning gorges, driving crazy hairpin bends and exploring ancient churches.

First of all it was the hassle of trying to find and rent a car. Turned out many places were out of cars except for the delightfully named, Rent A Wreck. Yves had called the day before to ensure they would be open for us to sort everything out. We wondered around the far side of Voss until we found it, sort of down the road under a bridge over the way sort of thing…and it was closed, a full 2 hours before they had told us they would be. Go figure. Yves called and they said they would send someone. About 20 minutes later they called us, apparently the guy had left ’cause he was bored and now could not return, got to love Norway, so we were just going to do it over the phone. No problem they would leave the key for us in a box for the morning. What could go wrong!

Surprisingly nothing, and we got the car in the morning and went off to explore Norway in a Nutshell.

Exploring Gorges

The day before leaving we took a hike behind Voss to explore the local gorge. Absolutely beautiful!

Beautiful flowers at the gorge

Waterfalls

Our first stop was the Twin Falls, Tvindefossen, it was the dry season but still amazing, right off the side of the road. Huge signs everywhere asking that no one steal the slate rocks….

Stalheimskleiva

Our next stop was on top of the Stalheimskleva, a stunning view of the gorge below. Unfortunately the hotel, that boasts a wonderful collection of artifacts, was closed due to a convention. But we still enjoyed the view.

The gradient is so steep and the 13 spectacular hairpin bends means only downwards traffice is allowed, and it makes one hell of a ride!

Viewing a Fjord

Then it was on to see a fjord, truly stunning!

Norwegian Brown Cheese in Vingerstad

In Norway they have this… how do I explain… interesting… different… unique… yeah let’s go with unique, cheese (or cheeselike). They take the leftovers from cheese and curd, and boil it more, till it becomes a thick paste like substance, then they fill molds and compact it till it kind of looks like a wax model, then they eat it! There are truly no words that I can find to express how it tastes…

But it is beautiful here

On To Flam

I had heard about Flam before and was quite excited to visit this Norwegian town…. until Yves explained that the “town” was in fact more of a cruise terminal than anything else. A few tourist shops and a spectacular brewery.

stunning interior

Stunning exterior too

Tunnels Everywhere

When you drive through Norway you will discover tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. Some go through mountains, some go on the side of cliffs, some go under lakes… but they are everywhere. We went through the longest one, 24.5km, which actually has special lighting in certain sections to wake you up, that replicates daylight. It is so big they even hold activities like concerts inside.

Heading into the tunnel

The blue light in the distance

Inside the blue light

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

Drive to the End of the Norwegian Alphabet

The Plan

The day before, Yves and I had a great plan to wake up at 7am and leave by 8am. Well we woke up at 8am…. Today we decided to give ourselves a break and lie in till 8am, meet Juraj and leave at 9am! We woke up at 6.30am, Murphy really gets a hoot out of these ironic moments…. But at least it meant we could pack up slowly and then check some internet at the main house while waiting for Juraj.

We didn’t have to wait long and soon we were on the road. Since it had taken quite a few hours to get as far as we had the day before we decided to drive half way… after all, the tourist map we had been given seemed to indicate it was the same distance if not further to end of the Lofoten Islands and the town of Å, pronounced “Ooohhr”, or close to that at least. That is also the very last letter of the Norwegian alphabet, which seemed rather handy when you are the last town in a long chain of islands.

Juraj planned to go all the way to the end of the alphabet, and we planned to drop him along the way when we found a place we fancied. It turned out that the tourist map was horribly wrong in it’s dimensions and after barely 2 hours we were well on our way, only a couple of towns from Å, so we just decided to head all the way.

Here are some pictures of the stunning scenery on the way:

Hitting a Jam

Go figure, once we had made the decision to go to the end, we hit a jam. Literally, roadworks had caused a traffic jam (Norwegian Island style), in the most inconvenient location with no way to turn around and at least a 30 minute wait.

It appeared that they were completing work on a tunnel designed to prevent landslides and avalanches, always a good thing when you are north of the Arctic circle. Did I mention that this was me driving, my first time driving a hybrid in a foreign country… I get all the fun. So we broke out the snacks and surveyed the road works.

Suddenly out of nowhere a Norwegian Barbie (sorry but it’s was the term the boys came up with), stalks over and says something intense to the guy holding the flag… next minute we are confused and driving through and incomplete tunnel that would randomly lurch to the left and outside the tunnel, making us drive along the cliff edge. A very high and scary looking cliff edge…remember again, I am driving. We had no idea where the road went to follow and I was just thankful that there had been one car ahead of us, that way I could follow him and if he suddenly drove over the cliff I would know to lean more right than left. The worker in the pickup playing chicken with the civilian cars, he had a real hoot as he just got ahead of me as I was entering the tunnel again through a small one car gap, did not help our confidence.

But, after a fairly insane 7 minutes or so we exited out the other end where another row of cars were waiting to enter the Norwegian Highway’s Merry Go Round!

Welcome to the End of the Norwegian Alphabet

With the traffic jam our well on the way time scale pretty much went out the window. We found one decent camp site a few towns before Å but we weren’t sure if it was the right place for us. So we headed for the end. Finally pulling in we were faced by a delightful town of red fisher buildings a lovely coastal area and even a youth hostel. But that was all, it appeared as if they had set up some decent accommodation for tourists then said “well that’s good enough”. We drove around trying to find other options for accommodation stopping at one point to ask, what appeared, to be a local, where the campsite was. There were signs but we couldn’t pinpoint the location. This wise old gentleman gave us an evaluating look, gave us a resigned expression and then pointed vaguely back the way we had come saying “It’s over there…” . I was pretty certain he mumbled “duh!” under his breath. Of course we were idiots who wouldn’t recognize the apparently vacant grassy lot with no signs as the campsite….

Heading back to the hostel we looked at our options there. I was kind of leaning towards at least one night of warmth, and hoped the guys would go for it to. The only other option, as the “campsite” was apparently closed for the season. Finally we opted for a dorm room price in a small cabin with a kitchen come living room and plenty of plugs and heaters. All wet gear was pulled out and put in a drying position and all electronic equipment plugged in.

this was our little cabin!

The boys decided to try get in a quick hike before dinner and I decided to explore Å and see what I could find, turned out to be beautiful scenery but nothing much else. There were no stores, no restaurants, no bars… it was as if all the locals had gone underground the minute August 31st past, even tourist information was shut for the winter. And all I wanted was a cup of coffee…

I did however find some kittens!

 

Senja Island

Renting a Hybrid

Baring with me, as exhaustion makes this day a bit fuzzy, but I do remember the hilarious moments, such as when we went to pick up the rental car. At the hertz office we were informed that Yves had reserved via the super duper US cheap cheap rate… Great we thought… but that meant no insurance of any kind. Apparently most US credit cards come with that built in. I was paying, but had never rented a car before and was unsure if my card covered that and it seemed a little risky to rent without insurance.

To get insurance meant more than doubling the cost of the car, making a $300 rental into around $750 rental… However, the very nice man behind the counter decided to see what magic her could work. He managed to get us a complete deal, with insurance and a couple of extra days, for around $500. We decided this was just a better idea.

Keys in hand we headed out, climbed into our nifty little Toyota Yaris and were perplexed…. there was no key hole for the key, only a button. Yves pressed the button and some lights on the dash cam on but no engine sound. We both looked at each other utterly confused. Yves tapped the accelerator and the car jerked forward, “holy shit it’s on!” pretty much covered it! Apparently we had the honor of a hybrid, and unlike most hybrids in the US it didn’t have the added safety feature of a low whine to let you know you were good to go. Once we got the general idea we headed out into the confusing streets of Tromsø.

We named her Bensin, after the sticker on the dashboard…. ok I named her, in truth that was telling us the kind of gas to put in, but the name fit.

Senja Island – South Side

Attempting to guide Yves out of the city was kind of like the blind being led by a deaf and blind person, due to my exhaustion levels now reaching 30something hours without decent sleep. I was pretty certain I was slurring words. But we figured it out and made our to our first stop Senja Island, around 2 hours South of Tromsø, and highly recommended by the guy at Tourist Information.

Crossing over to the island we thought we were following the North road, in fact we somehow missed it and followed a Southern loop. Senja was beautiful but far from anything earth shatteringly beautiful that could snap me out of my haze of half napping.

We finally came across a campsite around 2pm, with no one anywhere to be found. Calling the number we were told just to camp anywhere and pay in the morning…ok????? Yves said “welcome to Norway”, he would come to repeat it many times.

We decided, instead to keep driving and see if we could find the North road, or at Yves decided, I nodded.

Senja Island – North Side

Still unsure if more driving was a good idea, and inwardly wishing for my comfy pad and sleeping bag, we turned onto the North road. Within minutes all you could hear were “Oooohhhhs and Aaaaahhhhhhs”. The North road appeared to be the road less travelled and was breathtakingly beautiful and wild. Stunning craggy cliffs and atmospheric clouds all surrounded by wild waves made it look like it was straight out of a Lord Of the Rings movie.

We only wished we had found this road first as dusk was fast approaching and with it impending rain….

Yves found a random kettle on the pier… anyone for a cuppa tea??

Campsite 1

We did come across one other campsite set at the shore of a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. A perfect place to contemplate and relax. Unfortunately it would add an extra hour or more to our trip in the morning so we opted for the first campsite.

We set up camp and then, while Yves made dinner, I went and had one of the most amazing showers in my life… after paying 10kroner ($1.50) for 10minutes of hot water…

In the morning we had to call again as there was no one to pay. Again Yves chuckled and said “Welcome to Norway”. However, the friendlish chap that arrived mumbled something about not seeing us on his drive through at 9pm and therefore the cost of 175KR ($27) was too much. He only charged us 100KR, so perhaps there was something to say about the Norwegian way.

We headed on our way further south, heading for Svolvær, the capital of the Lofotens.