Saturday, May 19, 2018

Californication: Geiranger

Our destination Friday night was Geiranger, a small village deep inside a network of fjords. The nature here is stunning and pictures from Geiranger are often used in ads for the Norwegian tourist industry. When we arrived in the evening, we first stopped at Eagle's Bend, up in the mountains above the village.

View towards the village.
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View out of the fjord. It bends and forks off several times before it reaches the open sea.
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A small stream was splashing down behind us.
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And you could walk out on a glass plattform. Why do you insist on doing this to me, Norway?
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Video from Eagle's Bend:


The views from the deck of our very nice little cabin at around 10PM Friday night. Albie squealed with delight when she saw it had a grassy roof.
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There was a thin layer of morning fog when we left the village on a 90-minute cruise of the fjord Saturday morning.
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One of the many, many, MANY waterfalls lining the fjord on both sides.
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This one is known as the seven sisters.
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Apparently, the sisters are all gay.
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The Devil was said to take refuge in the deepest, darkest parts of this canyon when he was surprised by a sunrise.
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The deep cracks you see in the mountainside are fissures which will sooner or later cause parts of it to tumble into the sea. When that happens, Geiranger may be fucked. Fortunately, Norway has some of the best geologists in the world and the movements of the mountain are watched very, very carefully. This is the situation along a frighteningly large part of the long Norwegian coastline and I strongly doubt they can monitor all of it.
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This seagull followed us for ten minutes on the way back.
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Sometimes he came almost up to the railings.
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"Oh, hai!"
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A couple of places along the coastline, people were outside, waving to the boat. Either they're more bored than I'll ever be, or they know exactly when the boats are coming and get a cut from playing friendly farmers to stupid Germans. These places can only be approached from the sea, btw.
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One of the nicer waterfalls along the way.
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By this tiny cabin, some people disembarked to walk the long, winding road up to an old settlement way the hell up in the mountainside.
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The center of Geiranger holds some moderately nice things, among them these old vehicles, painted in strong colors. These can be seen all over the county's tourist roads and is probably some type of outdoorsy art project.
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We shopped at a couple of places, although the prices were quite steep, this being a tourist destination. Even yours truly, who's used to the insane Norwegian cost level, balked at some of the price tags. However, advice was free and I thought this one especially good.
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This too!
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Upon leaving Geiranger, we passed this heard of goats by the roadside. Very cute.
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Further along, we paid to drive up to the mountaintop Dalsnibba, where they've made a huge parking lot and where one can take pictures of the lovely fjord and village and surrounding mountains. It's at appx. 1,500 meters or almost 5,000 feet above sea level.
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The winding road up there.
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Video from Dalsnibba:


Naturally, I was skeptical of Geiranger.
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On the long drive back, we stopped for dinner at a place called Pollfoss. Good grub at a reasonable price.
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We were greeted by this dog, who's the first animal I've seen to be stumped by my shadow. He tried to catch it and jumped on it several times.
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The place had nice interior decorations.
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