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.


View out of the fjord. It bends and forks off several times before it reaches the open sea.


A small stream was splashing down behind us.


And you could walk out on a glass plattform. Why do you insist on doing this to me, Norway?


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.


There was a thin layer of morning fog when we left the village on a 90-minute cruise of the fjord Saturday morning.


One of the many, many, MANY waterfalls lining the fjord on both sides.


This one is known as the seven sisters.


Apparently, the sisters are all gay.


The Devil was said to take refuge in the deepest, darkest parts of this canyon when he was surprised by a sunrise.


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.


This seagull followed us for ten minutes on the way back.


Sometimes he came almost up to the railings.


"Oh, hai!"


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.


One of the nicer waterfalls along the way.


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.


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.


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.


This too!


Upon leaving Geiranger, we passed this heard of goats by the roadside. Very cute.


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.


The winding road up there.


Video from Dalsnibba:


Naturally, I was skeptical of Geiranger.


On the long drive back, we stopped for dinner at a place called Pollfoss. Good grub at a reasonable price.


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.


The place had nice interior decorations.

Californication: Troll's ladder

We then reached Trollstigen, or Troll's ladder. I had thought the sight and experience of it would have shut the Americans up, but instead they made rude jokes about my driving. Honestly, some people....


Naturally, I was skeptical of Trollstigen.


The stream coming down the mountain.


Of course they couldn't just leave the stream be, they had to "improve" upon it. Bah, humbug.


Several characteristic mountain tops surround the visitor centre at the top of the hill.


You want waterfalls? Here's yer stinkin' waterfall!


The water going off the mountainside. Notice the other waterfall coming in from the right.


"Where the sun comes up / around ten in the morning / and the sun goes down / about three in the day..."


That's one hell of a road.


The descent on the other side is a lot less brutal and allows for some really, really purdy scenery. We stopped at this tiny settlement to take pics of the nice old cabins and yet another goddamn stream coming down the hillside.


As you can see, there are whole bushes growing out of the roof. The Americans fell head over heels in love with the tradition.




Further down, I stopped at the small canyon Gudbrandsjuvet. Sho, sho purdy.


My shadow on the rock.

Californication: The Atlantic Road & Inland

The night was spent at a motel/camping site where I'd stayed a few years ago. The room was very tiny, especially for three people. A moment of hilarity ensued in the morning, when I woke up to the sound of a concerned Courtland below me in the bunk bed, as it was giving off suspiciously creaking noises. As I moved to turn over on my side, I distinctly heard one of the boards give way. I still don't know quite how I managed to scoot out of the bed and onto the ladder, but just as I did this, two more boards gave way and the two Americans below crawled over one another, screaming in terror. Fortunately nothing was broken, but the boards had slid out of position, leading to the very real possibility that they'd be killed by a falling, rotund Norwegian - and even if the fall didn't kill them, they might have suffocated. Such are the perils of a trip to Norway.

Anyways, the day started with a trip along the famous Atlantic Road. This is the most famous of the many bridges connecting the islands to each other.


It's an arresting sight.


Just before it, there's a small island where you can park the car and walk around a hill; it took us 15-20 minutes, but it can easily be done in 5.


Naturally, I was skeptical of the Atlantic Road.


The views inland are ridiculous.


Just stupid purdy.


Now, we were supposed to take the ferry across a strait, but I read the map wrong and thought the road along the coastline would be just 15-20 minutes. It took us a couple of hours, and that was with me flying low over some desolate areas. On the other hand, we had to stop frequently to take pictures, because, well... this... Albie, who hails from Switzerland, was commenting on how the scenery reminded her of home, and when she saw the cows, it was just "d'oh, that's retarded pretty".




Further inland, we came across this valley. Unreal.

Californication: North to Kristiansund

Wednesday was another work day, but in the early hours of Thursday we set off towards Kristiansund on the northwest coast. The 17th of May is our Constitution Day, akin to 4th of July in the US. We saw lots of people in traditional garb, but I don't know if the yanks took any pictures of 'em.

Our first stop was at the gas station in Otta, where we stuffed face on waffles and soft serve ice cream. We then drove up to Rondane, where we took some pictures and drew in the fresh mountain air and enjoyed the nice and quiet up in the woods. Albie probably set a new world record in cluelessness when she later asked me "what was that beautiful village where we went up into the woods". I leave it to you, dear reader, to judge how beautiful Otta is:


Rondane. Mmmmmm.


We drove further north and stopped several times while crossing the Dovre moountain massif, to take pics. Such as this. We also lunched at a nice little place in the mountains where I indulged with yet another waffle.


Coming down on the other side of the mountains, we happened upon this very nice railway station building.


The side building was also nice.


The road from Oppdal over to Kristiansund is one of the purdiest in a country with plenty of purdy. It is simply one postcard after another, with majestic mountains, clear blue lakes, lovely, well kept farms, sloping fields, happy, well fed cows, little lambs jumping around playfully and of course the occasional waterfall. This sunny day, it was sheer bliss. This is on the outskirts of Oppdal, looking due south.






Lovely mountain lake. The trip took much, much longer than google said it would, on account of us stopping to take pictures all the time.


These pics were taken close to the coast, at some tourist cabins which seemed abandoned just then, so we stopped and took photos. Sue us.






Out by the coast.


There are farms, indeed whole villages along the Norwegian west coast that can only be reached by boat.


The city of Kristiansund is situated on several islands out by the very coast.


We went down to the beach to take pics of the sunset.


Naturally, I was skeptical of Kristiansund.