Author: The Global Travellers

Tim and Mari’s World Tour – Norway

Norway
August 25 – September 7

As much of a shock to ourselves as to anyone else, we ended up our last few days in Scandinavia. It all started out so innocent though. On our last day in the UK we decided to try and find the quickest way into Europe. At one of a few cheapie travel shops, a girl suggested RYANAIR, an internet based airline. Well, we decided to find a computer and check this out. We scanned pages and found ourselves a flight to Oslo for £14.50 (about $30 CDN). Well this was too good of a deal to pass up, so we booked and bid adieu to our travelling companies. That night, we slept curled up on our therm-a-rests in the corner of the airport. We woke only partly refreshed, and bought a coffee before our flight, then slept some more on the plane, and woke up (again only partly refreshed) in Norway.

As with most budget travellers, one of the first things that we discovered was that Norway was not a cheap country. The prices were even more than Britain, although to compare prices to India or Vietnam would be pointless. We were spending more for one meal in Norway than two days budget in these other countries.

Nevertheless, Norway was a stunningly beautiful country, and we were determined to enjoy it to the fullest. The first thing we did, was to plan our route in the country and purchase a train pass, and then maximise both our time and budget. After nearly a year on the road, this was by far the most organized that we had been for any country.

After a day in the capital, Oslo, we boarded a train and headed north. The Signature trains in Norway are the most incredible trains that we had ever seen. The coaches are warm and very comfortable, with built in radios so that travellers with earphones can listen to Norwegian pop music while they travel. Actually, most of what I heard on the radio seemed to be dance music from the U.S. and Britain. Further proof that the world is shrinking.

We discovered something on our trip north that would plague us the entire trip. After the middle of August, the people of Norway consider tourist season to be over. This means that routinely, things would be closed or being repaired. The train, for example, was diverted for about a 100 km section while the track was being fixed. Since diverting a train can be tough, we were placed on a bus. The bus was not nearly as fast as our train, and when we finally arrived in the northern city of Trondheim, it was very late. We found a city bus, and headed out to a campground, and arrived exhausted to pitch our tent in the dark. We slept like logs.

The following day, we slept in to around noon. We realized that the constant travel was finally getting to us, and that we were worn right out. We took the opportunity to spend the day just lazing around the tent. We visited the store and snacked on Norwegian stew several times. Hard to believe, but after a trip this long, Mari and I almost needed a vacation.

We had heard that Scandinavia in the fall could be rather rainy, but for the first few days it remained sunny and warm. We had been busy snapping pictures of fjords, and mountains, and decided to head into Trondheim itself to photograph some of the cultural history. The main attraction in Trondheim is the incredible Nidaros Domkirke. It is a massive gothic church, which retains the title of Scandinavia’s largest medieval building. We were incredibly impressed by this building. Although it was a cathedral, it was covered with the most incredible carvings, and seemed very linked to a Viking lifestyle. We discovered that when Christianity was making inroads into Norway, it was the gothic carvings that attracted people, who were still unsure of this crazy new religion.

Construction of the cathedral was started 1000 years ago, and over time it was built, added to, and then forgotten about. About 100 years ago a re-structuring project was commenced, and a full new front was placed on the church. This included millions of dollars of building, but the museum admitted that their new technology would not possibly last as long as the original stone cutting, a trade which had been lost for generations.

On the same grounds as the Nidaros, there stands a military museum. Mostly focusing on the second world war, the building also housed a collection of early swords. I was most impressed by one belonging to an early King. The sword was 2.5m long, and would have required both of us just to lift it. I imagined that the King would retain power just by picking it up, and scaring people with it.

On the day we left Trondheim, it was pouring rain. We had to pack our tents up inside a small kitchen from the campground. Our train was an overnight one, so the rain never spoiled our views, there just wasn’t any. When we woke the following day, it was still drizzly. We had just spent nine hours on a train, and were switching to now head west. As the train journeyed, we discovered that the rain continued, but we also discovered that the road did not. Near the train line was an old dirt track, but mostly the train was the main line of transport. It seemed odd that as we passed ski resort towns, that the winter would see our train packed with snowboards instead of suitcases. We also noticed that the train slowly inched itself higher, until we were above the tree-line and looking at pockets of snow, and glaciers looming in the distance.

When we unloaded in the town of Myrdal, there was little around but a train station. The reason we got off, was to yet again switch trains, because here starts the famous Flam line. The Flam railway is famous because it travels down a mountain and ends up at the very scenic Aurlandsfjord. The train passes many waterfalls, and drops down through long tunnels. It also is the steepest railway on standard gauge line, which drops 900m over the course of 20 km. It was the most amazing ride we had ever been on. But, as you can imagine, when we arrived at the fjord, all we did was set up our tent and fall asleep.

The following morning we set out exploring. It was magnificent. We spent the day hiking up mountains, along valleys, the coast of the ocean. And everywhere we went, fresh raspberries awaited us. We gorged ourselves on sights and berries. Just when we thought it couldn’t get more beautiful, we decided to take a ferry trip. The next day, at the early hour of 6am, we boarded a small boat. As the sun was rising, it took us out into the relatively shallow bay that we were in. After passing more waterfalls, sheer rock walls, and birds that I can possibly count, we were switched to a larger ferry. We spent the next four hours, heading due west, leaving a fjord. Sometimes the walls were so close, we had no more than 10m on each side, and the scenery never wavered, but remained gorgeous at all times. When we finally landed in Bergen, we were almost out of film. We learned that there was a bus service from Flam, but we wondered who would possibly take it, if they knew how beautiful the ferry was.

Bergen was an interesting town, and although several museums were closed there were many street performers still out. In town we did some shopping, and Mari found herself some stunning copper jewelry which seemed very medieval, and I spent my time lifting Gothic swords, impressing upon myself that I wouldn’t want to meet anyone who could carry one comfortably. The remaining site was the fish market. It is so popular, that it has multi-lingual staff to cover needs in Japanese, English, German and French. Although impressed, we really didn’t need any fish in our luggage.

We had one stop left in Norway, which was the coast town of Stavenger. We opted for a bus trip here, but ended up with more than we bargained for. En route to the south, the road is not continuous, and so there are three ferry trips. After about an hour on the bus, Mari and I had fallen sound asleep. We woke and found the bus had parked beside a grey wall, and was obviously just stopping to let people stretch. We decided to stay on the bus. When everyone but us was off the bus, the driver approached us. He could speak some English, and was very nice.

“We have several ferry trips tonight,” he said.
“Okay,” said we.
Confused that we were not understanding him he said, “When we are on the ferry, you cannot stay on the bus.”
“Okay,” we said, “we will get off when we get to the ferry.”
The driver sighed, “Here is a schedule of our trip, With the TIMES of the ferries.”
Absolutely clueless, I looked at my watch. “Okay,” I said, “we will be ready.”
Finally he said, “This is the ferry.”

Crap. We grabbed our stuff and scampered off the bus. The ferry immediately departed. Evidently it and a couple hundred people were waiting for a couple of idiots to get off the bus, before they could leave.

As per norm, we arrived after dark and had to find a campsite and set up by headlamp. We woke and found that we had stumbled upon a gorgeous site on the shores of a lake. We were truly impressed.

We had come to Stavenger to experience two natural phenomenon. Both of these were sheer rock faces, one of which was a piece of outcrop that was sheer on three sides, and the other one was a rock about 1m wide which was stuck 1000m above the water between two cliffs. We wanted to stand on the latter, but the ferries had stopped their summer run and we could not get there. We found that we could still get to the former, so we opted for that.

Preikestolen, as the precipice is known, is fairly easy to get to in the summer. By fall, you must watch timetables and we arrived on the last day of the regular season. Because of this, there were several hundred people who also wanted to visit. It was a 6 km walk uphill to the formation, and since we took an early ferry, we arrived to find only two people mulling around the top. We snapped several photos, and peered over the edge to see the rock curve inwards underneath us (a strange sensation) and the fjord 600 m below. We loved it, until after about two hours when there were over 100 people hanging around. Oh well, last day of the season.

We headed down, and spent another couple of nights camping before heading back to Oslo. We treated ourselves to a warm bed and a good meal. On the last morning we had a buffet breakfast at our hostel. I counted 12 items available that had fish in them. I was laughing, but tried several different products. They were good, and I enjoy caviar for breakfast as much as the next guy, but it was the coffee I liked the best.

We headed out that morning, and had one more layover left on our trip.