Tour de Scandinavie, stage 4: Stavanger – Bergen – Trondheim
As good as the weather had been during the first week of our trip, as bad it would get from now on for the next couple of days. But first there was still hoping that the sun would break through the thick clouds when we started the hike from the parking at the foot of the Preikestolen where they actually charge you a parking fee of NOK60 which seems to be a full-on rip-off. But the nicely prepared track leading through swampy land and nice plateaus makes up for it in the end | See the pictures
As for the sun it didn’t really show up that day, only a couple of minutes in total maybe. But still it’s an amazing spot, several hundred metres above the fjord, looking down the vertical and overhanging wall.
Having not fallen off the cliff we took the walk down to the parking (I should actually mention that the way up took us only 1 hour and 5 minutes to get to top instead of the suggested 2 hrs *proud*). Taking another ferry we made our way up north and picked up a hitch-hiking couple from Czech Republic on the way. In Røldal we saw the first stave church and the sun was shining just long enough to take a picture.
Past Odda at the Sørfjord there’s the Låtefossen waterfall where two streams are almost flooding the road. In Voss we dropped the hitch-hikers off and went to sleep in pouring rain (it had been raining most of the day) shortly before reaching Bergen.
Next day in Bergen it was still raining, not too badly but enough to make us keep the visit short. And we were planning to catch up with a couple of Joergs friends a few days later to go hiking in the Jotunheimen region (in case of good weather) so that was another reason to speed up the visit. The amusement arcade with internet access mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide book doesn’t exist anymore but we found (slow) internet in a MIX shop for NOK 40 per hour.
Driving out of Bergen there was a Police control and Joerg had to do a FST which he survived with zero! On that occasion we noticed that we had forgotten to take the car documents with us but the cop let us go with a “You have it? Cool. Drive save!” while I was still pretending to be searching for them.
The Sognefjord is Norway’s deepest and longest fjord, stretching more than 200 km inland with a maximum depth of about 1300 m.
Trying to settle for the night a very impolite guy came by and told us something about blocking a fire fighter thing and that we had to leave. So we did him the favour (hoping that he’d call the police and the wouldn’t find anyone there anymore) and spent another night at a rest area – actually much better since there we had warm water and a toilet.
In the village of Dragsvik we left the fjord and loads of hair pins lead up onto the Gaularfjell with lots of waterfalls and crazy sheep.
In Ålesund rain and hail awaited us but nonetheless we took the 440 steps leading to the viewpoint Aksla high above the city. At night it almost snowed down to the car park near Molde, the next morning all the hills around us were white at their summits.
From Molde (where you can find free and fast internet in the library) to Kristiansund you should definitely take the impressive route 64 called “Atlanterhavsveien” (Atlantic road). Initially planned as a railroad the road is 8 km long, connecting eight islands with bridges. In 2005, Atlanterhavsveien was elected “Norway’s Building of the century”.
Kristiansund itself is not really worth a visit given the ferry that you have to pay for as well as a toll of NOK 98 for a bridge that you don’t even cross when going on to Trondheim (like we did).
