Can’t “win ‘em all” as they say. Travel long enough and you’ll get rained on somewhere – the typically beautiful Lofoten’s were largely a washout for us, so due to the poor weather there we moved on quickly. The Lofoten ferry took us out through the short route, across the mouth of Vestfjorden to Bodo on the mainland. In Bodo, in just one day, we saw the weather change frequently ( usually for the worse ! ) but managed to salvage at least a delightful seaside evening out by the fjord. The bad weather days of course, have not all been in vain – we’ve learned from experience to use those productively as well, and typically spend them doing our laundry, grocery shopping or any other such endeavor that can be done equally easily no matter the conditions.
It was quite a long ( but interesting ) run from Bodo down to Trondheim, our next area of interest. A few images below will tell the story. By Trondheim conditions had changed quite dramatically and we really felt that we were by then ( more or less anyway ) out of the snow zone. Warmer weather, greener fields, leaves starting to appear in trees – all a welcome relief !
Trondheim turned on the best of days for us and most of the days south of Trondheim out into the western Fjords varied from at least reasonable to very good. Andalsnes, Alesund and ( what many consider to be Norway’s best fjord) Geiranger were all a sight to behold and in each of these places the weather held up nicely. The drive through this whole area was just spectacular – we had high expectations based on our 1985 travels and we were not disappointed. As an interesting aside for many of the days we spent in the area we ended up ( purely coincidentally ) tracking the great Cunard ahip, the Queen Mary 2 all around the Alesund and Olden area. Nothing like a giant Norwegian fjord to make a massive cruise ship look like little more than a toy !
One of the benefits of being this far south again was that the snow was just on the very tops of the mountains and fields all around us were green – trees were even getting leaves, so the general scenery was much improved from farther north. One of the things that has not changed ( all over Norway ! ) is the number of “cottages” we see everywhere – it seems that every Norwegian family has a small cottage somewhere – up in the hills, down by the sea or nestled in by the fjords, anywhere there is a flat piece of land ! These places are all seasonal and as we travelled in these parts we could see that people were starting to open them up for the coming summer.
Pretty ( and very popular ) Alesund is a city with an interesting history. Completely destroyed by fire in 1904, the city was completely rebuilt in the ( then ) fashionable “Art Nouveau” style. It’s beautiful, distinctive and timeless. It reminded us in a way of Napier in New Zealand – destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930’s the politicians of the day had the wisdom to decree that all new building follow the Art Deco theme that was then all the rage. Like Alesund, Napier now has a unique style and beauty that continues to draw visitors from all over the world.
It must be said that the Norwegians have done a stunning job connecting this mountainous country all together with 1100 tunnels and hundreds of ferries to get you over ( or under !) the long fjords that run in from the coast. This was not an easy country to tame, but they have made traversing it extremely easy. Everything works, it’s all well kept, and it all runs on time- it’s a very easy place to love ( just ignore some of the highest fuel prices in the world and you’ll be fine – crazy, because they have lots of oil ! ). They make life easy here for campers which just adds to the allure- Norway ( and other Scandinavian countries ) are all a dream for wild camping due to a centuries old law known as “allemannsretten”, something we wish more countries would adopt. Sadly, in some parts of Europe the attitude is completely the opposite.
We’ve always considered this one of, if not, perhaps THE most beautiful countries in the world and we’ve not seen anything on this visit that would cause us to change that view. They don’t consistently rank at or near the top of global living standard rankings by accident.
In closing, here’s a little joke for the week – good reason not to wait too long to get some travelling in !
We’ll continue on next blog with the drive on to Bergen and on across the south of Norway to Oslo, wrapping up our stay in this beautiful country.
Till next week….
