Epic Norwegian Adventure (Part I)

Christina here and I have recently been on an epic road trip through most of Norway with my husband. We drove more than 3,500km (2,187 miles) in ten days! Quite an undertaking but so worth it!

As you might remember, I have been to Norway before (the southern part only) but my husband hadn’t, so we started off with a day of sight-seeing in the capital Oslo. As I concentrated on museums last time, and it was a beautiful sunny day, we decided to just walk around. We eventually ended up at Akershus Castle, a medieval fortress quite high up overlooking the harbour.

It’s believed to have been built in the 1290s, so it’s very old, and it had some very interesting rooms inside. I’m not sure why, but I hadn’t expected that so it was a lovely surprise and I’m glad we decided to go in for a visit.

We followed this with a quick look at the Munch Museum, located in a very modern building, also by the fjord and quite impressive. Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter, probably most famous for the painting called “The Scream”. Or so I thought – but apparently there are many versions of it, not just one, and here they had three that they rotated every half an hour in order to protect them from too much exposure to light.

I have to admit I’m not a fan of modern art so the majority of Munch’s works were wasted on me, but there were a couple of traditional paintings he’d done which were stunning. And also a few very thought-provoking ones that I appreciated.

 

The following day we picked up a hire car and headed north-west. Last time I finished my trip by stopping at Borgund Stave Church, and I was so impressed by that I knew I had to show it to my husband so that’s where we went first. It was just as magical second time around and I don’t think I’d ever get tired of looking at it!

 

We carried on to Gudvangen, another place I’d already visited, but it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site for a reason and I couldn’t let my husband miss it. Situated by the Naerøy fjord, it really is one of the most stunning places I’ve ever seen. It didn’t hurt that I managed a quick visit to the reconstructed Viking village of Njardarheimr. Husband and I both had a go at axe-throwing and managed to hit the target – very surprising!

 

There are an awful lot of tunnels in this part of Norway and the roads are narrow and winding, but the next day we also learned that a lot of the roads simply stop by the side of a fjord and you have to wait for a ferry to take you to the other side before continuing. It was an amazingly effective way of doing things and we never had to wait more than 10 minutes. The rides were smooth too, so no motion sickness.

We carried on to another stave church I’ve been wanting to see for ages – Urnes, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This too is reached by ferry and you cross a fjord with water that looked turquoise in the sunlight. Urnes stave church is situated high up on a hill and you have to drive up a very steep and narrow road. The church itself is not as impressive as the one at Borgund, but it had the most amazing panels of wood carvings on one side in what has become known as the Urnes style – sinuous intertwined animals that are just fabulous!

 

There are endless fjords and mountain vistas as you drive along, to the point where you almost become blasé about the scenery (although not really). Next we headed for a third UNESCO World Heritage Site – Geiranger. To give us a break from driving, we booked to take a scenic ride on a slightly larger ferry along the Geiranger fjord. Despite the fact that there was a light drizzle of rain, we stood up on the sundeck to take in the views properly. It was a peaceful, slow journey, passing tall mountainsides either side of ship, with spectacular waterfalls. One in particular stood out – called the Seven Sisters (although I could only count six), they gushed down like gossamer veils – beautiful.

Our destination, the village of Geiranger nestled in a deep valley at the end of the fjord, has recently been in the news. It’s where the Norwegian princess Märtha Louise got married a couple of weeks ago. We managed to avoid that thankfully, but I could quite see why she’d chosen that venue. It was definitely a stunning place, bisected on one side by a magnificent waterfall. You could walk up a trail next to it and end up on a viewing platform overlooking the fjord. We got a bit wet from the watery mist, but we barely noticed, we were so entranced. Just outside the town you can also drive up a series of incredibly tight hairpin bends to another viewpoint – Ørnesvingen. That is extremely high up above the fjord looking down, making the cruise ships look like toy boats. For someone like me who doesn’t like heights, it’s quite scary, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!

There were more hairpin bends when we left the village on the other side and drove over the top of the mountains (passing a height of 800 meters above sea level). Up there we saw patches of snow and a gorgeous mountain lake – yet more incredible scenery, remote and wild.

Our journey was meant to be part holiday and partly for research purposes, so I took Husband to Nordfjordeid out on the west coast. Here they have the Sagastad museum featuring a replica Viking longship called the Myklebust. It is based on one found in a nearby grave mound that belonged to a powerful chieftain. The reconstructed ship is kept indoors most of the time, but is occasionally taken out and sailed/rowed along the fjord outside. It is enormous! While at the museum you are allowed to go onboard and I got to try holding onto the steering oar, imagining myself out on the open sea heading for adventures. Excellent inspiration for my stories!

(My Norwegian adventure will be continued in my next blog post).

Are you a “landlubber” like me, or do you love the sea and dream of sailing the oceans? If so, where would you most like to go?