Norway pt1: the Fjords

We went to Norway! Which turned out to be one of the most epic countries I’ve ever been (and we’ve visited many!). I’ll split the post in several, because the Besseggen hike and Jotunheimen deserve their own post (120 photos is a bit much for one post anyway…)

We drove all the way from Malmo with one overnight stay in Hamburgo, close to the border with Norway. That area is actually really nice, with tons of small islands scattered around the coast, and lovely fishing villages.

From the top of the island you had a 360 degrees view which really showed the unique landscape:

We stayed there for one night and the next day continued our journey into Norway! It was basically one long road all the way past Oslo and into Jotunheimen national park. There we rented a lovely cottage in the mountains from where we would spend a week long hiking around Jotunheimen.

All the houses around this area have the grass on the roofs, great isolation for the cold winters! There were farms around as well, and often we would be woken up by a herd of goats or cows that passed our window.

Every day the weather was different, with some foggy days that created a surreal atmosphere. On the rainiest day, we decided to do a small roadtrip the one of the most famous Fjords, the Nærøyfjord (that’s one the UNESCO world heritage list). On the way there, we would pass some stave churches as well, and the weather on the other side of the mountains would be better as well!

This was one of such stave churves in Øye. It dates back to the 12th century and was rebuilt with the original materials, that the found underneath the Christian church next to it!

There were a lot of stave churches in this valley, as in medieval times here was the “king’s road”, the road connecting Bergen with Oslo, and travellers needed a safe place to stay. One of the most famous and best preserved stave churches is also on this route, the Borgund stave church:

The church was built around 1180 and is such a great state, you can even still see the medieval graffiti on the doors!

The road with the stave churches leads all the way to the gorgeous Nærøyfjord, but to get there we had to cross the longest road tunnel in the world, 25km of Lærdal Tunnel! When you emerge, you come to this place:

It almost looks like a floating continent…

Such an impressive landscape, and so different from the equally impressive Jotunheimen (which I’ll show is subsequent posts :D)

On the way back, we decided to NOT take the tunnel again, but instead take the old road, that winds up and over the mountains. It was a longer, but much more epic drive!