Vikings and Trolls

Day 1 – Denmark

Today is the start of our second road trip with Norway as the main country to visit. On the way we will visit Denmark and Sweden. Once we will arrive in Norway we will follow a route from a book called Norway by Camper starting in Oslo all the way to Bergen. But today our aim is to reach Denmark before the evening and after a remarkable drive without traffic issues we found a camping in Frigard which was on a lake where we could see Germany on the other side. We did go for a walk to and along the lake / Sea before going back to the campsite where we had a burger inside as the wind was freezing cold.

Day 2 – Roskilde

When we woke up the next morning the weather was much more pleasant as the wind played down and so we had breakfast outside. We decided to head in the direction of Copenhagen, but as we both had visited the city more than once we decided to land in Roskilde where we arrived after a 3 hour ride. Roskilde for me, only known for the multi day rock festival, was actually a nice old town with a beautiful church and other nice buildings. In the area of Roskilde many viking boats have been found and at the museum they are making replica’s of these boats and trying to find out how the vikings made their way over the seas in these little boats. We found a camping just outside of Roskilde which was situated directly on the sea shore, we enjoyed the view with a couple of beers we brought from home, while the sun was going down.

Day 3 – Haverdal

We got up at a reasonable time and ready for our ride into Sweden, which we arrived over the famous bridge between the 2 countries. Funny enough the bridge between the Danish islands Funen and Seeland is longer and more impressive but the bridge between Denmark and Sweden much more expensive. After arriving in Sweden we drove for another 2,5 hours to arrive in Haverdal, a very little unknown place but almost directly connected to some sandy beaches. After 1,100 kms driving we decided to stay here for 2 days. We walked the entire length of the beach and back before enjoying some of the sunshine next to our camper. On our way to the beach we discovered the local trolls, hidden away in the bushes and following our steps. Guess this is not the last encounter for this trip.

Day 4 – Halmstad

We woke up to some lovely weather, sun was shining and the wind played down. Took our time for breakfast while contemplating what to do today. The thought of just relaxing and reading a book was what Wendy had on her mind but I decided I needed a bit more activity and took the bicycle to a nearby town Halmstad a 21 km cycle ride. Now I have not cycled a lot lately but was not unhappy when I got into town. The town was quite large and I had to cycle through the suburbs before getting into the town centre. There were some nice churches, old buildings, a city wall and a beautiful castle. After wandering around for a couple of hours I started the return trip. After a few km’s I found the reason why my earlier ride was so nice as I was now cycling with headwind and that was rather tough. When I got back we spent a couple of hours catching more of the sun before Wendy served me a lovely Spaghetti Bolognese (with meat)

Day 5 – North of Gotenburg

After a quick breakfast we went on the road early to go up more north of the Swedish coast. We had a quick stop at Falkenberg, nice enough with some churches statues and old streets. More importantly we also needed to stuck up on alcohol before going to Norway. The system is quite funny as you can only buy alcohol at government owned stores and there are not so many around, but Falkenberg had one so we had to take the opportunity. We expected a bit of a run down grimmy warehouse, but it was a beautiful store with a huge selection of whatever you wanted.

Continuing traveling North we past Gothenburg (after some diversions) and after Udevalla entered the Swedish fjords. This is a different Sweden with rough coast lines. We found a camping in Bohuslän, very busy a bit cold and windy but we found a perfect spot with a view do die for (spoiler alert: we will see a few of those this trip) We did a short walk around the area before enjoying a home made (by Wendy) chicken curry.

Day 6 – Smögen

The area we are in is really beautiful so we decided to continue exploring the fjords. We took a ferry across to another fjord and visited a small village called Lysekil. The ferry was pretty easy, fast and …. free! Lysekil was a nice little fishers village so after a quick wonder we continued our journey to Smögen, clearly a little bigger and busier village. Here we found a lovely place for a late fish lunch (inside though as the wind was pretty cold). After our lunch we found a camping just outside of Smögen. Nobody was at reception but there was a notice we could just pick a place and check in the next morning, so easy. After we set-up our camper for the night we walked the area and found some lovely views of the fjords.

Day 7 – Norway

The weather this morning was quite nice and we had breakfast outside before starting our journey further up north with destination Norway. The journey into Norway was pretty easy and before we hit Oslo (as we both wanted to skip this) we went into the direction of Drammen and found a recommended camping in Hokksund. The camping was located next to a river which had gone out of its banks, but gave some lovely views. We had some dinner and retired to bed early (at least it felt that way as the sun sets here at 22:30)

Day 8 – Oslo to Bergen

We are following a route to Bergen from an ANWB camper book and the scenery is spectacular along some beautiful lakes. On the way we had a coffee stop, discovering there was an old railway station. I thought this was a great opportunity to make some nice photos and what I did not expect was an old diesel train entering the little station.

We made several more stops for churches and views over lakes along our route, before arriving at a (huge) camping just outside of Gol. The journey was scheduled for 2 hours but it took us at least 4. We set-up camp and went for a hike in the forest before having dinner.

Day 9 – Gol

This morning we went out early into the town of Gol itself to visit the famous stave-church. There are still a few old stave churches (viking churches) to find in Norway. This one in Gol is a replica of a church located in Oslo (though this one is originally from Gol, confused…. ?) The replica is build with the same craftsmanship as they had in these years and is quite impressive. Though I still don’t understand the mix of dragons and christian crusifixes.

On our way we came across another little old church, though not famous or touristic but beautiful and mystic in its own way

When we continued our journey along the N7 we witnessed the landscape changing every 30 minutes. The further we got the less cars we saw, the steeper the roads and more and more snow on the mountains around us. Up to the point we had snow on each side of the road. Countless photos to be made.

What definitely was a bit scary were the many tunnels we encountered, which were dark, steep, no signing on the roads and countless corners. I am not easily impressed on the road but `I had to swallow a few times. After a few hours we arrived in Flam, which is situated at the end of a fjord. Flam is a very touristic place where every day a huge cruise ship docks and hundreds of passengers get off, to take the train into the mountains for a day trip. We found a camping with again a beautiful view into the mountains.

Day 10 – Stegastein and waterfalls

This morning Wendy went for a trip down to the local bakery and surprised me with lovely fresh bread and some Danish pastries. We decided to go to Stegastein by car even though that was not recommended. It was a very steep curvy road up the mountain with place for basically one car at the time, so looking ahead, stopping at the right time and racing up as fast as you can. The view at the end was spectacular though and made it worth it.

We then returned to Flam and try to get on the train to Myrdal, which apparently is a spectacular train ride. Unfortunately all the cruise ship passengers were already up there and booked all the sensible return tickets, which would get us back quite late in the evening. So we decided to continue to our next goal the Nærøyfjord fjord. We want of the N7 towards this fjord and found one of those scary one way tunnels (getting used to it though) and drove over very little roads into the fjord. We found a lovely pebble beach where we had some coffee and a bite of the lovely pastry Wendy bought this morning.

Next leg of today’s journey was the Voss fossen (waterfall) which was right next to the road we were on. The waterfall was quite impressive (spoiler alert: we will find many very impressive waterfalls on our trip) There was also a camping right next to it but we decided not to stay there (the water will make you go to the toilet all night) We tried to book into the camping in Voss instead but was fully booked (that was a first)

We then drove further and followed the first camping sign we found. We ended up on a very small piece of grass with only a couple of other campers. The owner would see us the next morning so we were set for the day. We were really in between mountains, so the sun disappeared rather early.

Day 11 – First attempt at Bergen

Waking up the ground was wet and the sun had not yet arrived at our little spot. Despite that we had a nice breakfast and were the last to leave the campsite on our way to Bergen. The journey was short but mainly through tunnels (did I mention already that there are a huge amount of kilometer long tunnels?) which actually was a bit disappointing as there was nothing to see of all the lakes and nature on the way. Arriving in Bergen it was impossible to find a parking spot, drove around the city a few times and decided to find a camping outside of Bergen. And we found a lovely one overlooking a beautiful lake, with a busstop to Bergen just outside. We booked in for 2 nights and relaxed the rest of a nice sunny day.

Day 12- Bergen

After breakfast we caught the bus to Bergen, we had to stop over to a tram but it all went very smoothly and in an hour we were at the very centre of the city. Bergen was a much bigger town than I expected (but it is the second biggest town in Norway after Oslo) but had a nice colorful centre with old houses, a harbor and a fish market. Very crowded and touristy as well, but in some parts it felt like we were walking through a village. After wondering around for a couple of hours we sat down for a fish lunch right at the harbor. Here you notice the high prices of Norway immediately, especially the glass of Chardonnay we had (€ 9,50) Nevertheless it was an enjoyable lunch. We then took the tram and bus back to the camping, chatting up with other dutch people on the same ride.

Day 13 – The south route

We have done the Oslo to Bergen route and decided to go south along the coast to Kristiansand. We took a scenic route from Bergen towards Stavanger which was an absolute stunning drive. Driving to the winding roads of the Hardangerfjord along lakes, snowy mountains and impressive waterfalls. We crossed the fjord via the longest suspension bridge in Norway, which you access straight out of a tunnel and leaving the bridge again in another tunnel. To make it even more exciting there was a roundabout in the tunnel to exit in different directions.