Up to 4 or 5 cruise ships a day make anchor in the most scenic fjords and shuttle their passengers ashore for day trips to local sights. The pollution coming from the steady stream of coaches and shuttle boats that ferry the passengers around is a bit of a controversial issue. But the sight of these ships in the narrow fjords is quite amazing, especially when you consider how far inland they are. Geiranger, for example, is 200km inland!
Many of the Japanese tourists on this particular cruise ship hopped straight onto the ferry down Naerofjord - the first leg of our day out.
The ‘Norway in a Nutshell’ tour is a round trip that’s heavily promoted in these parts as a great way to see the area. A 2 hour cruise takes you along the UNESCO listed (!) Naerofjord to the tiny village of Gudvangen. From there you take a coach to Voss, and then the train to Myrdal. At Myrdal you cross the platform to join the Flamsbana, the world’s steepest railway, which snakes down the mountainside and back to Flam.
The weather was a bit grey and chilly, but it was a great day out and a welcome break from driving everywhere.
The Japanese tourists on the ferry were busy snapping away at everything, including Charlie who posed for a number of pictures. Honestly, she should charge for her time!
Heading north from Flam you can either take the world’s longest road tunnel (a staggering 24kms), or you can drive up and along the Snow Road. We opted for the latter - there are so many long tunnels here and they tend to get a bit samey!!
A number of roads across Norway have been designated as special tourist routes, and architecturally impressive viewing points and information panels are being erected along them. The Snow Road is one of them and the viewing point high above Aurlandsfjord is certainly very impressive. It sticks straight out from the mountainside with a clear glass wall at the end so you can really appreciate the views below.
We camped for the night a little further up the hill and as it was still light at 10:30pm, we set off up the mountain in front of us to be greeted by more stunning views at the top.
The other major natural features in these parts are the glaciers. Jostedalbreen is Europe’s largest icecap (487 sq km) and several fingers, or glacial tongues, are easily accessible. We had a great view of one of them from our overnight spot near Olden.
The following day we walked up to the Briksdalbreen glacier with a number of coach parties. The lake at the foot of the glacier was full of blocks of ice and since Charlie can never resist a swim whatever the temperature, she was soon bobbing for ice cubes - cue more snapping by Japanese tourists!
After visiting another couple of glaciers we continued north on another mountain road. Some of these roads are only clear of snow between May and September and we passed the remains of some pretty big snow drifts along the way. Oh, and we also saw a few moose too! Is that the plural of ‘moose’?! Mooses, meese, meeses... let’s go with moose shall we!!
That night we camped near the viewing point high above the village of Geiranger and one of the most popular and photographed fjords; Geirangerfjord. The next morning we woke to glorious sunshine, and a smashing view of the Queen Mary II and 3 other cruise liners moored in the fjord below.
After a walk up to and behind Storsaeterfossen we decided it was time we hired our own boat (well, the ferries are a bit slow).
Like the beginning titles of Howard’s Way, we bounced across the water in a little motorboat, giggling like idiots for an hour!! A shame the boat hire place only had extra large lifejackets; we don’t remember that ever happening to Jan Howard or Ken Masters! But the views of the cruise ships and of the waterfalls cascading down into the fjord were superb.
The Trollstigen (Trolls Ladder) is another of Norway’s tourist routes. After climbing for many miles, the road suddenly snakes down the mountainside with 11 hairpin bends and a 1:12 gradient. It’s a fantastic drive with some great new viewing points, and an amazing-looking visitors centre is due to open there later this year.
One of the tourist routes we sadly couldn’t recommend is the Atlantic Highway; a road that links several tiny islands and that’s heavily promoted in all the guides. Why The Guardian newspaper crowned it ‘the world’s best road trip’ in 2006 is completely beyond us!
The road is only 8km long. There’s little to see apart from a couple of rather ordinary bridges. And worst of all, the road takes you to Kristainsund - a dull town with expensive toll roads you have to take to get into and out of the place! The coast here is nice enough, but there are far nicer routes and towns elsewhere.
So that’s your lot for this chapter! Apart from a picture of David on a big glittery tractor!
In the next chapter we pass through Hell but we don’t stop!
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