An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
Must mean “depressing” in Norweigan
Awoke to the thickest fjord fog we ever did see. Milton went to the “exercise room” which consisted of two bicycles and a Universal Gym. Couldn’t adjust A. the seat on the bikes quite high enough, and B. the resistance level at all. Still, a welcome bit of riding. The UG was old, but worth the few minutes.
Packed up then dined at the lavish breakfast spread (the usual, plus some more), read on the balcony while watching the fog burn off, then departed our mountain retreat. Wendy drove masterfully to Hellesylt, where we caught the ferry to Geiranger. Today’s drive was the road of valleys — every turn revealed another valley winding off into the distance between towering steep gray peaks.
While waiting for the boat in the tiny, quaint fjord-side town, I wandered into one of the tourist-type shops and saw a teen-age kid with acne behind the counter with rap music blasting; nice to see America can still export its best products. . .The ferry was wonderful — 65 minutes through the opaque green Geiranger Fjord amongst steep, sheer and lush mountains with some colorful commentary broadcast along the way, in Norweigan, English, German, French, and Japanese!
Docked amongst 3 large cruise ships at Geiranger (yet another beautiful small town set on a fjord at the base of huge mountains) and set off driving up the Eagle’s Way, which snaked its way up the steep slope. We took a detour to Tafjord, allegedly a pretty 14km drive. Actually 1/2 of it was through tunnels but the view from the isolated tiny settlement on the tip of the fjord was quite special. We turned around to drive back, and found they had ripped up the road for some construction, so we waited 20 minutes while watching a large piece of equipment move large rocks around so we could then squeeze by. Drove up to the top of the mountains, where it was quite barren, then began descending along the Troll’s Way, a road that took 100 men 20 summers to finally complete in 1936. The road descends about 3000 feet, has 11 hairpin turns, and looks from above like a ribbon that had been tossed in the air and landed randomly along a slope. Along the way down, there is a big roaring waterfall (naturally), that one passes a few times, sometimes closely enough to get sprayed.
At the bottom, (after taking liberal advantage of the innumerable photo opportunities) we headed into Andalsnes for the night. It was so light at 6 pm, and the hotel and town looked so bland, that we decided to continue on to Lillehammer, tomorrow’s destination. The first 1/2 hour or so was through some of the steepest, sheerest cliffs in Europe, some over 1000meters. Then we gradually descended into the Gudbrandsdalen Valley, a long, very green valley with a wide, quiet bluish-green river alongside us the entire way. As we left Fjord Country (as they refer to it here), we had a very tangible (and kind of sad!) awareness of clearly leaving a distinct place, with its particular terrain and feel, and entering a completely different environment.
We made it into Lillehammer around 9:15, (all on two-lane roads with just enough trucks to be annoying) only to find that our hotel for Tuesday night (the Molla) was COMPLETELY BOOKED for tonight. Seeing 5 big tour busses outside wasn’t a good sign. . .They nicely called around and found this place, which had one room left - in the cellar. We tried to negotiate the price with the nasty Aryan master, I mean manager, but he had no sympathy. We dined in the restaurant in the Molla hotell and had a quite sufficient dinner of chicken breast, assorted grilled fish, and a pizza slice appetizer which Wendy skillfully filched.
Then it was back into the dungeon for an evening of reading and making tomorrow’s plans.