I apologize for not posting more often these last weeks, I’ve just been so busy packing and fixing stuff. We moved this week, from the west coast of Sweden to the west coast of Norway. Back home to Bergen where I’m from. We rented a moving truck in Sweden and my boyfriend’s dad drove all the way up and then back the next day.
It’s usually a 11 hour drive but we spent around 14 hours on the road because of different reasons. Like in Oslo we missed our exit because the GPS was slow and I was asleep so we drove right into the center of the city and a traffic jam due to road works, complete chaos! Think we spent an hour there, moving slower than a turtle before we finally found our way to the right road.
It also took longer than usual because we couldn’t drive top speed with that heavy moving load in the back and we took some breaks a long the way. Some of the most disgusting toilets I’ve ever seen can be found a long the way from Hønefoss to Gol, I’ll never forget the stench and the flies. But there are also some great views along the way.
We continued up through Hallingdal before we finally reached Geilo, which is located halfway between Oslo and Bergen and 800 meters above sea level. Geilo is a perfect spot to take a break and get something to eat. So we ate the best pizza in Norway at Peppes Pizza.
Then we continued through Hardangervidda where the highest point was almost 1300 meters above sea level. It was more snow there than I had imagined it would be in May. You don’t want to drive through Hardangervidda in winter because of the snow and the road might be closed. But the roads were free of snow now and the view was beautiful. By the way: the scenes from the ice planet Hoth in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1979) were filmed in Finse, not far from where we were. Imagine the AT-ATs walking around.
The way down was really steep and winding, but we got down in the end and saw some great views along the way. Like Vøringsfossen in Hardanger where you can stand on the edge of a cliff and look 200 meters down in the valley. It’s scary because it’s so far down and nothing between you and the edge. I didn’t go too far out so I didn’t get any photos to show you how far down it is.
After our break at Vøringsfossen we continued down through Måbødalen where the road looks like this:
Photo from Wikipedia
Hardanger was really beautiful!
We crossed the Hardanger bridge which was new in 2013.
I bet there are a thousand tunnels here west in Norway. I know there are many between Voss and Bergen. What was really annoying was that when we got to Voss, there was a sign about a tunnel being closed and you could only pass every half hour. And we were starting to get really tired as we had already spend more time on the road than we thought we would. So we just wanted to get home fast. When we finally got to the closed tunnel it was 22:15 and there was a line in front of the tunnel. Some guy came over to us and told us that the tunnel was closed because of road works and that we had to wait until 23:00 to pass.
Luckily we had brought food and drinks to have a long the way, so we sat and waited until they opened. Then we drove for maybe another hour before we finally reached our destination! But we couldn’t go to bed until we had emptied the truck which took another half hour or so, then we got something to eat and went to bed.
It’s the longest drive I’ve ever been on. I know we could have chosen a shorter route but it was fun to drive the route we chose because there were so many great sights a long the way.
By the way: I’ve been thinking a bit about writing more personal posts, like this one, every once in a while. But I’ll still write about WoW and maybe Diablo III as well. Let me know what you think in the comments below. I’m also wondering: Have you ever been to Norway?
Syrco Owl 