| The two of us, Finn
on his Yamaha 750 Virago and I on my Yamaha FJ 1200 set out in an
afternoon for our first real two wheel tour to the west coast of Norway. The
first afternoon our objective was to get as far as possible before it got
dark (and that happens rather late in the nordic summer). We didn't choose
the most spectaular route from Drøbak to Geilo, but stayed on the primary
road (Rv7). Primary roads in the eastern Norway are rather boring, but
since neither of us had ever driven to the west coast, we thought why
not? Affordable accommodation at a youth hostel in Geilo was our first sleep. The trip from Drøbak to Geilo was mere transportation, so no picture was taken. The morning after, we decided to eat our breakfast somewhere onto the great mountain plain, - Hardangervidda. First stop this early morning was Halne Fjellstove.
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| Hardangervidda an early
summer saturday morning. Calm, warm, no trafic, the sky reflecting
in the lakes. What a start! Worth a brief stop for documentation. |
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| First taste of western Norway; ferries (but
we found a surprisingly high number of bridges and tunnels). Here, the ferry port of Brimnes - Bruravik, entering western Norway. |
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| Arriving Bergen, making our local base camp at the Flesland airport, visiting Finns brother in law, Karsten. Unpacking, freshing up and...: | ||
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| ...testing Karstens gears, - somewhat else than a bike... | Karsten offered us free-of-charge beds, in his mobile camping trailer. Not exactly a five star hotel, but what the heck, the beers and the company was great. |
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| After checking out Bergen city, next day we packed the bikes and headed up further north. | |
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| The third day ride offered us a wide variety of scenic experiences. Urban, highway, rural, mountain, and we ended up in a valley, in a place (or a ferry port) called Hellesylt. Setting up our tents, freshing up with a shower and then off to the local pub for a meal and some beers. | ||
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 Hellesylt |
| Nice place, and the starting point for one of the most impressive scenic attraction on the trip, namely the early morning ferry trip from Hellesylt to Geiranger. This day we went searching for some serious tourist clichés. | |
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| In the morning mist, dead calm water in the fjord, the ferry took us slowly towards Geiranger, at the very end of the fjord. Truly an estheatic trip among steep mountains and tiny waterfalls. This is close to be the very essence of norwegian era of romantic naturalistic paintings. | |||
Ålesund from the city mountain (!) |
Posing |
Sloppy biker enjoying an afternoon meal. |
From Geiranger, we drove up to Ålesund, located at the north west coast. The city has a rare type of architecture in norwegian context, the Jugend style. Ålesund went through a huge and devastating fire in 1904, which affected almost the whole city. |
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From Ålesund, we headed for one of the definitive high points of the trip. Via Åndalsnes we found our way to the Trollstigen (The troll ladder). This road, which is carved into the step hillside is an art of engienering in my point of view. I would probably never imagine building a road up this mountainside in the first place. But someone obviously did. Again, a tourist cliché. Who cares?? This you just have to experience! We were lucky, just four days later the road was closed due to ensuring it from stonebreak and landslide. |
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Posing at Trollstigen |
After Trollstigen, the next on the agenda was high speeding over the highlands of Valdresflya down to Fagernes, passing Gjendesheim and Beitostølen (resort). |
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Posing onto Valdresflya |
The rest of the trip was once again just transportation;
Fagernes - Gjøvik - back home via some loong shortcuts :-)
More detailed trip schedule.
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