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So, following on from this thread, Norway is amazing and well worth a trip. Thanks to everyone for the advice and suggestions. In the end we hired a car which was a Good Thing not least because on the first day we ended up driving over Northern Europe's highest mountain pass without meaning to.
Having been raised on the Great Western Mainline and Brunel's obsession with gradient, the Flam railway is a bit of a head****, but tunnels is something they do well in Norway (the longest is 25km).
The ferries are good too but we ditched the car to take the fastboat to Bergen which was cool and Bergen is a lovely town.
Finished with a couple of nights at Will-off-here-with-the-unfortunate-usern<wbr />ame's place. He's onto a good thing location wise on Hardangerfjord and was good enough to take me out for a day's riding up the mountain across the fjord from his house.
And here's Will on the way down, with trusty traildog Nora just out of shot.
It's worth checking out his website/social media (facebook / instagram), he and his girlfriend Klara are currently setting up a business offering guided mountain bike holidays a couple of hours from Bergen, and for the scenery and lack of crowds it is totally worth it. They are trying dispel the 'Norway is mega expensive' idea and offer fully catered trips at a similar price to other destinations in Europe, they are opening for business next summer! The whole trip was a dream come true for Mum and it was brilliant to experience a country that just works.
( https://www.airbnb.co.uk/<wbr />rooms/20253583 - mods please remove if inappropriate)
Watched Norsemen before going which is mostly like Horrible Histories, now watching Occupied (and the military museum in Bergen is excellent btw) and working out when my next trip will be.
Again, thanks all for the advice (still want to do the Hurtigruten) and thanks again Will aka anus (chosen after the great hack, you really need to change that mate).
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/20253583 hopefully that works this time
Cheers Justin, glad you enjoyed it and lucky to get such good weather!!
It's Norway so it freezes over regularly
Oh, excellent - a Norway thread.
We are off to Norway in our Van a week on Saturday. Getting there via a drive to Denmark and Ferry across from Hirtshals. Then a drive/mooch past Bergen and then around as far north as Jostedalsbreen area and return via Oslo then Swedish West cost past Gothenburg to Copenhagen.
All in 2 week (though I've got a couple of extra days on my own to drive the van back from Copenhagen once Mrs C flies home to get back to work). Got to confess I'm slightly nervous about the about of miles we plan on covering and if we will actually get a chance to enjoy what we are there to see.
does everyone know Will ? - took him to mayhem once from newcastle.
their place looks awesome. Need to get out there myself.
We are off to Norway in our Van a week on Saturday. Getting there via a drive to Denmark and Ferry across from Hirtshals. Then a drive/mooch past Bergen and then around as far north as Jostedalsbreen area and return via Oslo then Swedish West cost past Gothenburg to Copenhagen.
That's a lot of driving. A couple of years ago we took the ferry across to Oslo from Copenhagen, up to Dovrefjell then across to Bergen and then Stavanger and then back along the coast to Hirtshals to get a ferry back to Denmark which was more driving then I would have liked. Originally we were getting a ferry from Bergen back to Denmark but it got cancelled so we had to change our plans massively.
I have looked at that Bergen - Denmark Ferry and am still tempted - expensive though.
I think when we costed it up, compared to the petrol costs and the 6 or 7 ferries we had to take between Bergen and Stavanger plus the cost of the ferry back to Denmark the cost worked out quite reasonable.
The Copenhagen to Oslo ferry was definitely worthwhile for us, get on the ferry at 4pm, have some dinner, wake up at 8am in Oslo.
Cheers, I'll give it more thought.
On the section from Bergen to Stavanger alone you’ll pay £50 for the ferries (2 on that stretch). Plus tolls. It’s hard to do the 180km in much less than a 5 hour trip and while it is nice it’s not absolutely spectacular.
Haha I've actually been to Hell when it was frozen over! Used to live in Trondheim and it is just along the coast from there.
Trailrat - I try to get about a bit! 😉 You're welcome over if you ever get the chance.
Convert - we're about 2hrs east of Bergen in a village called Kvanndal, it's on the shore of Hardangerfjord. You're welcome to stop by for a coffee or even spend the night in your van if you want, quite a lot of random tourists actually stop over in the lay-by just beside our house as it's a good view (we've had some friends camp out in the boathouse the last few nights if you fancied that!). You could come in for a shower/use the toilet if you needed or maybe you have a fancy van with all the mod cons. If you have bikes with you I would be happy to show you a trail or two! Or we have a couple of road bikes you could borrow for a day and leave the van here.
If you do stop by we could maybe help a bit with driving advice and what to visit, Klara, my girlfriend is also from just north of Gothenburg so she might be able to suggest some stuff to visit there. I have to say that with all the guests that we get it often feels like people do wayyy too much driving and it would be better to just stay more in one place for a few days to enjoy it than spend hours and hours (days) driving all over the place.
nice pics, gecko!
Glad you had a great time. I love Norway, me. Been up to the far north a few times ski touring, but first time was a summer trip in the car with bikes and camping stuff, pretty close to what convert has planned. We wanted to make the most of the time we had, and the Denmark ferries weren't as regular and cut our time down by days either end, so we ferried from Harwich to Holland and drove up via Germany and Demnark to the Hirtshals ferry.
Spent 2 weeks zigzagging up to Stryn via Flam and Jotunheim, missing Bergen and Stavanger (this was a nature holiday and I think you need at least two or three days to appreciate a city) then bezzed down the big road to Kristiansand <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">via Oslo in a oner.</span>
Cheers Anus (I hope I don't have to call you that in real life, might be weird) - very kind of you. Planning session tonight so might contact you.
Haha don't worry, as Justin said in the first post, really name is Will!
Thanks for the Norway post, have been dreaming of the day I can nip off for a week or so and do my dream Norway tour, Andalsnes to Bergen taking in quite a few of the iconic climbs including Trollstigen and the wee 33%er up to an old hotel that looks like the one out of the Shining.
Might be a 40th birthday treat if I'm lucky, hope I've still got the legs for it by then...
Some more random pics 🙂
Oslo city centre pretty much
Polis
🙂
Groovy geography
Bergen Out Of Norway 😉
White nights
Moo
Boat
Happy mum
To anyone who's thinking of going, do it.