David von Oheimb's Photo Gallery: Norway, 19-29 Jun 2011

This page is under construction. Many more photos and some more text to be added ASAP.

A business trip to Oslo just around the longest day of the year offered the perfect opportunity to experience a couple of polar days by going 'merely' some 1000 km north.

Since it turned out that nobody would join me for this excursion, I gave up the idea of doing the trip by car. Instead I made good use of a relatively new and inexpensive offer: the InterRail One Country Pass for Norway. With some careful planning, I could touch basically all parts of Norway that are accessible by train within just the six days and seven nights that I had at my disposal, taking advantage of the quite efficient net of long-distance (mostly) night trains:

Date Departure Mode of transport Arrival
19.6. 09:05 MUC flight SK 3678 11:10 Gardermoen Oslo Lufthavn (OSL)
22./23.6. 22:47 Oslo S night train 07:18 Stavanger (S=Sentralsatsjon: central station)
23./24.6. 22:20 Stavanger night train 06:40 Drammen
24.6. 07:12 Drammen train 11:41 Myrdal
24.6. 17:53 Voss train 19:05 Bergen
24./25.6. 22:58 Bergen night train 06:26 Oslo S
25.6. 08:07 Oslo S train 14:45 Trondheim
25./26.6. 23:35 Trondheim night train 09:13 Bodø
26.6. 10:15 Bodø ferry 13:30 Moskenes (on Lofoten)
28.6. 06:30 Svolvær express boat 10:00 Bodø (back from Lofoten)
28.6. 12:15 Bodø train 22:10 Trondheim
28/29.6. 23:05 Trondheim night train 06:06 OSL
29.6. 07:10 OSL flight SK 1463 08:20 Copenhagen (CPH)
BTW, for Norwegian long-distance trains and in particular night trains, reservation is mandatory, but usually can be done on short notice at a train station as the trains are rarely fully booked. Most of the "Komfort" class seats and all the night train seats have a power plug. In some trains there is even free Internet access via wifi; one just needs to register (giving any 8-digit number as 'phone number').

There is one critical factor that is nearly impossible to plan with, in particular in Norway: weather. In summer, one may be lucky to have a relatively stable and warm period with clear skies, or may be unlucky to have an awfully rainy time with very low-hanging clouds, or most likely: a mixture of both. In may case, weather was not perfect - but better than forecasted - in Oslo, unpleasantly cloudy and slightly rainy in the south, west, and middle of the country, and - thanks goodness - mostly sunny for the most scenic area: the Lofoten islands above the Arctic circle.

Oslo

Oslo is a pleasant, not too large and pretty green city. What I liked most there is - of course - the Vigeland Park, but also the Fram museum and the pedestrian area stretching from the king's castle to the central train station.




Stavanger area

When I arrived in Stavanger, it was raining, so I waited at the boring train station until the rain stopped at noon, when I still had enough time for the excursion to climb the famous Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock):
12:30 Stavanger ferry+bus 13:35 Preikestolhytta
16:45 Preikestolhytta bus+ferry 17:50 Stavanger
(More information how to get there may be found here and here.) Going fast, I took about an hour for both the way up and down. Views from the top were very limited due to clouds. After return to Stavanger, rather than doing a photo stroll in the city center, I made good use of the free (though rather slow) wireless Internet access kindly offered at the Tide ferry terminal (and on their ferries as well).

A GPS recording of the climbing route is available for download as GPX file or KML file for Google Earth.
It can be directly viewed on Google Maps (including waypoints) and on Trailguru (including statistics).


Bergen area

The train ride from Oslo to Bergen is known for the very spectacular landscape it traverses, including the Hardangervidda, which is the largest highlands of Europe, and many tunnels near the shore. A propos tunnels: as one of the bus drivers put it: Norway is beautiful also from the inside ;-) I was lucky as a couple of days before the Bergen line was closed after one of the many wodden snow shelters had caught fire, causing also a train set to burn out entirely, but not before all its passengers had been able to leave safely. A nealy unavoidable thing for a tourist to do in Norway is the classical ' Norway in a Nutshell' tour including the Flåm railway, a boat trip along the Aurlandsfjord and Nærøyfjord (which both are sections of the Sognefjord, the world's largest), and a bus ride featuring a surprisingly spectacular section along a pretty steep and winding road:
12:11 Myrdal Flåm railway 13:05 Flåm
13:20 Flåm boat 15:30 Gudvangen
15:40 Gudvangen bus 16:55 Voss
After getting to Bergen (using a regular train), I had reasonable weather to explore the very scenic harbor area on foot and to enjoy - together with an elder German whom I had got to know on the way to Norway - the grand views from Fløyen, which is the hill right to the Northeast of the city center.

A GPS recording of my route is available for download as GPX file or KML file for Google Earth.
It can be directly viewed on Google Maps (including waypoints) and on Trailguru (including statistics).



Trondheim

The only mistake in my trip planning was to spend almost nine hours in Trondheim. Sightseeing there was very dull - even the famous cathedral turned out to be rather disappointing (and it's hard to understand why they forbid to take photos inside, even without flash, since the interior is so dark than one can barely see anything after all). On the bright side, public toilets at the train station (as opposed to at the bus station next door) were free of charge ;-)
It would certainly have been more interesting to have a stop a bit more to the South (e.g. in Dombås, from 12:07 to 20:07) where the train line passes Jutunheimen, Norway's highest mountain range.

Lofoten

The islands of Lofoten were both literally and figuratively the highlight of my trip, where I was able to spend two polar days with midnight sun (while the first of them would actually be better described as 'midnight clouds', but still worth staying up late).

I was glad that I did not bother spending more time in Bodø than necessary. On the way up I spent the hour I had there rushing around with my heavy backpack desperately trying to find a place to rent a bike for getting around on the Lofoten. Yet nobody I asked on the street had a clue if this possible after all (while the tourist information office was closed on Sunday mornings, but presumably would not have been helpful either). So I just locked the bulk of my luggage at the train station (with by the way is 2*30 NOK for the 48 hours I needed), hopped on the ferry (good information on how to get to the Lofoten islands may be found here and at the Torghatten Nord ferry operator homepage, which links to here) and resorted to getting around the islands hiking, hitch-hiking, and taking (unfortunately rather infrequent) buses, which worked out surprisingly well. I got a lift mostly by locals and by two young Swiss guys, all of which were very pleasant encounters.

My - pretty dense - itinerary from the Southeastern tip of the islands towards their center was:
26.6. 13:30 Moskenes hitch hiking 14:00 just south of Reine, climbing Reinebringen (442 m)
16:00 Reine by car with the Swiss Fredvang, Nusfjord, Haukland/Utakleiv, Unstad
26./27.6. 19:30 Unstad coastal hike, usually 3 hrs 03:00 Eggum
27.6. 09:40 Eggum bus 10:10 Borg, visiting the Lofotr Viking Museum
13:45 Borg bus 14:35 Rørvik
14:40 Rørvik hitch hiking 15:00 just southwest of Henningsvær, climbing Festvågtind (541 m)
27,/28.6. 17:00 Henningsvær bus 17:25 Kabelvåg (cathedral, fish dinner, hostel)
28.6. 05:50 Kabelvåg hiking 06:10 Svolvær

A GPS recording of my route is available for download as GPX file or KML file for Google Earth.
It can be directly viewed on Google Maps (including waypoints) and on Trailguru (including statistics).

Arrival via Bodø



Reinebringen (442 m) near Reine


Beach hopping by car

Midnight hike between Unstad and Eggum



Lofotr Viking Museum




Festvågtind (541 m) near Henningsvær


Kabelvåg and Svolvær





URL: http://David.von-Oheimb.de/gallery/Norway/index.html, Last modified: Tue Oct 11 22:31:18 CEST 2011
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