I decided to make one large final post to cover the last few days. That first night I was exhausted from being on the road all day, and only walked down into town to pick up food at the grocery store. Its name was "Joker." The hotel was beautiful, and the room was the nicest of the entire trip.
Sunndalsora was a fjord that I had nearly all to myself. Since Norway is known for its fjords, I decided that Geiranger should be visited as well, despite being incredibly touristy, with its cruises docking in town.
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| The view from my room. |
The next morning I had an odd encounter at breakfast. My usually morning routine has me going downstairs and asking for a tray to bring food to my room. When I asked a woman at the breakfast for a tray, she explained that it wasn't their general procedure and asked, "Why?" I responded explaining that I had concerns with covid. She responded with something along the lines of, "If you are travelling, catching covid is easy." In other words, if I chose to travel, I should simply accept that I will get covid. I responded by stating that I had been travelling for three months without getting it, precisely because I do this every morning. She went and got me a tray.
That first full day had a forecast of rain and clouds the entire day. The following day was forecasted for partly cloudy, with a chance of sun late in the day. I decided to take the day off. When I walked to the grocery store for dinner later that day, I walked down the waterfall path for a more scenic walk.
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| You can actually see my hotel there above and to the left of the falls. |
The next day was still cloudy. Originally I had intended to take a ferry through the fjord and back, but with clouds descending down the mountains, blocking most of the view, along with potential rain, it just didn't make sense to do. I decided to go on a hike that began just a block from my hotel. It took me up one of the mountainsides. The trail began with stone steps, and then led to more of a cliffside walk, with some llamas. Just past the lamas there was a large group of goats meandering on the path.
Past the goats, the path began to climb. At one point I wasn't sure if I had somehow gotten off the path, because I was essentially climbing a small waterfall/stream. This ended up being the correct route.
There were few people on the hike. When I reached the end, I got to enjoy the view alone.
On the way back, I stopped for a while to watch the llamas.
Just after the hike, I walked the waterfall path down to the grocery store. The path had 90% less people than the day before. I realized that on this day there was not a cruise ship docked in the port. That would also explain the peace and tranquility I experienced on the hike. The next day I woke up to sunshine. I began a very long day of driving. I drove up the mountain, stopping fairly frequently for pictures.
Like before, once I reached the top, the views were just as magnificent, as mountains grew from the top of the mountain. I had bookmarked a short detour labelled as Dalsnibba. It turns out that this was a $27 toll road to a scenic viewpoint at the very top. I paid and drove up the steep road. The view from the top was absolutely extraordinary. It wasn't just a view from the platform that was incredible. All sides offered magnificent landscapes. People were climbing down rocks to the side of the extended platform. I walked down the rocks and around the side. Then I walked up a tiny path on the opposite side.
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| This was the first view after driving up the mountain from town. |
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| This is the first picture taken from the top of Dalsnibba. |
As I drove back down, I pulled over for one final picture. The rest of the day's drive was nice to look at, but not worthy of pictures after what I had seen. I mostly followed a river valley between mountains. My next stops would be wooden stave churches, like I had seen near Goslar, Germany.
Lom's stave church, "Lom stavkyrkje," was the most crowded. I paid a $10 fee to take a quick look inside.
By the time that I reached the Ringebu Stavkirke, the weather had turned to rainy. There were two cars and a bus in the parking lot. The people from the bus quickly funneled into the church, leaving the outside all to me. I declined going inside.
The last church of the day, the Fåvang church, was just fifteen minutes away. The gate was open and I took a quick look around.
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| Be sure to look at the cow on the left that was staring me down. |
I was about 45 minutes away from my hotel in Lillehammer. The gps redirected me to an odd mountain road due to a series of road closures. It was a bit odd, but it got even more odd when I arrived at the construction. Photographers were set up on the hillside and there were a lot of gawkers. When I was stopped, I turned around and saw what everyone was looking at. A bridge had collapsed. I sent the picture to Jeremy, who had recognized it from two days before, when it hit international news. This ten year old wooden bridge had collapsed. Two vehicles were on it at the time.
Lillehammer was a convenient choice because it was right along the stave church route that I wanted to pass through, and it wasn't too far away from the airport. The town had its own stave church, but when I went to visit it the next day, the gate was closed. It had a sign explaining that it was open from 7:00-9:00 AM and then again from 5:00 PM until later in the night. The church wasn't labelled with opening times online. I did a little more digging and discovered that it was a recreated church, built in the 1920s as part of an open air museum. I was alright skipping it. I decided to continue the uphill walk to see the Olympic Park. From there, I was able to see the ski jumping hill from the 1994 winter Olympics. I walked down the hill from there to return to town and walked the length of the street that was closed off to cars, and lined with shops and restaurants.
