2006 Sweden and Norway Trip - Part 3

2006 Sweden and Norway Trip

The fun starts Saturday, March 25!

Jump to: Stockholm, Gothenburg, Norwegian Fjords and Oslo (below)

April 4, Andalsnes, 7:39PM - Ok, lots of mountains and fjords and other good scenery... lets back up a few days to catch up...

First, we headed from Gothenburg to Eidfjord... this was a pretty long day, but it was finally sunny, and the scenery out the car window was wonderful and varied... I guess I'll just throw a bunch of pictures up with minimal commentary:

We stopped occasionally for pictures as well, here is a really old wooden church:

Starting to see some really big snowy mountains in the distance, I wonder how close we will get to those...

Yep, pretty close... (click for full size)

It's one big snowy plateau, central Norway...

Lots of skihouses and an occasional lodge as well...

And they said this was much LESS snow than usual for this time of year?? (Remember, this is THE MAIN HIGHWAY connecting Oslo and Bergen)

Finally we head down towards the fjords, through lots of ravines and windy tunnels

Ahhh, fjord at last... (the next morning actually, when it was light out)

We then headed down the Hardangerfjord towards Bergen... the scenery just doesn't end, and even my Nikon D70s doesn't do it justice...

Here the road heads away from the fjord for a bit...

... and up over snowy mountains...

...leading to an inland lake (frozen)...

The fjords of course do not freeze because they're salt water, being part of the ocean

Spotted some nifty waterfalls in a town not too far from Bergen...

After Bergen, we headed up to Balestrand on the Sognefjord... the road over the mountains was again snowy, in the active sense, fortunately we got to follow a snowplow, as you can see:

Crossed the sognefjord on a big ferry, one of many on our trip...

Cloudy and rainy much of the rest of the day, driving up the fjord, so only a few shots through the window

But it did finally clear for a while for some better shots...

The Norwegians use all the farmland they get, all they need is a little topsoil, even if it is at a 45 degree slope up a mountain... this is one of the FLATTER farms:

You can really see how clear the water is too:

Finally, a view from our destination, the Dragsvik Fjord Hotel... nice...

The next day (today) we headed up to Andalsnes... we started out with another ferry ride, which always provides a good view:

There were two identical ferries serving this run...

The roads around norway use not only ferries but lots of tunnels, pictures of which would be dark and boring, but here you can see them constructing a new tunnel to replace the narrow windy road stuck to the side of a cliff. The longest tunnels are 5-8km long.

Again, we head over and through snowy mountains to get to the next fjord (the Nordfjord)

Here you can see some of the plastic poles that are 1-2 meters high that help guide the snowplows after a heavy (many feet) snow:

More beautiful scenery:

The snow in the bottom-center of this shot is bluish because it's the edge of a glacier:

More prettiness:

From here on it snowed during most of the rest of the drive to Andalsnes... anyway, here we can see how we pass the time waiting for the ferries... we feed the little birdie that lands on the side mirror:

Fortunately, when we got to Andalsnes, it got sunny for a bit, so here are a few pics of the area:

Well that is all for now... tomorrow we head towards Lillehammer... see you then!

April 6, Oslo, 10:10PM - Just got back from the Oslo Philharmonic concert... very good, Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, which you've heard at least part of if you've seen Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. Anyway, going back to yesterday, we headed from Andalsnes to Lillehammer, with some sunlight again, which made for some more pretty pictures:

From the docks in Andalsnes:

It was very calm, so one of the fjord inlets provided almost glassy reflections:

The road inland towards Lillehammer follows rivers surrounded by many mountains like these:

There was also another old wooden church... parts of this one date back to the 13th century:

When we got to Lillehammer we went and saw some of the Olympics stuff there, including the museum...

... and the ski jumps

Good view of Lillehammer from the top of the jumps:

Today we headed to Oslo, saw some museums and things, and went to the aforementioned concert... rainy and snowy today so only one picture from Oslo, the Royal Palace:

April 12, 12:51PM, Rochester, MN - Well, clearly I've been back in the US for a few days now... just wanted to add a few more pics of the Volvo Factory Delivery Center in Gothenburg where we picked up and dropped off the car, since some have really expressed interest in the whole OSD thing. Details here: http://www.volvocars.us/FinancialServices/Overseas/

A few shots of the Factory Delivery Center interior:

There were about a dozen other cars being picked up the same day as ours. At least four of them were "R" models (300 horsepower, All Wheel Drive, "4C" active chassis, 6 speed tranny, all the luxury goodies) ... can you tell I want one...

Outside the mothership:

Good shot showing the "widescreen" Euro plates: