Bellarine Traveller: On to Oslo

The final few days of the tour were spectacular to say the least.

As we travelled towards Geiranger we passed through many mountains, crossed several fiords by ferries, saw many more frozen lakes and lots more snow. And among all this the wildflowers were simply stunning.

Norway has more than 1100 fiords. The meaning of fiord is ‘a valley filled with water’. And there must be millions of waterfalls. Everywhere you look there is a waterfall. Some are huge others much smaller. Two-thirds of Norway is covered by mountains.

We had a lunch stop at Lom which is a UNESCO town in a UNESCO National Park area. The town was delightful and there is a Stave Wooden Church here. The Stave Churches are very old and this one dates back to the 1100’s. Most are built from oak and are quite dark inside with some simple decoration. There are still a few of these scattered around Norway. Some are still used for weddings especially when people dress wearing their National Costume.

On arrival in Geiranger we took a cruise on the fabulous Geiranger Fiord (also listed as a UNESCO area). This was a lovely cruise despite the weather being a bit overcast. As you would expect lots of huge waterfalls, huge mountains, many covered in snow and several farms where people used to live and farm.

When you look at where people used to live and raise families in these old farmhouses you do wonder how they ever got there. The cruise director did tell a couple of stories: one family used to tie their young children to a rope to prevent them from falling down into the fiord! Another was about a tax-collector who simply gave up as he could not manage to reach the farms to collect the tax that was owing!

After such a wonderful cruise I did not expect the drive on the “Trolls Road” to equal the cruise – how wrong I was!

To give the road its correct name it is called - Trollstigen Mountain Road. The road has 11 hairpin bends up a very steep mountainside. Encircling the road are huge snow capped mountains. Many huge waterfalls gush down the mountainside towards a beautiful green valley called ‘Isterdalen Valley’. The Trollstigen Mountain Road winds its way up to 858 metres above sea level. Thank goodness we had a great bus driver who had driven this road many times before. Sometimes even taking photos in this area has been challenging due to the very black coloured mountains and all the white snow. Some photos look quite eerie! This trip has certainly been a highlight of the tour.

After spending 2 nights in Geiranger we travelled towards Oslo via Lillehammer – site of 1994 Winter Olympics. We did visit the ski-jump at the original Olympic site. These days the ski-jumpers can train all year round as they have a special surface they put on the jumps.

The next part of the tour was sightseeing in Oslo and I will report on that in my next blog.

The tour I have just completed was called “The Grand Tour of Scandinavia” and it was exactly that a ‘grand tour’. Many thanks to Insight Vacations – this was the first bus tour I have done and would certainly consider another bus tour. We had a great Tour Director and a fabulous Bus Driver.