Lysefjorden

This was the day we were supposed to go hiking. By now I probably don’t have to mention specifically that it was raining again. Packing up our tent in the rain became routine. We were hoping that – like the day before – the rain would stop and we would at least have a nice afternoon for activities. So we headed towards Lysefjorden, a popular tourist destination where we wanted to hike high above the fjord to the Pulpit rock, a scenic point with a view across the fjord. We took a ferry this time since there is no way to travel among the fjords except to either take a ferry across or a very long detour by road.


When we arrived at the foot of the hike it was still raining and there were no signs that the rain might stop soon. We realized that there were many people around us hiking and they didn’t seem bothered by the rain. So we figured we might as well do the same, put on our rain jackets and just go. It did actually stop raining soon after we set off and stayed that way for most of our hike. The view from the Pulpit rock was magnificent and the trip was well worth it. There is a mountain hut at the foot of the hike where we warmed up afterwards.

Our camp that night was the best ever (minus the cold and the wind and the rain, of course). It had free internet and a large cafeteria where we spent the evening drinking beers and checking our emails, nicely warm and dry. The next day we packed up our tent again in the rain and headed back towards Sweden. Our original plan was to stay another day to climb the Kjerag boulder, but that would have been a day trip and we didn’t want to hang around and wait for the weather to clear.


It was a good choice to drive on that day as it wouldn’t stop raining so riding in the car all day was efficient use of our time. We drove east on a road across the Hardangervidda mountain plateau which was a very scenic route.

Another interesting aspect of Scandinavia that we discovered during our trip was that their most common food is – believe it or not – hamburgers! In addition to McDonalds and Burger Kings everywhere they have no-name fast food places that serve hot dogs and hamburgers. These fast food places, located at gas stations, were more or less our only choice of food while driving across Norway and Sweden so I believe I have never eaten so many hamburgers per week in my life.