The fjords

After Oslo, we headed west, towards the fjords. With all the cold and the rain we tried to make reservations for some accommodation that would offer more shelter than a tent but after a few telephone calls I gave up realizing that everything seemed to be sold out and we should have made reservations a long time ago. Or gone with a campervan.


So we drove westward along the coast, again it took us most of the day to cover a distance of about 500 kilometers as there are no highways, there are speed limits, speed cameras, road works and all sorts of obstacles on the way so there is no way to get quickly from one place to another in Scandinavia. It seems they either don’t travel much by car or the population density is so low that building decent roads is not cost effective or they probably take a ferry or fly when they need to cover larger distances.


We arrived in Sandnes, a small town near the seacoast in the evening and checked into a campground. By now I was almost oblivious to the cold, damp, windy, rainy weather and just faced my destiny and hoped to survive. We were fortunate that this particular campground had a communal kitchen/dining room where we could cook our dinner and eat it in a sheltered place. The next morning it rained again, so what else is new? The forecast was that the weather would be clear in the afternoon so we spent the morning sitting around the dining room, making tea, spiking it up with authentic Norwegian vodka and waiting for the rain to stop so we could go bicycle riding to the city of Stavanger, about 17 kilometers away.


When the rain stopped the day turned almost sunny, although there was still a cold, cold, cold wind blowing. In addition to that, I managed to fall off my bicycle, skinning my left elbow and bruising all over, but I was relieved that nothing was broken and I was able to continue riding.


We had coffee in one of the restaurants near the harbor in Stavanger and I felt much better when I noticed that they had outdoor electric heating units that were switched on so we could sit outside and take in the sights while keeping warm at the same time. (Note: in case someone doesn’t believe me how cold it was, why would they use electric heating in August?)