Norway Fjord Adventure
With Josh away on a school trip, Glenn and I decided to take advantage of our freedom and plan a real vacation just for the two of us! We picked Norway, since neither of us had visited the fjords. I researched quite a number of western Norway destinations and selected the Ålesund/Geirangerfjord region and Stavanger. Bergen will have to wait for another trip! And the Lofoten islands and Trondheim too…
Our Trip Map
We used United Airlines for the international legs to take advantage of my Plus Points upgrades. Since I booked the trip while I still had Global Services, I was able to apply the upgrades on free tickets booked with miles (sadly not an option for future trips, now that I’m relegated to 1K status…). And with SAS as a Star Alliance partner, we got one of the Norway legs free via United’s Excursionist Perk. Sweet!
We unfortunately had some travel woes during our journey to Norway. We had a multi-leg trip AUS-ORD-LON-OSL-AES… and our Chicago to London flight was massively delayed. This was going to cause us to miss our connecting flight to Oslo, so I spent nearly 2 hours trying to talk to 1K agents for other options – could we route through Iceland or Frankfurt instead of London from Chicago? Or could they rebook us on a later London to Oslo flight and then a later Oslo to Ålesund flight? The agent assured me she could make the latter happen, but needed to wait for the manager to approve it. Since we had to board the flight in Chicago, she promised she would leave me a voicemail confirming the updated itinerary. Alas, when we landed in London, there was no message. But Glenn and I had been split! He was rebooked onto the next flight to Oslo and then onto Ålesund, but I was on a later flight to Oslo and would need to get to Ålesund the following morning. Argh.
Poor Glenn had to navigate customs and a new city by himself! And our luggage didn’t make it… (I could see it was still hung up on London). But he got the rental car at the airport, and drove into the city to check into our hotel. I had picked Hotel Brosundet since it was right on the waterfront and had amazing reviews. Meanwhile, I spent the night at the Radisson Blu Airport hotel in Oslo…
Glenn picked me up at the Ålesund Airport this morning, but sadly, still no luggage! Thankfully, I’ve learned to pack extra clothes in my carry-on, especially for international travel…
It was mostly a cloudy day, so I don’t have too many photos during daytime. We visited the Alnes Lighthouse on Godøy Island, and were amazed by all of the bridges and underwater tunnels connecting the various islands in the area. Once back to Ålesund, we explored the town and saw pretty buildings in the Art Nouveau District, and had a delicious fish stew for lunch at Fisketorget Delikatesse. We climbed up the 418 steps to the famous Fjellstua viewpoint, which has a fantastic view of the town and nearby islands.
After dinner at Apoterkergata No. 5, we went back to the hotel, but when we looked out our hotel room window at 10:13pm and saw blue skies and beautifully calm water, we decided to hike up to Fjellstua one more time! The sunset views from the top were gorgeous – totally worth making the second trip!
We finally got word that our luggage had arrived to the local airport, and delivery was promised by 10am. Perfect timing to enjoy the absolutely delicious breakfast buffet at the hotel before hitting the road for Geiranger. Fresh Norwegian bread – oh my goodness, it totally rivals German bread. And Norway is also known for their “brown cheese” called brunost – it sounds (and looks) kind of strange, but is quite tasty. It’s a bit sweet and nutty and caramel like, and is made by cooking down the whey from regular cheesemaking, until it caramelizes and turns brown. I researched if we can buy it in the US, and discovered that there is an imported brand called Ski Queen, and they sell it at the Central Market stores in Austin!
Come 10am, our luggage still wasn’t at the hotel, so we decided to just drive to the airport… and sure enough our luggage was still there! With fresh clothes in hand, we headed towards our next destination, Geiranger!
First we drove to Hellesylt (about 2 hours) which involved a ferry crossing, and scenic mountain and valley landscapes. Once we got to Hellesylt, we bought our ferry ticket for Geiranger (we should have bought this online ahead of time, as the next ferry was already full). So during our wait, we took a little walking tour in the area and saw the Langedalselva Waterfall, and explored one of the many area hiking trails. We grabbed lunch at a pizza place close to the ferry dock. I tried a very interesting Norwegian pineapple soda!
This ferry ride was not simply crossing from side of the fjord to another, but rather a long 1 hour 20 minute ferry ride through the Geirangerfjord all the way to the end. This was a perfect alternative to the sightseeing cruises, because it fulfilled our need to get the car to Geiranger and there was some informative narration over the loudspeakers… We saw beautiful waterfalls (including the 7 Sisters) and some abandoned farms high up on the cliffs. The clouds finally parted towards the end, so we got some blue sky for part of it.
I picked the Grande Fjord Hotel, which was on the outskirts of town, but had a better view of the fjords. We had an amazing dinner at the hotel’s Restaurant Hyskje overlooking the water. The older couple seated at the table next to us was from Texas, and used to live in Austin!
On the ferry ride, we had heard it was possible to climb up a fjord cliff to reach the abandoned Skageflå farm. It was once the most prosperous farm in the fjord. The ledges are so steep that they had to tether children and animals with ropes so they wouldn’t fall off!
I had done a bunch of research last night to figure out how difficult it was (lots of steep climbing, especially at the beginning – but once you crest the mountain, it’s a long downhill all the way back to Geiranger). When we woke up in the morning to beautiful skies, we decided to go for it!
After another amazing breakfast buffet (which even topped Hotel Brosundet’s), we made sandwiches out of bread and cold cuts from the buffet to bring with us on our adventure. The front desk helped make arrangements for one of the local rib boat fjord tour companies to swing by the hotel dock to pick us up and then drop us off at Skagehola, the base of the cliff below Skageflå.
The hike was indeed steep, but I just took it slow & steady. Interestingly, another boat had pulled up not too long after ours, but a person fell off the boat trying to get onto the “dock” made out of rubber tires strung together. Oops!
The fjord views kept getting better and better as we climbed higher. And at the farm, the grassy meadow was a gorgeous bright green. We were so lucky to have perfect weather! We had a small snack and explored the abandoned buildings before continuing farther up the mountain. Along the way, I had commented that my hiking boots were holding up great (Glenn’s hiking boot soles fell off last summer in Colorado) – but I must have jinxed myself because a few minutes later, one of my boot soles ripped off halfway!! I tied it together with a hair tie, which helped for a while… until the entire sole fell off.
Nevertheless, we continued going, and we had our picnic lunch at the summit. Then we continued the long descent back to Geiranger, where we peeked in some stores and grabbed a snack. We called the hotel to ask for their “shuttle” to pick us up. But it turns out their shuttle was a fancy sportscar (may have been a Porsche). Not bad!
- Drive the Eagle Road to Ørnesvingen Viewpoint (10 minutes)
- Enjoy the scenic fjord views
- Continue driving to Alstad (1 hour, 10 minutes)
- Check into the Juvet Landscape Hotel
- Use the sauna at the Bath House
- Dinner in the Cow Barn
- Morning at Juvet Landscape Hotel
- Drive to the Trollstigen Viewpoint (25 minutes)
- Enjoy the Visitor Center and scenic lookouts
- Continue driving towards Åndalsnes and then to Ålesund Airport (2 hours)
- Fly to Stavanger
- Pick up 3-day rental car at Stavanger Airport
- Drive to Stavanger (15 minutes)
- Check into Airbnb rental
- Dinner at a waterfront harbor restaurant
- Drive to the Eikeskog parking area (1 hour)
- Hike to Månafossen Waterfall and Mån Farm (3.6 miles roundtrip)
- Return to Stavanger (1 hour)
- Visit the Norwegian Canning Museum and Stavanger Maritime Museum
- Drive to the Preikestolen parking area (45 minutes)
- Hike to Pulpit Rock (5 miles round trip)
- Picnic lunch overlooking Lysefjord
- Return to Stavanger (45 minutes)
- Stroll Gamle Stavanger
- Relax with a snack at FrK Krag Café
- Take a morning flight to Oslo
- Drop off luggage at Radisson Blu Airport Hotel
- Take the train into downtown Oslo (20 minutes)
- Use the Oslo tram system to explore the city
- Eat a Norwegian hotdog at Syverkiosken
- Enjoy a Norwegian waffle at Haralds Vaffel
- Ride the Bygdøyfergene ferry to Bygdøynes (20 minutes)
- Visit the Kon-Tiki Museum and the Fram Museum
- Ride the ferry back to Oslo (20 minutes)
- Stroll Oslo’s harbor promenade
- Dinner at a waterfront restaurant
- Return by train to the hotel (20 minutes)
Overall, this was an incredible trip! The scenery was gorgeous throughout, and we only wish we had more time. So many more beautiful fjords and hikes to do in this region… Glenn flew home from Oslo via Amsterdam. But since Josh was wrapping up his World War II history trip in Berlin, I decided to fly over to Berlin to pick him up and continue onto the Baltics!
Takk, Norge!
