It does not happen often that we have nice weather here in Wales. So it was a bit suprising when we have found sun is shining yesterday morning. I've checked forecast, it said "not bad" so we started to think what we could do.
From 2 alternatives: Cardiff Castle and Kidwelly Castle we picked later (we can go to Cardiff Castle any time and we have been there before). We found trains, cross checked forecast, prepared something to eat and got off.
We needed to change trains in Llannelli. A slight glitch happened there - train was late. Every five minutes it was announced it is late bit longer. Finally, after 30 minutes they got enough of guts to tell us what I've already knew - service was cancelled (I have not travelled by train for the first time in UK. Last time it took about 2 hours of announcements "Train is approximatelly 10 minutes late" even everybody knew no train is going happen and in the best case bus will come to take us). So we found bus station and we could continue. Bus services cannot be compared with services of railways. Really kind and helpful driver, no little lies, just correct stuff. (OK, I am not really fair now, an attendant in train from Cardiff was really helpful and nice too.)
But overall - whole trip was very good and satisfying. We still had enough time to see what we wanted. And maybe we could be late bit more, because at the beginning heavy clouds were over Kidwelly and blue sky started only later.
We spent whole Saturday 26th and morning 27th of July in Oslo. Weather was unbelievable - clear sky and hot.
We bought 1 day Oslo Pass that allowed us unlimited travel by public transport and free entry to most of attractions in Oslo. Our exploration could begin.
I have a lot of photos from Oslo and I struggled for a while to decide how I am going to split it to pages. Previously used Morning/Afternoon won't work so I decided to make a split on areas of interest regardless time, location and how many times we have been there.
Friday 25th of July we are getting up soon again. Not as soon as yesterday, but we need to catch ferry to Bognes at 9pm (plus/minus). It is about 80km away and it is not highway anymore. This time we arrived 15 minutes before ferry leaving and we get only to 3rd queue.
After reaching Bognes we need to get to Bodø airport before 3pm. That is another 220km to go. I hope it is clear now why I do not have many photos from this day. Simply there was no time for that. And we arrived to Oslo quite late so there was not time to shoot there too.
Thursday 24th of July we did not have luck with weather - low hanging clouds obscured otherwise wonderfully looking hills all over Lofoten. Lofoten are beautiful archipelago, especially with fair weather. But also weather we ended with led to some attractive photos.
Lofoten was driving force during our planning - if we did not want to go to Lofoten we would pick completelly different route probably through Stavanger or who nows. So I have good reason to talk about our weather in bad way.
Wednesday 23rd of July - we are on road again. And it will be long trip again. If you check map posted in Norway Day 1 - Bergen, Voss and fjords you will see we are catching what we did not travel through first 4 days. Distance planned for today is 511km!
On the other hand we plan to cross Polar Circle and to see maelstrom in the evening. Two phenomenas we might not see again soon.
Norway Day 5 - Hell is not so bad
Added: September 09, 2008
For those who came here attracted by title - you can just skip to the end.
Tuesday 22nd of July is fair weather again. Our plan expects us to travel about 380km today. Thus we are going to enjoy sunny weather mostly from car. But we plan to spend some time in Trondheim so we are glad it is not raining.Norway Day 4 - the weakest day in Norway
Added: September 07, 2008
It is raining in Ålesund on Monday 21st of July.
Our plan is to go to Molde to visit open air museum there, then continue to Mardalsfossen and finally to arrive into Sunndalsøra.
We speculated to go more to north from Molde to see Atlantershaveien - very nice road with bridges between small islands but that would need additional 100km so we decided against that. If we knew Mardalsfossen will not be good and we will arrive to hostel sooner than we did any other time before (or after) we might decide differently.
Norway Day 3 - beautiful fjords and mountains
Added: September 07, 2008
Sunday 20th of July starts as cloudy with ocassional blue patches in the sky. One of main highlights of our trip in Norway should happen today - cruise in Geiranger fjord.
I appologise for tons of photos here. I just could not edit them tighter.
Norway Day 2 - waterfalls, mountains and summer skiing
Added: September 06, 2008
Saturday 19th of July we woke up to weather as was forecasted even I refused to believe it will be cloudy previous day. Well, it was. End of blue sky and good photos...
Some waterfalls are planned for this day, 2 national parks, old wooden churches, we will go through interesting tunnels and there are some alternatives. It depends on time, but we have no illusions that this time we could progress faster :-) And of course - cherries has been added unexpectedly to our daily menu yesterday.
We need to get to Bøverdalen in the evening.
Norway Day 1 - Bergen, Voss and fjords
Added: September 06, 2008
Note: I am more than one month behind in publishing photos from our vacation in Norway. Good news is that all photos are processed and I should have enough of time to publish them quite fast
Original plan was that Zuzka will go for trip around Norway with her friend living in Sveden and I will stay home because car was full. However more people from friend's side wanted to go later, thus we formed another (independent) group and went on our own. In the end, it turned out that group of Zuzka's friend did not go.
Because of Icelandic holiday shortly before we had not enough time to plan Norway thorougly (as with Iceland). Still we managed to cram enough of attractions into 9 days (It is terrible that people do not have 4 months of holidays :-) ) together with quite ambitious distance to travel. Norway is really long so if we wanted to get to Polar Circle and further we needed to flight back from there (see map later). On the other hand in means we did not have time to explore national parks in more details, so maybe later (yes, Norway is country that deserves another vacation there and with better weather we had!)
Again we used mainly youth hostels for accommodation. I have to say that they responded to e-mail enquiries much faster than in Iceland, but still there were a few problems. For example, just to try something more adventurous (at least for me) we ignored that one night was not fully confirmed (I just feel I need to enhance my terrible improvisation skills before our trip to India planned in November :-) ). There was another problem with hostels in Norway. Most of them ignored our Hostelling International membership and did not give us 15% discount even all of them claimed they did. Unfortunatelly I forgot all papers at the first hostel and it is hard to argue with them that way. So beware of them. They are lying with ease!
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