Grimstad - Risør - Skien

I followed the costal road and found several nice little towns, but Risør was by far the best and well worth a new visit.

What they write:

Risør - one of Europes best kept wooden house towns, is an attractive area for both natives and tourist alike, all through the year. Few people that have an interest in Norway as a holiday resort can ignore the charming small wooden town with it’s white painted houses. As summer reaches it’s peak so multiplies the towns population. Which in turn fills the intimate small roads and alleys with people, making the town bustle with life. 

Whether you come by car, boat, bus or bike you will find that little extra experience, especially for you. To get the most out of your visit perhaps you should sit fore a while by the water in the harbour eating a bag of freshly cooked shrimps, that have been locally caught a couple of hours earlier of the coast of Risør. Alternatively you can enjoy a glass of cold beer at one of the outdoor restaurants, while the sun does it’s best to give you a tan that will compete with any tan you may get sunbathing of the coast of the Mediterranean.

Skien was BTW the worst I have seen during my trip, but only had to use it for the hotel, which was actually rather nice. The hotel was part of Thon Hotels. If you plan to visit Scandinavia, buy yourself a Skanplus hotel pass for 90 Norwegian Krone and you get a huge discount in every Thon hotel (about 170). And I found all Thon hotels I visited rather OK to very good.

Next, back to Amsterdam.

Stavanger - Grimstad

Stavanger Oil Museum

Although I am out of the higher mountains now, actually it is a very pleasent trip close to the see with many smaller fishing towns. I had a look at the most southern part of Norway with a perfect lighthouse, the Lyndesnes fyr. Grimstad was my town for the night. 

Pulpit Rock

In any brochure about Norway and the fjords you see at least one picture of this Rock.

Although you can view it from a charter in the fjord I decided to walk / climb all the way, not knowing the danger and exhaustion doing it.

It is a 4,5 km walk as they say, but actually it is climbing from 270 to 604 meters and in the time you climb at least twice the height as you descent many times. But what a view from the top …. stunning is the only word to describe it. My pictures can not show what it looked like up there. Up is 2 hours, down is 2 hours but worse as you can not walk, climb, stumble to fast as this is rather dangerous.

After a good 5 hours I went on the longest ferry, 40 minutes till Stavanger, a very pleasent and to my opinion one of the nicest cities in Norway.  

Bergen - Hardangerfjord

I left rainy Bergen and traveled to the Hardangerfjord. I took an almost daily ferry and ended in a treasure. Once in a while you find these places.

Lakseslottet Salmon Castle in Lindum is a perfect place to come to rest. I almost passed it but returned and checked in this perfect hotel. There were only a few more guests but what a host.

Although there was no cook available the manager cooked me a perfect meal and also unlocked the only TV to see Germany - Italy. I met several other Norwegians who told me where to go for my few days. Overall a very pleasant experience like I had in the Christmas Inn in New Hampshire and the Lobster Shack in Nova Scotia.  

Lom - Bergen

The first part again was spectacular, going up a scenic highway for several hours and viewed many of the highest mountains of Norway. It was also the day I saw many Dutch. Seems this is an area many Dutch tourists visit, I can understand why. In general I do not see a lot of tourists, if many Dutch and some Germans.

The second part of the day was one of the worst. Although my visit to the very old wooden church of Borgund was rather nice, it started to rain again and from there to Bergen it was dark, darker and darkest as I had to pass many, many tunnels in the rain.

I ended up in the Radisson SAS hotel in the center of Bergen and that is something you should financially not do to often.

In Bergen it is said to rain 250 days a year and guess what …..