Great Scandinavian Road Trip: Day 0 and Day 1

Yes, my trip starts from Day 0 instead of 1. That's because the preliminary day was fully spent just getting me to Norway to begin the rest of the trip. The drive to Hirtshals, Denmark (way at the very tip top) was very long, with lots of traffic. More traffic than I had expected, but I left early enough to make it to the ferry terminal in plenty of time. The ferry was quite nice with a big buffet to keep you occupied during the crossing. Arrived in Kristiansand at midnight, and the first thing that happens is that customs pulls me over on my way out for a random inspection...just what I needed when it's late and I'm tired. Well, as soon as they figured out that I wasn't actually dutch, just an american tourist come to see the sights, they skipped the inspection part and the really helpful guy told me about some places to go see while in Norway. Next stop was the hotel. My helpful GPS tried to lead me to it up a pedestrian street, that didn't work so well. To my surprise, 1230am in Kristiansand was a pretty lively place, though it looked mainly to be staggering drunk teenagers walking the streets. After a several attempts (and several near flattenings of drunk pedestrians) I made it to the hotel. The hotel was not so nice, hot, stuffy, and loud when the window was open. So I didn't end up sleeping that well.

The mission for the first day was to drive to Stavanger, with a slight (meaning total) detour through Heddal, to see the church, and to Lysebotn to see an interesting road.
All along the drive, I could see there were breathtaking sights almost the entire way, if only it would stop raining and clear up enough to see them. Waterfalls of such size that they would normally be landmarks in a different country appeared every several miles, without mention by sign or onlookers. I'm quickly sensing that what would be really special elsewhere isn't even worth noting here. That must mean that the stuff to come will be really special indeed.

The church in Heddal is one of the largest wooden churches. I wouldn't have thought you could make something quite so large and elaborate just from wood, let alone have it last hundreds of years.


The next stop was Lysebotn. The guidebook listed it as a minor sight notable for being an engineering wonder. Not such high praise. Not so accurate either. The drive from Heddal to the start of the road to Lysebotn took me through scenery like this.

Once you got to the top of the mountains, there was a rocky plateau with green mixed with snow, and a multitude of mountain lakes. The shame is that the road was busy enough and narrow enough that the few places where there was room to pull of were needed just to help the motorhomes pass eachother. So that really cut down on the number of pictures. The road to Lysebotn started much the same as the other roads in the area. Then it changed. This is at the top, Lysebotn is there at the bottom.

This is Lysebotn.

A narrow valley ringed by sheer cliffs and waterfalls. And there is only one way down. There are roads, there are great roads, and then there is the road to Lysebotn, the king of all roads. If you ever wondered what it would be like to drive down into the Grand Canyon, it would be like this. More than 20 switchbacks without a gap between them and a helical tunnel descend steeply down into the valley below. The whole way down you see only altnerating sky and rock. Only an insane person would make such a thing. But once you're down at the bottom, there's only one way out, and that's back up the road again. I wish I could have taken some pictures of the road itself, but again there weren't any pull offs and on my way back it was raining.

As usual, the rest of the pics are here.