Farewell Norway; Farewell to the Motherland!

Monday morning was decent weather; it was cloudy with a few sun breaks. Because the weather was fairly good, and the line was short, we decided to go up Fløibanen, the funicular that goes up on the mountain overlooking Bergen. We got to the top and saw a magnificent view of the wharf and old town Bergen. You could also see a lot of the newer city as well. We walked around on top for a bit and took pictures and then wandered in the gift shop. When we came out it had started to rain; and the rain did not stop until Tuesday night, literally. We decided to go back down the funicular and we went through many of the shops on the wharf for a few hours. We went back to the hotel for a rest and then went back out for dinner. After dinner David stayed in the room and relaxed and I went out in the rain and found some geocaches. At least my rain jacket works! I walked around the city in the wharf area for 2-1/2 hours and then went back to the hotel for the night.

Tuesday we awoke to another day of rain. We wandered around the shops again and then walked around some different parts of the old town area browsing in different shops. One in particular was a unique shop. No other way to say it except junk; two store of it! But one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. I am just glad that I had no way to bring anything home; otherwise I would be the proud owner of even more junk! We wandered through his store, and then he went and opened up his other store across the street and we wandered through it. He had some fascinating things, but he had so much stuff that it was all piled up on top of itself. No way to even look through most of it! We went and ate at a hot dog stand that I had seen the day before; I had a regular dog, but David had a reindeer dog. He said it wasn’t too bad. We walked around behind the famous wharf and looked in a few more shops that had not been open the day before. Because our time in Norway was coming to a close, and I didn’t know how “touristy” Stavanger would be, we decided that we better buy our souvenirs now. We knew pretty much what was out there from wandering around most of the shops, so we each bought a couple trinkets and then headed back to the hotel.

After drying off a bit, we headed out for dinner. We wandered around for a long time, just looking at all the places again. We wandered into the regular part of town, but did not find anything we felt like eating. We eventually made our way back to the wharf and found a local restaurant. (We did not want to eat at an American chain restaurant again!) I had chicken BLT sandwich and David had a fish dish (I can’t remember the name), in a roundabout way, similar to lutefisk. Except for the soup/broth it was in (which he didn’t really care for), he liked the fish. We were leaving early the next morning, so we went back to the hotel to pack and try to get to bed early. That never works for me. On the bright side, the rain stopped and the sun peaked out a couple times!

It was clear and beautiful Wednesday morning. Go figure. We walked around the wharf to the ship terminal and boarded our boat to Stavanger. This boat is a commuter boat and it pretty quick. There were about 5 stops or so before we arrived at our destination; a 4-1/2 hour boat ride along the coast and through the fjords. When we arrived we walked to our hotel from the terminal and checked in. We then ventured out to do a little exploring. We wandered through some small side streets/alleys until we came to a pretty big courtyard and park area. There were quite a few street vendors and a multitude of people milling around. Then we noticed that a cruise ship was in port. (This was a different wharf terminal than the one we arrived at.) As we walked along the wharf we noticed another cruise ship; then another; then another; then another! There were five large cruise ships in port and a couple smaller ones. No wonder there were so many people around! After walking around exploring the wharf buildings a little while, we went back to the main area and just sat people watching and enjoying the beautiful sunshine! It felt like forever since we had seen it. I was getting hungry, so we went into the local 7-Eleven (I swear there are more in Norway than at home) and got a snack and then went to a different section of the courtyard and people watched for a while longer. We then walked back to our hotel, stopping off at the grocery store to pick up snacks for our hike the next day, and relaxed before we were going to head out for dinner. After an hour or so, we went out to dinner; we didn’t want to think too much, so we just went to Burger King down on the wharf. Fancy. We then took our time walking back to the hotel for the night.

Preikestolen. Wow! Enough said. We got up on Thursday morning and decided the weather was pretty good, so we decided to go on our hike. The weather was supposed to be better on Friday, but we didn’t want to chance it to our last day, so I packed up my camera gear, snacks, etc into my backpack and we walked down to the ferry terminal. We lucked out and the ferry was there when we got there, so we were able to walk right on. It took about half an hour to go across the fjord and then we waited for the bus to Preikestolen. We didn’t have as good of timing for the bus, so we had to wait for a half hour before it came. But we lucked out again, because, for whatever reason, the bus driver did not charge us the fare to get there. Sweet, it saved us about $15.00! The bus ride was another half hour, where it dropped us off at the base camp for Preikestolen.

Preikestolen, which means Pulpit Rock, is a rock formation that juts out into the fjord, 1,932 feet up! It is about 82 feet by 82 feet square with a large crack across it; no problems, right? I didn’t think I would have the guts to actually put my feet over the edge, but I figured I would at least be able to lie on my stomach and look over the edge. Not only is it almost two thousand feet up in the air, but it doesn’t go straight down, it actually angles back under you! We started up the hike from the base camp and the first part was a steep, gravel path. We switch-backed a couple times and came to a really rocky part. We had to climb over boulders to continue on the path; which didn’t really get much better! There were a few parts of the path that went through some wetlands, and they had wooden plank walkways through these areas. Then it continued on with very rocky, steep terrain. It was very tiring going up, but I knew the hike back down was going to be havoc on my knees. We were just hoping that the view, hike, and experience would be worth it. It was.

We finally got to the top; about 2.5 miles and taking a little over an hour to hike the 1,150 feet in elevation change. The view was spectacular and very jaw dropping! The weather had clouded up a bit, but by the time we had driven to the base camp it started to clear off. Because of the nice weather, it was very crowded. We took a few pictures and then walked out on the rock. (I never really even paid too much attention to the large crack across the ledge until someone asked about it later. The view took all of my attention; and the fall hazard!) We worked our way out to the ledge and sat and soaked it all in. David put his feet over and sat on the edge, so I had to take a couple pictures. I lay on my stomach and worked my way out to the edge and peeked over. It was a long way down! I took a couple pictures looking down, but without anything else really in the picture, the depth and perspective is lost. We people watched a little bit and then worked our way over to the popular corner.

David walked out the edge and I took some pictures, and then I walked out and he took some of me. Then I sat down, scooted out to the edge, and put my feet over. That was a bit nerve-racking! David took some pictures of me sitting on the edge and then I scurried back to safety! I was leaning back and looked pretty nervous in the pictures, because I was. I am not really afraid of heights, but come on! this was a two thousand feet tall cliff I was dangling my feet over! We then sat around relaxing on the rock, taking pictures, and people watching. Then we hiked back up and over Preikestolen and took more pictures. We sat around for awhile, ate a snack, and just enjoyed the moment.

We were at the top for a little under two hours before we started the hike back down. I had to stop off and find two geocaches along the way, but we were both pretty tired on the way down and didn’t really stop anywhere along the way. There were many people hiking back down and it was pretty much a single file line going back down. Probably good because it made me keep a steady pace and keep my eyes on the trail. We got back down to the base camp and had a forty minute wait before the next bus was going to be there. That was fine; I found a bench and sat down. The bus picked us up (unfortunately, we had to paid the fare on the way back) and dropped us off at the ferry terminal just as the ferry was coming in; perfect timing again! We arrived back at Stavanger and walked the few blocks to our hotel. It was closing in on 7:00pm so we walked out and ate dinner and then went back to the hotel to rest our weary bones. It was a very rugged hike (at least for my poor body), so we just relaxed in our room and watched a little TV before going to bed.

Friday was our last full day in Norway. We were pretty tired so we slept in; David made it to breakfast, but I did not even try. Around eleven we wandered out and roamed the streets of Stavanger. We walked down to the wharf and again and then walked through their famous “Old Town” area. We then wandered back into the main area and went through a few shops before heading back to our hotel to relax once again. We went out to eat dinner at a small, local restaurant and then wandered back to our hotel. While David packed his luggage, I walked around town for an hour or so trying to find some geocaches. I only found a few (there were too many people at some of the locations), but I walked two to three miles wandering around some neighborhoods and parks. The weather was sunny, so it made for a great walk. Plus, my calves needed some stretching out; there are still quite tight after our hike. I went back to our room and packed my bags and then decided to finish writing this blog post. I am not sure how much time I will have/want to spend writing in the next day or so, so I better just finish it now and post it. Tomorrow we leave the Motherland and travel down to Ireland. We have absolutely nothing planned for our time there, so we will see what we end up doing. I am imagining that Norway might be the place where I have the most things to write about, especially meeting so many relatives, but hopefully I still keep writing this blog. Until next time, which will be written from another country, have a good day (or night)!