From Bergen to Alesund: 11 Days of Norwegian Summer

This is the very first post of this blog!!!

Tomio and I had always wanted to visit Norway. In fact, we were so close to booking a trip in December 2018 but decided against it because 4 hours of daylight just didn't seem to make sense. So we thought, why not summer? Summer is the least rainy season in Norway anyway. Turns out, 6/11 of the days when we were in Norway were rainy (out of the average 9-10 days of rain per month in summer).

Fun fact: It always rains when I travel. Great luck, Nat.

Here's a breakdown of what happened during our rainy summer holiday:

Day 1 and 2: Bergen to Trolltunga

Tomio and I flew 20+ hours on Turkish Airlines/SAS to Bergen (via Istanbul and Oslo) and once we touched down we immediately picked up our rental from Holiday Autos Car Rental. We then drove straight to Bergen city center to Coop, a hypermarket, to get all the groceries and extra camping equipment we needed for the next few days. Throughout our trip we stopped by many Coops and Kiwi stores, which you can find plenty of in Norway (Do check opening hours though). Groceries in Norway aren't the cheapest but it's definitely cheaper than eating out most of the times. We packed lots of canned food and instant noodles from Singapore for camping so we didn't spend much on food.

We booked an airbnb for our first night just to get cleaned up after our long travels. We also had to get a good rest as we were planning to hike to Trolltunga the next day. This was us stopping at a random waterfall while we were driving to our airbnb cabin.

This was also where I got betrayed by my Salomon shoes, slipped on mossy rocks, and had my Uniqlo jacket stained from the iron on the rocks. You can see after that I refused to climb to where Tomio got to, cause PTSD.

We arrived at our cabin near Hardangerfjorden as we had to take the ferry the next day to cross to where Trolltunga was. It was in a very quiet area and maybe I watch too many crime documentaries but I found it eerily quiet and was actually afraid to go to the bathroom myself LOL what a noob indeed. Other than my cowardice it was actually pretty nice. Good enough as a rest stop before we began our trip!

We visited Bondhus Glacier the day after, before Trolltunga, as we had time. It was an easy trek and a chill place for us to hang around and people/dog-watch. We got creative with some of our shots later by channeling our inner supermodel. Please don't hate us.

We also stopped by Langfossen, which was a pretty impressive waterfall, but too high for me to take a decent shot (captured on Tomio's drone instead). We then finally headed to Trolltunga in the evening, as the plan was to hike and camp overnight so we could watch the sunrise the next morning. Trolltunga is like the Eiffel tower of Paris - it's a must for anyone travelling Norway. You can read more about our Trolltunga hike here as it's another experience altogether (spoiler alert: we did not make it to the tongue).

Since we couldn't camp at the top, we had to sleep in our car for that night. Not the most comfortable unfortunately. We wanted to try Trolltunga again but we had already booked an accommodation for the next night in Gudvangen. It's actually really hard to get accomms in Gudvangen in summer, so we'd rather not cancel.

Day 3 and 4: Gudvangen to Jostedal

We drove to see Voringfossen on Day 3, and the waterfall was nothing like we'd expected. It was very underwhelming. I am not even sure if that was the correct Voringfossen because it was so underwhelming. We were starting to think maybe waterfalls aren't our thing, but decided to give Tvindefossen a chance. It was slightly more picturesque but crowded, and we didn't spend more than 20 minutes there (Majority of that 20 minutes was spent trying to find the earring I dropped).

We decided to check in earlier at our Gudvangen cabin after the waterfalls, and guess what, it so happened that there was a Viking festival that day. Gudvangen is actually an old viking village in the super beautiful Nærøyfjord, which is part of UNESCO’s World Heritage list. During this festival, people dress up as vikings and did all things viking - they were selling runes (throwback to runescape days) and animal furs. There were skulls hung up and rituals performed and it was like being in a Vikings movie set, only it was (kinda) real.

We had some beer in front of the majestic fjord too and it was too amazing. I could live with with that view forever.

The next day we took the electric train to Flam (there's an option to either take the cruise around the fjord or the railway). There was a short stop at Kjossfossen, where everyone scrambled out of the train to catch a pic before running back inside. Reminds me of James Corden's crosswalk concerts where they had to run off every time the light turned green. We saw hikers at Flam and thought it'd be nice if we had known we could hike there. Oh well.

We also checked out the Stegastein lookout before driving through Norway's longest tunnel (Lærdalstunnelen) to get to Hornelen. Stegastein lookout was packed!! The narrow road at 650 metres above Aurlandsfjord was full of cars/motorbikes/tour buses, so it was a matter of luck trying to find a free space we could squeeze our car into. The lookout offered a panoramic view of Aurlandsfjord but we couldn't fully enjoy the view cause everyone wanted to be up in front and selfie sticks and cameras were sticking out from everywhere. If you ever do want to head there, it's probably wiser to go much earlier in the day. We just stopped by to check it out during noon and it wasn't the best experience.

After that we headed straight to camp at Styggevatnet, a glacial lake from Jostedalsbreen. The lake is regulated by a dam, which made for an interesting sight as we were looking at something half natural and half man-made. It was super foggy due to the rain but very very quiet, which was pretty nice. There was kinda a silent hill feeling to it, but maybe less sinister. Another example I can think of is Faerie Mountain in Neopets but less bustling.

We camped at Styggevatnet way longer than expected cause it was raining and we didn't want to get out of the tent. We spent our hours sleeping and watching the Pianist on Netflix (favourite ww2 show ever)

Day 5, 6 and 7: Hornelen to Lovatnet

We decided to hike Hornelen, Europe's highest sea cliff, in the evening after Styggevatnet. My stomach felt tight while we were driving towards Hornelen because I could see a large dark cloud over it. We weren't planning on camping overnight at Hornlen, because we tried finding information on setting up a tent at the top and we could only find videos of guys just sleeping out in their sleeping bags. With the unpredictable weather, we just wanted to do a quick return trip. The good, and perhaps also bad, thing about Hornelen was that there was nobody there. Parking lot had a camper van but the couple weren't hiking that day.

It had been raining for the past few days so everything was muddy and we were having trouble finding the yellow markings to follow. We had to trek across mini waterfalls, climb on slippery rocks, all while clueless if we were going the right way. The path was steep, and when I looked up at the peak, I couldn't see anything cause the clouds had completely covered it. At this point of time I was just super uncomfortable and .... I CRIED. LOL idk why I'm such a loser but I just started crying silently to myself while climbing behind Tomio. He turned around when he heard me sniffing and was like "oh no". Hahahaah I told him I was really scared, because we wouldn't be able to make it down safely when it rains (remember PTSD from first day). I was also beating myself up for just being so unlucky with the weather. Seriously, if you were there you'd get what I mean. EVERYWHERE ELSE looked fine - like if you did a 360 you'd see the sun shining everywhere else, except on Hornelen. I kept apologizing to Tomio for the weather (LOL) and he was like ???? dude. But he promised he'd still want to travel with me even if I bring the rain everywhere with me. (Holding you to this promise Tomio). So yeah, we turned back and checked off yet another failed attempt at hiking.

This was us seeing our first sunset in Norway while hiking down Hornelen. It was raining so much we haven't had much luck with sunsets.

We camped at a random spot after and hoped for better weather yet again *insert huge sigh*

The next day we headed to Briksdalsbreen, one of the more famous glaciers around the area. This was also the start of having good weather (finally!!!). It was a nice hike to the beautiful glacier, which unfortunately is melting because of global warming. You can see here for the comparison of the glacier over the years. You can also see the stark contrast between the 2015 photo and our photo taken in 2019. Global warming is real, people.

We were driving along Lovatnet when we noticed that there were many camping sites. We wanted to do free camping (like we did in Oman) but there weren't many options around Lovatnet. Lovatnet is very popular and there are many camping sites set up to cater to the crowd. Unfortunately it is peak travel season and a lot of the sites were fully booked. Tomio and I drove back and forth multiple times trying to find a site so we could camp by the gorgeous lake. We found one eventually, and as packed as it was, we did appreciate having access to shower facilities. You had to pay to get tokens to shower, and the shower lasts 5 minutes per token. Not sure for Tomio but I was fine with showering under 5 minutes.

This was our view of Lovatnet from the camping ground. Pretty sick.

We loved Lovatnet so much, that after climbing Mt Skala the next day, we headed back to another campsite to stay another night.

Day 8, 9 and 10: Andalsnes to Atlantic Ocean Road

We were sad that we had to leave Lovatnet behind but we had to move on to Andalsnes. On the way to Geiranger we stopped by this random spot at Djupvatnet cause it was so pretty.

Geiranger was super happening - think cafes, cruises, pigeons, tourists. We had a nice but expensive lunch at one of the eateries before heading off to find the Flydalsjuvet Rock. We also drove along the iconic Trollstigen - the windy scenic road in which my picture does zero justice to.

We settled in early at the Andalsnes camping site. Andalsnes is a pretty busy town, and the camping sites were located near residential areas. Something to take note of if you're ever planning to camp around that area, as there was a huge party in one of the nearby houses the night we were there.

Nevertheless, being the deep sleeper I am, I managed to get some quality sleep (body was aching sooooo badly from Mount Skala though) to prep myself for the Romsdalsstigen Via Ferrata the next day. The Via Ferrata was perhaps the highlight of this trip for me. For someone who's freaking afraid of heights, that was a huge accomplishment. Please be proud of me. Please be proud of the three first timers in this pack who completed the West Wall which has been classified with a difficulty degree D (aka very difficult). You can read more about the Via Ferrata here.

Also, our guide (far left) told us she hikes up Mt Skala with her skis in winter. What the heck. Norwegians are freaking fit.

We drove along the famous Atlantic Ocean Road after and found a nice camping spot (but had to pay for it as it was being managed by some random guy who owns a dolphin/whale watching company). The sunset view was amazing - the golden sunlight made the road more interesting than it really was.

The next day we really didn't have anything to do in Alesund already. We should have dedicated more of our time towards the start of the trip (but then again, the weather sucked). We hung around and went grocery shopping before heading to this beautiful boat house in Sula that we'd booked on Airbnb. I wish I had a house like that - it was so nicely decorated (you can find the link to the boat house on the itinerary I shared). View was perfect, neighbour was so nice. We found out that it is not a norm to shower everyday in Norway. The neighbour said that summer was particularly hot and he had to shower everyday. We asked how often do they shower in winter and he said once or twice every two weeks? Shook. I think in Singapore you can shower 2-3 times a day just cause it's so humid.

But yeah, the boat house was super chill. We cooked up a nice dinner, packed up all our stuff in the car, and got ready to leave for Oslo.

Day 11: Oslo

We left for the airport early in the morning to Oslo, where we had half a day's worth of time before flying back to Singapore. We paid for two large lockers to temporarily store our luggage before taking a train to the city center. There were many bike rental shops so we rented two bikes and rode around Oslo. We biked to a beach, along the river, and visited a WWII museum. By the end of the day my butt was bruised and I had to penguin-walked (trained) back to the airport to catch our flight back to Singapore.

This was Tomio riding around town with his shirt up cause he was perspiring... and look what landed on his tummy.

And that was it! That was our Norway trip. I would rate it a 7.24/10 only cause majority of it was plagued by rain and we didnt get to see Trolltunga and Hornelen. All in all we spent about SGD3,600 each (inclusive of flights/accomms) which was not too bad considering how expensive Norway is.

Here's map of the route we took from Bergen to Alesund where we spent most of our days camping, having only booked airbnb for 3 separate nights. There were many camping sites where you can set up your tent and get access to shower facilities for a pretty reasonable price, but it would be best to book in advance cause there were a lot of campers and most of the sites were booked out when we arrived. You also miss out on good camping spots with good views if you arrive late.

Here's a link to the itinerary with the accommodations we'd used (check out the nice boat house in Sula). We didn't follow the itinerary to a T and used it more as a guide. Hopefully this would be somewhat useful if you're planning a trip between Bergen and Alesund!

It feels weird recalling memories of crowds... who knew it would be a privilege in a COVID19 time like this?