So I’m now on the farm with Ingeborg and Tormod as I told you before. Although its been nearly 3 weeks here I’ve actually only spent about 2 full weeks here. This is because Ingeborg and Tormod have turned out to be a really cool couple and have been fine with me taking time out to do a bit more traveling. In fact next week I’ll be heading northish for a while to hang out with Tormod’s sister and possibly his mum and dad. I’m pretty excited about it, the area around their home looks really lovely! Anyway back to here... so err...what was I waffling on about? Oh yup traveling! Again.
Ok so first off, the lovely I & T lent me their car to go to an island called Tautra, about an hours journey north from Trondheim. Luckily for me both I & T are fans of architecture and apparently there was a really cool new monastery that I had to check out.
First off, driving on the right (wrong) side of the road is pretty interesting. I’ve only driven this way a little but it seems to be fine as long as I lean on my left arm a bit to stop me automatically trying to use it to change gear! Secondly, driving! Oh my, I’d forgotten how much I miss it. I mean really, really miss it. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like hitchhiking in a weird kind of way (once I get over the embarrassment of what is essentially roadside begging). And I love watching the world go by from a train or bus window. There’s just something about driving a car that makes me (and probably a lot of people) feel free. The knowledge that if I spot something that looks interesting I can just turn around and go and look. It’s very intoxicating when you’ve not been able to do that for a while!
Sorry, I was updating you on the traveling wasn’t I. Right, err, Tautra. Awesome little island that’s currently joined to the mainland by a causeway. It seems a bit strange when you get there initially as you can’t get onto the causeway until some prison style automated gates let you through. Seriously it looks like you should be entering Alcatraz. However I’ve been reliably informed that its not to keep anyone out (or the nuns in). It’s to stop foxes getting over to the island and reducing the bird population to nil. Something that they nearly did a few years ago. Not a problem usually I guess, but Tautra had (and still does) an excellent range of birds that nest on the island, mainly due to it’s remoteness from the mainland. Whilst I didn’t take a picture of the gates I did grab one of the causeway...
Ooo very atmospheric! I’d say I was getting better with my camera but really I think it’s just luck sometimes. So, on this island, there’s a few houses, an old ruin of a monastery and yet another lovely little cafe to break your fast on waffles and coffee. See...
Ok, I know its the outside of it, but the colours are so pretty! Anyway, the other lovely part of the island is the new monastery for a group of cistercian nuns. Yup, that’s right nuns, but its still called a monastery. It completely ruined my Macbeth moment! Luckily for me, the same guys that did Mortensrud church. Yes that’s the one I got over excited about a couple of posts ago. Also did Tautra Monastery. Check it out...
It’s a really lovely space and has a truly awesome glass ceiling...
I really love this! So much so I’ve already filed it away as something I’d like to do in my own house, when I eventually get round to doing it (dreamland is only so far away). I also stayed to listen to a service there and it seems to fit perfectly with the simple ceremonies the nuns hold. Top marks to Jensen & Skodvin again.
I also found this graveyard just as you get into Tautra too...
and these at the little shop next to the original ruins...
Hehehe, love the wrappings. The only thing shocking about them though was how truly bland and average the chocolate turned out to be. So with the architecture love in over with, it was back to Amdal and the farm. Well, with a little pitstop at this mound with a stone circle on the way back.
Apparently this was a sort of council/pre government meeting place for this part of Norway up until about 1000AD. Pretty cool.
A day or two later Tormod kindly took me out to Kristiansund on the coast. Even though its only a few inches on the map, it still took 4 hours driving to get there. I would have taken tonnes of photos on the way as we passed some really cool scenery but the weather had decided to go to the boring side of ok and was raining for almost the entire journey. It’s also the reason I didn’t hang around in Kristiansund that long or take any photos. Instead I caught a bus to Ålesund which is a bit further south. It’s a long old journey on the bus and includes a ferry crossing too. Luckily when I woke up the following morning it wasn’t raining, just a bit overcast, with the occasional ray of sunshine.
Ålesund (say ‘O’lesund) is an interesting town, based around another harbour. It actually burnt to the ground in 1904 and has been rebuilt in an Art Nouveau style. If you’re not sure what the means, think turrets, spires little bits of ornamentation and lots of gables. You can’t really see it from this picture but...
it does show how crap the weather was behaving! Still I think that the harbour area still looks good, even in poor weather. It does something weird to the water and makes it look like some kind of molten glass/metal mixture...
It’s also in a really pretty area of Norway, just before it starts breaking into serious fjord land. So here instead of huge mountains (which aren’t that far away) you get reasonably high hills. Ok, maybe they’re mountains. Just more of a UK scale of mountain maybe? It kind of reminds me of the Beacons, although thankfully not of Myrthr Tydfll! See...
I also found a couple of interesting boutique style shops and a really cool glassworks which was in an old harbour building. You could watch them make the stuff whilst you were in there. A little more hitech though than my Blue Peter memories! There was also a secondhand store that was set over a couple of floors. Completely rammed with old furniture, plates etc. It made me want to come back with a van and an empty house!
So after a day in Ålesund, I thought I’d take a trip out to see one of the fjords and headed off to Geiranger (say Geer Anger). Now I’m pretty sure that Geiranger is one of those official ‘Amazing sights of Norway’ and it certainly looks impressive even when the weather is being impressively average...
this rather drab picture was taken off the bus at one of the main view points for the fjord. I think it looks even more impressive when you actually down in the town though...
How cool is that? This is actually the view from my tent! Love it!
The only thing that wasn’t quite so impressive though was a) the temperature drop at 3am, and b) the morphing off the fjord from majestic, to auditioning for a part in a Stephen King novel! Sound a bit weird? Well next time you get all dewy eye’d over the view, imagine waking up at 3am, hearing a lot of wind, rain and some suspiciously close water lapping over rocks. Then, reach out of your barely warm sleeping bag, open the wet door to your tent and take a glance at the pitch black void in front of you! That’s right pitch black, populated by some tiny distant lights and black, oily, eager looking water right near the door! It’s amazing how quick you can pack up and move your tent to the opposite end of the campsite (correct side into the wind this time) when your head is full of the creepy bits of books (oh and The Grudge - Japanese version, thanks Kat)!
Still as usual, in the morning it didn’t seem all that bad, and the sun managed to make a brief appearance as well. Everything seems better with a little sunshine. Then as per usual I checked the bus timetable... Why, oh why do I not have a car? Yup, its the imaginary bus system again. This time the buses out of Geiranger on a daily basis, stopped in August. Probably because the entire town shuts down apart from one shop in the off season. I really should know better by now.
Anyway it did give me the opportunity to really appreciate the beauty of Geiranger on the walk back to the ferry, which is approximately 8km’s from Geiranger and a vertical climb of 650 meters (as an old man so helpfully pointed out at the bottom of the climb). Luckily it wasn’t a proper mountain climb and I could follow the road as it zigzagged its way out of the fjord. The picture below shows the road I followed, basically I had to walk up as far as the top ridge line....
After that it was a good 2 hour walk along some very empty roads...
before I got picked up by the 9th car to pass me and dropped off, 5 minutes later at the ferry. The ferry also did some really lovely hot thick folded fluffy pancakes which made up for skipping breakfast before I started walking.
Once I was on the other side I couldn’t decide where to go. As the following day I was going to have to be back in Trondheim for a lift back to the farm. I really wanted to go to Andalsnes through one of the mountain roads as its meant to have fantastic views, however after 2 hours without a single car going by me on the road out there, I figured it was best to catch the bus and head to Molde, which is back on the coast again. I really like Molde, however for some reason I wondered around appreciatively for an hour or so without taking any photos whatsoever. At least I remembered to take some in the morning though...
It really is in a lovely area.
So the last day was basically a 'quick' hitch back to Trondheim, which took about 8 hours and 5 different hitches. I have to stop thinking that things are close in Norway, the maps are very deceiving! The scenery was awesome though, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing mountains. At one point I was dropped off by a lovely retired farmer right in the middle of them where I saw this cool broken down barn...
its not an uncommon sight in Norway.
Still I made it back to Trondheim safely and ended up staying in the city over the weekend with Tormod’s sister which was really nice. Then after a day back at the farm winter finally decided to make an appearance...
How cool is that! Its so great, I’m ridiculously excited about it. Not so excited about the freezing toes, but the 3 layer system seems to be working out just fine.
So that’s it, all updated and ready to go! I’ll be off up north I think next week with Tormod’s sister and then on up to Trømso on the 1st November. I’ll post again once I’m there as I’m not sure what I’ll be doing up there yet.
Catch you again soon
x
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