Salty Sails a 35 Day Cruise: Day 13–Geiranger, Norway

So this was to be the highlight for me of the entire cruise. Up a couple of mountain roads to viewpoints over the fjord, but first we had to gather and wait for a tender. Then we had to gather and wait to board the tender once it came. Then we had to wait for the putt-putt motor to get us to the dock. Blech – this sucked. The diesel fumes were bugging Neesh on top of it.

We got on the bus, and we headed up the Eagle Road first. This is the road to get to Oslo, and the only year round road to the town. I started taking pictures immediately and copiously. Unfortunately, there were lots of reflections from the windows.

The sights were coming even though we hadn’t started climbing yet

Due to the steep sides of the fjord, the road was naturally a series of hairpin turns. And the roads here are barely wide enough (by a few inches) for two buses. So rounding the hairpins, cars had to keep back a ways to allow the bus to make a wide turn. It became clear who the tourists were as they sat in the middle of the hairpin not knowing what to do. There’s farms along the road, despite no flat ground to be had. Given that, goats seemed to be the lawnmowers of choice.

Note the sod/grass roof on the building at left, we saw a lot of that here

We stopped at the viewpoint, and I climbed up a little path from there for the views. That and I had to pee wicked bad.

Seven Sisters waterfall just in view

Note the steepness of the sides of what we came up.

As we headed back to town to go up the other road, Neesh was getting overheated, and starting to feel pretty crappy. I was tempted to take her off there, but I really wanted to continue, and just hoped she’d feel better.

Tons more hairpin turns and we stopped at a viewpoint some ways up, and I could see she was not getting better at all. Now I was screwed, short of sending a taxi all the way up, and who knew how long that would take. All I could do now is comfort her as best I could and, of course, take pictures so she knew what the views were like…

The views don’t suck

There is a village about halfway up, just beyond which is where the road closes for the winter. It seems to be the only flat land around. There large farms there, and it seems like it’d be a pretty cool place to live.

They say it’s a hayfield, but it’s clear they grow giant marshmallows, just like in the states

The tour guide was excellent, and provided a lot of history on the road. In places we could see the old road, flanked by tombstone looking rocks for a guardrail, and only one vehicle wide. Yowza. There were huts along the way where the road crews lived, and they stuffed a lot of people into these small buildings.

At one point very high up next to a large lake, the road continues on to the outside, but a toll road would take us to the summit.

Clear Lake

Neesh was in misery at this point, and I felt like an ass for not getting her off in Geiranger. Only 3 km and we were at the top, though. And oh, what a view.

The water in the fjord can be see very far away, just left of center in the upper portion of the view