Before we left the farmhouse this morning, Leon ventured out to the backyard to take a few more pictures of the mountains and here is what he saw in the chicken coop:
Both male peacocks were in full-on display mode! The one whose feathers are less colorful is facing away, they are both blue and green when facing you. While proudly displaying their feathers, they also did an exaggerated butt wiggle and twitch. It was quite a spectacle but the females seemed to be unimpressed!
After breakfast, we took the scenic route, called Trollstigen or The Troll’s Road, over the mountains. The road is an impressive engineering feat that was originally built in the 1930s. You traverse 11 hairpin turns as the road climbs to the top of the mountain pass. Along the way you cross a bridge over a waterfall. We also saw two sheep sitting lazily on the side of the road halfway up!
At the top of the pass is a visitor’s center where they have another viewing platform set up as a cantilever so that you go out for the view as if you are on a diving board. So that makes 2 “diving board style” viewpoints in 2 days for us!
After the peak, it was a more gradual descent on the other side, passing several waterfalls and farms. After driving a while, we stopped for coffee at a cafe with dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Gudbrandsjuvet waterfall, so named because a guy named Gudbrand supposedly jumped over it while eloping with his kidnapped bride. “Juvet” means jump. Honestly, it seems unlikely anyone ever jumped over this thing but who knows!
Then we took a car ferry to our next destination, Stranda, a town on the edge of the Storfjord. Here is the view from the ferry as we headed towards Stranda.
Once in Stranda we enjoyed the water view from our rental apartment for a while, then did a leisurely walk by a stream before dinner.
Balents Trip Blog 