Our latest rental is in the fjord town of Stranda. The apartment is on the 3rd floor overlooking the fjord, with the ferry terminal one block to the left. As a consequence, we are able to look out the patio window and see the ferries come in. In fact we are close enough to count the cars coming on and off. The ferry starts at 6 and goes until 11, with two ferries going simultaneously at peak hours. It takes them about 10 minutes to do the crossing which is right on the other side of the fjord directly opposite our window. 
So this morning at 6:30 the ferry brought 6 cars and one delivery truck across. That’s the only counting I’ve done so far! Here is a shot from last evening showing the ferry heading out towards the other side. And below is one taken this morning of Megan reading on the balcony.
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!
After yesterday’s post about hiking to a great view that took very little effort, we paid our dues with plenty of effort today! We climbed the most popular hike in Åndalsnes. It is called the Rampestreken viewpoint hike. After reaching Rampestreken we went a bit further to make it to the top of Mount Nesaksla. Like yesterday, it was a steep hike, but instead of being done after 20 minutes like yesterday, it took about 1.5 hours of steep climbing to get to the top, which was 708 meters. Here are Leon and Megan climbing one stretch of the hike which is composed of rock steps placed by Nepalese Sherpas. We don’t know why they had Sherpas do it, but presumably they were quite good at it. I liked the stone steps because the alternative was usually climbing over twisty exposed tree roots which were a lot less even than the steps.
We were luckily at home when the big rainstorm hit. We sat it out in comfort. In the afternoon the weather cleared up and that’s we had some unusual animal excitement! First we heard a lot of squawking, including the very loud noises that peacocks make. Suddenly we saw a large bird flying through the air at a low altitude. It was a female peacock who somehow got out of the coop in the barn. It crashed into the tree in front of our porch. Once caught up in the trees branches it flailed around flapping for several seconds until it suddenly seemed to give up and just fell to the ground from about 20 feet up. We were all a bit worried that it was injured and so we rushed over. So did the friendly farm cat and the fluffy white dog that had scared it out of the coop in the first place. Luckily the peacock was just in shock for a while and perhaps embarrassed at her terrible flying and tree-landing skills, but seemed otherwise ok after a couple minutes. A brave neighbor picked it up and carried it back to the barn!
After dinner we drove to the Åndalsnes harbor to see the early part of the sunset (9:45pm, below). Then we came back to the farmhouse and noticed that what we thought was just a chicken coop is actually also the coop of 2-3 peacocks! So that’s what was making all the noisy squawks we’d been hearing earlier! Luckily they quieted down at night even though it was still light out.
We woke up to another sunny day. Here is Leon on the hotel porch getting some work done before breakfast. Breakfast was a smorgasbord of cereal, cheese, deli meats, bacon, eggs, bread, crackers, some pickled vegetables and yogurt.
Once in Isfjorden we headed to the AirBnB which is pretty idyllic, a farmhouse with views of mountains in almost every direction. This is the view from the front yard. There is a picnic table and a small deck where I think we will sit and eat breakfast tomorrow. But after we settled in at the AirBnB we went on one more hike before dinner. I’ll write about that tomorrow in the next blog since it is getting late here. By the way guess what time the sunrise and sunset are here: sunrise is 4:40 am and sunset is 10:45pm!! Even between those hours though it still is a bit light outside, sort of like twilight lasting all night.
About midway up the mountain you come upon these trenches filled with rocks. It turns out that in the Middle Ages, wild reindeer were hunted by tricking them to run into these trenches (which were not filled with rocks back then). Once we got to the top, the views were amazing. The mountain is surrounded by large open areas on all sides and beyond that there are mountains all around. A circular steel disk on the top names all of the mountains in the corresponding section of the circle so that you can tell which mountain you are seeing.
He actually didn’t seem to be too concerned by my “infiltration” of their small grassy hill which contained a cannon pointed at a large shrub.
Our next stop was the Oslo National Gallery. While it is not a large collection and focuses more on works by Norwegian artists, they also have works by artists such as Picasso, Gauguin, Degas, Berthe Morisot, a self-portrait by Van Gogh, some Greco-Roman sculptures, an Artemisia Gentileschi, some Dutch artists, the German artist Lucas Cranach, etc… But their biggest claim to fame is Munch’s The Scream, as well as a number of his most prominent other works. Side note: There is another museum in Oslo which is devoted exclusively to Munch (called the Munch Museum) and the first FAQ on their website is: “Q: We do NOT have The Scream. A: It is at the National Gallery.” which isn’t even a question but I guess they were sick of hearing the question.
So we went back to the beach at Drobak where we’d waded the first day in order to swim for real. There was a nice breeze by the shore and the cold water was refreshing, but the highlight was this jelly fish — it was fun to look at but evidently their sting is quite bad so it made us a bit worried to swim too aggressively!
Balents Trip Blog 