Words don't do justice to the Norwegian landscape. Take magnificent, awe-inspiring, incredible, jaw-dropping and spectacular. Mash them up. Increase their emotional impact by a factor of 10. At that point, you might be getting there.
Our introduction to the deep fjords came at Stavanger, gateway to Frafjord and Lysefjord. I thought our experience would be limited on two fronts. I’d somehow managed to miss booking the tour up the fjords on a rib boat, and by the time I remembered our ship’s opportunities were sold out. But it seemed that wouldn’t matter, because we cruised into Stavanger harbour in fog so thick visibility was less than 50 feet. Even if you had the radar to navigate, there was nothing to see. But the BBC and the locals on the harbour side said the fog was due to lift at mid-day, some sun was burning through the mist and Fjord Safari, operating from the harbour a short walk from our ship’s birth, had two spots on its noon departure. We thought we’d take a risk and hope the fog would lift. It was one of our best decisions ever.
Visibility was up to a few hundred feet and the sun was peeking through as we left Stavanger harbour, but the moment we started up Frafjord it closed in again. The journey felt like something out of a high fantasy film as we sliced through glass-smooth water enveloped in the grey mists, almost on top of islands as they’d appear on one side or the other of the rib and then slip away. I realised just how much trust we were putting in our captain, Sven, because we were travelling blind. And then we started hitting pockets of clarity, where we’d see a stretch of water, a chunk of blue sky and a mountain top or two in the distance. But it wouldn’t last; we’d be back in the gloom in seconds. Slowly but surely, the open spaces became bigger and the mists smaller, until the latter were banks of cloud floating over the water. Sun and blue skies took over completely as we turned into Lysefjord, an impressive suspension bridge spanning its width.
Mountains towered on either side, occasional pockets of greenery near the water before the grey granite rose straight up. The water hardly moved, reflecting the world above in its inky depths. Behind us, the wall of fog remained. It was like we’d travelled through some perilous underworld to emerge in a magic new land. Our captain later admitted he’d been holding back tears; in more than 10 years of making that journey multiple times each working day, he’d never seen it so beautiful.
There were “sights” to be seen in Lysefjord: Pulpit Rock, a cave at the back of a crevasse where bandits once hid out, a particularly striking waterfall plunging directly into the lake. But, to be honest, it was all so gorgeous as to be indistinguishable in its wonder.
There were other boats here, and you can get cheaper tours, but the rib is the way to go. Once you climb into your all-weather suit (add a hard hat and you’ll look like an oil rig worker), you straddle a saddle-style seat, hang onto the bars in front of you and go at high speed. Sunglasses or goggles are a must for protecting your eyes, and people who chill easily may find the fresh wind on their face unendurable. But I loved it, particularly when Sven cut across the wake of other boats to give us some bounce on an otherwise placid day. The speed of the rib also means you get to spend more time in the glories of the deep fjord and less time getting there.
Stavanger itself is worth a wander, particularly for its picturesque old town. Uniformly white, clapperboard houses with decorative eaves, each garden was overflowing with blooms. Turns out the jet stream works here the way it does down the coast of the UK, creating a garden-friendly microclimate that meant even though we were further north, the state of the gardens was closer to home than Oslo.
The next day found us in a small town called Eidfjord, at the very back of more than 100 miles of fjords snaking inland from the sea. Back in Stavanger, if you hadn’t booked something todo there were still plenty of ways to amuse yourself. Not so in this wildly picturesque spot. If you don’t make arrangements to get out of town, you’ll spend the day walking around the edge of the fjord and looking up at the encircling mountains and distant waterfalls. Which is no bad thing. But you’re in the district of Hardanger, which even many Norwegians, who are used to all this mountainous spectacle, consider the prettiest part of the country. You want to get out and see more.
We’d booked an outing to the Viking village of Gudvangen. Bottom line: the village billed at the main event was rather underwhelming, but the day was redeemed by the spectacular 90-minute drives in each direction to get there. If the journey had been any less glorious, we would have found the day’s hefty price tag to be a rip-off.
It’s not that Gudvangen was awful, it just doesn’t live up to its marketing. A lower price tag, a better lunch and a bit more attention to its margins and it might have been as memorable as the ride to and from it. The village is a collection of traditionally-built Viking-style houses on the tip of a fjord, populated by historical re-enactors, some of whom are there long term and others from all over the world who apply to do a holiday here playing at being a Viking. With its international workers and its attention to set design, it’s all a bit Disney. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem is that Disney creates a complete illusion, removing all signs of the outside world from your experience.
That’s clearly the intent at Gudvangen, but a petrol station and sign looms over part of the village and traffic is clearly audible (and sometimes, with high lorries, visible) on the road outside. We were dropped off in a slightly bedraggled holiday village to walk into the Viking experience. Gudvangen doesn’t come down to the water’s edge; a fleet of small, modern holiday craft for hire cluster there while you walk up to the village gateway. Exiting through a gift shop was no surprise, but the fact that the volunteers weren’t aware of the meaning of the symbols on the jewellery they were selling was. And the gift shop empties into a cafe and a car park that has the feel of a truck stop in the upper Midwest.
In this less than perfect illusion, guides do an excellent job of taking tours around key points in the village explaining Viking customs, religion, food, technology and fashion. Specialist colleagues worked at various shops … the weaver’s, the smith’s … and explained what they were up to. You could wander into the chieftain’s house, ask him questions or take him on at a Viking game similar to chess. Booths for archery and axe throwing let you get into the action. Clearly built for large groups, a banqueting hall saw us sitting at long tables and eating a three-course Viking menu of soup, roasted pork and yogurt with fruit. It was deeply average, and totally missed the opportunity to elevate things with a horn of mead and a bard telling us tales of the gods while we ate.
Fortunately, we were blessed by a tour guide from whom we learned more about Norway in three hours on the bus than in our other three days in the country put together. The fact that she was a young Italian woman is an interesting commentary on the global nature of the tourism industry these days. The scenes along the drive were so gorgeous as to make Gudvangen an almost inconsequential comfort stop rather than a main event.
We visited two spectacular waterfalls on par with any of the ones so famous in Iceland. We stopped at a picturesque hotel to look down a monumentally deep valley with jagged mountain sides that’s captivated generations of Norwegian artists. We made our way down hairpin bends and drove through precious farmland carved out of anything not vertiginous. As the only Brits on the bus, we were highly amused by some “Say No to EU” barns. (And wished someone would have tested the viability of getting a “Norway-style deal” before we jumped off our cliff.) We drove around lakes that reflected their surroundings with the clarity of mirrors, and crossed bridges so high we were practically flying.
Later that day, to the accompaniment of a sinking sun that wouldn't set until almost 10pm, we sailed down Hardangerfjord to return to the sea. Mile after mile of mountains, forests and the occasional farm making the most of some level earth. When smaller fjords branched off from the main one, whole new vistas opened, like gateways into new worlds. The soft colours of twilight made it all the more magnificent. Most of the passengers seemed to be on the outside decks and there was a hushed atmosphere. Even after two days surrounded my such beauty, it was inspiring a hushed awe.
Gudvangen, I could take or leave. The day’s drive through the Norwegian countryside, the rib safari in Lysefjord and the sail out Hardangerfjord were my undisputed high points of our Scandinavian adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment