Scandinavia Trip: Tunnels, churches, ferries, and fog

[cjsmith]

*** Fri Sept 27:

Awoke to a very overcast day. Showered in a bathtub with a curtain!
This bathroom has obviously been retrofitted, like last night's; again
half of a drain is visible. Wrote some postcards while Rob got up.
Breakfast was similar -- the cereal was puffed barley again. There is
lots of lunchy-looking stuff available in many of these breakfast
buffets, too, and usually I don't touch it: cold cuts, cheeses, and
fish. Today there was a substance I've seen before: goldish-brownish
in color, cheeselike in apparent consistency, served with a cheese
slicer on top of it and tinfoil wrapped around its sides. I sliced
off a minuscule sliver and ate it. Tastes tangy and slightly sour,
but otherwise cheeselike. I'm not going to grow to love it. Grabbed
a slice of Swiss to take the taste out of my mouth.

Went to the post office in the little mall-like thing by the train
station. Rob sent four postcards and I, despite the fact I have no
addresses, bought stamps for all twenty-one of mine. At ten kronor a
pop it's expensive, but I think actually having the stamp is neat
whether the postcard gets mailed or hand-delivered.

We took a detour up to Undredal to see Norway's oldest stave church.
No cars were allowed on the church road, so we drove around in some
confusion and found a place to leave the car. A tiny park was nearby,
with a bronze goat statue. Best we could figure, the goat statue was
donated by, or was in honor of, the housewives of Undredal. We
proceeded on foot for the last few hundred meters. When we found the
church, it didn't look like we expected. We had thought we would see
an unpainted wooden structure with an infinite number of wooden
shingles, but this one looks very traditional.

Back to E16, we headed toward Aurland to see the world's longest road
tunnel and the scenic bypass, which had been the main road before the
tunnel opened in 2000. Near the rotary where E16 meets 50, there was
a pullout with several posters about the construction of the tunnel.
Much of the text was in the future tense. We also saw a granite
monolith holding a plaque about the opening of the tunnel by King
Harald. But first, the scenic road.

The bypass climbs precipitously up the side of the fjord wall in a
series of switchbacks. The view of Aurlandsfjorden just gets better
and better. Too bad today is so cloudy! Took several pictures at the
best scenic overlook, used the natural restroom, and then headed back
down the hill. Going all the way to LAErdal over this road would be
48km.

The tunnel, by contrast, is 24.5km, and climbs and descends just
enough for drainage. It's wide and well-lit. There are emergency
pull-offs every half km, and four major pull-offs wide enough for a
bus or truck to turn around without switching to reverse. These major
pull-offs are lit by bluish lights, and boy do they ever show up in
the distance. We couldn't resist stopping at one and attempting to
take some pictures.

Out the other end, a 30km detour down E16 brought us to Norway's
best-preserved stave church. This looks much more like we had
imagined, except darker for two reasons: it's raining, and the church
is covered in tar for fire protection. The young woman running the
kiosk was very friendly and informative. To be a "stave" church, she
answered my question, the building has to have a certain kind of
construction: a foundation of stones, then a box, basically, made of
stout wooden pillars. Many tall pillars form the supports, and four
beams cap them all to form a box. Everything else hangs off that
support structure.

A sign near the kiosk detailed the expenses of keeping this church:
replacement wooden shingles and such, tar, and fire insurance were
among the major expenditures. I can imagine that if this is the
best-preserved example, and other stave churches undergoing repair use
this as a model, and it's entirely wood, fire insurance would be a big
deal.

We wandered through the cemetery. Mostly new stones -- everything
this century. Common inscriptions read "Takk for alt" (thanks for
everything) and "hvile i fred" (rest in peace). It was raining in
earnest, then, so we went inside. It's very small and very dark.
They must not have had a very big congregation, in 1150 or 1200. I
guess the world's population was pretty small back then too. There is
some ornate ironwork on the door, and some Celtic-inspired carvings on
the door posts. The woman at the kiosk told us that the Vikings used
twining knotwork inspired by the Celts, because the two cultures
traded often and influenced each other.

Back up E16 to the end of the tunnel, where we took the other option
this time: northwest on 5. Shortly 5 got on a ferry across
S&rdalsfjorden. We arrived at just the right time - very little wait.
I got a hot dog again (never pass up a chance to eat!) and, after
asking about a strange looking pancake, also purchased a pancake with
butter and sugar folded into it. I shared the pancake with Rob.

On the other side of the ferry, I couldn't resist peeking at the
industrial town of Kaupanger. In a book I had read, set in Viking
times, there was some mention of the "trading town of Kaupang". That
author does her research, so I figured this town probably had indeed
been occupied since those times. That concept amazes me.

We followed 5 to S0gndal and 55 along the northern coast of
Sognefjorden. The clouds were getting lower all the time. This is
supposedly the most photographed fjord in Norway -- it is certainly
the longest -- but we weren't seeing much of it. At one point, across
from Vangsnes, we stopped at a beautiful waterfall and climbed around
near it for a few minutes. It says something that that waterfall
isn't worth marking on the map. In most of Europe, travelers soon say
"oh no, not another cathedral, not again"; here, we aren't quite at
that point with waterfalls, but by the end of the trip we may be
close.

Another ferry from Hella was more confusing. Ferries leave here for
Vangsnes (route 13) or Dragsvik (route 55 to route 13). We opted for
Dragsvik simply because we were on 55 and thought to stay on it; Rob
didn't have time to figure out the whole situation. As it turns out,
13 goes north/south across the fjord while 55 goes east/west across an
inlet. We made the right choice. It would have taken a while to get
back across from the south shore.

This ride was short enough that we didn't get out of the car. There
was also no view: not only were the sides of the ferry quite high, the
tiny porthole next to me showed only clouds and fog. I wrote a
postcard or two.

After the ferry, a continuous stream of cars snaked west on 55 for at
least an hour. I was getting awfully sick of the tail of the car
ahead of me. I pulled into one of the everpresent bus stops (great
emergency pullouts) to let people pass. That put me at the head of a
nice gap once some traffic departed for towns. Unfortunately, being
the first car after a long gap has its disadvantages. Twice, I was
almost mashed to the cliff wall by oncoming traffic! One was a semi
who was clearly not expecting anyone to come by, and another was a
truck with double wheels on its rear axle -- he looked like he just
didn't know how wide his back end was. Those moments were definitely
scary. My pulse was racing afterwards.

Along the drive we were trying to figure out just how far north we
were. If one nautical mile is one minute of arc, and the map says
it's 700km driving distance to the Arctic Circle, we figured we were
at 70 degrees north. San Francisco is 38. We're 1200 miles north of
home, not counting the eastward travel -- same as the distance from
home to, say, Kansas, just straight north. Impressive. On our own
continent it would be awfully cold up there. Here it seems to be
between 7 and 10 degrees Celsius according to our car's external
thermometer. It's twelve in the tunnels, so apparently the outside
temperature is already lower than the average for the year.

Finally we made it to Vadheim, where we hoped to find lodging. Down
in the Sentrum we came across the Vadheim Fjordstue, which appeared to
be our only option. It's a simple red-painted wooden hotel run by a
friendly couple. We got a no-smoking two-bed room with a slightly
cramped bathroom and a GORGEOUS view of the fjord. When I asked about
where to do laundry, the owners offered to let me use theirs! The
lady helped me load the washer (a side-load which we STUFFED) and said
she would come back to put the clothing in the dryer. I hope the
dryer is not too amazingly hot.

Gawd, the dryer DOESN'T WORK. It's 11:30 and everything is still
incredibly wet. Hmmmmm.

Comments

[johno.livejournal.com]

"oh no, not another cathedral, not again"

Definitely.

10 day tour of Ireland, 22 Cathedrals, then we went to another on our self drive portion.