By now this is our third stay in Norway. Possibly the most famous spot in Norway. The Geirangerfjord is world-famous and is also on the UNESCO World Heritage list. We decided to stay here for three full days, four nights. In the end we very quickly settled on a wooden cabin at a campsite at the top of the town of Geiranger. We hadn't decided beforehand what we wanted to do, since we also wanted to use these few days to build in some rest.
From Marifjøra to Lom
Once again the trip took about four hours in total. To break up this trip and be able to grab lunch somewhere, we planned a stop in Lom. That was about a two hour drive from Marifjøra. Except from Skjolden onward it wasn't just any old route, we actually drove the Sognefjellet route. This route runs from Gaupne to Lom. This route contains the highest mountain pass in Northern Europe, at an altitude of 1434 metres. To the right of the route lies Jotunheimen National Park, and on the left (as seen from Gaupne) Breheimen National Park. We stopped in several spots, and after various bends you could genuinely hear us gasping for air because of the view. The road, by the way, is very manageable in summer, wide enough for average-sized vehicles to pass each other. It is steep in several stretches though, and I mean seriously steep! We came across quite a few hairpin bends on a solid 9% gradient. But, honestly, it was breathtaking. Unfortunately it wasn't clear skies for us, but the clouds actually made it feel really magical too.
From Lom to Geiranger
Lom was a really nice and busy stopover. I mainly wanted to go there because of the most famous, and possibly the best, bakery in Norway. Bakeriet I Lom. That's also where we had lunch! After basically buying out the bakery and munching on delicious buns, we browsed a few sports shops and drove on to Geiranger. For quite a long stretch it was a relaxed route, without much descending or climbing, and it was nice and wide. Right up until about the last 30 minutes, when the descent into Geiranger began. Then it's hairpin bend after hairpin bend! What an experience.
Our arrival day, the Wednesday, also happened to be my birthday. So we decided to go out for dinner at a hotel down in the town. Over dinner we actually pretty quickly realised that Geiranger itself, the town, is far from exciting. There are a handful of shops suitable for your basic groceries and your made in china souvenirs. At the time, and honestly still now, we don't quite understand what the hype around Geiranger is about, because over the past week we'd genuinely been to more beautiful places.
Our days in Geiranger
In total we spent three full days in Geiranger. The first two days we did fairly little. A lot of rain was forecast, and it did indeed arrive, so we decided to build in some downtime. We did walk 'down' every day though, just to get a bit of a walk in. By car you go down via hairpin bends, and on foot they've built a staircase route past a huge waterfall. Definitely worth walking, just to hear the roar of all that water rushing down from the mountains.
RIB Tour
To still make something of our last day in Geiranger, we decided to book a tour on a RIB after all. That's one of those rubber boats that can go seriously fast. We'd actually looked into several options to see the fjord up close, and this one suited us best. There's also a ferry you can take, or you can rent a kayak. On top of that, you can, of course, also hike some fairly intense (but beautiful) routes to nice viewpoints.
We were in a boat that could fit a maximum of 10 people, and there were eight of us passengers in total. You sat as if you were on a horse, on a seat with a backrest. It gave a really nice, safe feeling, since it let you brace yourself properly, and there were plenty of spots to hold on to. It was genuinely a really fun and special way to see all the natural beauty in the fjord. We were taken to every waterfall, and really close to them too. The guide told us about the history of the fjord at various points, and also got our adrenaline pumping when he'd drift across the water for a bit. During one of his stories I shouted: "AN EAGLE!" We saw not one, not two, but eventually three of them. We saw two white-tailed eagles (brown) and also a white-headed sea eagle. Apparently that was genuinely a privilege, especially the brown one, since the guide hadn't seen one in a year. As far as we're concerned, this was a genuinely lovely way to see the fjord. For us it was also a beautiful way to wrap up our visit to Geiranger.
