Bergen and Hardangerfjord

Bergen is a sleepy town on the west coast of Norway, once an important link in the Hanseatic League. These days tourists - many arriving on cruise ships - wander its quaint streets and use it as a base for fjord tours. The Bryggen district along the waterfront (pictured above) is charming, the food at the Fish Market is t-a-s-t-y, and the views from the hill above the city are beautiful, which all made for a pleasant two days' stay.


I hope this next bit doesn't make me sound jaded, but I was actually a bit disappointed with my Bergen-based tour of Hardangerfjord. I really had no idea how beautiful Jotunheimen would be, so the scenery there floored me; my coastal experience was the opposite. Since Norway is so well known for its fjords, I had high expectations. I thought I'd see something akin to New Zealand's Milford Sound, a fjord that I recall being much more spectacular than those I saw in Norway. Still, if not as stunning or dramatic as I'd imagined, Hardangerfjord really is a pretty place - as you can see from the photo above and from more pictures in this album:

Bergen and the fjords

Jotunheimen in numbers

12: number of people in our group. There were eight Norwegian women, six of whom are hometown friends that have taken a hiking trip together every summer for the last nine years. All eight of the Norwegians were well equipped and quick to proclaim the wonders of wool socks and underwear - which are, by the way, pretty amazing. There was a German, who often hikes in the Alps and hopes to scale Mont Blanc next summer; she repeatedly said that she was "speechless" about how far we were walking each day. The others were a Swedish med student, a British-Indian-originally-from-Kenya businessman, and me. A fun group!

7-10: slices of bread that I ate every day. I'm not kidding - and these were not lightweight wonderbread slices, but good, thick, real bread. Our cabins had great continental breakfasts, the contents of which we also used to make sandwiches (all open-faced, Norwegian style) for our lunches. There were no plastic bags; Norwegians put a small piece of butcher paper between each "sandwich," and then wrap them all up in a bigger piece of butcher paper. There were all sorts of yummy toppings, like salmon and good cheese. We also had some unusual-but-still-good options like reindeer pate'. And brown cheese, which is apparently unique to Norway. It's sort of molassesy sweet; my Dutch friends said they don't like it, but I thought it was pretty good!

90: number of kilometers hiked in four days (56 miles)

60-something: age of our excellent guide, Jarle. If I recall correctly he had over 30 pounds of equipment in his backpack - his own gear, plus a survival kit in case one of us would have to be left behind. Even with all that weight, he hurried ahead, sometimes running, as we neared our cabins each afternoon/evening to be sure that everything was ready for us when we arrived.

40-50: centimeters of snow that Jarle estimated were on top of Glittertind, the second mountain that we climbed. (15-20 inches)

0: amazingly, the number of blisters I had. I was stiff and sore in all sorts of other ways, but thankful not to have blisters!

Jotunheimen in pictures: click on the album below for a photo journal of the trip.

jotunheimen