Alesund – Geiranger, Aug. 28-30, 2022

[Tony Crocker]

We drove a lot of roads in this area, coming to Alesund from Stryn on the left side of the map Aug. 28, driving the center loop to and from scuba diving Aug. 29 and finally the right side to Geiranger Aug. 30

We spent the nights of Aug. 28-29 in Alesund, because that’s where Liz found a dive shop that offered trips to Lyngstøylsvatnet. The dive shop was across a boat channel from where we were staying.

The Aksla viewpoint hill we visited the next day is in the background.

Antique dive helmet in shop:

Wetsuits we wore:

These suits were made of very stretchy form fitting material, needed to be lubricated with soapy water to put on. The good news is that leakage is minimal so it was comfortable in the 54F lake.

The morning drive passed alongside the Sykkyklvsfjord, narrow with calm reflective water.

We reached Lyngstøylsvatnet around noon (a bit SE of C on map).

Diagram of dive:

Submerged road:

Building foundations:

Liz had a new Nauticam housing for her Sony digital camera, but no underwater pictures or video worked. There were many tree skeletons underwater, but few fish aside from a two foot long trout resting in one of the ruined foundations.

We took a different road home. Union Hotel in Oye (C on map):

View from the hotel:

Ferry from Urke to Sæbø (D on map):

We started Aug. 30 at the Atlantic Sea Park aquarium (F at far upper left on map).

These Norwegian sea otters only eat regular fish. They have not learned to uses stones to crack open shellfish like the otters in Alaska and California.

This cosmopolitan whipnose fish only lives at depths of 1,000 – 18,000 feet.

The end of its “fishing pole” is bioluminescent to attract prey.

The Aksla viewpoint was very busy with cruise ships in town.

View west of Alesund:

SE view from Aksla:

We reserved the 5PM car ferry in Geiranger. Driving in from the north we reached Korsmyra at the top of these switchbacks about 3:30.

There are many hiking trails here:

We only had time for a short 1km hike to Gjerdifossen. This was across from our parking spot.

The hike was mostly in forest but had a couple of good view of the Geiranger fjord.

The trail ends at Gjerdifossen as a boulder filled stream within the forest.

Here’s the lower scenic part of Gjerdifossen viewed from the ferry with some late afternoon rainbow colors.

Approaching town of Geiranger:

Greeter near ferry loading dock:

Unlike Nærøyfjord, we had ideal weather this time, and the sun 5-6PM illuminated the waterfalls.

The Seven Sisters are Gerianger’s most famous water feature.

Profile view has a flaming effect on a backlit fall.

Zoom of upper falls:

The Suitor is on the opposite side of Geiranger from The Seven Sisters.

When the ferry was on the other side, we saw a rainbow climb up one of the waterfalls.

Geiranger is also noted for its isolated historic farms, particularly Skageflå on this cliff 820 feet above the water (center right).

Here’s another one near the water.

The ferry docked in Hellesylt, where this stream flowed into the fjord.

From here we had about an hour drive to the hotel in Stryn.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

We drove a lot of roads in this area,

How many miles did you drive on this trip?

 

[Tony Crocker]

Estimate is 4,000km. 2,000km of that was in Norway. There were only 5 days the car was not driven more than a handful of km: Visby, Stockholm, Malmo, Copenhagen and Oslo, vs. 10 days our rental car was not driven at all in March/April.

This time we had a gas Volvo SUV that got about 29mpg vs. 38 for the Peugeot diesel in March/April. I paid over $500 in gas and Liz probably another $200.

After the time in Norway we wondered if we could have rented a Tesla. Despite Norway's early adoption of EV's (currently 25% of cars on the road and 85% of new car sales), rentals have only been available relatively recently. The one I found after the fact for 500 euros/week had quite a few restrictions:
1) Speed capped at 85mph
2) 150km per day, .30 Euro/km after that
Tesla supercharging is free within that 150km, and with current electricity prices in Europe you can be spending .25+ US cents/mile for charging vs. 15 cents in the US. So that plan would have worked for the entire trip though not if only for the most drive intensive part in Norway.

There are threads on Tesla Forum about rentals, particularly since Hertz is now renting Teslas in same places. There are complications, notably that some of the credit cards like United's that cover car rental insurance exclude Teslas.

We expect it will not be that long before EV rentals in Europe will make sense. The key will be finding hotels with overnight charging, which is generally free for overnight guests. That will complicate our usual style of looking up places on hotels.com and booking.com on short notice.

Both the glacier walk company and the dive operator in Norway were in EVs. Since the roads in fjord country are not fast, most EVs in Norway get their rated (EPA type) range in normal driving and about 15% less in winter. Here we get about 20% less range than EPA due to average 75-80mph freeway speed.

 

[jasoncapecod]

Thanks for the fantastic pix...My wife has worked for handelsbanken for the last 22yrs...She has a lot interested in a Scandinavian trip..

 

[jimk]

Sunshine really brings the scenery to life!

 

[Tony Crocker]

Sunshine really brings the scenery to life!

Despite that wet Feigefossen hike and the drizzly weather on the Nærøyfjord ferry, we were overall lucky with weather on this trip. We heard that July 2022 weather was consistently poor in Norway. We appreciated the good weather particularly on the rafting, scuba and ski days.

The only other rainy days during our month in Scandinavia were arrival and departure days in Stockholm and an afternoon in Denmark when we were mostly in the Louisiana Art Museum. Some of the days in Sweden hit 80F.