TravBlog: Bela Themed Norway

Having enjoyed a nice 2 day break from Turkey, it was time to venture out in the opposite direction, which is north to Norway! The whole trip was a brilliant idea to surprise Bela for her bday. She was to be under the impression that she's going to Norway with Chi, but little did she know, she had 8 people waiting for her there...Surprise! :)

The trip started in Stavanger, the 3rd largest city in Norway and a whopping population of 300K. The city is classically Norwegian, which is a look that I love - clean rows of quaint low rise wooden buildings and houses, cobblestone streets and squares, a harbour, mountains in the background and that 100% pollution free air. I must admit, the day started pretty stressful as Bela and Chi have missed their flight the night before...but all ended with a happy ending when we reunited with them on our hike up the fjord.

We took a ferry and a bus to get us to the foot of the fjord. The one interesting thing about Norway is that there are literally hundreds of little islands and fjords, which are seas passages in the mountains formed as the ice was receding during the ice age, so everything is connected by a ferry. We then began our 1 km 3 hr climb up the fjord, encountering climbing through waterfalls, one person passages around rocks and lots and lots of very high rocks. It was definitely the most intense 'hike' any one of us has done! We were rewarded by reaching the Pulpit Rock-the top of the fjord. It's a terrifying straight drop 1 km down, and I got the chance to check out the scenery by lying on my stomach and crawling to the edge of the cliff to look down lol. Too bad for us it was foggy and we didn't see much. Of course, in the best Murphy's law fashion, the fog cleared up as soon as we left. Luckily our friends stayed long enough to witness it and to take pix.

Day 2 started with 9:30 am ferry and beers and consisted of a 4 hr. ferry to Bergen, an empty 40 of vodka, a 2 hr train ride, another empty 40 of vodka, a scenic 1 hr train ride to Flam along the steepest railway in Northern Europe, and finally an arrival into Flam at around 6 pm. Flam is a cute village in the mountains consisting of 1 hotel, 1 brewery and 1 restaurant surrounded by a handful of farms. It's also heavily populated by trolls as we were told. Norway has a serious obsession with trolls that you find absolutely everywhere (please refer to the below collage!). Traditionally, the adults told their children to watch out for trolls in order to keep them out of the mountains and forests, and the legends stuck so that you can find something troll related every 100 meters. We ended up spending the night at the local brewery sampling the different beers that it has to offer (it's not our fault that the restos were closed by the time we got there! :) )

The next day was the most adventurous day of my life...probably without any exaggeration. The idea was to canoe out into the fjords, park the canoes to do a hike to see some waterfalls and other mountain scenery, and to canoe back to Flam. Most of you would know that I'm terrified of water, so this was an extreme adventure for me. To add to the extremeness, we encountered a sea squall on the way back...Imagine Maria on a canoe in the middle of sea, waves, downpour and hail. Lets just say that never have paddled before, I paddled so hard that Mark and I got to the shore first. I never wanted to leave land again after that adventure (but had to because we had to take a ferry back to Bergen hehe).

Our last day was delightfully chill after all the adrenaline rushes from the day before. We woke up late and went on a stroll around Bergen, another picturesque little town...2nd largest in Norway I believe. We checked out the fish market, which was a tourist trap just like everyone warned us, took the funicular up the mountain for some awesome views and climbed down on foot, went to check out the Bergen UNESCO site featuring old fishing houses in the port area, and concluded by a visit to the castle.

All in all, it was an awesome trip for an awesome friend. Happy Bday, Bela! :) Here are our adventures in pictures!

On the ferry going to Pulpit Rock