As hard as it was to leave Rosendal, the trip to Eidfjord was quite stunning, especially for a bus ride. The recent road building in western Norway is amazing - some of these towns didn't even have roads until 20 or 30 years ago. And now a great deal of the roads run through tunnels. And not just short little tunnels, multiple tunnels running more than a mile. So, given that probably half of the drive was through a tunnel, it's even more amazing how much beautiful scenery flitted past our bus window. The Hardangerfjord is known for its apples. The steep hillsides sloping down to the steel water were covered in all different varieties of apple trees. Occasionally we would pass an orchard of plum trees. And every couple miles there would be a small fruit stand on the side of the road with a few small boxes of fruit and a little money box. Nobody there to monitor, just a trust that passers by will be honest. And not only honest in actually paying for their fruit, but honest in not running off with the money box. Or the whole stand, for that matter.
After a short bus ride farther along the ferry, we transferred to a different bus in Odda to travel up the other side of the fjord. We only had about 45 minutes in Odda, which is unfortunate because it is a beautiful town.
Upon arriving in Eidfjord, we had a bit of time to walk around before catching a bus up to the even smaller town of Ovre Eidfjord up the road. I had read about the Hæreid Viking burial site on the plateau overlooking the town and was eager to see it. It's the largest preserved Viking burial area in western Norway, with hundreds of graves dating between 400-1000 AD. Being a fairly narrow valley, the hike up to the plateau was quite steep, but well worth the view.
Of course, as you may have guessed by the quantity of clouds, just about the time we got up to the top of the plateau it started raining. We did have our rain coats along, but of course our rain pants were in our backpacks, which we had left at the tourist office in town. It wasn't raining too badly though, and as we were already about halfway out on the loop, we figured we might as well continue on. Of course, the rain meant that I wasn't able to take any pictures. (We were able to go back the next day though, so there will be pictures!)By the time we got back to the tourist office, we were both fairly wet. And I, at least, was fairly crabby. Luckily the crabby went away before we were even able to get to the guest house and change into dry clothes. For a place we found last minute, the guest house was amazing. The view was incredible, the hosts were very friendly, and they also ran a pancake restaurant out of the guest house! (They are Dutch, and apparently the Dutch eat pancakes for dinner rather than breakfast. And they put lots of awesome things on their pancakes...more to come on that shortly.)
Once we were changed and had rested for a bit, the weather had also conveniently cleared up a bit so we took a walk up the road. I'm inclined to say "took a walk through town" but since "town" consisted of perhaps three commercial buildings, that seems a bit of overkill. We had caught a glimpse of the nature center when we got off the bus, and the outfitter we had a flier for was right next door, so we figured we could check out the nature center, see about getting dinner there, and check out the outfitter all in one fell swoop. The outfitter was all booked for the next day, although he thought there might end up being room on the last kayak tour so he suggested we stop back by in the morning. And the cafe at the nature center closed at 6, so we had plenty of time to just wander around. The nature center building was very cool, so we enjoyed walking around it and taking some pictures in the fading light.
As we were walking back past the nature center, I made a surprising discovery.
Yes, there were two small goats grazing on the roof. Needless to say, I was a tad excited about the prospect of not only having goats, but having them mowing the lawn on your roof.
Back at the guest house, we dropped into the pancake restaurant for dinner. Todd was a bit skeptical of pancakes for dinner, but I was looking forward to it. All the more so when I saw they had a pancake with goat cheese on the menu. Which of course I ordered. It had cheese, walnuts and honey. And it was delicious. Todd got one with bacon, apples, and syrup which was also very tasty. Dutch pancakes are denser and much larger than American pancakes. So even though "one" doesn't sound like a lot for dinner, it was more than enough! After a lovely dinner, we played a game of Scrabble. All the same letters as American Scrabble, only in different quantities and different point allotments. I'm sure the hosts thought we were exceptionally odd, hanging out playing Scrabble while on vacation. But it was a nice time just the two of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment