Leaving Maristuen and the "snow road"

the view of Maristuen from our cottage: the middle red building is the old hotel/now museum.  To the left is where guests check in.  Sara's apartment is upstairs.  To the right is the swimming pool and recreation center (currently closed).

We had a busy morning at our cottage at Maristuen.  We packed and cleaned up the place before we loaded our suitcases and the six of us into the car and headed over to the main office.  Julie paid, and quite happily, Knut and Anders came over with a vehicle filled with reindeer skins.  They had one for sale at the hotel, but we wanted two, so they brought a bunch back for us to choose from.  Juleen and I each picked out our favorites, and Knut and Anders gave us an extra, so we have three.  Happily again, we were able to get them in the loaded car.  We sat on them and put them on our laps and away we went.

one last look from Knut as we drove away

one of our reindeer pelts with its Maristuen "markings":
their reindeer skins have spots which are unusual markings

We drove through Laerdal on E16 and then veered off onto what the locals call the "snow road" which Knut had recommended we take in lieu of doing the Flom Railway -- same spectacular views without all the tourists, and lord knows, we want to avoid tourists :-).

We did, however, take the time to stop at the Dale of Norway store in Dale, Norway.  We gave ourselves 10 minutes of power shopping time, and we did indeed get out of there in 12 minutes -- not bad, but none of us found anything worthy of the cost of the items.

"Is he alive?"

This snow road was aptly named.  It weaved around higher and higher until we got above the tree line and continued up past crystal clear lakes, streams, rapids, and waterfalls, and yes, indeed, there was also snow.  We were in awe of the beauty, oblivious to the fact that the best was yet to come.

But that "best" was post lunch.  We decided we didn't have time to stop for something "real" to eat, so we got out the bag of left-over food from our stay at Maristuen:  bread, a little lettuce, a pack of proscuitto, cheese, flatbread, 6 bison sticks, and some candy.  No apple juice though -- the bottom of the cardboard container broke and a large amount of it was in the bottom of the sack.  We drove and ate, and all of us marvelled at how good our lunch was, even sans apple juice!

Then came the "best."  We reached a stopping vista view point with a lot of cars, so we stopped, got out of the car, and walked across the road.  Wow -- we were at a high precipice overlooking a finger of the Sogn Fjord called the Aurland Fjord, which some say is the most beautiful fjord in Norway.  We can't speak to the comparison, but it was indeed stunning.  The cliffs rose high and straight into the air, and those cliffs dove straight down into the water.  The views were complemented by a group of Peruvian bikers who had just made the trek up the mountain on their bikes.  One of them (Julie speculates she was a professional photographer because of the camera she had around her neck) took a picture of all of us with her iphone, and it is without a doubt, the best picture of the trip thus far.

the beautiful Aurland Fjord

Eventually, we felt we had to leave the splendour and continue our trek to Bergen where we had to drop off the car by 3:00 and check into our "penthouse" at 3:00. All was going well until we got close to Bergen and tried to find a gas station.  Our time was slipping away.  We did find a gas station, but decided we didn't have time to actually be dropped off by the penthouse, so driver Joe dropped us off at a street corner (4 of us) with 6 suitcases and 3 huge reindeer pelts, along with three of four shoulder strapbags.  What a sight we must have been.  We had less than 10 minutes to get to our penthouse and we didn't really know where we were going.  Stress.  Fortunately, we made the right turns and finally a local woman took pity on us and asked if we needed helped.  Fortunately again, we were just a couple of blocks from our place.  She laughed and said no wonder we were having trouble.  Our "penthouse" was on the narrowest and shortest street in Bergen -- no cars and only two blocks long.  We arrived a few minutes late, but the owner was still there, and we were happy with the place.

Joe and Olive arrived at the car dealership to return the rental car at 3:15, but Olive put 3:08 down on the "return" info, which was the exact time we had checked out the car.  Quick thinking on her part.  Joe and Olive also found the apartment, and we all chilled a bit.

We wandered around the beautiful streets of Bergen going in and out of the little alleys looking at the shops and then headed to our restaurant. Olive had made us reservations at a good local restaurant -- Bryggeloftet & Stuene where we again feasted on wonderful Norwegian foods. Julie had whale carpaccio, and she is still alive.  Juleen had reindeer filet, Randall had dried cod (bacalao), and many of us had a fish soup which Julie thought was superb and the others so-so.  It was basically in a cream and butter sauce.

Post lunch, and after a bit of wandering around the city some more, we headed back to our place -- quite nice with three bedrooms and an okay view which was one of the selling points of the "penthouse."  It was, however, up a flight of stairs to the main living area, and another flight of stairs to the bedrooms.  One bathroom, on the main floor.  Overall, though, it was a good location and a good place for us all, especially since no one fell down the stairs going to the bathroom in the middle of the night!