Trollstigen

Trolls welcoming us to the highway

Perhaps the most famous road in Norway and perhaps in all of Scandinavia is Trollstigen (or the Troll Highway). We experienced this fabulous drive as we traveled between Loen on the Innvikfjord to Molde near the coast on the Moldefjord. After breakfast we boarded our bus for a nice drive through this rural part of Norway until we reached Geiranger Fjord where we joined a ferry for a couple of beautiful hours.

 

Extra beauty was provided by the Seven Sisters Waterfalls. Legend has it that the ladies are being courted by the male falls on the other side. Unfortunately for him they aren’t terribly interested in his ministrations.

At the town of Geiranger, we left the ferry for the Troll Staircase. We began with a climb out the fjord up a narrow road with 13 switchbacks. As spectacular as this drive is, it is not the Troll Staircase. About an hour later we reach the small town of Eidsdal to catch a short ferry across Norddals Fjord  to Linde and up the Golden Route to the top of the Troll Staircase where we stopped for lunch. A new museum and cafe are being built to accommodate the growing number of tourists. They have already completed an extensive set of walkways and viewing platforms offering a variety of views of the Staircase and the Stigfossen waterfall across the valley.

Perhaps you can count all thirteen switchbacks

Geiranger is a popular stop for cruise ships

Riding in a bus up or down these narrow switch-backed roads is not for the faint-hearted. Our 41 foot bus is just short enough to be legal on the road. At each turn, the front of the bus actually extends over the end of the switchback. Everyone else on the road waits while the bus completes the u-turn. A couple of cars and even a motorhome were forced to back up to give us room. Our guide joked about one driver having trouble with the process that he obviously wasn’t a Norwegian. The license plate showed he was from Denmark where roads like this don’t exist.

This is the base for the road

A short while after reaching the bottom, we boarded one last boat for our ride to the spectacular Molde hotel where we would spend the night. 

The new visitor center under construction

Saltstraumen Maelstrom

Just north of the Arctic Circle in northern Norway we spent one night in Bodo as we waited to catch the early morning ferry to the Lofoten Islands. Bodo, the largest city in northern Norway, was burned to the ground by retreating Nazis at the end of World War II. Its rebuilding has not created a beautiful city, but it does have several appealing features. It is a transportation hub as both the northern end of Norway’s railway system and the ferry terminal for trips to the nearby Lofoten Islands. In addition, it is a nature center with nearby glaciers, trail networks, and good birding sites. No other city can boast such a large concentration  of sea eagles.

Near Kjerringjoy

Like every Norwegian town of any size, it does have museums. One area history museum, an aviation museum, and outside of town the Blood Road Museum recounts the wars years under Nazi domination. We chose to drive out to an outdoor museum island, Kjerringjoy where we toured the outdoor farm and enjoyed the art gallery in one of the barns. The main exhibit was about Knut Hamsum who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920. He lost favor in later years because he was a Nazi sympathizer. A local artist and sculptor also had exhibits. We stopped in the cheese factory and had a bite in the cafe to tide us over until dinner.

Two of the farm houses on Kjerringjoy

But the real attraction of the Bodo region is Saltstraumen maelstrom, one of the largest whirlpools in the world. Jules Verne used it for his book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Nordic word was introduced into English by Edgar Allan Poe in his story “A Descent into the Maelström”  in 1841. The first element is the name of the district Salten and the last element is the definite form of straum, meaning "stream" or "water flow".

A beautiful high bridge 30 km east of Bodo spans the narrow 150-wide opening between the outer Saltfjord and the large Skjerstadfjord creating the greatest tidal current in the world. The tide can reach 37 kilometers per hour creating vortices ten meters wide and five meters deep. To facilitate the large number of sightseers, parking is available at both ends of the bridge and the bridge has wide walkways along both sides. Tourists also have the option of taking a boat ride into the channel for a more exhilarating experience. Norway’s Coast Guard always has a boat in the area to save those who get too close.

We parked and walked up to the top of the bridge. Linda turned around while I continued on to the other side enjoying the view as I calmed the butterflies in my stomach. While Linda waited she watched a gull family trying to protect an injured baby from a larger predatory gull. Mom pecked at the larger gull while Dad harassed the predator from the air. Eventually the predator gave up and went away leaving the little one to die in peace. When I returned from the other side we headed back to Bodo for dinner and a bit of sleep before catching the 4:00 am ferry next morning.

Houses below the bridge