Day 16 - Sunday 7th May 2023

Today we'll be travelling from Lillehammer to Geiranger. The weather is consistent: bright blue sunny sky but cold (-2C). Suzy had opened the window last night before we went to bed so that the room wasn't too hot. That worked. However, she woke with a bad headache.

We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant at 8:15am. It was to be a late departure, 10am. Gennady had to rearrange the itinerary for today because some the roads we were supposed to take are closed because they are blocked with heavy snow.

After leaving Lillehammer, we drove next to Lake Mjosa again before heading into mountainous areas where we passed through four long tunnels which varied in length between 2.5km and 4.6km.

The tunnels had a rough rocky finish - no cladding. I couldn't see any ventilation or fire precautions. There was a simple row of lights hanging from the centre of the roof of the tunnel. We wouldn't get away with this in Australia.

The colour of the rivers changed from blue to green. Many of the rivers were still frozen and were covered in a sheet of ice. There was snow on the mountain tops. This was postcard scenery. We saw some cattle and sheep in the farm areas. It is surprising how few farm animals we've seen in Scandinavia.

For lunch, we stopped at a town called Lom at about 12:15. The architecture of the buildings here is quite different from Sweden. Here the buildings and houses are very dark. In fact, they are black.

We ate lunch in the Fossberg cafeteria and then ventured out to look at other parts of this village which is surrounded by tall snow-covered mountains. In particular we went to the church. We couldn't get inside and so took photos outside the church, in the graveyards and of the mountainous scenery.

The timberwork of the church seemed to be protected with bitumen which might explain why they had so many no smoking signs.

On the way to the church, we saw a young couple walking a cat on a leash. Yes, a cat not a dog. This is not something you see very often if ever.

The bus set off  again at about 1:45pm. I managed to move to the front seat so I could get better photos of the scenery. We travelled next to a river with snowy mountains on either side.

As we drove higher in the mountains, the snow got deeper. It seemed to change from one season to another as we travelled.

At about 2:30pm, we stopped at a waterfall  in the national park for photos. We departed again at 2:45 and stopped again at about 3pm at the turnoff that we would have taken to Geiranger. The road was covered in deep snow and there was a sign saying that the road was closed.

As we climbed higher, there were very few trees - it was like a snowy wilderness. At the end of another tunnel we stopped for a photo opportunity of the valley below. We could see the road we were about to take winding down the hillside.

On this side of the mountains, the grass was green and the trees had new leaves. It was like driving from winter into spring.

The scenery was fantastic. As we drove next to river, you could see the reflection of the snow-covered mountains in the water. It was hard to see where the water finished and the land started.

At about 4pm, we stopped at Stryn for an afternoon tea break. Instead of huddling inside, we sat at the tables outside the cafe because it was much warmer than we'd previously experienced today.

Mind you, unless you were an acclimatised Norwegian, you still needed to wear a jumper or a fleece.

It changed again after we left at about 4:45pm because as we climbed again, we encountered snow covered roadsides.

We reached the ferry wharf at about 5:45pm. While waiting for the ferry, we took photos of the massive fast-flowing nearby waterfall.

The ferry arrived at 6pm and departed at 6:30pm. As the ferry approached on the fjord, I was worried that it would be too small for our bus. I was wrong. When it docked, three buses and several other vehicles drove off.

I was rugged up for the cold but was quite warm while waiting for the ferry. However it was very different when the ferry set off along the fjord. It was quite cold. I was glad I had my heavy fleece, gloves and beanie.

On either side of the fjord, there are tall steep mountains covered in snow. The colour of the water is an amazing blue. It is spectacular scenery.

They tell you that Norway's scenery is incredible but you have to see it and experience it to understand just how amazing it is. It's hard to put into words. I'm going to have to dig out my thesaurus to find some suitable words.

Even then, I doubt that I'll be able to find words that would adequately describe what we experienced today. And they tell us that the best is yet to come.

The ferry reached the wharf at Geiranger at 7:35pm. The bus drove us off the ferry and up the hill to our hotel, the Hotel Union.

Gennady asked us to just take our carry-on bags up to our room and not wait for the porters to bring up big luggage. He wanted us to be in the hotel restaurant for dinner by 8pm.

This restaurant is impressive - much better than anywhere else we've been on this trip. It's elegant and professional. There were wine waiters hovering to take our orders.

It was a buffet dinner and the choice was excellent. Great food. Plenty of options. Well displayed and presented. To get to the main courses, you had to walk past the desserts - it was tempting to stop there and forget main course. This was classy.

In our room, once again there were two single beds pushed together each with its own single sheet. Seriously. Is this really normal in Europe?

There was a cupboard, fridge, safe, tea and coffee making, wine glasses, writing desk, two-seater lounge. There was a heater but no air conditioning. There weren't enough power points in the right places. The Wi-Fi speed was about 10Mb/s in both directions.

The bathroom was small and had a shower in the bath.

After dinner, the girls had gone to reception to enquire about the laundry service for our dirty clothes expecting that it would be the normal expensive service we've seen in other hotels. They came back very excited because they were told there was a free guest laundry on level 4 with a washer and dryer

They'd bought detergent at reception and we rushed off to find the laundry. It turned it was very close to our room. Suzy and I put on a load of washing and later transferred it to the dryer.

The sign in the laundry said there was a curfew of 11pm for the washer and dryer. Luckily our load finished just in time. It was worth waiting up to avoid the expenses we'd encountered in Copenhagen and Stockholm.

It was a late start to the day and a late finish.