| Distance | 438 kms | 272 miles |
|---|
| Distance | 7,586 kms | 4,714 miles |
|---|
Friday, July 22nd, 2005
There is a line in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where someone says God won the Nobel Prize for art for creating Norway. I get it now. Truly amazing landscapes.
I leave Oslo about 9:30AM. E18->E16 towards Bergen. I'm in the mountains and seeing snow after about 2 hours. Flam, Voss. Longest tunnel in the world (24,5 kilometers) through Laerdal. It gets spooky driving for that long in a tunnel. There are a bunch of other tunnels on this same road anywhere from 1 to 11 kilometers long. When you come out the other side the view explodes on top of you: great big mountains and valleys and fjords. It makes me wish I was a better photographer with a better camera to do it all justice.
I arrive in Voss around 6, somewhat dazed from everything I've seen today. The tourism office finds me a room in Haugo Utleige on a hill overlooking the lake. Dinner at Cafe Stationnat. Not bad, and cheap for Norway. Glad I bought the Guide du Routard guide book for Scandinavia. Have a coffee accross the road afterwards and meet an American family from San Diego who see my Mass plate. Talk for a while about bikes, the grandfather says he had never seen so many upside down people until he bought a motorcycle, meaning he used to wipe out a lot and people were always looking down at him asking if he was ok. Back at the inn I meet a bunch of Norwegian people. Young couple from Oslo, older couple with a very strange guy who keeps farting the whole time we are talking. Everyone else pretends nothing is happening but I can't help laughing. He insists that I go to Bergen. Two Germans are there, one on a BMW. Not very friendly. 272 miles today.
