Mon, 21 Jul 2003

author Tim	location Elvenga Camping, Veme, Hønefoss, Norge
posted 21:10 CEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Norge ( all photos )

Oslo and Surrounds ( 35 photos )
(Continued from Sverige 1)
Now into yet another country, this one is Norge, which English-speaking people refer to as Norway.
We stopped just over the little-marked border with Sverige for a look around the private landscape that comprises Berby. The forests, lakes and waterfalls of this particular area are all technically privately owned, but practically the area is no different to anywhere else nearby.
And by that I mean absolutely beautiful. We had a quick wander around for some photos before jumping back in the van and working on fixing our first problem for the day - our rumbling stomachs.
This was done by pulling into a supermarket at Halden, and working out another problem - that we didn't have any Norwegian Krone. Yet another currency to find a pile for. It turns out we could pay with Visa, which we did with a happy checkout girl who was over-excited to be able to say "Thank You!" to us in English - we think that not many tourists make it to this particular town.
Driving up the road looking for somewhere to eat, it became fairly rapidly apparent that there are not nearly as many rest places on the roads here as there are elsewhere we have been. Or perhaps that was because we were on a smaller road. No matter, as we solved this problem by parking in someone's very long driveway for a while. They didn't mind, as their house must have been about 3km away over a hill.
Relaxing in the sun and not doing much except reading about yet another new country, we resolved to head North to Oslo. Our path there took us through more great country side, before getting lost and finding ourselves again on the jumble that is the entrance to Oslo.
Another thing about Norway as distinct from other countries up here is that there are lots of toll roads. Needing to pay a toll to get into Oslo itself, not having any of the local currency at all, and noting that Norge is not in the EU, let alone the Euro, we needed some cash fast.
Someone had helpfully put a service station right at the toll gate, so I went inside and joined a cue of lots of other people doing the same thing to withdraw some cash. Once again, not really knowing the exchange rate is either a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it, so I pressed a button and was presented with some more strange papery notes. One of these I exchanged for a Coke and a pile of other notes and coins with the service station attendant, and one of the resulting coins was close enough to the toll required to enter the city. Great!
So, enter the city we did, following our noses to find some parking in the centre near an information place, run there to grab some maps, run back to the van and then drive to some more permanent parking on Tordenskiolds gate, right in the heart of the city. This required paying for, of course, which I was able to do with a credit card, thereby not loosing any more cash. Very handy, but we can only guess at how much it really cost us.
Lonely Planet Scandinavian Europe in hand, we took in a suggested city walk which started not far from where we were and took in plenty of the city sights. We had managed to catch the city on an exceptionally rainy day, where we had to wait in alleyways for quite some time for rain to clear, and carry our bags on our fronts to protect the contents while huddling under an umbrella.
Along the way we wanted to plug the laptop in to update the journal, but one cafe wouldn't do it and the other one was flooded. What we did manage to see included the Domkirke (cathedral), which we entered more to get out of the rain, but was impressive in its own right, Eidsvolls plass (a square filled with fountains and statues), the Nationaltheatret, University of Oslo and the royal palace Det Kongelige Slott.
From there we wandered down to the dock area, home to the Rådhus (Town Hall), which is decorated with scenes from Norse mythology, plenty of statues and fountains, and of course lots of boats in the docks.
There was a fishing boat selling prawns to the unwitting tourist, so of course we had to have some to eat for dinner. Curiously, they were sold by the litre...
Sufficiently drenched by now, we wandered not far at all back to Rosie, where we changed clothes, before Liz took the pilot seat for a drive "somewhere North" to a caravan park. However, not far out of the city, we actually did some thinking, changed tact, and headed North-West instead, eventual destination the Western Fjords and Bergen.
Locating a caravan park which looked cheap enough (no sleeping rough tonight, I haven't had a shower since... (censored for when Mum reads this!) ), we picked some more back roads, taking us through Roa and Hønefoss to Elvenga Camping, on the 7 road. Plenty of pretty scenery was to be seen, including our first fjord (all though not one of the crazy ones) Randsfjorden.
We ate our prawns, the rest of the lunch cheese and salami we grabbed earlier today and some bread, before taking me to the shower for decontamination and removal of my ape-like layer of face-fuzz. I am now much more presentable.

author Tim	location Elvenga Camping, Verne, Buskerud, Norge
posted 20:43 CEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Sverige/Sverige 1 ( all photos )

North Into Norway ( No photos )
Awaking reasonably early due to our twenty metre or so proximity to the motorway, we noted that the carpark we had chosen was almost totally full of people doing the same. It seems the whole area was full, hope that doesn't happen too often.
At least we managed to be on the road for the earliest time in recent memory, and as such we decided to head inland to see what the scenery of this place was all about. Wow, were we blown away.
Turning off at Skee to take the back way across the border, we were suprised at how quickly the trees and lakes surrounded us. This was quite a change from the flat farmed landscapes which dominated the sides of the motorway thus far. The great views means that whoever is driving has the bad job - the other can look around and take photos at their leisure.
In this similar fashion, we drove across the small back-road border into Norge (Norway). Yes, that's another different country. We're going to stick to this one for a little while now, promise.

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