Hip Hip Hello : Norway

Last week Ben and I went to Bergen Norway for a few days. I have wanted to go to Bergen since I found out one of my favorite bands, Kings of Convenience call it home. Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, but as with most cities is minuscule compared to London. We picked Bergen as our launching ground as there are lots of beautiful fjords and mountains nearby. We stayed in a quaint little airbnb flat about 10 minuets north of the city and had a wonderful view of the fjords surrounding us. On our first day we were a bit tired from travel so we just wandered around Bergen.

A lot of the buildings were quite colorful. Ben joked that they must only have five colors of paint in Norway as most houses are red, blue, green, white or yellow. It was cheerful to see the colorful houses spotted throughout the beautiful fjords and valleys.

Norwegian Graffiti. I'll take it.

Our first full day in Norway we drove one of the national scenic driving routes. Norway has 18 scenic driving routes. We did two of them during our time in Norway and they were simply epic. On the first one there was waterfall after waterfall.

At this waterfall that was a trail to a war mine. Ben and I hiked to it and found this gun mounted outside. This area was used a defense base in WWII.

As we continued along our drive we were met with stunning view after stunning view. I pulled over a lot as I was doing the driving so that I could take in all the beauty.

On the scenic route there was this beautiful waterfall that you could walk under.

Trolls. Trolls are everywhere. I took pictures of them but I found them quite creepy to be honest.

Ugh. I don't get it.

The next day we drove to Buer glacier. Again the route was stunning. We even got to take a ferry across a fjord.

The trail leading to the glacier was very scenic. The weather for our time in Norway was also perfect. It rains A LOT in Norway and the whole time we were there in only rained on the day we arrived and again when we were driving to the airport.

Carins, carins everywhere. There were hundreds of these little rock statues set up all along the river on the lower part of the trail.

I would assume these are poisonous but oh so pretty.

The trail was a bit of a scramble for most of the second half. There were five bridges that we had to cross as well. This one was the nicest of all the bridges.

There were also lots of ropes set up along the trail to help us get up and down the rocks as they were quite steep in some places.

Looking back down the valley where we started our hike.

We finally reached the glacier! I was hoping that we could touch the tip of the glacier but the water was to high to cross and the bridge was reduced to two ropes which can faintly be seen on the right side of the picture above. I was still pleased to be this close. I had never been to a glacier before so I was quite excited.